A Lost World: the Galician Shtetl and Siberia 9783506791641, 9783657791644, 3506791648

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A Lost World: The Galician Shtetl and Siberia

FOKUS NEUE STUDIEN ZUR GESCHICHTE POLENS UND OSTEUROPAS NEW STUDIES IN POLISH AND EASTERN EUROPEAN HISTORY Publikationsserie des Zentrums für Historische Forschung Berlin der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften/Series of the Centre for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin

Herausgegeben von/Series Editors Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg, Dietlind Hüchtker, Maciej Górny, Igor Kąkolewski, Yvonne Kleinmann, Markus Krzoska Wissenschaftlicher Beirat/Advisory Board Hans Henning Hahn Dieter Bingen Eva Hahn Joanna Jabłkowska Kerstin Jobst Beata Halicka Jerzy Kochanowski Magdalena Marszałek Michael G. Müller Jan M. Piskorski Miloš Řezník Isabel Röskau-Rydel Izabella Surynt

VOLUME 15

Meier Landau

A Lost World: The Galician Shtetl and Siberia Edited by

Lidia Zessin-Jurek

The author: Meier Landau (1898–1991) was born in Mościska and studied chemistry at the Universität Wien, where he completed his PhD. After the outbreak of World War II, he was deported with his wife and two sons to Siberia. The editor: Lidia Zessin-Jurek is a Polish historian, memory scholar and researcher of refugeeism at the Masaryk Institute and Archives, the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. The language editor: Laura Garland is a human rights lawyer and PhD Candidate at the Australian Centre for the Jewish Civilization at Monash University, Melbourne. Cover image: Meier Landau, with his sons, Henry (middle) and George, Teheran, 1944.

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. © 2023 by Brill Schöningh, Wollmarktstraße 115, 33098 Paderborn, Germany, an imprint of the Brill-Group (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Germany; Brill Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria) Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. www.brill.com Cover design: Evelyn Ziegler, Munich Production: Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn ISSN 2698-5020 ISBN 978-3-506-79164-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-3-657-79164-4 (e-book)

Table of Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . George Landau

xi

Introduction: Long Jewish Roads to Safety – Meier Landau’s Life as a Refugee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii Lidia Zessin-Jurek Notes on Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii Laura Garland, Lidia Zessin-Jurek

Meier Landau A Lost World: The Galician Shtetl and Siberia Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3

Part I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Early Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grandfather Meier’s Business  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mościska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mother – A Progressive Woman in the Shtetl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Parents’ Marriage  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Father’s Business: A Flour Mill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other Members of My Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Boyhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Holidays and the Impressions They Left on Me in My Youth . . . . . . . . Father’s Struggle for Our Sustenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Problems With My Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gimnazjum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leaving Home for My Third Grade at the Gimnazjum  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sister Lusia’s Marriage and Wedding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On Marriages and Wedding Customs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sister Adela’s Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . As Refugees in Vienna  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Drafted Into the Austrian Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Officer’s School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Occupation Forces in Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7 7 9 13 21 25 28 30 36 42 56 65 69 72 76 85 88 97 100 104 105 106

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Return to Vienna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Family’s Return to Poland  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My Life in Vienna  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Visits Home to My Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Doctoral Thesis and the Interwar Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

108 109 112 114 115

Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 The Russians Are Coming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 What Happened to the Trade? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 American Dollar Under Russian Occupation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Changes in the Employment Market  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Nationalization of Private Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Nationalization of Stores and Houses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 The militsiya and the Secret Police . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Daily Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 The Refugee Problem: Crossing the Border . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Daily Routine Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 The First Deportations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 The Soviet-German “Repatriation Plan”  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 The Second Deportation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Arriving at the Station . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 On Our Way to Soviet Russia  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Siberian Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 The Big Lie  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Families Torn Apart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Arrival at the Labor Camp  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Lumberjacks in the Woods of Ural  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Working Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Religion in the Labor Camp  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 Food and Supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Clothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 The First Winter in the Woods  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Medical Care and Sanitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Being a Patient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Our Wages and Our Payment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Life in the Posiolok . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 The Russian Way of Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Reunited  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Posiolok Topliovka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Informing, Reporting, and Denunciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 The Soviet Idea of Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

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The Outbreak of the German-Soviet War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Liberation From Our Deportee Status  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 On Our Way to Sarapul Along the Kama River  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 Arrival in Sarapul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 Sailing South Along the Volga . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Inmates From Corrective Labor Camps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Arrival in Astrakhan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 On Our Way to Guryev and Uzbekistan (Central Asia)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Our Arrival in Bukhara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 About Bukhara and Uzbekistan  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280 Changes in Our Situation, June 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 Death by Typhus, Death by Hunger  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288 Runek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 The Russian Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 The Polish Army and Welfare Organization in the USSR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Typhus in My Family  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306 Polish Exodus From the USSR, August 1942 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 After the Polish Evacuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Kermine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 The Soviet Ars Vivendi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 Passportization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332 Selling Our Last Possessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 Leaving Kermine and Uzbekistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 Starting Our Journey to Ashkhabad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341 Leaving Ashkhabad for the Iranian Border  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344 Crossing the Russian-Iranian Border . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 At the Iranian Border . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 Arrival in Meshed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 Teheran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 The Jewish Agency and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355 The Joint  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358 Our Private Life in Teheran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 Life in Teheran During Our Stay in Occupied Iran  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368 My Family’s Departure for America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372 My Departure From Teheran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373 Afterword  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 Image Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Publication Series of the Centre for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin FOKUS. New Studies on the History of Poland and Eastern Europe This book series aims to gather scientific monographs and anthologies dedicated to the newest research on the history of Poland and Eastern Europe. The works published in the series link different disciplines from cultural and social history. Even though the emphasis of the series is on Poland and Eastern Europe, there shall be works published that cover the past of this part of our continent within the scope of a wider research perspective and thereby inspire research on similar topics in other regions of Europe. The book series FOKUS: New Studies on the History of Poland and Eastern Europe will, inter alia, also publish excellent academic qualification works, such as dissertations that have been handed in for the Scholar Prize of the Polish Ambassador to Berlin.

Foreword George Landau Dear Reader, Thank you for holding this book in your hand and for contemplating reading my father’s memoir. My father was born in a shtetl called Mościska in 1898. He left it behind at age 12 to pursue a secular education. Ultimately he earned a PhD in Chemistry in Vienna in the era when all of Organic Chemistry was a small pamphlet and Sigmund Freud was at the peak of his Viennese career. His memoir begins with a description of daily life in the shtetl and describes Jewish life in Central Europe (today: Poland, Ukraine, Austria) in the 1900s to 1939. Alas, though he devoted significant effort to leaving this world behind him, he later shared that he was filled with nostalgia for the community that he grew up in: the life, culture, traditions and mores practiced at that time, that were destroyed by history and are no more. The book will then take you through the upheaval caused by WWI and will touch on how life was rebuilt until the outbreak of WWII. Shortly after the outbreak of WWII in 1939, the Soviets began deporting Jews of Polish origin, along with hundreds of thousands of other Poles to internment slave labor work camps in Siberia, including my immediate family. My father’s book describes my family’s experience from 1939 to 1945 – from our deportation to Siberia through the period of the so-called amnesty. After the outbreak of the German-Soviet War in 1941, the Soviet Union no longer defined us as criminals, we were no longer punished as their enemies. All people recognized as Polish citizens became their “allies”, expected to fight and die in order to defeat the Germans. This was the result of the agreement Polish authorities in London negotiated with Stalin. This agreement also stipulated that an army composed of freed Polish citizens was to be established in Uzbekistan under the command of General Anders. This is how we were released with permission to travel to Soviet Uzbekistan. The Russians living around the prison encampment were astonished that we were allowed to leave Siberia.

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When we arrived in Uzbekistan, the local authorities would not give us the official right of residency so we lived as undocumented foreign citizens. My father, like the vast majority of Jewish men who tried to join the Anders Army was rejected amidst an antisemitic atmosphere. Among the rejected was also my uncle Runek – a pre-war Polish officer. It was only when a Polish army friend recognized him that Runek was recruited. Our family and most others in our predicament found Soviet Uzbekistan a warm place with lots of fruit and other staples easily available. Sadly, the economic situation was quickly crippled as a huge influx of refugees like ourselves arrived from Siberia and other parts of Russia. Despite staggering inflation and a lack of produce, we managed to survive, as you will learn from reading the book. We “were allowed to exist” in Soviet Uzbekistan, though we were always afraid. We knew that without official papers giving us the right to be there, we could be subject to another possible deportation. In 1943 it came to light that the Soviets murdered 22,000 Polish officers in Katyń (in 1940). From then on relations between the Polish government and Soviet authorities became very strained. It was in this strained atmosphere that our family got exit visas to leave the Soviet Union. The Polish Consul General of the Polish Government in Exile in Sydney was Mr. Sylwester Gruszka. He and his family were neighbors and friends of my father’s sister, aunt Lusia who emigrated to Australia. When the Australians appointed an ambassador to serve in Moscow in November of 1943, it turned out that he was a friend of Mr. Gruszka’s, by the name of James Maloney. Aunt Lusia pleaded with Mr. Gruszka to intervene with Mr. Maloney, to get us out of Russia to Australia. Mr. Gruszka obliged and as a result, we got the passports with the exit visa valid until December, 31st, 1943. On December 18th, 1943 we left the USSR and entered Iran, our ally at that time, a day we have celebrated every year since, as our family’s Freedom Day. Our time in Siberia and Central Asia became the experience against which we measured every difficulty that came our way from then on. Whatever we faced, we could easily conclude that it was nothing in comparison to what we had already gone through. In 1945 my mother, brother Henry and I came to the United States on displaced persons visas which we were granted thanks to my mother’s brother – David Thaler’s tireless efforts. This changed our lives, those of our children and their

Foreword

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children. My father joined us a year later. First, he was declared unfit to join the Anders Army, but then when he tried to leave Persia, it was Polish military authorities that did not give him permission to do so. While in the Soviet Union we were nearly exterminated through a very codified Soviet system of dehumanization in many ways similar to the strategies used by the Nazi regime. My family was subjected to a loss of state and personhood, harsh work norms, starving rations as well as a lack of medications for major pandemics such as typhus, typhoid, malaria and other diseases. All this was covered up by propaganda, based on the “Big Lie”. The “Big Lie” is the institutional and idyllic account of a communist reality, which to this day prevents many reasonable people from seeing the criminality of this communist system. My father began one of his books, which when compiled became the basis for the one you are holding, with a quote from William James: “The great use of a life is to spend it for something that outlasts it.” To us, his children, he wrote: “I tried to help you and your children to remember those who lived before you, not just with a fleeting thought, or a sigh, but recall how they lived their lives, which were not always peaceful, complacent and pastoral, but rather a continuous struggle to find a sunny spot on this earth”. The great artist for this task – finding the sunny spot – was my mother, Edda. She was the one who, in the most difficult moments, kept the family spirit at a level that measurably helped us survive in the USSR despite the hunger and illnesses we suffered. We have all heard the expression “Never Again” and yet we observe that the present time brings back many of its unwanted antecedents in ever-new forms. Unfortunately, in contrast to my father’s hopes, the “Big Lie” is doing well in today’s media culture. It is becoming more rather than less used around the world. I see this in the US, where I spent most of my life: our ex-President used it to attempt to overturn the US 2020 election by claiming election fraud. Unlike the story of Nero playing his violin while Rome was burning – our ‘selfappointed’ would-be dictator but still acting President and Commander in Chief – was complicit in first inciting and then supporting this huge mob of armed ‘insurrectionists’. He watched them cause death, injury, vandalism and havoc only to white wash the insurrection later as a demonstration of people exercising their rights. For me, an eyewitness to both January  6, 2021 in the USA and the European totalitarian propaganda of the 1930s and 1940s, the similarities are powerful and painful.

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I have also seen history repeat itself, in the same geographical area, in my lifetime. My family and I were from Poland. This country was attacked by the Soviets in September 1939. During my lifetime borders moved around and in my latest US passport renewal in 2020, I learned that despite being in possession of an original Polish birth certificate, the US government no longer believes that I was born in Poland. My passport now reads that my country of birth is Ukraine. For a man, this change makes the difference between being eligible for EU citizenship or drafted for war, one word on a government document. The Russians annexed the Crimea in 2014 and then brutally attacked Ukraine in 2022. Countless Ukrainian people have disappeared. I know from our experience that they are either dead or subject to the same “Soviet” system that my father describes in this book and that I vividly remember from 80 years ago. The trees that my father struggled to chop down in sub-zero temperatures in Siberia, have had time to grow back. Now, once again, people are being transported to the unknown, children – kidnapped. As the last survivor and member of the Landau family who was there as a child eyewitness, I was an active participant in the editing of this book, able to corroborate my father’s account of the events. Refugees from the war in Ukraine today have found shelter in Poland, among other places. With so many in need, I think of what we experienced in Uzbekistan – lack of housing, jobs and affordable food. We too were granted hospitality when we met the first Persians after leaving the USSR. The way I see it, hospitality toward refugees goes back to biblical times and is based on Abraham inviting strangers into his tent. My father also told us of the custom of bringing someone from the synagogue who otherwise had no place to stay. This hospitality, however, was mainly in effect on the Sabbath or extended to one night. The challenges we face today in helping refugees from different parts of the world are of a different scale. I happen to be writing these words on my father’s 125th birthday. Such a longtime perspective as this book offers gives us a lot of material from which to draw conclusions. So many of us, having the good fortune to live in democratic countries, where publishing a book like ours is possible, have stopped participating in democracy. The net result is that when we do not vote, the radicals do and later gerrymander voting districts, so it is virtually impossible to unseat them. By not voting, we are helping to keep the “Big Lie” alive and well.

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If people truly care about preserving a democratic way of life for ourselves, our children and grandchildren, then the message of this memoir is that anyone living in a democracy must get involved in saving the institutions by being active in the electoral process. I hope that once you read my father’s memoir you will be motivated to become active in the democratic process and get others to do the same. In the meantime, thank you for reading my father’s memoir and if you have questions or wish further information please get in touch with me ([email protected]). Tiburon, February 2023

Introduction

Long Jewish Roads to Safety – Meier Landau’s Life as a Refugee Lidia Zessin-Jurek Meier Landau did not have a single name. Like most Jews born in Galicia, and more broadly in the lands of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or East-Central Europe, he found himself adapting his name to changing administrations and socio-cultural contexts.1 His life is emblematic of the Jewish minority in turbulent East-Central Europe of the first half of the 20th century. In the midst of the history-induced ruptures: changes in name, changes in country boundaries and statehood, the author held on to his Jewish identity and practiced his faith. Rather than treating Jewishness in a dogmatic manner, he regarded it as a matter of personal and community development. This continuity among so much turbulence drew its strength from the microcosm of his place of origin – the Galician shtetl of Mościska. The author was born in 1898 (-1991) into a family which was slowly departing from orthodoxy, in a little Jewish town belonging back then to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the interwar years, Mościska was under Polish administration, after 1945 – in the Soviet Union – and today – in Ukraine (adjacent to the Polish border). The town was named after the bridges – mosty, mościska – that surround the city on four sides. Mościska was a shtetl like many in Galicia, that are now to be found in the books and in the museum rather than in real space.2 In the last phase of Habsburg rule, Jews benefited from the fairly liberal cultural and legal policy of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The change in power and political dynamics in the interwar period – with 1 Meir Ben Moshe David Halevi, which was his full name in Hebrew, was known by many names to many people: Majer (in his Polish times), Mayer (English spelling of Polish pronunciation), Meir or Meier (Hebrew), Mark (in his American life). Whilst in the Soviet exile, his name, misspelt: “Major” even proved helpful on one occasion. He was “Papi” to his sons Henry and George, “Dziadziuś” [Djadjush] to his grandchildren (a Polish diminutive for grandpa). It is his son George’s request that the name used for this book be: Meier Landau. 2 The history of the Jews in Galicia is dealt with, e.g. in The Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków, but exhibitions are also organised in individual towns, and replicas of synagogues are restored (Sanok, Biłgoraj) or temples rennovated (Drohobych) in others. For three decades, the Galician Jewish Memorial Days have been celebrated in Poland as the “Galicjaner Shtetl.”

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the rising tide of Polish nationalist sentiment – was not helping the Jewish minority to find their way among the Catholic and Orthodox populations, with whom they were close neighbours: as in Mościska, where an old Dominican monastery loomed over the town,3 and the rural population to the east often spoke Ukrainian. From this one shtetl, following the wartime events described in the memoir, the family is now dispersed all over the world. But it began in Mościska: “In the middle of nowhere, five miles from the railroad station4, there was the shtetl where I was born. The streets had no names. There was no radio, no electricity, and no newspapers.”5 Malka Lee, who like Meier Landau was a child-refugee in Vienna during WWI, began the description of her shtetl – Monasterzyska – in a similar way: “In my little town there are winding, narrow, beaten, muddy streets […]”6. Their detailed portrayals of the shtetl give a deep sense of what was disrupted. Although Meier Landau’s nostalgia for the lost world permeates the pages of his memoir, he does not paint an idealized picture of a small Jewish town. His description will serve as a superb additional source for the 3 The Dominican monastery was founded in the early 15th century. Changes in the town’s religious profile occurred mainly in the second half of the 19th century. In 1887, the mayor of the town, welcoming the bishop visiting the monastery, is reported to have said: “One hundred and fifty years have passed since Bishop Sierakowski last visited our ancient town. Times have changed: then only one Jew had a tenement in the market square. Today only one Catholic has a house there”. Bernard Łubieński, Wspomnienia. Mościska 1908-Warszawa 1918, Homo Dei 2009, p. 187. On Jewish settlement patterns and how a shtetl were formed, see, e.g. Gershon David Hundert, The Importance of Demography and Patterns of Settlement for an Understanding of the Jewish Experience in East-Central Europe, in: The Shtetl: New Evaluations, ed. Steven T. Katz, New York University Press 2007, pp. 29–39. The literature on shtetl is extensive; especially captivating are the books in which authors have attempted to explore their own roots in a broader perspective of local social relations. Such as Shimon Redlich, Together and apart in Brzeżany: Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, 1919–1945, Indiana University Press 2002. But also: Daniel Mendelsohn, Anatol Rignier, Theo Richmond. The literature on early shtetl tends to be divided according to administration: Austro-Hungarian or Russian. On shtetls under Russian administration, see e.g. Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, The Golden Age Shtetl. A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe, Princeton Univ. Press 2014. 4 The Karol Ludwig Galician Railway – a railroad system in Galicia built between 1856 and 1861 under the administration of Leon Sapieha. The Kraków-Lviv route ran through the following towns: Bochnia, Tarnów, Dębica, Ropczyce, Sędziszów, Rzeszów, Łańcut, Przeworsk, Jarosław, Radymno, Przemyśl, Mościska, Sądowa Wisznia and Gródek Jagielloński. 5 “My Shtetl: An Epic Poem” by Meier Landau. 6 Malka Lee [Malki Leopold-Rapoport], Oczami dziecka, transl. from Yiddish Katarzyna Lisiecka, ed. by Karolina Szymaniak, PWN 2022. The project of the Department of Judaic Studies at the University of Wroclaw: “A Canon of Memoir Literature of Polish Jews” deserves attention. Within its framework, numerous memoirs by Yiddish authors are published in translation and with valuable commentary.

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scholarly literature on this geography lost in the Shoah, and its inhabitants, beginning with Eva Hoffman’s classic book Shtetl: the Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews, where she writes: The destruction was nowhere more complete than in the numberless Polish shtetls, those villages and small towns that dotted the Polish landscape [… where] life can almost be intuited beyond the curtain of abrupt absence. We think we can almost cross the curtain; but we cannot.7

Meier Landau said he desperately wanted to escape the shtetl, but later on while living in New York City, he reflected on how much he missed the small, crowded village now that the shtetl was extinct. This may have been a classic human reflex of longing for what was no more, an anthropological constant. But in the case of Polish Jews, there was no going back to the lost places not only because they were far behind the Iron Curtain, but also because they ceased to exist in the form they had before. Meier first left Mościska to attend public (rather than religious) school in nearby Sambor. Two more dramatic and incapacitating events – both world wars – eradicated the shtetl irretrievably. In those armed conflicts in which the second one took mainly Jewish civilians as targets, the small shtetls like that of Mościska were at the center of the turmoil, physically ruined in the first war, receiving the final blow in the second, with the genocide of its inhabitants.8 It was WWI that made Meier Landau a refugee for the first time. The family fled to Vienna. Important to note, this was not just fleeing from the armed conflict, but also from pogroms and looting targeting specifically the Jewish inhabitants of Galicia. In Vienna the author completed middle school, served in the Austro-Hungarian Army in WWI in the Black Sea region (today Ukraine), where – when I hand this book to the publisher – Russia brought the war again today by attacking the Ukrainian state. After WWI, the family returned to Galicia, but he remained in Austria to study at the University of Vienna, graduating with a doctorate in Chemistry. The end of WWI brought Polish statehood and the author – after having tried his luck in his profession in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Palestine – eventually chose to settle in Poland in the mid1930s. Between the wars, he started a family. He married Edda Thaler (Esther Baht Joseph) in 1928 and the couple – living first in Żywiec, then in Lwów/Lviv 7 Eva Hoffman, Shtetl: the Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews, Houghton Mifflin 1997, p. 2. 8 Among relevant literature on the destruction of the shtetls, see also: Yehuda Bauer, The Death of the Shtetl, Yale University Press 2011; Omar Bartov, Anatomy of a Genocide: the Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz, Simon & Schuster 2018.

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and Kraków – had two sons: Henry (Zvi Jacov/Janek, 1931–2020) and George (Yonah, Georg, Jurek, born 1932). In Kraków, Meier Landau founded the prosperous chemical factory “Kopal”. What remains today of the Landau’s name related to this factory is a single rusted paint-can and several advertising flyers, hidden in the recesses of Kraków’s antiquarian bookshops. The flyers have retained their distinctive colors despite the passage of decades. This is probably credit to the chemical expertise of their owner. Apart from these fragile artefacts, the only remnants of Zakłady Chemiczne “Kopal” are a few bills and orders, some mentions in the interwar Polish press, and archival records. These include several entries in the Polish Patent Office archives, as Meier Landau continued to improve his factory’s products with his expertise and ingenuity as a doctor in Chemistry.9 Also, what outlasted the factory were his cordial contacts with the families of his former Polish employees, who, like himself, were dispersed after the war, but within the borders of Poland. This is evidenced by correspondence in Polish preserved in the family archives. It shows that Meier supported his former employees from across the ocean during his life in the US. In addition, there are some archival references to Landau’s factory collected by German intelligence, which spied on Polish industry before the war10, and finally – in the communist nationalization archives, just after the war.11 Like all other private enterprises in Poland, the factory was taken over by the communist state, and a while later its name disappeared altogether. Meier Landau was obviously not consulted in this process of disenfranchisement. He lost his factory and family flat at 12 Garbarska Street in Kraków in September 1939. As it turned out, the family made a life-saving decision to evacuate from Kraków to Lwów in the first days of war. That moment still lives in the memory of the tireless consultant and driving force behind this publishing project, his son George, then 7 years old. No-one knew at the time that this decision to flee – for Meier, his second wartime refugee experience – would be how the four of them escaped from the Holocaust. Almost the entire extended family on both sides, Landau and Thaler, later perished in the Shoah. As the reader will see, the many family figures populating the first part of the book are mentioned only when living, the author avoids mentioning the context of their deaths in the Holocaust. He does not refer to the circumstances of losing them: 9 E.g. Wiadomości Urzędu Patentowego 1935 12/7–8, p. 361. 10 Zakłady Chemiczne Kopal (Krakau) 1934, Biuro Informacyjne  W.  Schimmelpfeng – Niemiecka Wywiadownia, State Archive in Wrocław, Branch in Kamieniec Ząbkowicki, 84/635/0/1.1.1/59528. 11 Bilans majątkowy – Zakłady Chemiczne Kopal w Krakowie 1945–1949, National Archive in Kraków, 29/724/0/4.1/DPM 1258.

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his parents, in-laws, siblings and their children. This loss is shrouded in eloquent silence. It is a subject that many of the best writers were not able to talk or write about, a void with no words.12 Meier Landau touched on the Holocaust in his later notes, primarily in the form of his own translations of poetry by authors describing the tragedy at Babi Yar and the concentration camps.13 Meier Landau expressed uncertainty as to whether his memoirs were wellwritten enough to become a book according to the “literary yardstick.” It is because he had thought about publishing them, and this is confirmed by his family. Now, 80 years after the events (chronicled shortly after the war), the world that vanished with WWII comes to life in this publication. This story is distinguished not only by a rich pre-war WWI prologue, which will interest anyone seeking knowledge about the lost world of the Galician shtetl and East European Jewry. The second grand theme of the book is WWII as experienced by Jewish survivors “in the East”. After the family fled from the Germans to Lwów/Lviv, this part of Poland was taken over by the Soviets. A few months later, in 1940, the Soviets began deporting all “unreliable elements,” as they called them, from the new border zone with the Germans to the interior of their country. Jewish refugees, alongside other Polish “class enemies” (wealthier peasants and intelligentsia), were deemed to belong to that “unreliable” group. The Landaus were taken from the house of the Thaler family on Boimów Street in Lwów by the NKVD. Together with those who self-evacuated deep into the USSR, about 250,000–300,000 Polish Jews survived the Holocaust in the interior of the Soviet state – including through deportation to forced labor at the start of the war.14 Despite the fact that around 80% of Polish Jews who survived the war went through “the Soviet experience”, only today is this chapter of history reaching wider public

12

13 14

Moises Kijak writes “The human psyche is prepared to weep after the loss of loved ones who have died in the usual circumstances. But no psyche is prepared to endure catastrophes of this magnitude. In this case, more generations are needed”. Kijak, Immigrants Mourning for a World Lost, in: The Shtetl. Image and Reality, ed. Gennady Estraikh and Mikhail Krutikov, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 2018, p. 177. This includes, for example, his partly published translations from the Polish of poems by Henryk and Ilona Karmel (“Śpiew za drutami”, 1947) and from the Russian – the poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko “Babi Yar”, 1961. The exact numbers of each group – all deported Poles, the Polish Jews in this group and the so-called “self-evacuees” in 1939 and later in 194 – are not possible to determine. International historians have not stopped trying to estimate these numbers on the basis of available sources. See, e.g. Albin Głowacki, Deportowani w latach 1940–41, in: Polska 1939– 1945. Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupacjami, ed. Tomasz Szarota, Wojciech Materski, IPN 2009, pp. 238–24.

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awareness.15 With the realization of the importance of this topic, there has been a surge in memoir literature, which has attracted interest of international publishing houses.16 This book adds new insights to the specific experience of Polish Jewish refugees who were deported from Eastern Poland (now mostly Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania) and survived in the USSR. What is less frequent among the testimonies published so far – this is a story of family survival, the parents with their children. It is a story of the USSR kidnapping citizens of a foreign country for slave labour in a cattle car, a story of starvation rations, cold and disease. And it is a story of resilience and miracles which accompanied the family in this paradoxical refugee trajectory. The author’s analytical approach to the cruelty and arbitrariness of the Soviet system and the changes it wrought in the personalities of its subordinates brings several similar insights to those we find in the masterpiece among war memoirists – a poignant testimony from Siberia by another Polish Jew, Julius Margolin.17 Margolin wrote his memoir shortly after the war; it was recently published in English. Meier Landau, just like Margolin had trouble publishing his experiences after the war. As he felt it, in New York, there was no interest in the nature of the distant Soviet system18. For many, the USSR had long been hailed as the 15

It would be a mistake to say that this chapter of the history of Polish Jews was not touched by historians in the postwar period, but recently there has been a new concentrated and critically acclaimed wave of research. In order of publication: Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union, ed. Mark Edele, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Atina Grossmann, Wayne State University Press 2017; Markus Nesselrodt, Dem Holocaust entkommen: Polnische Juden in der Sowjetunion, 1939–1946, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2019; Syberiada Żydów polskich: losy uchodźców z Zagłady, ed. Lidia Zessin-Jurek, Katharina Friedla, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny 2020; Eliyana  R.  Adler, Survival on the Margins: Polish Jewish Refugees in the Wartime Soviet Union, Harvard University Press 2020; Polish Jews in the Soviet Union (1939–1959): History and Memory of Deportation, Exile, and Survival, ed. Markus Nesselrodt, Katharina Friedla, Academic Studies Press 2021. 16 In the last two decades, witnesses’ memoirs and second-generation literature have been published in unprecedented numbers. In the latter category, see especially: Ellen G. Friedman, The Seven: a Family Holocaust Story, Wayne State University Press 2017; Mikhal Dekel, In the East: How My Father and a Quarter Million Polish Jews Survived the Holocaust, W.W. Norton & Company 2021. 17 Julius Margolin, Journey into the Land of the Zeks and Back: a Memoir of the Gulag, Oxford University Press 2020. 18 The 1950s were the years of both McCarthyism and the emergence of American Sovietology. Both factors influenced the paradoxical atmosphere surrounding the survivors of Soviet repression: on the one hand, they could serve as witnesses, while on the other hand, through their stay in the USSR, they were sometimes suspected of having some connection with communism. Ultimately, the lack of interest in the subject is evidenced by the refusals the memoir authors encountered from American publishing houses and the small number of publications from this period.

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savior of the world from fascism, giving it immunity to scrutiny in matters of its own crimes.19 To refute this thinking, Landau devoted considerable space to discussing startling degenerations of the Soviet system, based on what he called “the Big Lie.” He found the explicit construction of the lie on which the totalitarian communist system was based most unsettling. When he was writing his account in the 1950s, the Soviets went on imprisoning their ever new found enemies in the camps. He wondered how this system could continue reaping such an enormous harvest of human suffering when it was so clear that behind the lofty socialist slogans were the criminal actions of the state, enslaving and terrorizing with impunity its own population and the citizens of other countries. To Landau’s logical mind, as he stressed, this reality eluded comprehension. Unfortunately, as we know, even logical minds fell victim to indoctrination, but we have read similar thoughts by another Jewish chemist, the famous prisoner of the Nazi totalitarian system, Primo Levi. The author of If This Is a Man, in his other highly-praised memoir The Periodic Table also could not comprehend totalitarian reality and wanted to believe that the world of science had the power to salvage us from its deceptions: “the chemistry and physics […] were the antidote to Fascism […], because they were clear and distinct and verifiable at every step, and not a tissue of lies and emptiness”.20 Using these two themes outlined in the manuscript: miracles and the lie, Nancy Margulies in 2018 created a documentary film describing this Soviet experience and titled it accordingly Lies and Miracles. In it, Meier Landau’s story is supplemented by interview captions featuring his son George and a representative of the family accompanying the Landau family during their Soviet ordeal, Irenka Taurek (née Zussman21). As these few words of introduction already indicate, a significant theme in Landau’s memoirs is also that of the refugee experience. It afflicted the author several times: in 1914, 1939, and 1941, when the family was released from Siberian exile and set off to seek refuge in warmer Central Asia. This was after 19

20 21

On the reception, typology and locus of Polish Jewish “Siberian” accounts in the Holocaust and Gulag memory cultures, see Lidia Zessin-Jurek, Whose Victims and Whose Survivors? Polish Jewish Refugees between Holocaust and Gulag Memory Cultures, “Holocaust and Genocide Studies” 36/2, 2022, pp. 154–170. Primo Levi, The Periodic Table, Penguin 2000, p. 42. Irenka Taurek was born to Jewish parents, Aba and Alta in 1933 in Piotrków Trybunalski. Her family fled to the East and was later deported by the Soviets together with the Landau family to Siberia. Irenka lived in Switzerland and the USA after the war; she became a psychotherapist and married the philosopher John Taurek. She was a cousin of Piotrków-born Alice Miller, the world-famous child psychologist. In 2020 she took part in Daniel Howald’s documentary film Who’s afraid of Alice Miller?.

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the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, as a result of which Poles were recognized by Stalin as allies and released from forced labor to help fight against the Germans. Finally, towards the end of the war, the family were refugees again, when leaving Asia for the United States. These were all very different dimensions of the refugee experience. This is what the first half of a Polish Jew’s life was like in the first half of the 20th century - far from settled and passive, in constant tension, in search of a safe haven. From Landau’s descriptions, we learn about the September  1939 exodus from Poland, about no man’s land and the smuggling of “human merchandise” at the German-Soviet demarcation line, about the ordeals faced by refugees in Central Asia, and his work for the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Teheran, Iran.22 Many important characters, eminent exiled professors, doctors, lawyers, and diplomats, fill the pages of this memoir. As far as possible, these people have been identified and briefly introduced in the book’s footnotes. Landau’s rather matter-of-fact account of his family’s refugee odyssey sometimes contains tender reflections. These more emotional passages concern his wife and sons uprooted from their normal lives and not complaining about hardships. Nevertheless, because of his helplessness, he often found it difficult to look them in the eye, he confessed. Perhaps because of this, the portrait of his wife, Edda Landau, a woman and mother, and her central role in how the family survived the deportation and the hardships of distant exile, is sketched only gently. The whole Soviet part of Landau’s narrative, just like the Galician part, features a lost world too. It emerges from his historical descriptions of a displaced, effectively stateless family in Siberia and Central Asia. A world that looked as though it had lost itself because it made no sense. This was the story of the nonsense, the doublespeak, the cruel absurdity, that underlay the Landaus’ experiences with the NKVD. In this world, it was not only the effectiveness of the Soviet system of oppression that amazed Meier Landau, but also the strength of Christian Polish prejudice and discrimination against Jews that caught up with them in faraway Uzbekistan and Iran.23 In this world, as expe22 See, Atina Grossmann “Joint Fund Teheran”: JDC and the Jewish Lifeline to Central Asia, in: The JDC at 100: A Century of Humanitarianism, ed. Avinoam Patt et. al., Wayne State University Press 2019. 23 In these lands, as often in occupied Poland, national solidarity was in short supply. About 5,000 were recruited, but tens of thousands more Polish Jewish volunteers were not accepted to the Polish army (the so-called Anders Army) being formed in Central Asia, because of their origin. They were thus once again consigned solely to their own resources. This rejection by Polish co-nationals left strong scars and was one of the reasons why Jewish Poles were reluctant to return to the country in the postwar period. I develop this topic in: On a Melting Ice Floe – Polish Jewish Wartime Refugees in Central Asia, “Journal of Genocide Research” June 2023, doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2023.2221552.

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rienced in the Soviet Union, the author often wrote that he felt ashamed of human degradation and lost culture. Thus A Lost World: the Galician Shtetl and Siberia. A lost world and a world lost, two worlds lost in different ways and for different reasons. Beyond doubt, Meier Landau recalled with longing and nostalgia the lost Galician world, but was relieved to have left the Soviet experience, which escaped reason and in that sense was lost to the world – and with it the millions of prisoners of that system. While the Galician shtetl perished irretrievably, the “lost” Soviet world of the lagers never disappeared completely, even in the last 30 years of post-Soviet Russia. And this world is being increasingly regenerated in Russia (and Belarus) today. Meier Landau’s memoirs, do not lose their contemporary relevance.

Notes on Editing Laura Garland, Lidia Zessin-Jurek Meier Landau left a number of records, including three major manuscripts describing the various stages of his life in the first half of the 20th century and several shorter pieces. The original three manuscripts (a total of nearly 1,000 pages keyed on a typewriter) were combined and condensed into the book you are holding: At the Lowest Level: Three and a Half Years in Soviet Russia (1954), Introducing Myself (1966), and Out of the Whirlwind: The Years of Transition Between Russia and America (1943–1946) (1969). The book At the Lowest Level included Supplementary Notes (July 1967) with a reference table, organized by page number, which provided names and details of people mentioned in the text – especially when the author had not identified them in the book. For instance, the author didn’t include the names of those who were deported with him for forced labor in the taiga (such as the Zussman family). In some passages, he even avoided including the names of his family and described his adventures by attributing them to “a certain engineer” rather than to himself. The reasons for his caution (confidentiality) have lost their validity today, so we decided to restore these names in the text based on the author’s Supplementary Notes. The author also compiled two further manuscripts in the 1980s: Stories from My Life (1985), a compilation of key stories from his memoirs with a few new personal essays, and Ding … Dong … The Swinging Pendulum: Autobiographical Sketches (1987), a collection of essays from later in the author’s life. In addition to this, Meier Landau authored various other personal essays left with his sons Henry and George, and Last Harvest Poems (1986) a compilation of all the author’s poems. All these writings have been carefully compared against one another. Some footnotes contain also memories of George Landau. His brother Henry passed away at the end of 2020. George has been actively involved in the editing process and has shared every memory that came up for him along the way. Henry’s daughter Jennifer Landau-Carter also played a noteworthy role in the process of editing the text.

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The author’s definitions from the glossary of Stories from My Life have been included in the text. The glossary was drafted by the author, with an attribution to Dr. Abraham Mayer Heller, The Vocabulary of Jewish Life (1942). Some other definitions and footnotes in the text in relation to Jewish life, tradition, culture, religion and historical context have been added in the editorial process and appear with “ – Ed” at the end of them. This context spanned three historical periods (before WWI, the interwar period, and WWII) and vast geographical spaces. In order to bring the three memoirs together, their respective forwards, introductions, endings, epilogues, and postscripts were combined into one dedication, introduction, and ending. This also involved creating smooth transitions between the books. Other structural edits included combining chapters (or sections within chapters) to avoid repetition and bringing relevant sections together so that the same content was discussed in the same place. For publication, the overall length of the memoirs had to be shortened. It was evident that the focus had to be on pre-war life in the shtetl and on survival in Soviet Union. The main abridgment has been to the first and third books. For word limit reasons, sections have been left out that are interesting, however, not essential to moving the story forward – which in its essence is a story of Polish Jewry through two World Wars to deportation to the Soviet Union. From Introducing Myself, the main sections that have been significantly abridged relate to student life at the University of Vienna and the author’s military service in WWI for the Austro-Hungarian Army. From Out of the Whirlwind, sections left out include observations about Persian Jews and Iraqi Jews, a chapter dedicated to Rabbi Levi, further reflections on the author’s work for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Iran and subsequent talks given to branches in Australia. In general, the author’s journey from Iran to the US, via Karachi (Pakistan), Bombay (India), Colombo (Sri Lanka), with several months in Australia, was not included in this volume. These sections are fascinating in their own right and work well as stand-alone pieces. The remaining stories that were omitted involved work life. The difficulty of having obtained a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Vienna, from the small beginnings of a shtetl in Mościska, was a huge accomplishment. Meier Landau’s life was upended by the war. What did not make it into the book was

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the painful story of the well-educated refugee and the difficulty of having to put all personal ambition and hopes away, in order to support his children. This story is one shared by educated immigrants and refugees globally. The second book, originally entitled At the Lowest Level: Three and a Half Years in Soviet Russia, is principally unabridged. However, it took the longest to edit as it required the most linguistic corrections – due to it being the memoir the author wrote first. In his subsequent memoirs, there is a noticeable improvement in the author’s command of the English language. The challenge of this project was the “translation” of the book from author’s English to English according to the Chicago Manual of Style. The author grew up in a shtetl, speaking Yiddish, Polish, and Hebrew (mainly for prayers). In his early education, he learned German, which became the language he used to complete his studies, including his PhD. At school, the author also learned Latin and Greek. Spending three and a half years in Soviet Union, he became proficient in Russian, which he used in everyday conversation. In Iran, the author learned Farsi. So far, these are eight languages – not including English. English was one of nine languages Meier learned in his life. In terms of languages the author was fluent in, English became his fifth language. It was important to the author to write his memoirs in English, and he did so. Nevertheless, many words, phrases, and expressions are used in the text, in their original Yiddish, Polish, German, and Russian. We tried to standardize these, and where possible, included a translation in the text or in a footnote. We have ensured that words from languages using different alphabets, such as Cyrillic and Hebrew, have been transliterated consistently. Where several spellings have been used, we have used the transliteration most used by the author and footnoted the other spellings. The author favored the Polish spelling of many words, particularly of geographical place names. Foreign words have been placed in italics unless they have been adopted into English. In English common nouns are in lowercase and proper nouns are in uppercase. As Yiddish and Hebrew don’t use capitals, we didn’t use them here. Except for a few Hebrew and Yiddish words that are proper nouns in English – such as Yom Kippur, Chanukah, and Rosh Hashanah – which are not italicized and are in capital letters, showing their adoption into English. We kept capitals on German and some Polish words, in circumstances where they would be capitalized in their respective languages.

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Laura Garland, Lidia Zessin-Jurek

In the editing process, some things have been brought up to date with the times, such as using gender neutral language. The author used masculine nouns (such as “man” and “men”) and pronouns (such as “he”) to refer to an individual or groups that included women, and not actually men. This was common for the period in which the memoirs were written. To avoid confusion, and for gender inclusion, this has been updated in the book to “them” and “they,” or “person” and “people.” The discussion of whether to correct grammar directly relates to voice – and the importance of maintaining the author’s voice. We took a minimalist approach. If the author’s original version met the grammar rule, then it was left the way it was. In relation to grammatical errors, we weighed how jarring and distracting they were to the reader on one scale, against the importance of honoring the author’s voice on the other scale. Three common syntax issues that were corrected throughout the text are prepositions, adverbs, and verb tenses. The author consistently placed prepositions after the noun; by definition, they are placed before the noun. For adverbs, these had to be moved to the end of phrases. This was a simple fix which drastically improved readability. In relation to verb tense, most of the book was written in the past tense; however, the author occasionally switched to the present tense. To avoid losing the reader, the whole text is now in the past tense. On the subject of past and present – time and tenses – we removed the majority of references to the author’s then present-day in America. The author thought it was helpful to have comparisons to life in America. However, it proved disorienting for the reader being teleported to the market in Union Square in bustling Manhattan, and then air-dropped back into the marketplace in Lwów. In such cases, less is more, as it is necessary for the reader to stay emerged in the past that the author has meticulously re-created, for the story to be lived and felt. Meier Landau’s portrayal of events was always recounted first in a story of what occurred and this was followed by his description of the emotional pain. For example, heartbreak was used 169 times in the text. We tried to give some space to the reader to read the stories and feel the heartbreak rather than be told about it. The importance of keeping the author’s voice in memoir, including the vocabulary and unique voice of a refugee, is widely acknowledged. The author’s personality is not only his way of seeing the world, but also his way of speaking. Meier’s rhythm has largely been maintained. His long sentences – a

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grandfather sitting next to you for the start of a bedtime story that will take many, many evenings to recount. This is how this story unfolds. This is also how this story was written, “I wrote on trains, buses, and subways, on weekends and vacations, during sleepless nights when the three and a half ghastly years came freshly back to memory.” Our editing approach was based on respect for Meier Landau’s careful choice of words. He asked for his tombstone to read: “Chemist and Poet.” As a chemist, he carefully recorded all the ingredients of this life that was. It is our hope that his authentic voice can be heard. *** At the end of the editorial process, the author’s son George Landau expressed his belief that his father Meier would kvell from the result of this work, which in Yiddish means that he would praise it most highly. He would have particularly appreciated that the book was published in an academic context, which he always held in high esteem.24

24

Dr Lidia Zessin-Jurek’s editorial work on the manuscript as well as an in-person interview with George Landau and her research in the family archive in San Francisco were supported by the funding from the ERC-Project, Unlikely Refuge? Refugees and Citizens in East-Central Europe in the 20th Century, as part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 program (grant agreement No. 819461). The editor would like to thank Diethard Sawicki for the excellent cooperation and his idea of placing the book in the series Fokus by the Centre for Historical Studies (Berlin) of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN).

Meier Landau A Lost World: The Galician Shtetl and Siberia

Dedication These memoirs are dedicated to the memory of my parents. Whatever I am, I owe it to them. Had it not been for Mother’s progressive ideas, her intellectual curiosity, and determination, I would never have embarked on a secular education. From Father, I learned in early youth that life is hard work and a serious struggle; from Father, I have strong emotions when confronted with injustice and human suffering. When I close my eyes, I can always see Father blessing me, and see Mother’s tears, as I left home. There were many – too many – such occasions. From my twelfth year on, I was only a guest in our home, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for days only. Father had the habit of taking me to the station and seeing me off whenever I left. He stood there until the train departed. From the window I could see him standing, waving his hand, even when he could no longer see me, as he was very short-sighted. I could see his lips moving, saying some prayers. On the day of our deportation by the Russians – when we left Lwów forever – in the early morning hours, the truck which carried us to the railroad station passed under the windows where my father and mother lived. Neither they nor I knew on that day that we were parting forever. Their letters of despair reached me later in Siberia. I was not with them in their time of agony. I know neither when they were put to death nor where they are buried. I was not with them when they suffered and could not comfort them. They were so alone when they died. I didn’t cry, and I didn’t mourn their passing. And now, as I try to express my feelings, I feel the emptiness of my words. Are we, their children who survived, worthy of their love, struggle, and sacrifice? I am not always sure. Frequently, I recall the times when I hurt them, because I wasn’t attentive enough; when I didn’t take care of them, when help was needed. I recall those instances when I rejected their well-intended advice, thinking in my haughtiness that I had no need for counsel and that I knew all the answers. I wish I could ask them now for their forgiveness for the disappointments they suffered at that time, of which I was unaware. How I wish I could have another chance. Mother and Father are in my thoughts each morning as I begin my day, and each night before I go to sleep. And so is my Grandmother Bubeh Gitele. I can still feel Grandmother’s tender hands on my head whenever she said goodbye, even when she could no longer see me. I still see my Father blessing me and waving to me on the departing train. I still see Mother’s eyes. I invoke their memory not only for myself, but for all of us.

© Brill Schöningh, 2023 | doi:10.30965/9783657791644_002

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Meier Landau – A Lost World

To my wife, without your sacrifice, our sons and I would not have survived. During all those years, Mami was doing her best, no matter how poorly we were housed and regardless of other hardships, to keep our living place spotless and to provide us with the best physical comfort. She imbued us with the feeling of unity and mutual love, keeping our family spirit high, regardless of all the difficulties. Mami certainly succeeded, as our lives prove, to impart religion into our life, according to our old family tradition. We observe all our religious holidays and particularly our Seders are always an occasion for a joyous family reunion. Mami prepared everything for our two Seders, just as she had learned back in our family homes in Poland, and decorated the table beautifully. I conducted the Seders, according to our old family tradition, as I learned it from my father. We did all these things in the past and are still doing them to this very day. To my sons, it has always been on my mind to write down our experiences of the war years, and especially of the years spent together in Soviet Russia as a result of our deportation. It is true that you were little children at that time and you possibly forgot most of it. The years lived here are growing over those sad memories. Maybe it is even good this way. I believe there is a purpose and sense for every human suffering. Maybe this was so for the others, as well as for ourselves. Turning to these pages from time to time, you might find that the problems you are confronted with in your present life are, after all, not so important as compared with those of bygone days. It might be easier to solve them. Turning to these pages from time to time, you might even find a different outlook on things and a different perspective on values. Henry and George, I will always remember your sunny disposition and the respect with which you surrounded us, regardless of your own problems, of which you had a fair share. You are both now happily married and blessed with children of your own. To my grandchildren, and all who will join in the future, may this labor of love be helpful in creating a link and building a bridge between the past, present, and future generations. The great use of a life is to spend it for something that outlasts it. – William James

Today is December 18.1 This day has been a day of reflection for me. December 18, 1943, was the day when my family and I crossed the Russian border in the mountains, southeast of Ashkhabad (Turkmenia), entering the exotic land of 1 The author finished writing this part of the book in 1954. – Ed.

Dedication

5

Persia.2 While reflecting on the immediate past I could not help thinking of those more remote years, even going back to my childhood and early youth. Talking about my past, it happened to me, time and again, that events from my life mentioned to my own sons sounded strange and even unbelievable. And still my past is part of them, as I am part of the past of my parents. There is a continuation of life, binding the past and the future, which might possibly be the only real immortality. The idea is so wonderfully expressed in a lullaby by Richard Beer-Hofmann, “Lullaby for Miriam.”3 And so, I decided to write down my memories of the distant past. But, first, I had to adjust myself to my new environment and to find a job in my profession, being responsible for the sustenance of my family. I also wanted to improve my command of the English language to write down my thoughts in my own words and not to depend on translation. The resulting distance in space and time proved necessary to evaluate all this experience and made it bearable to live through it once again. I am returning in my thoughts to my shtetl, Mościska, with a certain nostalgia. It is the place where my parents lived and struggled and where I started out on my road through life. Our sons should know how my life was formed and shaped, what made me who I am. I am a surviving witness of a civilization which perished in my own time. I have in mind the centuries-old civilization and the culture of the Polish Jewry, which my predecessors and I were a part of. In the back of my mind is the story of Glueckel of Hameln (1646–1724). This lady lived in Hamburg, Germany, at the time that the Jews were expelled from Hamburg and later were allowed to settle there again. She described events concerning her rather large family, and she also wrote about Jewish life and customs in Hamburg, Altona, Metz, Berlin, and Amsterdam. She wrote about everyday dramas of births, weddings, and deaths, and also about business and commercial affairs. Through her memoirs, she gave a vivid picture of the customs and mores of her time, and in this way, made an important contribution to the history of Jewish life of that period. And so, her memoirs became an important historical document. Perhaps the description of the shtetl I grew up in might serve a similar purpose in some distant future. 2 Ashgabat (formerly Ashkhabad) is the capital of Turkmenistan (formerly also known as Turkmenia). Persia is used to refer to modern Iran. – Ed. 3 Richard Beer-Hofmann was an Austrian poet of Jewish descent (1866–1945); he emigrated from Vienna after the Anschluss and settled in New York. He is best-known for his lullabypoem “Schlaflied für Mirjam” written in 1897 for his daughter. The poem deals with the role of a child in the long line of ancestors. – Ed.

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Meier Landau – A Lost World

I will refer quite frequently to the shtetl since it was the place where I was born and grew up.4 The shtetl was not only a place where a small Jewish community somewhere in Poland, Lithuania, or Russia lived and died, but it was also a way of life. The shtetl became quite fashionable in recent literature. A lot is being written about it, even by people who never lived in one. Most of the first Jewish immigrants ran away from the shtetl, where there was no hope and no future. Now, from the perspective of distance and time, when the shtetl doesn’t exist anymore, people are going back in their thoughts to the shtetl with love and affection. Reviving my memories, I might contribute in a modest way to the spiritual image of this great heritage, which exists now only in some works of art and literature, and in the memories of the survivors. Those who were the substance and the foundation of the destroyed culture are no more. This is Part I of my memoirs, dedicated to remembering everything I can about that world then. Part II of my memoirs is devoted to my experiences in Soviet Russia5 during World War II. There are many books written about Soviet Russia. My book is not the first and will not be the last. There will be many more and each one will contribute, I hope, to unveil the mystery of the Soviet regime. If I shall succeed in making you pause for a moment in your hasty life and to let me guide you through a life so strange that it appears even to me from the far distance now sometimes unreal, then I will know there was a sense in my fate which led me to experience this ordeal.

4 The name shtetl comes from the German Stadt (city). The diminutive from the word Stadt is Städtchen, in Yiddish, shtetl. 5 The author uses the term “Soviet Russia” in the text, which is stylistic of the period, although historically more correct accurate is: “Soviet Union” – consisting of Russia and other subordinate republics. – Ed.

Part I

My Early Childhood

I can remember as far back as the age of three. I was the second youngest of five children. Two sisters (Lusia and Adela) and one brother (Bulek) were older, one sister (Rózia) was younger.1 My parents were in their early thirties when I was born. My father, Moshe,2 was a handsome man, some six feet tall – quite unusual for his generation. He was short-sighted, always wearing a pince-nez. His fine face, with a high forehead, was framed by a small beard. He walked straight, with a certain dignity that commanded respect from the people he encountered. His clothing was traditional, typical of the balbatim, a Jewish homeowner, in Galicia.3 For Sabbath and the Holidays,4 it consisted of a long, black, silk garment, and a shtreimel as headwear, this is a tall fur hat.5 In winter, he wore a black silk coat, padded with fur on the inside, with a very decorative fur collar. Father always had a flair for the western style of dressing. He compromised the traditional wear with the western fashion, creating his own style, especially during the weekdays or while away from home. On such occasions, he wore a normal suit, but in very conservative colors, mostly black or dark gray, and he always wore a black hat. My mother, Helene, was very pretty.6 She was known as a beautiful lady and, in a way, dictated the fashion for all the womenfolk in our little shtetl. Her dresses were always “imported” from larger nearby cities, like Przemyśl or Lwów,7 and all the other ladies tried to match her fashion as closely as possible. 1 Lusia (1890–1986); Adela (b. 1892) and Baruch (Bulek, Bernard b. 1894) both perished in the Holocaust; Rózia (1899–1980). – Ed. 2 Moshe David (b. 1868), perished in the Holocaust. – Ed. 3 The author defined balbatim as “the Burgherren of the Jewish community.” Orig. baalei batim (plural: balabatim or baal-ha-batim, singular: balabos or balebos or baal-ha-bos), literally Jewish house owner or master of the house. The feminine version, balebuste (singular: balebosta or baal-ha-bosta), is a Jewish housewife, especially one who cooks well and runs the house in an efficient and competent manner. – Ed. 4 The Holidays refers to the Jewish High Holidays (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), therefore capitalized. – Ed. 5 A fur hat worn by Ashkenazi Jewish men (mostly Chassidic) during Shabbat and Holidays. – Ed. 6 Chule (Helene) Landau, née Hollaender (b. 1865), died in the Holocaust. – Ed. 7 Lwów is the Polish name for the city to which the Landau family, fleeing from the Germans, went. After the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, the Russians used the name L’vov in

© Brill Schöningh, 2023 | doi:10.30965/9783657791644_003

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Of course, there were no fashion shows, in the sense of our times. Maybe there were only two dresses involved during an entire year, but I can still recall the tremendous excitement on certain Sabbath-mornings, especially when the new month was blessed, or on the mornings of our Holidays, when Mother was preparing for her walk along the principal (actually the only) street to the synagogue, which was called shul. Very early in the morning, a woman hairdresser used to come to our home to help arrange Mother’s hairdo. It was quite an elaborate procedure and took half an hour or more. Then, assisted by our maidservant, who lived with us for as long as I can remember, Mother put on her best dress and her newest hat; admired by all the members of our family, she walked out, with her charming smile, onto the main street. Here she was joined by some other ladies from our neighborhood and the small group moved in a very dignified fashion to the synagogue. Young girls, who customarily did not go to synagogue before their marriage (except on High Holidays), looked through the windows or stood in the doorways, admiring the festive procession of the fashionable ladies of our shtetl. A new dress or a new hat evoked comments and was the talk of the town. According to the rather orthodox mode of our shtetl, Mother and Father didn’t go to synagogue together. Father left earlier, and Mother was allowed to come later. Being still young, we boys were also allowed to arrive later, and so I could witness all of Mother’s preparation for going to shul. There seems to be a certain contradiction in depicting my father in his rather conservative garments and the pious atmosphere around us and, at the same time, describing my mother as a lady of fashion, being very much concerned with her hairdo. My mother was progressive for her time and never consented, as was required of a good and well-bred Jewish girl from an orthodox family, to cut her hair before her wedding, substituting it for a wig, called sheitel. And so, Mother kept her own hair, one of the very few such ladies her age in our little town to do so. Mother used to tell me about her youth, her background, and her education or rather self-education. I can visualize her constant struggle and her natural drive towards progress and enlightenment. Only a very steadfast character official documents. Today, the city is located in Ukraine and the standard English version of its name is Lviv. The author also used the city’s German name, Lemberg, interchangeably with Lwów in the text. The first known Jews in Lwów date back to the 10th century. The oldest remaining Jewish tombstone dates back to 1348. Before World War II, about one-third of Lwów’s population was made up of Jews. This number increased substantially, to more than 200,000 by the end of 1940, as tens of thousands of Jews fled from the Nazi-occupied parts of Poland. – Ed.

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Part I

could hold its own under those conditions, and her fighting spirit against customs and prejudices, both at home and around her, developed her very strong individuality. My mother was the youngest of the two children born to my grandparents, Gitele and Meier Hollaender. My grandfather Meier was already dead when I was born and, as is our old Jewish custom, I was given my name after him. I was told that he was a very gentle man, of not too good health; Grandmother Gitele survived him by about twenty years. Here is what I know about him and his business.

Grandfather Meier’s Business

Grandfather Meier was a businessman dealing in grain, which he bought from the landowners around our small town, who belonged to the small Polish-Austrian nobility.8 He then sold the grain to the larger grain merchants (exporters) or directly to the flour mills. This was a rather tricky and risky business. The landowners – mostly absentee-landlords who spent most of the year in the Austrian capital, Vienna – were always in need of money.9 Their huge landholdings were run by their appointed administrators, who had to provide the owners with as much money as possible. To accomplish this, the administrators used to sell the landowners’ crops in the wintertime to merchants such as my grandfather – a rather speculative business. There were no governmentsupported grain prices; depending on many factors such as weather, economic, and political conditions, prices after the harvest could vary like the colors in a rainbow. This meant profit or loss for the merchant. But there was always hope and a merciful God and so merchants, even after a disastrous year, kept on buying. Over the years, a merchant of this sort became the advisor and counselor not only to the administrator but also to the landowner himself – landowners 8 At the end of the 18th century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ceased to exist; and its lands were divided between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years. The Polish elites lived in antagonism with all three authorities. Eventually, they managed to reach a settlement with one of the occupying powers – Austrian-Hungary in the 1860s. In this part of divided Poland, known as Galicia – Galician residents declared loyalty to the emperor of Austria-Hungary in exchange for the possibility of economic and cultural development. In addition to Polish, they became bilingual (in German) and involved in life in Vienna. – Ed. 9 A significant part of the Polish landholding gentry, still living off the labor of peasants in a semi-feudal system, weren’t personally involved in the management of their estates. They spent a lot of time and money in European capitals. – Ed.

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stayed at their estate during the summer. The merchant became what might be called the landowner’s “Jew” or “Hausjude.” At a higher level, some big Jewish financier would become a “Hofjude” to an Austrian or German royal court.10 In this role, the Jew also became an advisor in the landowner’s private and even family affairs, which mainly meant additional help in loans or financial deals. As a slight digression, I might as well tell you more about it. Since there were several big landowners around our shtetl, there were as many private advisors. In the Yiddish idiom, such an advisor was called der Graf’s Mensch11 (the landowner was called a Graf,12 whether or not he was one). Only rarely could one Jew take care of more than one Graf. The social status among these Jews varied; the bigger the landowner, the greater the prestige of the Jew. Those advisors who proved themselves trustworthy (and most did), stuck to their client (their Graf) during their whole lifetime and they practically lived in the shadow of the so-called Hojf (from the German Hof, court). A Mensch had to always be at the Graf’s disposal. Quite often the Graf’s carriage, driven by beautiful horses, arrived in our town, speeding down the main street and stopping in front of the house of the Graf’s Mensch. Then everybody in town knew that the landowner had sent for him to come over to his palace for an urgent deal or consultation (men hot geschikt noch eym). This news immediately spread over our whole town. Even though those well-bred horses could develop quite a speed, it took several hours to make such a trip since the residences of the landowners were some 10–30 kilometers away. In our small town, everybody was very much interested in other people’s business and there was very little privacy, but the Graf-Mensch relationship was always an exception, here secrecy was highly respected. People knew how far they could go in their curiosity. Also, nobody could ever know when they might profit from the good relationship between the Graf and the  Mensch. Sometimes a little pull was necessary at some government office; sometimes a 10 The role of managers, which often fell to Jews, was to be intermediaries between the working peasants and the landowners who profited from this work, and this contributed to the rural population’s resentment towards Jews. “Hofjude” or the “Court Jew” was a Jewish banker who handled finances or lent money to European, mostly German and Austrian, royalty and nobility. “Hausjude” or the “house Jew” managed smaller estates. Note, in later years, the meaning of the term “Hausjude” changed to include doctor, teacher, shopkeeper – to a family context – invoked in an attempt to prove the family’s contact with Jews before the war and to avoid being accused of antisemitism. – Ed. 11 A mensch is a person of integrity and honor. – Ed. 12 Graf is a historical title of German nobility, often translated as “Count” or “Earl.” Here the author is stating that a landowner was referred to as a Graf, whether or not they were of nobility. – Ed.

Part I

11

good reference was essential to obtain a concession for a tobacco store or for alcohol distillation, which were licensed by the government. There was a kind of “gentleman’s agreement,” an unwritten code that no one tried to deprive a Mensch of his favors with a certain Graf, by attempting to replace him by offering the Graf more money or better conditions. Of course, sometimes a newcomer would try, or some people who became rich by hook or by crook – but such folk were frowned on, were socially ostracized, and could expect no honors in the synagogue and the Jewish community life. And so to be a “Graf’s Mensch” became a profession and, in a sense, a hereditary one. Just as the Graf used to introduce his Mensch to his son or daughter (whoever was in line to take over the vast landholdings), so the Mensch, in his old age, introduced one of his sons to his Graf or, if there were no sons, his son-in-law. The Mensch would educate and take along this younger man with him to all the conferences for several years while difficult deals were worked out. After all, it was not a simple matter to buy every year a crop that was still growing in the field. To keep up his high standard of living, the Graf occasionally had to sell some land, lease a sawmill or a flour mill, sell part of his forests for lumber, or lease his concessions for distilling alcohol from grain or potatoes. The Mensch was involved in all such deals. He had to have a good legal mind (usually a lawyer was the last to be consulted). He had to know where to find the right people, those financially interested in the deals; he had to have diplomatic skills to negotiate while bringing the partners together. Frequently, he wound up as a partner himself in some of the transactions. As I have mentioned earlier, those big landholders were absentee-landlords, but during the summer or hunting season, they would spend several months in the palaces on their estates. They had a great time hosting parties and visiting other neighboring estates. Often, they would bring with them aristocratic guests from the capital or foreign countries. In our small town, we had only occasional glimpses of them. They would pass through the main street only on those occasions when they paid a courtesy visit to the high official representing His Majesty13 in our district, or passed our place on the way to or from the railroad station. They arrived in their beautiful carriages. Usually, a lady drove the wonderful horses, with an escort sitting near her, and the coachman in livery, sitting in the back. What an unusual sight for us children! I particularly remember one young countess who used to drive a pair of white-brown ponies, such as I had never seen before, it was like a fairy tale. She used to come for the summer with her father, a dignified gentleman who was the master of ceremonies at the Kaiser’s Court in Vienna. 13

Austrian Emperor, Franz Joseph. – Ed.

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Meier Landau – A Lost World

Despite their Polish origin, these aristocrats considered it not of bon ton (good taste) to speak Polish. Their language was German (but a slight dialect only spoken in the higher circles – as I discovered while studying in Vienna in later years), and the ladies, who were mostly brought up by French governesses, spoke only French among themselves. I was always fascinated by their appearance as if they had come from another planet, even though I suffered indirectly because of them. When I was three years old, I was the victim of an accident. Our house was located along the main street and, just across from us, there was a small store with grocery provisions. My older sister Adela, when asked by our mother to buy something at the store, decided for some reason to take me along, maybe I pestered her. While we were crossing the street, one of those aristocratic carriages with two galloping horses came down the street at a terrific speed. Before I knew what had happened, I found myself under their sharp and strong hoofs and the heavy wheels of the carriage. I must have passed out because I could never remember what happened afterward. I only recall that a few hours later, I was lying on my grandmother’s bed, surrounded by many strange people who filled the room. Even a Catholic priest, who happened to pass down the street at the time of the accident, was present (I hope not for the last rites). I remember my mother’s sorrowful face, as she put pieces of ice on my bleeding chest. To get ice in summer was not a simple matter in our shtetl. My sister was blamed for this accident; I think unjustly. After all, she was a child herself and she simply lost her head. I still have a scar on the front of my chest as a reminder. After this digression about the land aristocracy and their direct and indirect impact on our lives, I now return to my mother’s family. So, my grandfather, Meier Hollaender, was a grain merchant and a Mensch of one of the aristocratic landowners. He was married to Gitele, born Rosenfeld. Their first child was a girl. According to the tales in our family, she was the most beautiful and the best-behaved child. It was a fact, recorded in the annals of our Jewish community, that when the so-called Kaiser Maneuvers were held in our vicinity (we were only ten miles away from the then very famous citadel Przemyśl), Kaiser Franz Joseph in person inspected the troops, and this little girl (I don’t recall her name, my grandparents’ first child) was selected by the town to present a bouquet to him. Unfortunately, a short time later a cholera plague broke out in our little town and this beautiful girl died. It was a big tragedy for my grandparents, and I think my grandmother could never forget her.14 I was told 14

I remember that on the rare occasions when we as children were allowed to go up to the attic, a little wooden box was pointed out in which grandmother kept the last white dress of the beautiful girl. Nobody, of course, dared to open the box.

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Part I

that for many years after the death of their first child, my grandparents had no more children. Then, fifteen years later, a son was born. Being the child of what at that time was considered old age, he was given the name Alter (alt – old). Some three years later, my mother was born. Her official name was Chule; all our relatives and friends called her Chulcie. In later years, Mother acquired the name Helene.

Mościska

To understand Mother’s background and her personality, I must tell you more about the little town where Mother was born and brought up, and where later, all of us five children were born and grew up. The little town is called Mościska. The total population, including all the Gentiles in neighboring villages, was approximately fifteen hundred people. The town itself was 90 percent Jewish, populated by some 200 Jewish families. Being a proud and loyal son of our town, I was very disappointed when in recent years I futilely tried to find its name on a map. The town consisted of the main street, which was part of a road leading to the bigger city of Przemyśl – some ten miles to the west, and a few sidepasses which hardly could be called streets. They led to the outskirts, or rather to nowhere. Along the main street, a Catholic (Polish) and a Greek Catholic (Ukrainian) church were located. One side street led to a sort of a yard, surrounded by three synagogues, and came to a dead-end at a court where a Chassidic rebbe had his residence. In the middle of our town, there was a square marketplace, so characteristic of every Jewish shtetl. This marketplace was surrounded by houses, and every ground-floor on the square was occupied by a store. People lived in the back of the small houses or, in a few instances where the building was higher, on the upper floors. This marketplace was the nerve center and source of sustenance for the entire Jewish population. Here, different stores dealt in groceries (flour, sugar, salt, and herring were the most important staple items), and dry goods and materials, mostly printed cotton or linen – catering to the tastes of the Polish and Ukrainian peasant womenfolk. There were stores with leather and boots; stores with kerosene, candles, and lubricant (grease) for the carriages and wagons. There were several inns, where beer and vodka were sold over the counter. It was a quiet place during the entire week since very little trading was going on among the Jewish population, except for the essential groceries – bread, milk, and meat products. But once a week, on Thursday, was market day. Then, the peasants would come in from the villages to sell their products – grain,

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potatoes, vegetables, chickens, eggs. With the money received for their produce, they would buy finished goods. Business was very brisk, always very competitive, for there was more than one store of the same kind, each close to the other. Everywhere a lot of shouting was going on because of the loud bargaining, and frequently you could see a woman customer being dragged into a store by force, as she had started to leave – the merchant not having been successful with the bargaining. Every store owner knew that once a customer left the store, they were lost. The customer never returned. The competitor was waiting for them, to offer their own merchandise, and close a deal. Several times a year there were markets of another kind, so-called yearmarkets (yerit, in Yiddish), a sort of fair. To those markets, came not only more peasants, but also more merchants. The peasants brought more of their products and, in addition, some cattle, pigs, and horses. Merchants who came especially to these year-markets were of an extraordinary kind. They had a store on wheels. Their home and family were somewhere far away in another small shtetl, and they would return home only for Sabbath and the Holidays. They would leave their homes and family on Saturday night, after the Havdalah (a Jewish ceremony marking the close of a Sabbath or Holiday), and would travel the entire night to a place where a year-market was being held on Monday. From there to another shtetl where a year-market was scheduled for Tuesday or Wednesday and then again someplace else. On their way from one market to another, they replenished their merchandise. All the merchandise was carried in heavy wooden boxes. They also carried along the necessary wooden planks, benches, and canvas to set up their stands, stalls, or shacks upon arrival at their destination (normally during the night before). Neither rain nor the hot sun were a deterrent to their endless traveling. They slept sitting on top of their merchandise while traveling in the heavy carriage at night, or in their booths or stands while waiting for the early morning customers. Since they never owned a horse or carriage, they hired a peasant for the entire week, or from place to place. To save money, two or sometimes three of the merchants, called yerit fuhrers, would share one carriage. Characteristically enough, most of those yerit fuhrers were middle-aged women, sometimes the sole providers of the family, while their husbands or sons were left behind, studying the Talmud. While there were no Christian stores in the market square, itinerant Christian merchants used to come to the special fairs. They specialized in a type of merchandise not handled by the Jewish merchants. They offered garden seeds, pork sausages, lard, and religious objects such as holy picture prints of the most primitive kind, crosses, small plaster statues of the holy family, and rosaries.

Part I

15

Of course, the noise was greater than on the weekly-market days, since everyone tried to attract the attention of prospective customers by different slogans, shouts, and sometimes by special barkers.15 The year-markets used to attract all the beggars, blind and crippled folk from nearby villages. They would sit along the passageways and try, with their loud wailing and endless prayers, to soften the hearts of the peasants, to solicit alms. I mentioned that for a year-market, peasants would bring along horses for sale. Our little town was famous as a horse-trading center, and horse traders from faraway places would come. Horse-trading was, even at that time, quite a tricky business. I remember that after every market, people would tell different stories of how a customer, eager to bring home a racing horse, found himself confronted the next day with a worn-out mare (in Yiddish, shkape). And so, amidst all this turmoil, one could suddenly hear noise and shouting, and then see a man running down the street, pulling a horse on a rope. This was a trader’s helper, who presented the horse to the prospective buyer and demonstrated its condition and speed. Quite a sight – this colorful picture of hustling and bustling! Everyone was trying to get the utmost out of it, knowing that as soon as the day was over, the chance might not come again. In the late afternoon hours, the picture rapidly changed. Peasants started on their way home in the carriages, some with part of their products still unsold, some with their horses in front, as well as one or two horses which didn’t find a buyer, running behind, tied to the back of the carriage with a rope. Some were in a gay mood and a bit drunk, with their horses running wild. People (who should know) told me that horses smell alcohol from a distance and are frightened of drunken people, especially when they use the whip rather freely. The merchants who owned the stores around the market square or nearby would start counting their intake. The entire family needed to help on such days, and there was no time for a meal; by the end of the day, tempers were rather short and quarrels could be heard. The reason for most of it was the fact that too many customers had left a store without buying and, of course, never came back. There was always someone to blame – stating that the customer hadn’t been handled properly. At last, after all that, they could sit down to a hot evening meal, and look forward to a good night’s rest except the wandering merchants The peasants went home; the local merchants were already in their homes; but those poor women had to pack their merchandise, board the carriage, and start a new trek into the night, sleeping sitting on top of the heavy wooden boxes, to arrive the next 15

A person who advertises by hawking at an entrance to a show or fair. – Ed.

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morning at another place, and all the turmoil would start over again. This market day was the one exciting day of the week; other days were rather quiet. In our family, we were not affected by the busy market days. Father’s business was different. We had nothing to sell or to buy at the market. More about it later. I would like to tell you first a bit more about our shtetl – Mościska. I mentioned before that there was one main street, the market square, and a few side streets. The streets had no names or numbers, yet it was not too difficult to find someone, even when their family name was seldom known. People knew one another, and each other’s children, by their first names. When there was more than one person with the same name, then they were told apart by the first name (curiously enough) of their mothers. For instance, a person with the first name Hersh was Ruchel’s Hersh and the other Zlaty’s Hersh. Some men were known by their profession. For instance, Nuchen der Zajgermacher (the watchmaker), Chaim der Schneider (the tailor), or Jankel der Schuster (the shoemaker). Some were known by their nicknames, though never to their face, for this was rather offending. The mailman, never a Jew, had no difficulties in delivering the mail. In letters, of course, the family names were used. Neither the main street nor the side streets were paved; and in summer, every carriage left a cloud of dust behind it, making it difficult to see or to breathe after they passed. During the fall and the springtime, the rain transformed the dust into heavy mud, and it was quite a problem to cross the street. Those who could afford rubbers16 – a tremendous luxury at that time – sometimes lost them in the thick, heavy mud. It was especially difficult to walk in the streets during the dark nights, as there were only a few kerosene lampposts in the entire town. So, people walked around with kerosene lanterns in their hands. Electricity or flashlights were unheard of. The only time our streets were easily passable was during the cold winter days when the mud froze and snow-covered all the dust. Speaking of rubbers, a story comes to my mind. A story told to me by my mother. For some reason, at that time the best rubber shoes were manufactured in Petersburg, in Russia (later called Petrograd and recently Leningrad). One of mother’s cousins, who was quite enterprising, was at that time dealing in grains with Tsarist Russia and used to spend some time every year in Odesa. Once he came home from a trip with a pair of original rubbers from Petersburg. Those rubbers were the first specimen ever to be seen in our small town. Who could even think of wearing something so shiny and pleasing in the rain or to dirty them with mud! So, they had to be worn by my mother’s cousin on the way to the synagogue on the sunniest summer Sabbath day. And so, he 16

Rubbers are galoshes, kalosze in Polish. – Ed.

Part I

17

walked proudly with his rubbers on top of his shoes, his wife following him. Every few yards she stopped him and, with her white handkerchief, dusted off the beautiful and shiny rubbers. Our small town was practically not guarded at all. There was only one official night watchman, who took up his duties at 10 p.m. at the market square. He started his duties with a ritual that had been passed down by old tradition, the origin of which nobody could remember. He would go to the first corner of the market square and start a little song in a loud and strong voice that could be heard almost everywhere. The lyrics of the song were addressed to the Burghers and the Landlords – they contained first the message that it was already 10 o’clock; then there was an admonition to trust in God and, in the end, a warning to beware of thieves and fire. After singing this short song, with a rather primitive melody, the watchman moved slowly to the second corner of the market square, then to the remaining two, repeating the same song in the same voice. It was quite a unique custom, not known anywhere else. I remember that I read about this little ditty in our textbook in third elementary grade. Having a strong bond with Mościska, I was pleased to see the name of our little town in print, as I was in later years when I discovered it on a map. After the night watchman’s exhortation and his reassurance, everyone could sleep safely. I never saw the face of the watchman as I was rarely at the market square at this late hour and besides, he was so bundled up that nobody could see his features. There was something ghostly about his appearance and I was scared of him. During my youth, there was already a railroad in our town. The station was not directly in town, but some three miles away. Only local trains stopped there. In fact, our people didn’t travel too far – mainly to the city of Przemyśl to the west or, for more important business to the east, to Lemberg, later called Lwów. Both cities could be reached by this local train and a round trip could be accomplished in one day. A trip was quite a family affair, requiring planning, for instance, seats in a carriage had to be ordered a day in advance. There were two families in town with a monopoly on taking care of all passengers going to, or coming from, the station. All together they owned some four or five carriages, called fiakers.17 The name fiaker was applied both to the carriage and to the owner. Since there were two fiakers, one was Moishe the fiaker and the other Berish the fiaker. The name fiaker is of very obscure origin. Some linguists think it is a corrupted version of the German Viehacker; in other words, in a way, it is somebody who drives animals to their death. The name fiaker 17

These were horse-drawn carriages, which took the passengers to and from the train station. – Ed.

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was also used in Polish and, as I found out later, was quite a popular name in Vienna, where fiakers were real characters. Whether this linguistic puzzle was solved or not, those fiakers drove the poor starved horses very hard indeed. Carriages were loaded to maximum capacity, not only with passengers but also with suitcases and many packages. The two fiakers, or rather fiaker-families, each catered to their chosen families. In a way, they divided the whole town among themselves. Everything was fine as long as there was peace and cooperation between the two fiaker-families. Sometimes, for reasons unknown to us, a feud would break out between them. It was immediately apparent as soon as the train pulled in and passengers came down the steps. The fiakers would start grabbing packages of the already exhausted passengers. It was the fiaker with the stronger muscles, louder shouts and curses, and the richer vocabulary who won out. This anger extended to the horses, and the poor beasts would get quite a lashing on the way back to town. Everyone knew that a war was going on, and civic leaders had a hard time trying to make peace between the two fiaker-families. To get to the station, one family member had to go to the fiaker’s home, where the name of the would-be passenger was written down with a piece of chalk on a slate tablet, in Hebrew. I remember there was an early train leaving at about 7:30 in the morning. A passenger was packed and ready around 6, as you could never tell when the fiaker would come and he was always in a hurry. The fiaker would show his respect or disrespect in the way he picked up his passenger. Respect was shown by coming for the passenger first. In such a case, the person had the choice of the front seat, called oyben uen. When a passenger was last to be called for, he had to sit up high, ofn bock. This was not an honored place for the person (called der pershojn) to sit, even though they were seated close to the fiaker himself. So, a ride to the station was not only a commutation problem but also an affair in which the reputation and social standing of the individual were involved. My connection with the railroad station was a rather theoretical one as my first train ride didn’t come until I was ten years old. I did go to the station on very rare occasions, and though it is rather hard to believe, those rides to the station were for business purposes. How this happened will come later. On these rare occasions when I went to the station, I had the feeling that I was in a different world. Everything was so different, even the air and the smells. And the sounds were mysterious, particularly the signals of the control devices (towers), which looked to me like huge mushrooms. I would count the bangs but didn’t know their meaning. I was accustomed to the sound of church bells, but the station sounds were different. In later years, I found out that those bangs were signals indicating when a train passed a special point

Part I

19

or station. And the rails, cold and shiny, in the surrounding grass and trees, leading somewhere in both directions, fascinated me. Perhaps it was that the station meant to me all the strange outside world and the unknown future. To go there was always an exciting event. I distinctly remember my excitement at watching an express train passing by, like a flash. Through the windows, I got a glimpse of the passengers. My imagination worked hard around those faces, seeing far away countries, big cities, strangers, a different life. The nature surrounding our little town was rather dull and uninteresting. No hills. No rivers. Just an even, flat plain. On the outskirts, there was a little creek with a very small waterfall. This was used as a source of power to turn a waterwheel which, in turn, moved several stones in a primitive flour mill. During the hot summer weeks, people used to bathe beneath the waterfall in a shallow pond, especially on Friday afternoons. As very few knew how to swim, it was used as a sort of ritual bath. The property on the main street on which our house was built, included a big yard, with a huge barn at the opposite end. This barn bordered on a wonderful fruit orchard belonging to the parish of the Catholic Canon, the highest church dignitary in the entire district. Depending on his mood and how he felt toward the Jews at that particular time, he would give our family – his neighbors – occasional permission to go into the orchard, enclosed with a wooden fence, only at springtime. This was the only contact I had with nature during those childhood years. I still remember the smell of the early grass, the wonderful wild violets occasionally found, hidden between small leaves, and the beauty and flavor of the apple blossoms. In summer, the situation changed. The Canon was very money-minded and he would sell the fruit, still on the trees, to some Polish Gentiles (known as sadowniki18). These were fruit dealers who didn’t own their orchards but leased them from landowners or farmers. When, in early summer days, the sadownik took over the orchard, no one else could enter until the entire fruit crop had been collected. Rightly, he was afraid that any visitor would be tempted by the tasty fruit and would put some in his pocket. The sadownik built a little hut from straw and branches, with a thatched roof. Here he lived throughout the summer and until late fall. At first, he was watching the trees; later, collecting the fruit and selling it from big piles of wonderfully smelling fresh apples and pears. There was a special entrance in the wooden fence surrounding the orchard, with a small path leading to his hut. Anyone could enter there to buy fresh fruit for a few pennies. Of course, he also sold the fruit to wholesale fruit dealers from out of town, who would buy in 18 Sadownik (sing.), sadownicy (plural) among the rural population also called: sadowniki – Polish for: fruit grower(s) – Ed.

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big lots and take the produce away in wooden crates and boxes. Occasionally, when the fruit was ready for picking, the sadownik would allow us kids to help him in his task. This is how he did it. Standing on a ladder, he would shake every branch with all his strength, using a heavy long stick. The fruit would fall to the ground. Then we collected it with baskets. Our reward? Eating all the apples and pears we could hold, and also filling our pockets. The whole adventure usually had its sad finale later, in a heavy bellyache. After the High Holidays, in the fall, during the Sukkoth days,19 we again were given the Canon’s permission to enter the orchard. By then, all the trees, except a few walnut trees, were bare. As I mentioned earlier, the house in which we lived was on the main street. Here my mother was born, and I was told that for generations this property had belonged to my mother’s ancestors. The front of the house was embellished with a wooden statue of a young deer in a jumping position. This was a sort of coat of arms, since the first name of great-grandfather, who built the house, was Hersch (from German Hirsch), in Hebrew Zvi, meaning “a deer.”20 Hence the statue on the upper front of our house. I was very proud of the fact that no one else in town had such an emblem. Otherwise, our house was very plain and simple in its structure. It consisted of the original old house plus an annex which had been built later. The old and new sections were divided by a long corridor. We lived in the annex which had two apartments, each consisting of three rooms and a kitchen, and a common closed porch. The original old house had one apartment, to the left of the corridor as seen from the courtyard. This apartment was considered a luxurious one and was always rented. During my early youth I remember it was rented to the government court, and trials were held there; later, it was rented to government officials and their families. The closed-in porch had a movable roof, which could be lifted at an angle. There was a purpose for this. This porch was used as a sukkah21 during the Sukkoth Holidays, and what a convenient arrangement this was, as the kitchen opened directly onto the porch. This porch was commonly used by occupants of both apartments. The two apartments in the annex were occupied by my family and by the family of our uncle Alter, my mother’s only brother. On our side was one additional room, with a direct entrance to the corridor. This room 19

Also spelled Sukkoth or Succoth – Jewish harvest festival, commemorating the temporary shelters (huts) used by Jews during their wandering in the desert, after their exodus from Egyptian slavery. – Ed. 20 This was also the name of the author’s paternal grandfather. The author’s son Henry, whose Hebrew name was Zvi, also carried this name. – Ed. 21 A temporary hut built for use during the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot, often decorated with branches. – Ed.

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was occupied by my grandmother (my mother’s mother), Bubeh Gitele. We called her affectionately Babcie. You will hear more about Bubeh Gitele later.

Mother – A Progressive Woman in the Shtetl

The house, built as I mentioned before by one of my forefathers on Mother’s side, belonged to my grandmother, Bubeh Gitele, since it was left to her by her husband, our grandfather (Meier Hollaender). My mother was born in this house, just as all of us were. My mother was supposed to get the same education as all daughters of good Jewish families at that time (in the late nineteenth century, 1870–1880). It seems that there wasn’t even an elementary school in our little town at that time. So, a private tutor taught her to read and write Polish and German; and another tutor taught her the Hebrew alphabet so that she would be able to read passages from the prayer book, for certain occasions. Understanding them wasn’t required. Since most of the correspondence at that time was in Yiddish, with Hebrew letters, more attention was given to learning Yiddish. With that, the education of a Jewish girl was completed. My mother wasn’t satisfied with the knowledge acquired this way. Even as a young girl, she had an exceptional intellectual curiosity and wanted to learn as much as possible. This eagerness to learn and to keep abreast of the new trends in literature characterized her entire life. She studied seriously and fervently. She did it by herself, getting hold of all the books she possibly could. There were not too many secular books in Jewish homes, but through her friendship with the girls from a very progressive family in our town, she was able to read most of the Polish and German classics. She became fond of poetry, which she used to recite and quote in later years. This progressive Jewish family was the family of a feldsher,22 a profession that no longer exists in Europe or in the USA (the older generation from Eastern Europe will still remember them). This was usually a man who originally started as a barber and later branched out into what might have been called, at that time, the field of medical practice. This meant administering leeches,23 cupping glasses,24 putting on bandages, selling ointments, herbs, 22

23 24

Feldsher is the English spelling. The author’s original spelling: Feldszer is a hybrid version of German (Feldscher) and Polish (felczer). A feldsher is a medical or surgical practitioner without full professional qualifications or status in some east European countries and especially Russia. – Ed. The historical medical practice of bloodletting. – Ed. A therapy that involved applying airtight glass vessels filled with heated air to the back, used to treat respiratory inflammation. – Ed.

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and patent medicines as cures for all diseases. There were no real doctors in our hometown during the days when Mother was young. Mother taught herself French and she mastered it quite well, even though she didn’t have the chance to hear anyone speaking French. All this was done in the face of heavy opposition at home, since too much education, especially of a secular nature, wasn’t considered good for a girl from a pious and traditional Jewish home. She could get strange ideas in her head and might become critical of the customs and mores of her environment. Mother used to tell me how she had to hide the books, especially from her mother, Bubeh Gitele, who was uncompromising in her ideas. She did most of her reading by candlelight, late at night (candles at that time were quite unpleasant). She would pretend to be asleep and, after her parents fell asleep, would get up and read into the late hours. At the same time, her brother (my uncle) Alter received his education. A young man also shouldn’t get too much secular knowledge; he should know the three R’s,25 just enough to get by. But there was no limit to a young man’s religious education. This started with the Alef-Beth, then came the reading of the prayers; later, the Bible and its translation (Chumesh),26 T’nach,27 Talmud,28 and more Talmud commentaries; then, commentaries to commentaries, until the end of a man’s life. Uncle Alter was not too bright and Mother, while listening to the tutoring of my uncle by a melamed,29 learned more Talmud than my uncle did. And when it came to the so-called varhejrn (a very common and dreaded event in the old times when the poor melamed had to prove, in the presence of the father, how well his son was doing in his studies), Mother knew all the answers. In later years, to my father’s delight, she used to quote Talmudic sentences occasionally, always apropos some situation or discussion. As a small girl, Mother never left her hometown, although she longed to see something of the big wide world, which at that time was represented by a city some fifty miles away to the east, called Lemberg (in Polish, Lwów). There was a special reason why she wanted and could not go to Lwów. It happened this way. My grandmother’s sister (Bubeh Gitele had only one sister and one brother) was a beauty, famous far beyond her little town. As I mentioned 25 26

The three Rs are the basic skills taught in schools: reading, writing, and arithmetic. – Ed. It is the Torah (its five first books known as Pentateuch) in printed and bound book form, in contrast to the Sefer Torah, which is a scroll. – Ed. 27 Also transliterated as Tanakh or Tanach and known as Miqra as well, is the canon of Hebrew scriptures. – Ed. 28 The Talmud is a structured collection of traditional Jewish religious laws, consists of two parts: the Mishnah and the Gemara. – Ed. 29 A melamed teaches Hebrew language and traditions. – Ed.

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before, Mościska was well-known as the trade center for good horses, especially during those special markets (fairs), a few times a year. People used to come on those days to Mościska to buy horses from different parts of the country. One day, a very wealthy Jewish merchant from Lwów came to the fair in Mościska to buy horses for his luxury carriage. Somebody drew his attention to a beautiful girl and this gentleman paid a visit to my great-grandparents, as he thought this girl would be a suitable bride for his only son. The rest was done by matchmakers, an important Jewish institution at that time. My grandmother’s sister married the young man and moved to Lwów. It was a very happy marriage; three sons and three daughters were born in that family. Her young husband, Mr. Diamand, was a very successful businessman. Rumors reached our family that the Diamand family became very progressive, that the children received the most modern education and were allowed to study in secular schools and, in later years, even attend the university. Their house became a center of high social and cultural life in Lwów. This was the kind of home in which my mother would have loved to live, or at least to be a frequent guest at. The cousins were more or less her age, and mother felt she would have many common interests with them. She used to tell me that she received many invitations from her aunt, who had heard about Mother’s intelligence and her interest in life and education. But Grandmother refused to let her go, feeling that such a visit might have a bad influence on Mother and her very traditional Jewish upbringing. And so Mother never went there; and none of her cousins ever came to visit her and their aunt and uncle. As far as I know, my grandmother never visited her sister, since she wasn’t sure that her home kept kosher30 and she didn’t approve of the family’s way of life. Grandmother did use to visit her brother, Joynele (Jona) Rosenfeld, who also lived in Lwów and became one of the leaders of the large Jewish community there. Mother only knew that all of her cousins became famous in different fields. One of them, Dr. Herman Diamand, was one of the most popular socialist leaders during the reign of Kaiser Franz Joseph in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and, later, after the First World War, in the newly created Polish State – Poland.31 He was a member of the Austrian Parliament and later of the Polish Sejm. The other cousins were Bernard and Alexander Diamand. Bernard was 30

Kashrut or the Kosher, the rules of Jewish law, which define the types of products permitted to be eaten and the conditions under which they should be produced and consumed. – Ed. 31 Herman Diamand (1860–1931) – Polish lawyer and socialist politician, member of the State Council in Vienna; during the Second Republic of Poland, a member of the Parliament, Józef Piłsudski’s friend from before World War  I (called by Diamand: Obcaszek). His publications include works on Galicia, his parliamentary speeches and

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a high executive in the Austrian coal industry. During World War I, he was in charge of coal procurement for the entire Empire in the Ministry of Defense (called Kriegsministerium) in Vienna. One of the daughters married a physician in Rzeszów, Dr. Eisner. Their daughter, Milenka (my age), studied music in Berlin and became a well-known music critic and radio commentator in Warsaw. I met her for the first time in 1925. Another daughter, Gucia, married a lawyer in Lwów, Dr. Maurycy Ambes. Theirs was a childless and unhappy marriage. Gucia Ambes was a famous beauty and was even invited to the official balls given by the Kaiser in Vienna, attended only by the highest society. After some forty years when my family moved to Lwów in 1924,32 we of the second generation met all of these cousins, second cousins to us. Mother became acquainted with them then, and we became very friendly. Especially with Aunt Gucia – she took to us, and we adopted her as part of our family. There was no event in our family in which Aunt Gucia didn’t participate. She attended our wedding later on. She was very dignified, a real grand old lady. Aunt Gucia still had beautiful features, blue eyes, and a wonderful complexion. People who knew her in her youth used to say that our Henry resembles her. At that time, we also met, on several occasions, her brother, Dr. Herman Diamand, a socialist leader who was also famous as a great parliamentarian, specializing in economic treaties with other countries. He was a brilliant orator, very witty and with a great sense of humor. He was well-respected even by his political enemies. When the Polish dictator Marshal Piłsudski put up a special concentration camp in Bereza Kartuska in 1926 for all his political opponents; and personalities like Dr. Lieberman (another very popular socialist leader) and Wincenty Witos (a peasant leader) were imprisoned there, he didn’t dare touch Dr. Diamand. Dr. Diamand remained a leader of the working class in Poland until his death in the thirties. By pure accident, I came to Lwów at the time of his funeral. It was a Jewish funeral in which 50,000 workers participated. My mother walked behind the coffin, led by his brother, Alexander Diamand. After we settled in New York, we became acquainted with Dr. Otto Pehr,33 who was a socialist leader in Poland in his own right. During one of our first

32 33

a memoir with an extensive biographical note by Stanisław Loewenstein: Pamiętnik Hermana Diamanda: zebrany z wyjątków listów do żony, Kraków: Towarzystwo Uniwersytetu Robotniczego 1932. – Ed. Which had been Polish since 1919. Fleeing before the Nazis, Dr. Pehr came first to Lwów and was later deported to Siberia with his family. After our liberation, the new Polish government recalled him from his place of deportation to Kuybyshev, where he was put in charge of social welfare and material help for all Polish citizens left behind in Soviet Russia after the formation and exodus

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encounters, I mentioned that I was related to Dr. Herman Diamand. He was a great admirer of Dr. Diamand and his sympathy towards us became even bigger, perhaps as a result of it. He was moved to tears when he spoke of Dr. Diamand’s wife, Hermina, and how she helped him and other socialists stranded for many months in Lwów at the outbreak of WWII.34

My Parents’ Marriage

My parents’ marriage came about, as all marriages at that time. The shadchen (matchmaker) involved must have been quite important, since the two places of residence of my future parents were some 300 kilometers away, considered quite a distance at the time. I was never told how long it took to bring my parents together, how long their engagement lasted, and what else was involved. I only knew that after marriage, my father settled in Mościska, my mother’s place of birth and residence where – I assume – Father was supposed to be allowed to establish himself in some business. I do not know where the wedding of my parents took place. I have already mentioned some details about Mother’s family. Here I shall try to describe Father’s family and background. My father comes from a rabbinical family, which goes back to Rabbi Ezekiel Landau, who was Chief Rabbi in Prague from 1755 to 1793. The Jewish Encyclopedia writes as follows about the family Landau: Family Landau came from Germany, expelled in the 16th century from the town of Landau. The earliest bearer of this name was Jacob Baruch Landau, who lived in Italy in about 1480. From the 16th century, the name was found in Poland, in the part annexed by Austria, after the partition of Poland. The name Landau was later also adopted by people who had no family connections with the original emigrants from Germany. Three Jewish leaders with the name Landau lived in Lemberg (Lwów) in the 17th century. The family branched out to Opatów and Brody. Ezekiel Landau, the most famous scion of the family, was born in Opatów in 1713 and died in Prague in 1793. He was the first Dayan of Brody (1734–1745). He of the new Polish army. He was highly praised by all who came in contact with him during the war. When Poland broke off diplomatic relations with Russia, in connection with the Katyń affair, Dr. Pehr went to London and became a member of the Polish government-inexile. He was also a wonderful raconteur, had a great sense of humor, and a heart of gold. We became quite friendly and both of you liked him very much. 34 On February 28, 1951, I received a letter from Dr. Pehr enclosing a clipping from the Polish socialist paper Robotnik Polski, containing a eulogy written by him, after the sad news reached him, that Hermina Diamand had died. I might mention that Hermina Diamand was the daughter of Lazarus, who founded the only Jewish hospital in Lwów (Szpital imieniem Lazarusa).

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Meier Landau – A Lost World was called in 1755 to Prague, where he became the Chief Rabbi and died there. His work: Noda’ Bi Yehudah. He was an adversary of Hasidism, though a student of Kabala and well-versed in mystic literature. He also saw a great danger for Judaism from the German translation of the Bible by Mendelsohn. He published many other works, Notes to the Talmud, Responsa, etc. He was broad-minded and not opposed to secular knowledge; however, objected to the culture coming from Berlin (Mendelsohn).

Hebrew (Talmudic) scholars in old times were not known by their family names, but by the title of their books. Ezekiel Landau’s most famous book, containing commentaries, responses to submitted problems, based on his vast knowledge, had the title Noda’ Bi Yehudah. And so, until today, he is known in rabbinic circles by that book title, which became his second or rather real name. At the time, a tremendous fight that encompassed the entire Jewish community everywhere was going on. It was a rather ideological war between the Chassidim, a movement originated by Bal Shem Tov, which became very popular among the Jewish masses, and the Maskilim, the upper crust of learned men (we might call them the scholarly Talmudic intellectuals). Rabbi Ezekiel Landau put his commonly recognized authority behind the Maskilim. With his conciliatory attitude, he helped to alleviate the conflict, which was disrupting all of Jewish life at that time. One of his grandsons, affectionately called Reb Baruchel Landau,35 became the rabbi in a middle-sized town in West Galicia called Neu-Sandez, or, in the Yiddish idiom, Sandz. He was a contemporary of the famous Chassidic rebbe, Chaiml the Sandzer, founder of the Chassidic dynasty, the Sandzers, also known as the Halberstams (this was their family name). In later years, I was told that Reb Baruchel, who was the official rabbi, the so-called Stadt Rabbiner, was on very friendly terms with Reb Chaiml. This was exceptional because normally there used to be a feud between representatives of the two groups, which split every Jewish community. In 1937, for the first time, I visited the town where my father was born and grew up; I also visited the cemetery in Neu-Sandez (called under the Poles, Nowy Sącz). Here, I was shown the tomb of Reb Baruchel, which was rather elaborate (called an ohel).36 This honorary place was assigned to him because of his high-esteem in the community during his rabbinate. He was also honored 35 Meier Landau’s paternal great-grandfather. – Ed. 36 An ohel is Jewish tomb, erected over the graves of prominent rabbis or tzaddikim. The function of the ohel was to protect the tomb and to provide those praying inside with shelter from adverse weather conditions. – Ed.

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in another way: his grave was close to the grave (also an ohel) of Reb Chaiml, whose grave became a shrine and place of pilgrimage for his followers and their descendants. Especially before the High Holidays, the Sandzer Chassidim used to come here from distant places and pray at his ohel. While praying, they used to leave kwitlech at his grave. These were small slips of paper on which their wishes and petitions were written, begging Reb Chaiml to intervene for them at the highest heavenly quarters. Reb Baruchel’s son was Zvi or Hirsch Landau. Henry is named after him.37 He also received a rabbinical education but decided to become a businessman, or rather a manufacturer. He established himself in Neu-Sandez in the flour business, grinding grain in the flour mill which he founded. My father, who was Herschele Landau’s son, received a good education according to the standards of that time. He acquired quite a good knowledge in the Talmudic field and, in addition, learned enough German and Polish to be able to use the language in everyday life and business. At the same time, my father learned the flour grinding business while helping his father conduct his grain and flour trade. The two fields were closely connected, and it was most important to know when to buy the grain and to also be an expert in the quality of grain. The whole business was very risky, as I was to learn later. So, my father learned this line of business from his father and after he married, didn’t have to learn another trade nor look for a new occupation. He rented a flour mill, the only one in our small town, which belonged to one of the big Polish landowners who had his castle in a nearby village and spent most of his time in Vienna. Father’s connection with the flour mill is one of my earliest recollections. This was a rather primitive enterprise. The power to move the grinding stone came from a big wheel, driven by a falling water stream. It was a sort of a primitive hydraulic power plant. Buying the necessary grain, milling the flour, and selling it was the livelihood of our family. Before I go any further, I would like to say something more about Father’s family. I didn’t know his family too well. Neu-Sandez was, according to the conditions at that time, far away from Mościska and no one traveled for pleasure or just for a visit. It was too costly. I knew that Father had five sisters and one brother. Some of them I met in later years. I never met my grandfather, Herschele. I remember that in my early years, Father was called home because of Grandfather’s illness. He remained there for a while and, when he came home, we were told that Grandfather had died. I knew my grandmother by name only, Esther Rivke, but don’t remember whether she ever came to visit us in Mościska. She was described to us as a very 37

Meier Landau’s grandfather, Herschele Landau – Zvi is the Hebrew version. – Ed.

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strong personality, and as being very patrician, demanding respect and obedience from all around her. Grandmother’s family name was Bromberg. I don’t know the reason (perhaps the distance or the fact that our small town had no attraction to outsiders), but only one cousin and one or two uncles ever visited us from time to time, and the visits of these two uncles were connected with business. Father’s younger brother, Majer, was rather strange to us. He married into a family residing in a town called Brody, on the Austrian-Russian border, and even my Father seldom heard from him. There was a saying “verfallen wie in Brod” – lost like in Brody – and this was most fitting to him. Later, in Vienna, I met my paternal grandmother, Uncle Majer, and some of our aunts and cousins as refugees during World War I. We became quite friendly with them, but never too intimate. Uncle Majer had three daughters who moved to Kraków after World War I. I met him there in 1934 when I established my paint factory, under the name Zakłady Chemiczne Kopal, and we became very friendly. He worked for a transport company which, because of financial difficulties, eventually was liquidated. I offered Uncle Majer a job in our factory, and he was a very fine and devoted worker in the administration of our plant. When World War II broke out and the Nazis occupied Kraków (I had left two days earlier), Uncle Majer insisted that the factory be reopened. He ran it, together with our superintendent, a Pole named Foltyn who is still in Kraków. Foltyn was in charge of the factory all these years, until his retirement. Uncle Majer died a tragic death. When the Nazis rounded up all the Jewish manufacturers, he was, by mistaken identity, arrested – since his name was identical to mine and the Nazis were looking for me. He never came back. After a few days, his family received his clothing. A short time later, the Nazis shot his wife and his three daughters in their apartment, which was part of the ghetto in Kraków. These tragic events were related to me by Foltyn, when I established contact with him after the war. I often think of Uncle Majer with remorse and with emotions very difficult to describe.

Father’s Business: A Flour Mill

Father ran a flour mill, which produced several brands of flour. Father had to buy the grain, mostly from the landowners around our little town, produce the flour, and then sell it to the local merchants. This was quite a difficult business since the grain and labor in the mill had to be paid for in cash, and the final product was sold on credit. There was no time limit as to how long the

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credit could be extended. The merchants were supposed to pay on Friday, since Thursday was always the big market day, but this never happened. Here I came into the picture. Already as a small boy of seven or eight years, I tried to help my father in his difficult task of earning a living for our family. And so, on Friday (in the afternoon after school), I made the rounds among our customers trying to cash in the due bills. Sometimes I was lucky and brought home a bigger sum of money; sometimes they paid only small amounts. Very often I would come home empty-handed, the customers having used different excuses for not paying. Then I was very sad, seeing my father worried. This spoiled his festive mood, as he prepared himself for the approaching Sabbath. The flour business was also difficult for other reasons. There were larger mills in nearby towns, such as Przemyśl, with modern machines and equipment, which could produce flour more economically and of a better quality (whiter and finer flour). Father had to compete with those mills, selling cheaper, bringing his profit margin to a minimum. Sometimes the very big flour mills in Hungary, having a surplus in production, would dump big quantities of flour in this part of the country and also in our market, depressing the prices even more. And so, despite all the hard work, the flour business could hardly sustain us. As a result, Father had to look for a sideline. Since he had dealings with the big landowners, buying their wheat and rye, who used chemical fertilizers, Father decided to start the distribution of this commodity. Fertilizers were brought in from West Galicia (mostly from Kraków) by the carloads, and sold by the bag to landowners, smaller farmers, and some peasants. For that purpose, Father put up a small warehouse in our large backyard. Although this was not a cash business but was based on credit and promissory notes, when bought and sold, somehow it was fairly successful. Here  I also had to help out. The fertilizers came by train in boxcars and, as I mentioned before, the station was some seven kilometers away from our town. The load had to be brought in by carriages (there were no motor-driven trucks at that time). As soon as the boxcars arrived, a message was sent out to a nearby village, asking the peasants to come to the station with their horsedrawn wagons. The next day, early in the morning, seven to ten peasants, each one with a wagon and two horses, lined up in front of our house. I was assigned, by Father, to ride with them to the station, to arrange all formalities with the station master, to see that the boxcar was completely unloaded, and to bring the entire convoy to our warehouse, where the fertilizers were unloaded and piled up according to their brand and quality. Of course, the peasants were paid at once for their services.

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I was always glad to be given this responsibility. Somehow it gave me the feeling that I was contributing in a small way to our sustenance and taking a part of Father’s burden. Besides, it gave me a chance to see the station and, if I was lucky, I could see some trains rushing by. In addition, if the peasant in the front carriage (I always rode in the front carriage) was friendly, he would give me the reins and I drove the horses, galloping towards the station with the empty vehicles. On the way back, I could have walked faster than those carriages; being loaded with twelve to fifteen bags each, they moved very slowly (every bag contained fifty kilos). My greatest satisfaction was my father’s smile when I told him the task had been accomplished – all the bags were stored, and none had been damaged during the transport. A little story about me was told in our family. When, at the age of eight, I was on some errand, I met a relative in town and when he inquired what I was doing there, I answered “geschäftsmässig,” meaning “strictly on business.” My father found this answer very amusing but, to this very day, I cannot see why, for I was very serious about my business activities at that time. I used to visit the flour mill frequently and I liked the smell of grain and flour – it reminded of nature which I loved but had very little contact with. On the other hand, the smell of fertilizers was simply appalling, and it took a long while for me to get used to it. In those days, phosphates were not widely used as chemical fertilizers; instead, the fertilizer my father distributed was made of pulverized animal bones collected from garbage dumps. The smell was rotten, most unpleasant to inhale; but I had to sit on the bags whenever I accompanied the shipment from the railway station. So, along with early education and schooling, I was learning the serious aspects of life. I learned that life was not as simple and carefree as the youth of today believes. I learned that my parents had to work very hard to make a modest living, to procure just the necessities of life, and that it was my duty to help as much as I could. This feeling of obligation led to a seriousness disproportionate to my age and left a mark on me throughout my entire life. I demanded nothing from others and took nothing for granted. I felt gratitude towards my parents for everything I was given.

My Education

My education started at the age of four when I began to attend the so-called cheder.38 We were collected in the morning by a young man called a belfer,39 38 39

Jewish religious school maintained by the community. – Ed. The Yiddish word “belfer” comes from Old German “behilfer” (helper).

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a sort of assistant to the melamed (teacher), who conducted, or rather, owned the cheder. It is very difficult for anyone who has never attended a cheder to imagine what went on in this institution of learning, how and by what methods the indoctrination into the Jewish lore took place. The melamed himself was usually a learned man, versed in the fundamentals of religious literature; he was pious but of proverbial poverty. He was by no means a licensed teacher applying pedagogical or educational methods. He was simply a melamed, a man with a good scholarly record but who, for some reason, was not fit for business, or on occasion had tried business and failed. In every little shtetl, several melamdim competed with one another. Some­ times one melamed had the distinction of being better with beginners who had to learn the alef-beth (the Hebrew alphabet) to later read the prayers; others were better with six-year-olds, advanced already to study Chumesh (the Pentateuch). And others were best with the further advanced ten-year-olds, who were studying the Talmud. The time for registration was usually the time of cholhamoyd Pesach (the half-holidays between the first and last two days of Pesach).40 It was not a registration in the real sense. The melamed in question was simply asked to come to the house of the parent, the balbueth,41 and here an agreement was reached as to how much the tuition would be for a zman, a term lasting to the next Pesach. The melamed received a small down payment; the remainder was paid throughout the year in irregular installments. Teaching started immediately after Pesach. The cheder was normally one room with a large wooden table, the most important piece of furniture, in the center. The table had wooden benches on three sides and a smaller bench or a chair at the head of the table. Somewhere in the corners of the room were beds where the melamed’s family slept at night. Along one of the walls was the kitchen – or rather a stove – where something was always being cooked by the rebetsin during the day.42 In the corridor leading from the street to the cheder, stood a barrel of water, covered partly by a wooden plank, with a metal cup (mostly rusted) on top. The floors were made of wood, the walls and ceilings were plastered and whitewashed. As soon as the children were brought in by the belfer at about eight in the morning, they were seated around the table on the benches. Two or three boys shared one prayer book, printed with big letters. The melamed would go around and point with a so-called teytel (a sharpened wooden pen holder or sometimes a letter opener) to a Hebrew letter saying what it was. Everyone repeated 40 41 42

Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) the most important and oldest Jewish holiday of the annual cycle celebrating the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. – Ed. The Yiddish version of the Hebrew “Bal Habaith” – head of the family. The wife of a rabbi. – Ed.

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it loudly after him. So that every child could participate in this instruction, he usually went around the table, letting us repeat it many, many times. The belfer, who was always around, used to help him in this task, watching each child carefully. This was done for weeks, progressing every day with new letters, and then proceeding to vowels, which in the Hebrew alphabet are non-existent, but are indicated by certain signs beneath or inside the consonants. Then a chorus of children’s voices could be heard: “Kometz alef – O. Passech beth – Ba.” This was done with the assistance of a singsong or a certain intonation, and with the help of a little whip called a kanchug (of Turkish origin), to keep the children constantly alert and interested. I imagine it was quite difficult to keep the children tied to their places for a stretch of three to four hours, but it was done. The children were usually enrolled for a full day, six days a week. The belfer would take the children home for the main meal at noontime (called mittag) and pick them up again around two. Between three and four in the afternoon the belfer, carrying a big basket, used to make the rounds of the homes of the pupils, getting some snacks for the children. When he returned, we were then given a short recess and the belfer would hand over to each child what was sent for him. I never knew how the belfer managed to keep the refreshments straight, for each child had something different and there were twenty to thirty children in a cheder. During the afternoon breaks (called nuch warmes), the children learned something of the economical distinction between classes. Some received such delicacies as a beigel43 or a kugel;44 some got only a slice of bread covered with marmalade. My nuch warmes was never too elaborate. Around six in the afternoon, our instruction was finished, and we were taken home by the belfer. Those belfers were very poor souls indeed. They were not natives of our shtetl but came from elsewhere. They worked for the melamed for room and board, who himself had barely enough to feed his normally large family. The belfers were frustrated young men, not brilliant enough to become Talmudic scholars and knowing no other trade. The sanitary condition of the cheder left much to be desired. Wooden floors were not washed or cleaned from one Holiday to another; windows were never opened; the water barrel was filled once or twice a week. The water came mostly from an open well (there was no running water), and it was always warm. Quite often little wormlike creatures were to be found in it. Of course, 43 44

More commonly spelled bagel. A traditional Ashkenazi Jewish dish, prepared in various versions, its invariable ingredient are eggs. – Ed.

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all the children drank it during the hot summer months, using the same cup and pouring the unused water back into the barrel. The room was always filled with flies, which annoyed us to no end. Toilets were normally outside in the back yard, full of dirt and with insects crawling all over (the toilet was cleaned maybe once a year). During the fall and winter months, everybody brought mud and snow onto the wooden floor with their shoes so that it was covered with such a layer of dirt that it was used in winter as an “indoor” sports ground. When the melamed would go out for a few minutes, we used to pour water on the floor and slide on it, as we had seen Gentile boys doing outdoors on frozen water (skates were hardly known to us). No wonder that under these conditions, I fell prey in my early youth to all possible diseases including very heavy typhoid. During these winter months, when the days were short, daily attendance of the cheder was even more uncomfortable. Heating the kitchen stove in our classroom filled the air with fumes, burning our eyes. In the early afternoon, kerosene lamps, also smelly, were put on the big table to provide light. At home, each child was provided with a little hand lamp containing a candle or a small kerosene lamp with a wig, to use to find our way home during the dark evening hours. As we got older, we had to come to the cheder and go home by ourselves. Since the streets had hardly any lamps, the only light was what reflected from the windows of stores or houses along the way. There were seldom any breaks during our cheder sessions unless a child became ill. If the melamed got sick, the belfer took over. Of course, there were our religious holiday vacations, but these were not long. One occasional break, which all the children enjoyed very much, was when a baby boy was born. On the day of circumcision, the entire cheder was led to the house where the big event was to take place and in unison, we recited “Hamalech Hagoyel.”45 Afterward, every child was given a small cookie. I don’t know whether or not this was a general custom, but it was in our shtetl, and one which we greatly enjoyed. The reciting of “Hamalech Hagoyel” by small children was considered a good augur for the newly born baby boy. Another break had a rather sad background, but we children nevertheless enjoyed the break resulting from it. A melamed was a private teacher, running a school without a license. Teachers had to be qualified by the government, after having passed the required examination. The melamed could never have met the requirements of such an exam. He would have to know two languages, 45 The blessing of Efraim and Menasseh (Joseph’s sons), by Jacob, taken from Genesis (Vayechee), Chapter 48, Verse 16. This blessing is also incorporated into the prayers before retiring at night.

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Polish and German, even though he had no use for them, as he only taught religious subjects in Hebrew and translated them into Yiddish. So, he never even tried to pass the exam. Somehow everyone living in Galicia could understand Polish and German, but reading and writing the two languages was difficult. And so, every melamed broke the law for his teaching, and his school was illegal. During the regime of the Austrian Emperor Kaiser Franz Joseph, each year, every melamed was ordered to present his teaching license to the proper authorities. Failing to do so, he was sentenced to jail for one day. So, every year, during the summer, this ominous day arrived – a sad day for this poor man, but a happy one for the children. Full of joy, we would come running home, announcing that the melamed had gone to jail and there would be no cheder that day (der rebbe is sitzen gegangen). I have mentioned earlier that there was no need for either German or Polish in the cheder. All explanations and all translations were in Yiddish. German was called “daitch.”46 There was a certain sympathy for the German language, perhaps because of a similarity of Yiddish and German roots. Everyone who spoke Yiddish (and who didn’t?) thought by speaking slowly, leaving out certain Hebrew expressions, and using the German genders der-die-das (mostly in the wrong place) that they spoke “daitch.” Of course, it was not as simple as that and, in later years, it was always quite humorous – after I knew more German – to listen to a conversation between an Austrian official and a Jewish petitioner with his version of the German language. “Verdaitchen” also meant to translate. There was a little joke about a Jew who tried to explain a verse of the German classic, Friedrich Schiller, in Yiddish to his friend. When asked what he was doing, his answer was “Ech verdaitch Schiller,” which meant that he was translating Schiller into the German language.47 Studying German was the proper thing to do and there was nothing sacrilegious for the most pious man to read German classics, such as Schiller or Goethe, or to know Heine’s poetry. Heine was less popular among the men than among the ladies, because he converted in the last years of his short life. There used to be a very famous German daily paper in Vienna of the same high standard as the New York Times nowadays, called die Neue Freie Presse, published by an Austrian-Patrizier-Jew, Dr. Benedikt.48 The most famous 46 Daitch from the German Deutsch. – Ed. 47 The literal translation of “Verdaitschen” is “Germanizing.” The joke has this double meaning: I am translating, but also “Germanizing” Schiller. – Ed. 48 Patrizier means patrician, a member of the upper social class. Moriz Benedikt and later his son Ernst Benedikt were publishers of the very influential Viennese newspaper “Neue Freie Presse” (1864–1939). – Ed.

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Jewish writers of the time, such as Dr. Herzl (the originator of the Zionist movement), Dr. Max Nordau, Arthur Schnitzler, Franz Zweig, Hugo Hoffmansthal, Richard Beer-Hoffmann, Felix Salten (author of Bambi), and many others, regularly published feuilletons (short stories) in this daily paper. The editorials of this paper (printed usually in the first left-column of the front page) were of important political significance and were reckoned with in all chancelleries of the world. Copies of the Neue Freie Presse used to reach our shtetl many days after publishing and whoever could read, understand, and even comment on them, was considered a highly educated man. There were very few subscribers to this paper in our shtetl; it was considered a luxury. There used to be a saying when someone wanted to describe another as a secularly educated man: “He can read a page of the Neue Freie Presse like a peckel cikorie.” Cikorie stands for chicory, a very important ingredient of our daily coffee. It meant that the individual could read a page of the German newspaper so fast that it was like reading the label of a package of chicory. With the Polish language, it was a different matter. This was called “goyish,” and for some reason “ivunish,” which meant Ukrainian. To speak Polish among ourselves – not to the Poles, who were the civil servants around us, the ominous policemen, or the artisans – was outrageous. And to speak Polish in the Synagogue, unless it was necessary to explain something to the Polish Gentile who took care of the oven or the lights on Saturdays or Holidays (the so-called “shabes goy”), was simply sacrilege – somehow incompatible with our idea of Jewish religious education. Only the German language and literature were given status as a source of our secular (weltliche) knowledge. This attitude towards the Polish language became more significant to me a few years later. As explained, attending the cheder at the age of four took all my time and there was little time left for play or games. I do not remember ever having a toy to play with. Maybe a small bow and arrow, which we made for ourselves from the branch of a willow tree, or perhaps a little flute such as those used by shepherds, made by some peasant from a nearby village and brought to the market. For sweets, we would have a few lumps of sugar, or some hard candies, sold in the grocery store from a big tin can; a few for a copper coin, wrapped in a piece of old newspaper. Chocolate was a big luxury and was given to us only on rare occasions. Until the age of six, I attended the cheder full time, morning and afternoon. At five, together with the others, I reached the point of starting to read Chumesh (the Pentateuch) in Hebrew and translating it word by word into Yiddish. It was customary to celebrate this big event, and this was done in the following way. The first Sabbath after a boy was able to read a part of the portion of the week (parshe) in Hebrew and to translate it (which required a lot

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of coaching on the part of the melamed), all the family friends were invited for Sabbath afternoon. Of course, the melamed, responsible for this new chapter in the boy’s life and learning, was invited. Then all the friends took out of their vests, their golden watches with golden chains (nearly everyone had one), and pinned them on the boy’s small chest, like medals. It was quite a sight to see a small boy with some eight or ten heavy golden pocket watches with big chains pinned to his breast. So decorated, the young boy had to read aloud the part of the portion of the week, with appropriate translation and the required singsong. After this was done (what a nervous strain!) everyone expressed satisfaction and the beautiful golden watches were taken from his chest by the legitimate owners. The illusion of having so many real golden watches was a very short one. Afterward, wine, cookies, honey cake, and fruit were served, and everybody went home quite animated by the ceremony and the party. The study of the Bible in the original language was a full-time job, keeping us busy for six days a week. But there was an additional feature to it. This was the institution of “varhejren.”49 My father, and the fathers of all the boys for that matter, used to call us in on Saturday afternoons, while we were trying to play a bit, and ask us to prove that the past week’s teaching had not been wasted on us. It meant that we had to recite what we had learned the past week, with reading, translation, and eventual commentaries by Rashi. Sometimes my father was not satisfied with the explanation as given by our melamed and he would volunteer one of his own. It took an hour or longer, and the only intervention which helped me get out a bit earlier and proceed with my play was Mother’s assistance sometimes. Full-time attendance of the cheder lasted until my sixth year, at which time I was ready for public elementary school. There was no kindergarten at that time. Since public school lasted the whole morning up to noontime, I could attend cheder only in the afternoon. This was quite a schedule for a six-year-old. Lots of homework was assigned in the public school and, in addition, the cheder became more difficult as we were being indoctrinated into the study of the Talmud and involved in problems of religious and civil law.

Other Members of My Family

My eldest sister is Cila. Affectionately known as Lusia in later years. She is some seven years older than I am and the eldest of us all. Then there was sister Adela, two years younger than Cila. I don’t recall after whom she was named; I believe 49

From German “Verhören,” which means “to examine.”.

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after a grandmother in Father’s family. My brother Baruch, called Bulek, later Bernard, was three years older than I. He was given the name of my father’s grandfather, the Sandzer Rabbi, about whom I wrote previously. I came next. Then there was Rózia, some two years younger – the baby of the family. At the time, sister Cila attended the highest grade in our public school (altogether there were seven classes). She set an example for all of us with her admirable behavior, excellent grades, and good manners. She was what might be called in the best sense, a good Jewish daughter. She was eager to read all of the not too many books available to her and was rather romantically inclined. She was considered pretty and was very choosey in the selection of her girlfriends. Despite the age difference, Cila and I were very close and very fond of each other. Sister Adela was very different. She too was pretty, with black hair and dark eyes, and a wonderful complexion. But she was not too good at school, and Mother always used to complain that she was lazy. I remember that whenever she was sent by Mother to do some shopping, there was always an argument on her return. It took her hours to get the errands done. Being a very friendly soul, she would stop to visit relatives on the way; or she would be attracted by some store window display and the hours would go by, completely unnoticed by her. Adela was very observant and had a rare sense of humor; she was more democratic in the selection of her girlfriends. She had a lovely soprano voice and used to sing the few popular melodies which reached us. My brother, who was only some three years older, didn’t keep too much company with me. In early youth, three years constitute a big age difference. He had his friends of a similar age, and I was of no attraction to them. And he, of course, went through the same education cycle: first cheder and later public school. He didn’t show too much interest in religious education and there was no hope that he would ever develop into a Talmudic scholar. And then there was the youngest of us all – Rózia (the youngest daughter in a family is called mizunke). She was somehow lost in the crowd, and no one paid too much attention to her. Naturally, Mother was very fond of her and was always on Rózia’s side whenever quarrels or jealousies amongst us children developed. This didn’t help matters. And then there was, of course, Hania, our maid. She was a Ukrainian peasant girl from a nearby village who had come to us as a wet nurse when Rózia was born. As far back as I can remember, Hania was always a part of our family. Her first love naturally belonged to Rózia but gradually her affection was extended to all of us. She was the first to get up in the morning and the last to go to bed. Having no immediate family or friends (except another Ukrainian maid who became part of another Jewish family in the neighborhood), she seldom left the house. On Sunday mornings she would

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go to the Ukrainian Church; otherwise, she spent all the days, and days of the years to come, with us. Never throughout all those years did she learn any other language and spoke to us in her Ukrainian mother tongue. But doubtless, she came to understand Yiddish; she participated in all our religious holidays and was very strict in keeping our dietary laws. To get ahead with this story, Hania was connected with our family for some forty years, first as a maid for twenty years and then indirectly connected with us for another twenty years, until the outbreak of World War II. She married a man employed as caretaker in our brick factory and lived there with him. She attended all our family weddings as an honored guest, always in her attire as a Ukrainian peasant woman, with her kerchief over her head. In later years, when we grew up, she was hesitant about calling us by our first names, but we all insisted that she continue to do so. After the outbreak of World War II, we completely lost track of her, and do not know what happened to her. We had a common porch and lived under the same roof with Uncle Alter Hollaender (Mother’s only brother), his wife Aunt Malcia, and their two children, our cousins Breyndel, called Bronia, and Mendel, called Menio, and later, Emanuel. Somehow the relationship between our two families, so closely related, was not too good. Aunt Malcia came from the town where my father had been born, Neu-Sandez, and was far more educated and intelligent than Uncle Alter. She took care of the family business and carried the burden of sustenance and education of their children. There was some sort of jealousy between our two families. I never found out what the real reason was for it. We were not in competition business-wise. Uncle Alter was a Mensch of one of the big landowners and derived an income from transactions with him. Aunt Malcia was his mentor and adviser; and in addition, ran a store at the marketplace where she sold materials such as cotton, woolen shawls, and kerchiefs to the peasant women. She was quite prosperous. We were in a completely different line of work, but perhaps the fact they had a steadier income than we had something to do with the difficulty. I can remember how our parents used to reconcile and straighten out their strained relations, particularly before Yom Kippur. On this day everyone was in a very solemn mood and the two families would approach each other, asking for forgiveness for anything wrong, which had been said or done during the past year. I was always happy to witness these scenes of reconciliation, but it didn’t last long and just a few weeks after the High Holidays, both families would start keeping to themselves again and avoiding each other. Naturally, this atmosphere affected us children and we behaved strangely also, the same

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way as our parents did. Bronia was older than Cila, and Menio was a year or two older than Bulek, but no mutual friendships developed between them.50 Grandmother Bubeh Gitele (we grandchildren called her Babcia), my mother’s mother, lived with us. She had only one room – her bedroom, living room, and kitchen all-in-one. This room had an entrance directly on the corridor and one window, consisting of six small windowpanes, overlooking our big courtyard. Her furniture was poor and primitive – just a bed, a table, and a few wooden chairs and a wooden closet. The only decoration was a carillon-clock51 standing on top of a cupboard, which used to play melodies on the hour. The clock stopped one day, and nobody tried to repair it. Bubeh Gitele lived alone in this room and prepared her simple meals on an iron stove that occupied a part of one wall. She was already old during my early years – maybe seventy. She was nearly blind. The skin on her fine hands and her face was wrinkled, but her face was lovely, and her eyes were blue. We could imagine how pretty she must have been in her younger days. I mentioned before that Grandmother was very pious and she never had her hair. She wore no wig (sheitel), but a so-called shtern tuchel,52 which was something between a hat and a kerchief made of heavy brown silk and on festive occasions, decorated with a ribbon studded with pearls and diamonds. Bubeh Gitele seldom left her room and whenever she did, had to be led by her hand. She prayed the full prayers three times daily – normally done by men only – and knew all the prayers by heart. She knew the entire Saturday morning prayers which were rather long. Since she was nearly blind and couldn’t use the prayer book, on certain occasions such as on Rosh Chodesh,53 when special prayers are recited, some of us children, usually Cila and later myself, would read the prayers aloud for her, and Grandmother repeated them after us. After the death of her husband, Grandfather Meier (after whom I was named), Bubeh Gitele decided to give everything that she owned to her two children (married by that time), namely to Uncle Alter and to my mother. This 50 The Hollaender family experienced a big tragedy when their son Wole (diminutive of Wolf), younger than Bronia and older than Menio, died as a young man, because of his weak heart. He was very gentle and was loved by everybody because of his fine character and scholarship. 51 Zegar kurantowy (in Polish) – a clock that played melodies (often traditional old-Polish songs). – Ed. 52 From the German “Stirntuch,” sort of headgear or rather, a decoration of the forehead (stirn – forehead, tuch – scarf). 53 Also spelled Rosh Hodesh – beginning of the Hebrew month, minor Jewish holiday. – Ed.

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included the house where we all lived. In return, the two families were to provide for her as long as she lived. Since she wanted to be by herself and keep her own meager household, this meant that she was supposed to receive a certain sum of money each week or month from both families. Her noble gesture in giving away her inheritance proved not to be a good arrangement for her, as I am sure this “pension” wasn’t very high. Also, the money was never given to her as regularly as it should have been, and Bubeh Gitele suffered because of this. She was too proud to ask for it. I remember that on those days when the money to which she was entitled was not given to her, she used to be very sad. When she could go on no longer, she would sometimes ask me to remind my parents that the money was needed. I don’t think this was because of any reluctance or ill will on the part of my parents; the money simply wasn’t there. Later I learned that our income during those days was very spotty and quite irregular. One thing, I shall never forget. Whenever I took the money to Grandmother (a few silver and nickel coins), she would immediately hand me back a portion of it and order me to take it down to one or two poor families so-called “farborgene ureme.”54 These were families impoverished by mishaps such as sickness, business misfortune, and so forth. These people still put up a front, pretending that they were well-off, for many reasons, mainly because of having a daughter of marrying age, but they were short of food. Too proud to ask for charity – there were no organized welfare agencies and help could only be extended by private sources, and they didn’t confide their misery to other people. There were always some neighbors or friends who knew about it, but they didn’t always care. Somehow Bubeh Gitele, not having left her room for years, knew about these cases; and shared with them her meager allowance. There is an incident I would like to share, when our Hania nearly lost her life to rescue our family, and here is the story. As  I have said, Bubeh Gitele lived alone in a single room, with an entrance onto the main corridor. It also had a door leading to my parents’ bedroom, but this was never used; there wasn’t even a key for it. As far as I can recall, there was an old-fashioned, heavy, wooden closet in Grandmother’s room, covering this door. Bubeh Gitele slept alone in her room except on certain nights when she was ill; then one of us would sleep in her room on another bed. One winter night when Bubeh Gitele didn’t feel too well, sister Adela volunteered to sleep in her room. The room was heated by burning coal in a brick stove. This was done early in the evening; and before bedtime, the stove was closed by a shutter which cut-off its connection to the chimney. The idea was to keep the warmth inside the room, 54

From the German “Verborgene Arme” – people who were hiding the fact that they were poor.

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and not let the draft from the chimney consume the heat from the stove and leave the room cool. Under usual conditions, this procedure worked well, but there was a certain danger involved. If there was a lump of glowing coal left, which couldn’t always be seen through the small stove opening, then having no outlet, the poisonous carbon monoxide gas would find its way into the room, saturating the air. This happened on this particular night. Sometime after midnight, my parents heard through the closed door very heavy sighs, of somebody in pain. They called Grandmother and Adela, but there was no answer. By that time, the whole house was awake. And then a very loud thump was heard, of a heavy fallen object. We couldn’t get into the room, since it was closed from both sides. Hania sprang into action. She went from her warm bed in the kitchen to the icy cold yard, broke one of the six windowpanes from the outside, and pushed herself through the small window frame into the darkened room, filled with poisonous gas. Inside the room, she opened the window and door as wide as she could. We lit the kerosene lamp and found both Bubeh Gitele and sister Adela lying unconscious on the floor. It turned out they had attempted to get up from their beds but had fallen. This was the thump we had heard. By now the entire family had gathered and our parents, with Hania, began rescue action, pouring water on the two unconscious women and taking them into the cool winter-night air, where they finally regained consciousness. Sister Adela quickly recovered but it took Bubeh Gitele a long while to get well again. What about Hania? While trying to squeeze through the small window opening, she hurt her intestines and quickly became seriously ill. There was no hospital in our shtetl, no X-rays at that time, and our doctor did his best trying to cure her with what medicines were available. Hania was bedridden in our kitchen, where sister Rózia and I also slept. Day and night, she was in terrible pain. I distinctly remember when poor Hania woke me up during the night. Sighing and losing consciousness, she asked me to call the priest for her last religious rites, and also to have a coffin prepared for her. I was frightened and at that hour of the night could do nothing to fulfill her wishes. Later, she fell into a deep sleep and the next morning she felt better. Her recovery was slow, and she never completely regained her health, even after many, many years. She still worked in the house, taking care of all of us, but she was never the same. We hardly ever heard her laugh; only a painful smile would appear sometimes on her face. Now I would like to mention Bubeh Gitele’s life story and what she meant to me – especially her role in events which took place a few years later. I always liked to be near her, even though she was not very talkative. Most of the time she would be murmuring Hebrew prayers, sometimes looking at me through

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her glasses with tearful eyes. The relationship between her and my mother was not too affectionate; neither of them was very sentimental in their contact with the other. I don’t know the reason for this. Perhaps it went back to old times when Mother was so eager to progress in her education and Grandmother was so violently opposed to it. Perhaps Mother was too progressive and too much of a freethinker for Bubeh Gitele’s convictions. But my father was very fair and correct towards her. Overall, Bubeh Gitele led a rather secluded life, keeping to herself most of the time. A few years later when the question of my future education became acute, with all its implications (the story will be related later), I was amazed to see how different Bubeh Gitele’s attitude was now, compared to what it was many years before. She was all for it. And when I was twelve years old and had to leave home to attend the gimnazjum55 in Sambor, some seventy miles away, parting from Grandmother was a heartbreaking experience. Since then, I was filled with emotion every time it was necessary to say goodbye to her, as when I had to go back to school after some holidays or vacation. She would always bless me and every time she bade me farewell, it was as though we would never see each other again. Her one particular wish for me was that I should never be ashamed of my deeds and that I shouldn’t be put to shame. These moments of parting were always very difficult and tearful. Coming home during the second year of my schooling, I didn’t find her. She had died and my parents, knowing my great attachment to her and wishing to spare me, hadn’t notified me. I asked no questions; I knew the answer. I consider Bubeh Gitele the most saintly person I have ever known. There is not a day of my life that I do not think of her. Whenever I experience distress or sorrow, I invoke her memory during my prayers and see her close to me, with her gentle face and tearful eyes, reflecting all her suffering.

My Boyhood

The school program didn’t leave much time to spare. Teachers believed in memorizing poems and even entire stories. I acquired the habit of rising early in the morning regardless of whether it was winter or summer and, while still in bed, lit a candle and reviewed all my homework, especially repeating the 55 In German-speaking countries and in Poland, the gimnazjum was (or still is) a stage in the educational process. In Germany, “Gymnasium” means secondary school, in Poland “gimnazjum” meant the stage between primary school and high school. The Polish spelling has been used in this text, plural gimnazja. – Ed.

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poems which we had to memorize. My memory seemed very alert in the early morning hours, and I could grasp things faster. Small wonder then that with so much effort and discipline, my school marks were very good, and at the end of the school year, I would receive a book from the school as a reward. My younger sister, Rózia, who also slept in the kitchen, naturally was awakened by my rustling of books and by the candlelight, and so she got into the same habit and routine. She too would repeat her homework, using another candle at the chair close to her bed. One morning in wintertime, she leaned so far forward that she came too close to the burning candle and her hair was set afire; in a flash of a second, her head was aflame. As a quick reaction (I am not usually so fast in my reactions), I grabbed my pillow and covered her head tightly, thus extinguishing the fire before it could spread to her nightshirt and bedding. I remember starting to yell after everything was over because I was quite shaken and frightened. Sometimes I played with the friends of my brother and my cousin Menio. When I was seven or eight years old, I had one particular friend, a schoolmate, who lived nearby. I used to pick him up on my way to school and since I was always early, I would spend a few moments in their kitchen. Two things stand out in my memory from those early morning visits. One was their maid, a friend of Hania, whom I mentioned earlier. She was also a Ukrainian woman, and was a part of my schoolmate’s family. What was outstanding about her was that she spoke perfect Yiddish and could recite by heart the Hebrew morning prayers with the children. I shall never forget how one time when my friend, Abush Kempf, was somewhat reluctant in repeating the prayers after her, she reprimanded him, saying in Yiddish: “wos wilstu oyswaksn – a goy?” (“Do you want to grow up to be a Gentile?”) A devout Greek Catholic, as all Ukrainian peasants are, she went with our Hania to church twice every Sunday. Another thing that always impressed me was the fact that my school friend’s mother was always forcing food on him, begging him to eat more, and serving him delicacies. This never happened to me. From as far back as I can remember, I participated in all religious activities whether they took place in the synagogue or at home. As I mentioned earlier, all the synagogues were located on a side lane and formed a sort of a circle with a courtyard in the middle. There were four of them. The most representative, where all the official functions took place, was called die shul. This was the rabbi’s official residence; here he preached twice a year. The shul had a chazan,56 and a choir consisting of boys and young men, sons of the balbatim 56

Or a cantor – a synagogue official who sings or chants liturgical music and leads the congregation in prayer. – Ed.

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of our shtetl. Every boy had the ambition to sing in this choir. My brother and my cousin Menio made the grade. I never did. The shul was considered the progressive synagogue in our shtetl for one reason – some of the worshippers who attended it had a secular education. On High Holidays, the Jewish professionals of our shtetl, such as the doctor and the lawyer, used to pray at the shul – those professional men would never even try to enter another synagogue. Otherwise, the people were just as pious as in the other places. The shul was a rather huge structure for such a small community, built in a semi-Gothic style. There were no facilities to heat the place, and in winter, there was no heat whatsoever. Men and women sat separately, the men on the main floor and the women on the balcony. Our family had something like a seat and a half in the men’s section and two seats in the balcony for the women. How did this come about? When the shul and the other synagogues were built, each family bought as their property certain seats at a certain location and those seats remained the property of the family forever. Through inheritance, seats came down to later generations and were split among the many members of the family. This accounts for such oddities as a half or even a quarter of a seat. The seats had a certain monetary value and sometimes were sold by the family to a newcomer or to an upcomer, who was climbing socially and eager to get a better seat. The location of such a seat was very important and had a social significance. The closer the seat was along the misrach wall57 to the official chair of the rabbi, or if the seat was in the first row, the more prestige it had. Our family had seats in the shul, in the Naye Klaus, and the Bes-Medresh.58 We had no seats in the Alte Klaus.59 I mentioned before the official functions which took place in the shul. The most important of these was the official birthday celebration of the Kaiser, the Emperor of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, the composite monarchy. Naturally, the Kaiser’s birthday was an official holiday, and all schools were closed. The ceremony had an established pattern and program. The chazan chanted or sang a few appropriate psalms and the president of the Kultus-Gemeinde, elected every two years by the Jewish community, made a 57 A plaque on the inside wall of a house or synagogue. It points worshippers to the side where Jerusalem is located. – Ed. 58 The Yiddish version of beth midrash or beth hamidrash (house of study). 59 Klaus or klojz is another name for a small synagogue or shul, a small building or part thereof used as a house of prayer. From the German Klaus: prayer cell. Usually, a klaus belonged to a particular professional or social group. This term was used by the Jews of central and eastern Europe from the 17th century onwards. It was particularly common for Chassidim living in Galicia to call their prayer houses by this name. – Ed.

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speech in German, praising our Kaiser Franz Joseph. The national anthem, “Gott erhalte, Gott beschütze unseren Kaiser, unser Land” was sung by all present who knew the words. The most significant part of this celebration was the fact that the service was attended by an official representative of the government, who resided in our little town and whose official title was Bezirkshauptman.60 He appeared sometimes in person in his gala, a gold-braided uniform, with a three-cornered plumed hat, and a ceremonial spade, but usually, he was represented by one or two of his assistants. It was the only time when Jews came in contact with the few Gentiles on religious grounds. The Bezirkshauptman was of course greeted at the entrance to the shul by the president and again was thanked for his visit at the end of the ceremony. I remember that I was always impressed by the fact that exponents of two such different creeds could meet, even for a short hour. There were only a few such rare occasions when the two religions met, which I shall tell you about later. Thus, the shul became the representative place of our religious life. It was the official residence of the only rabbi, called Stadt Rabbiner, and there were also sometimes concerts by itinerant chazanim (cantors), who used to travel with their choir and made themselves a name and a poor living out of it. I shall come back to the shul which became, when I was ten years of age, my favorite place of worship. I have already mentioned that we had hereditary seats in the Naye Klaus and the Bes-Medresh. What were the differences between these places of worship? As I have mentioned, they were all orthodox and were located more or less at the same distance from our home. The difference was marked by religious zeal, social standing, age, and trade or profession. For someone who didn’t wear the accepted garment of an orthodox Jew (including shtreimel and silk robe, called bekesha),61 there was only one place to go, and that was the shul. The Naye Klaus was occupied by very orthodox families who had achieved some material success in their careers. It wasn’t a question of actual wealth according to our modern standards; simply families who had established themselves in business, mostly shopkeepers, and who earned a modest living. The Naye Klaus was also favored by men recognized as Talmudic scholars. The Alte Klaus was attended by families of lower social stature, having smaller means of sustenance.

60 District captain – these local commissions were first introduced by Franz Joseph in 1849. The author assumed that it was not possible for a Jew to be a government representative or at least not in his town. – Ed. 61 Bekesha is a black gown, made of silk-material, with black velvet lapels, which married men used to wear on Sabbath and Holidays in the synagogue.

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The Bes-Medresh was attended by people who for some reason weren’t entirely satisfied with the two klauses. Some balbatim felt they didn’t get sufficient honors or recognition, so they came to the Bes-Medresh, where wealth or learning didn’t matter too much. It was a rather democratic group of people and, for the same reason, was attended by most of the Jewish artisans such as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, and so on. In this way, the small community meeting on religious grounds split into groups according to a pattern prevailing in every society. Of course, services were held twice daily in all these places of worship – in the morning and the evening. There was no problem of not having a minyan (quorum). Morning prayers during the weekdays were said in several shifts between early morning hours until ten, or even eleven o’clock, before noon. People used to come at different times, depending on their habits or business. The balbatim took their time; some studied before the prayers, some after. Some people liked a little conversation about world politics and general news. So, it took a man on average some two hours before he finished his morning prayers and could sit down to breakfast. Of course, nobody would even think of eating something before the morning prayers. As a rule, everybody went to the synagogue in the morning, carrying his velvet bag containing his heavy tallis62 and tefillin.63 Incidentally, some very pious Jews used two sets of tefillin during the morning prayers. The same people gathered in their respective places of worship in the afternoon for the mincha and maariv services.64 During the winter months, the afternoon services were quite popular and had a big attendance. In the first place, the synagogue (except for the shul) was heated and it was warm there. People would come early, sit around the big stove, and exchange all the local and world news. There was no radio, no television, and no electricity; very few members of the community read newspapers and yet the news reached the people somehow. Every place of worship had its characters. Some were real politicians; some strategists who knew how to lead armies and criticized the generals; some were humorists looking for victims to make fun of. Some were merely listeners, always willing to lend their ears to any little group of people engaged in discussion. Sometimes, especially during the summertime when there was 62 Or tallit is the prayer-shawl worn over the garment for morning prayers and on Yom Kippur at every service. 63 They are also called phylacteries and consist of inscriptions by scribes on parchment, encased in two small leather boxes, attached to the arm and head when at prayer. Tefillin are used during morning services except on Sabbaths and Holidays. The parchment inscriptions consist of four Biblical paragraphs, taken from Exodus and Deutronomy. 64 Mincha is the daily Jewish afternoon liturgy and maariv – an evening liturgy. – Ed.

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a longer intermission period between mincha and maariv – while waiting for the moon or the stars to come out – this interval was used for private conversations. In a way, the synagogue was substituting for a club with the distinction that no social functions took place there. Just friendly discussions, commentary on Jewish events all over the world, or on world problems in general. As I mentioned before, the shul was the only place which was not heated at all during the winter. It was too large to be heated by the usual stove and no central heating systems had been invented at that time. During the long winter evenings, people used to stay and would spend several hours studying the Talmud under the guidance of one of the many Talmudic scholars available. Some studied by themselves. All this studying was aloud, using the typical singsong of Jewish learning. There were always a few strange faces among the local balbatim, spending the evenings in the synagogues. Those were the wandering beggars, who used to walk from one small town to another. They would try to collect money during the day, going from door to door, and would sleep during the night on the benches in the synagogues. For me, the “wandering Jew” is not a metaphor, for me it is a reality. I remember the “wandering Jews” from my youth; I used to meet them in many places in pre-war Poland, on many occasions. These were people who became beggars, having no sustenance in the places where they lived, or wandering preachers (so-called bal-darshers), the poorest of the poor, who left their homes (if they had one) sometime after Pesach and returned before the High Holidays for the winter months. They used to travel or walk from village to village, from shtetl to shtetl. Sometimes they met on the road, a Jew with a horse and buggy and they could “hitchhike” for some distance. Polish or Ukrainian peasants didn’t usually pick them up. Once they arrived in a village where a few Jewish families lived, or at a shtetl, the beggar visited every Jewish home and asked for some alms. They were satisfied with a few groschen,65 but didn’t leave out any Jewish household. The bal-darshers, who travelled the same way, used to look for the most frequented shul or Bes-Midresh and waited for the evening. After the evening service (mincha and maariv), when the balabatim were ready to leave, the baldarsher usually banged on the pulpit or the table in the center and announced that he intended to deliver a Talmudic discourse (called a droshe or pshetl).66 Some, who were in a hurry for their supper, left; others stayed to listen. It was usually a pilpulistic discourse on some Talmudic problem (sometimes very 65 An Austrian coin, which was the currency at that time. – Ed. 66 A droshe, a sort of learned discourse based on Talmud and its commentaries. It was usually very elaborate.

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far-fetched), and it lasted about half an hour. Afterwards the balabatim, without comments or questions, gave the bal-darsher some small change; this financial reward for his effort, eloquence, and knowledge was very modest. These wandering Jews traveled very light; they usually only had a tallis bag, containing their tallis and also their tefillin. The nights were spent sleeping on a bench in one of the places of worship, which were more places for gathering and meeting people than places for strictly praying. How they spent the days during the week was of no concern to anybody. Nobody cared to know where and what they ate during the long day. However, it was different when the wandering Jew found himself in a shtetl on Shabbos.67 The wanderers came to the Friday evening services and at the end of the service they stood at the exit gate and here the time-honored tradition came into practice, of inviting an oyrekh for Shabbos.68 This was the institution of the so-called orchim. My father rarely came home from shul on Friday evening without bringing home a stranger, an oyrekh, for the Friday evening dinner. There was no formal introduction. The stranger simply sat at our table and ate whatever was served to all of us. Some of them were quite interesting individuals, telling true or imaginary stories about themselves. Others were very silent, interested only in their food. The Friday evening invitation was understood to also include the main meal Saturday at noontime, after morning services. On Saturdays, there was a different pattern of worship. The morning services lasted four or more hours. There were no professional cantors, chazans, or Torah-readers. All these functions were performed by laymen, by regular worshippers who – due to their good voice, knowledge, and piety – became the favorites of the synagogues. Some who prayed permanently on Saturdays or certain holidays, considered this religious function as their privilege or even their right and allowed no one else to replace them. Many tragedies were involved in connection with those functions, since some of them became too old to pray. For instance, mussaf on Yom Kippur demands quite a bit of endurance on the part of the chazan, but they still insisted on doing it.69 This was quite an ordeal for the worshippers on such occasions. The one exception was the shul, where the chazan was a professional, hired for the function by the Kultus-Gemeinde. Saturday afternoon between mincha 67 Shabbos is also spelled Shabbas and Shabbat and is observed from Friday evening to Saturday evening as a day of rest and worship. – Ed. 68 Oyrekh is an old established custom to invite the stranger and wayfarer for meals on Friday evenings, Sabbaths and Festivals, to one’s home. To provide the needy, away from their homes, with food. Such an invited guest is called an oyrekh. 69 Mussaf is an additional morning service on the Sabbath and on festivals. – Ed.

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and maariv, there was the so-called seuda shelishit – the third meal.70 This seuda shelishit was a very coarse and simple meal, consumed by all participants, but it had its original charm. Usually, one of the balbatim, who had Jahrzeit71 during the week or because of some other occasion, brought along a few pieces of herring or fish, a challah,72 and a bottle of liquor, or a few bottles of beer. After this was consumed – it didn’t take long – the rabbi or some other learned man who was present started saying “Tojre.”73 This was a very short discourse based on the portion of the week. He would explain it, quoting different commentaries and sometimes adding comments of his own. The participants would listen, nod their heads in approval, sometimes would express their own opinion, mostly affirmative. It wouldn’t be polite to contradict the rabbi or the scholar. After everyone had expressed their thanks to the speaker, the participants would start singing the so-called zmiroth.74 These were one or two sentences taken from a prayer or a psalm, set to music by some unknown layman composer. Some of these tunes were imported from other towns; some originated in our local community. Some were very lively, like a military march; some romantic and sentimental, like a Slavic love song. These zmiroth went on in complete darkness until it was time to conclude the Sabbath by praying maariv. I was always impressed whenever I participated as a bystander in these primitive meals – a religious experience that cannot be duplicated by the most elaborate dinners and speakers. There was so much longing for higher values in life. This was a time to prepare oneself for the week ahead, full of hard work, disillusions, and struggle for the daily bread. From here came the strength to endure the humiliation and insults (sometimes physical attacks) hurled at the Jews from the hostile Polish environment. Afterward, the very impressive havdalah ceremony took place at home.75 There is a beautiful song by Belarsky that expresses the mood of the Saturday evening, parting from the festive day of rest. A bit outside of the house of worship described above, there was another synagogue, part of the same courtyard, occupied by a Chassidic rebbe called 70 Seuda shelishit is the third meal eaten on the Sabbath. – Ed. 71 The anniversary of the death of a parent or close relative, most commonly observed by burning a candle for an entire day. – Ed. 72 White bread [usually braided] or twists especially baked for Sabbath and Festivals. The presence of white challah contributes to the festive character of the meal. 73 Tojre – the local version of the name Torah “law,” the five oldest sacred books of Judaism. – Ed. 74 Songs and hymns chanted at the Sabbath meals usually between courses. 75 Ceremony marking the close of a Sabbath or Holiday. – Ed.

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the Moscisker. He lived there with his family and entourage. His followers, or Chassidim, used to come to visit from distant places. Though he was not world-famous as were the Belzer or Czortkower, he had quite a large following. Unfortunately, I never attended any of his services or functions because my father being, according to our family tradition, a Misnagid (progressive, emancipated) didn’t attach himself to any exponent of the Chassidic movement.76 In other words, Father was not a Chassid and so he never went to this synagogue, even though the Moscisker’s residence was only a few yards away from the Naye Klaus where we used to pray. Being very young, I couldn’t go there alone, but when I was occasionally in this part of our main street, I used to see the rebbe in the early morning hours, on his way to or from the mikvah (ritual bath), which he attended daily, led by two of his attendants (gabbaim). They flanked him on both sides, and he walked with his head down, as though he was deep in thought; he would close his eyes whenever a woman came his way. Sometimes I saw his sons, quite young at that time, with very long payes77 reaching their shoulders, and wearing the large-brimmed felt hats and garments the grown-up pious Jews used to wear. Like their father, they wore short pants, reaching their knees, and long white socks and slippers, just as can be seen in old paintings of the gentry in the seventeenth century. There was not too much contact between the Chassidic rebbe and the other representatives of Jewish religious life, such as the rabbi or officials of the Kultus-Gemeinde. The Chassidic rebbe received no help from the Jewish community; he was completely independent financially, being supported by his followers. At times, friction would develop between these two camps, especially when the Chassidic rebbe didn’t think too highly of the official rabbi, or when both parties became involved in government politics, particularly during elections. The Austrian, later Polish, political parties knew how influential the Chas­ sidic rebbes were and tried to get their approval and cooperation in electing their candidates to the Austrian Parliament or the Polish Sejm. And so it happened that the Chassidic rebbe sometimes supported a different political party than the official rabbi or the Kultus-Gemeinde. This led to animosities and even fights. In later years, when the Zionist movement became strong, these differences were more apparent as the Zionists tried to elect their candidates to the parliamentary bodies. The Chassidic rebbes (being mostly anti-Zionists) were not always in favor of them, preferring candidates from

76

Also spelled Mitnagged, a member of a group of traditionally-minded Jews who opposed the Chassidic movement in Eastern Europe. – Ed. 77 Payes, known as sidelocks in English – strands of hair falling to the side of the face. – Ed.

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government-supported parties who made them big promises which, after elections, were seldom kept. As a small boy, I attended the services on Fridays, Saturdays, and the Holidays, with Father in the Naye Klaus. At the age of ten, as a result of an important event in my life (which will be described later in connection with my education), I attended the services in the shul by myself, while Father went to the Naye Klaus. From these services, I retained the following unforgettable impressions. I have already mentioned that the shul had the only professional chazan, who used to chant the prayers on Saturdays and Holidays. He was called Mojshele Chazan. No one knew his family name. He was a young man, with a beautiful tenor voice, though he had no musical training and could not read music. He composed his melodies and organized a boys’ choir. He was a poor fellow, supporting his large family on a very meager salary, and was very busy as he was also the official shochet in our shtetl,78 yet he still found time to surprise the balbatim with new compositions. It became customary for him to present a new Kedushah at every Pesach during the musaf services.79 I am sure that Mojshele Chazan had never heard of a fugue or cantata, but this was the form in which he presented his Kedushah – a composition of solo parts, assisted by the choir, with some soprano solos and soprano-alto duets woven in.80 In my lifetime, I have heard many cantors and choirs in many countries, all highly trained in music, singing a capella and assisted by organs. None of them impressed me as much as our small-town Mojshele Chazan. There was much purity and sweetness in his primitive music. I recall one small tune which I heard at the tender age of ten and which I have not forgotten during all these years.81 This little tune still haunts me and each Yom Kippur, when this prayer is recited, I recall it. From some people who came to the United States from our shtetl after the war, I heard that poor Mojshele Chazan died a martyr, killed by 78 Ritual slaughterer. – Ed. 79 Several prayers recited during Jewish prayer services. – Ed. 80 I said “soprano” for these were the voices of boys before their mutations. The worldfamous Viennese Children’s Choir makes good use of these wonderful boy-sopranos, especially when they sing the girls parts in one-act Mozart operas. 81 There is a very emotional prayer that is said rather solemnly on Yom Kippur, known as Unesanneh Tokeph. In the prayer, there is a passage describing how on the Day of Judgment, the people pass the High Court of Heavens like a herd of sheep passing before its shepherd in the evening. At this point of the prayer, Mojshele Chazan intoned a shepherd flute melody without words, repeated after him as a solo by a boy with a very pure soprano voice.

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the Nazis. I made a recording of his tune, and the record is enclosed with my memoirs. There is another man from the shul whom I remember vividly. His name was Nuchem Zajgemacher. This was not his real family name, but he was so-called after his profession – a watchmaker. He was a very learned and pious individual, a bal tefilah on Yom Kippur;82 very dignified, with a long gray beard and fine features. He had a very powerful voice, and his rendition of those difficult prayers evoked much emotion from the worshippers. In private life, Nuchem Zajgemacher was a very poor man. Many times, I visited him at his small workshop, where he also lived with his family, surrounded by clocks, constantly making their tic-toc sounds, beating the hour at different times, with different tunes. He always had a pleasant smile, and his blue eyes would shine when talking with people. However, he was also a sad man, for his only daughter was mentally ill and ran around in the fields of the nearby villages. I mention Nuchem der Zajgemacher because he lived by the best of old Jewish traditions, working with his hands for livelihood, and devoting his life to study.83 Some strange characters used to appear in the synagogues – in the Alter and Naye Klaus and the Bes-Medresh. From time to time, a man would walk in, a stranger, unknown to everyone. He would have no belongings, only a bag for his tallis and tefillin. He would put on the tallis and tefillin and stay in the synagogue for days, sometimes weeks (except Saturdays), constantly saying some prayers or psalms. He would live there, sleeping on a bench, fasting nearly the entire day. In the evening, someone who took pity on him would bring food. Such men were the so-called bal-teshuvas, doing self-imposed repentance for real or imaginary sin. Normally they spoke to no one, and no one asked questions, respecting the man’s inner struggle. After some time, they would disappear as mysteriously as they had come, wandering to another place where again, they would stay for a while. Now I shall single out a few customs, which I vividly remember from my youth, as they left such a strong impression on me. One custom was a rather gay one – Aufrufen.84 This was a prelude to a wedding that concerned the bridegroom. On the Sabbath preceding the wedding, the young man, accompanied by the menfolk of his family and his friends, was led to the Synagogue for the morning service. He was picked up at his home and the whole party proceeded in a sort of procession through the main street. Ladies proceeded separately. He was seated in the synagogue in a place of honor. The bridegroom 82 83 84

Leading the prayer in the synagogue on special occassions. – Ed. See: Ethics of the Fathers, Chapter II, verse 2. From the expression “Aufrufen” from the German “to call upon”.

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was called to the Torah at the center of the synagogue, at the bimah,85 where the scrolls are placed and read from. Then, having been called to the Torah, the women, who were sitting high up in the balcony, started throwing almonds, walnuts, and raisins at him. These had been distributed for this particular purpose by the women of the young bridegroom’s family. We children had quite a feast, collecting the delicacies from the floor and consuming them. After the completion of the services, friends of the bridegroom’s family were invited to his home for a kiddush.86 Two other incidents which I wish to describe are rather morbid. Quite frequently in the middle of the prayers (it could be morning or evening; weekday or a Saturday), a group of women would come to the synagogue, weeping loudly, their heads covered with black shawls or kerchiefs. They would go straight to the Ark, open its doors, crying louder and louder (to the point of hysteria), and begging the Almighty in plain language, in their own words, for help. The service would immediately be interrupted, a hush would come over those people gathered for prayers. Nobody interfered, nobody tried to stop them. This highly respected custom was called Anreissen.87 After a few moments the women, sobbing, would leave in the same way as they had come. And from the street, their wailing could still be heard. The custom was practiced in a case where the doctor had given up all hope for a sick person, when prayers only could help, and the women decided to make their final plea before God himself. There was another custom that I witnessed several times. Legal differences between Jews, as a result of some business transaction or for other reasons, were seldom referred to the civil courts. Such differences were usually settled before the rabbinical court, called beth din, consisting of the rabbi as presiding judge and two Talmudic experts, the dayanim. When a Jew had any demand or reason for the redress of another Jew, he simply went to the rabbinic court and asked that the other party be summoned so that he could present his case. As a rule, any religious Jew respected the summons and appeared before the court. However, it sometimes happened that the prospective defendant would ignore the summons of the rabbinic court and would not appear. Having no disciplinary power, the rabbinic court could do nothing about it. So the man deprived of the opportunity of presenting his case would come to the synagogue where the defendant was participating in the prayers and would bang on the table 85 A pulpit or a platform in the center of a synagogue. It symbolizes the altar of ancient times. 86 A blessing recited over wine to sanctify the Jewish holidays. – Ed. 87 From the German “Einreißen,” to tear apart, as if they would tear apart the Ark with their laments.

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and loudly announce that no prayers could be said as long as there was among the worshippers a man who had not accepted the summons of the rabbinic court. This Jew had the right to stop services until he had extracted from the leaders a promise that his grievances would be heard. This was quite a radical step. If the man summoned before the court still refused to appear, he was ostracized by the community, and nobody could afford that.88 Certain superstitions had become part of our daily life. Naturally, there was the belief in the evil eye. Frequently I found myself being cured of a severe headache or vomiting, when burning hot charcoal was put in front of me, water was poured over it, and a spruech (a saying) was pronounced in Yiddish. It was commonly believed that somebody who didn’t wish me well had given me a nehorah (from Hebrew ayn horah), the evil eye. Then there was the superstition that in case of serious illness the best remedy was to put a sign on the front door saying in Yiddish that the sick person (using their full name) was not at home. This was supposed to mislead the angel of death (Malech Hamoves). Sometimes even the first name of the sick person was changed to confuse the angel of death. One superstition which frightened me to no end was the belief that at midnight, restless souls from recently departed people gathered for prayers at the shul. According to this belief, whoever passed by at midnight was in danger that they might be called by those poor souls to the Torah, and who would dare disregard this summons. We were further led to believe that the people, who by ignorance came close to the shul at midnight and followed the summons, didn’t survive the ghastly ceremonies and were found dead there the next morning. Of course, I never came even close to the shul, even in the early evening hours, much less at midnight. The relationship between the Catholic religion, the official State religion, and the Jewish religion was not too good. There were no interfaith groups or meetings. Rather, there were two hostile camps. The Polish Catholic clergy, particularly in small towns and villages, were not tolerant and used all means possible to keep up the hatred against the Jews, who had “crucified Christ.” There was no official contact whatsoever between the two religions, with rare exceptions. One of these infrequent occasions was an official visit by a bishop (archbishops never came to such a small place) to the church in our shtetl. An elaborate reception was given at this important event and the Jews played a rather 88 This radical step was also sometimes taken when one of the parties didn’t abide by or respect the verdict handed down by the rabbinical court.

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strange part in it. A triumph arch, or gate, decorated with flowers and garlands, was erected at the outskirts of town along the road where the bishop would arrive with his entourage. All the clergy, city officials, dignitaries, and representatives of the government, in their official uniforms, waited at this gate. On one side of the reception line, stood official representatives of the Jewish community, dressed in their festive garments, along with the rabbi (wearing his kolpik89 on his head), holding the Torah scroll. When the bishop arrived, he greeted all the waiting clergymen and officials. This done, he would turn to the Jewish delegation, make a sign of recognition with his head and pronounce a Latin formula, “Aprobamur sed non consentimur,” which meant, “We approve but do not accept.” With this rather humiliating ceremony for the Jews, the delegation was dismissed. Then the bishop left for his prepared quarters in the town, followed by the dignitaries in their carriages, while the Jewish delegation walked back to the synagogue to deposit the Torah scroll in the Ark. Some other encounters between the two religions caused ill feelings and resentments. One such occasion was when a Catholic priest came to the home where a Gentile (all Gentiles in our shtetl were Catholics) lay dying, to administer the last rites. He carried the holy sacraments and an altar boy would walk in front of him with a lantern, even in daytime, in one hand and a bell in the other. Every time any person passed, the boy rang the bell and it was expected that the encountered person would kneel on the sidewalk or even in the middle of the street. Of course, all the Gentiles did this, but not the Jews, and this caused hostile feelings. Another occasion was for the funerals, which were conducted in the form of processions with the priest (sometimes more than one, depending on the wealth or social status of the deceased), and a man carrying a crucifix in front. Once again, all Gentiles would kneel, but the Jews didn’t, and to avoid an encounter with the funeral cortege, Jews usually headed for the next door or gate. A few very progressive Jews in our shtetl would compromise by taking off their hats when the hearse passed by, thus honoring the dead person. Despite the fact that the Gentile and Jewish communities, for generations, were born, lived, and died here, in the same place; they never attempted to get to know and understand each other. They lived as strangers and as a result, over time, they became enemies.

89

Chassidic fur hat that come in different styles. – Ed.

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The Holidays and the Impressions They Left on Me in My Youth

I would like to describe our Holidays, what they meant to us, and how we experienced them. Holidays were big events in our lives. We had no entertainment, recreation, or vacations whatsoever – there was little difference between one day or another, with the exception of the Sabbath. So, the Holidays became the highlights of our lives. Bringing with their festivity and customs, better meals, occasionally new outfits for the entire family, a different mood, color, and even joy to the routine of our days. Let me start with a description of the festival of Chanukah as I so fondly remember it from my youth.90 It was a December night and Chanukah was approaching. Customarily, winters were very heavy, and it was quite cold at Chanukah time. All the dirt and mud so apparent in the streets at other times of the year was covered with beautifully glimmering and glittering snow. Towards evening, it became frosty and the snow crunched under our feet. The atmosphere was clear; the sky was covered with diamond-like stars. Occasionally someone would rush from one small house to another, disturbing the stillness of the small, quiet town. Gathered in their homes, people enjoyed the cozy warmth radiating from the stoves, and the lights of the Chanukah candles. We children especially enjoyed the eight nights of Chanukah, for during that time, we attended the cheder only in the morning. Also, we were busy preparing the dreydel from led,91 and looking forward to the Chanukah gelt which we always received.92 It was only pennies, but it was the only money we ever received during the entire year. With high expectations, we awaited the evening when, after dinner, the grownups sat down to play cards, while we children played the dreydel gambling with our Chanukah gelt. The story of the Maccabeus uprising was well known to us.93 Chanukah also meant to us children a culinary feast. The goose fat, so essential for the Pesach Holidays, had already been prepared, so we had goose meat every night, with hot borscht and hot potatoes. Those meals 90

Chanukah, also spelled Hanukkah, usually celebrated for eight days in December, it commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem by lighting candles of a candelabrum called menorah (hanukkiah) on each day of the festival. – Ed. 91 Dreydel is a four-sided spinning top with a single Hebrew letter on each side, used for the traditional Jewish game during the Hanukkah holiday. – Ed. 92 Gelt is Yiddish for “money,” which is often distributed to children during the festival of Chanukah. – Ed. 93 A few years later, when the Zionist movement reached our shtetl, amateur evenings were organized commemorating the Maccabean uprising with speeches and poetry recitals, with the allusion that the Zionist movement could bring about a similar miracle and help to rebuild a new Palestine. The name Theodor Herzl was at that time synonymous with this messianic hope.

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were simply delicious. Today, with all the television entertainment and plentiful food, no evening could compare to our Chanukah nights where – in our simply-furnished home, warmed by our primitive stoves, and lighted by kerosene lamps and Chanukah candles – we enjoyed our family life. Sometimes neighbors or relatives would drop in and this would make the evening even more enjoyable. For a few hours, everyone was gay and carefree, forgetting tomorrow’s problems. The next Holiday, following Chanukah, was Purim. Actually, Purim was not considered a Holiday but was still a day that brought brightness and gaiety into our lives. Preparations for Purim were many. There were no bakeries where sweets, cakes, and cookies could be bought so Mother used to bake them herself many days in advance. Only for one day, a woman came in to bake specialties such as torten. This woman was engaged year-round by families for different festive occasions such as weddings, engagement parties, circumcisions, and so on. We children would stick around because we were allowed to have the remnants from different creams leftover in the pots and pans, and to eat the cookies which were a bit burned and not good enough to be kept for Purim. All the Purim goodies were carefully put away, otherwise they would have disappeared before the day arrived. When the Purim morning at last arrived, we were excited and full of expectations. Each child received from Mother a plate containing portions of every variety of food. There was the traditional hamantaschen,94 which Mother made from prunes (which she had prepared and preserved during the summer) and with a dough with very special flavor, as well as many other things. Then came the errands associated with shalach-mones. This was the fine old custom of exchanging gifts with friends and relatives on this day. These gifts consisted primarily of food, especially baked for Purim, to which exotic fruits, like oranges, were sometimes added. It was the assignment of the children to deliver the plates, nicely covered with clean, white napkins. The children of other families did the same. So, the morning was spent coming and going with these plates, each prepared by Mother and Father, because the contents of each plate reflected the esteem and social standing of the particular beneficiary. Consequently, the arranging of every plate required careful consideration by our parents. Since we, in turn, received as many plates as were given away (with the exception of some taken to poor people), the stock of prepared delicacies wasn’t diminished – only replaced to a degree with the products of the culinary art of other families. But I liked my mother’s baking the best. 94

A triangular pastry with a filling (e.g. of prunes or poppy seeds) traditionally eaten during the Purim festival. – Ed.

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Special plates were sent to the rabbi, dayan, and chazan, with money added to each plate. On occasion, Father singled me out to take the plate to the rabbi. I recall one Purim, when I was six years old, and was very ill with typhoid. It was quite a dangerous disease at that time because of the very high temperature connected with it. Of course, no sulfa drugs or antibiotics were known, and the curing method was very primitive. It was necessary to strengthen the heart with different stimulants, and to keep the stomach empty. In other words, a sort of cure by hunger. This didn’t bother me because I had no appetite. I can still remember the nightmares and hallucinations caused by the high fever. So, on this Purim morning, I received my shalach-mones along with the rest of us, but of course I couldn’t eat it. For many days after Purim, I would ask Mother to bring me my plate so that I could look at it. Finally, I asked her to divide it among the other children. The activities on Purim morning were just the beginning of more activities to come. In the evening, a big seudah95 took place at home, with a special seudah-kolats (from kołacz in Polish96) baked for the occasion – a huge, sweet challah with raisins, flavored with saffron, a spice which gave the dough a yellowish color and a very pleasant taste. As always, Father was sitting at the head of the table, with a pile of coins at one side and some small banknotes at the other. The doors to our dining room (which was also our living room and partly bedroom) were wide-open. And now a procession of people started to come in. Some were poor, coming for alms for the entire year. Some were honorable citizens (balbatim) or young men from known families who collected money for various institutions or for someone in need who wished to remain unknown. The klezmers (the small band, described elsewhere in connection with a wedding) came in and played some tunes. Boys and girls, the children of relatives and friends, came in masqueraded and kept us guessing. They did not come for money – just for fun. On occasion, we children also masqueraded, putting on clothes of the opposite sex, and also going to visit neighbors and relatives. A favored ditty sung by visitors was: “Heint is Purim, morgen is oys, gib mir a groschen un varf mir aroys.” (“Today is Purim, tomorrow it will be over, give me a penny, and throw me out.”) The hours passed quickly in fun and good humor and everyone, young and old, participated. This gaiety and merrymaking which in the beginning was restricted to our homes, extended in later hours to the main street, and for a 95 A feast or banquet. – Ed. 96 Kołacz is ceremonial bread in Poland, accompanying various rituals (especially weddings). The name kołacz from “koło” – circle – comes from the circular shape of the bread. – Ed.

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few hours only laughter and singing could be heard. And so, an historical or legendary event which took place so many thousand years ago in an exotic land, Persia, gave cause to a day full of joy and happiness. I could hardly dream at that time, even during my feverish nights of so frequent illness, that some forty years later, I should actually spend a Purim festival in the capital of this exotic land, Persia, where the Holiday originated. Life is sometimes more fantastic than our most daring imagination. Pesach was exactly four weeks from Purim, but in our times, preparations for the glorious Holiday commenced much earlier. I have already mentioned that important ingredients, such as fat, were prepared during the Chanukah days for Pesach. Now was the time to think of the matzoth.97 Matzoth couldn’t be bought;98 they had to be baked individually by each family. This was how it was done. One bakery closed shop a few days after Purim. This was the bakery which throughout the year made bread and rolls, and to which families would send their own challahs for baking and tsholent to be kept simmering and warm until Saturday noontime.99 Then, the entire baking oven was koshered under the supervision of the dayan. This done, the baker was ready for the baking of matzoth. The head of each family would contract with him the day and hour for baking a certain fixed amount of Pesach-flour. This flour had to be bought separately from a reliable, pious, flour dealer. For some reason, it was important to bake the matzoth in the so-called “first oven.” Matzoth baked this way were considered more kosher. This was a privilege not extended to all families and one considered rather an honor. To have one’s matzoth baked in the “first oven” was a sign of higher social standing in the community. Baking matzoth was a very important matter, concerning the entire family. I remember how everyone, including us children had to get up very early – it was still dark outside – and go to the bakery. We entered a large room where some twenty helfers (helpers) were ready for us. They stood along big tables and the production was very well organized, I would even say streamlined. These helpers were men and women who were rather poor (or better said, poorer than the others) and had a chance during the matzoth baking season to earn some 97 Matzoth plural form of Matzo that is unleavened bread eaten at Passover (Pesach in Hebrew), especially at the seder – the ritual meal held on the first and second evenings of Passover. The tradition stems from the story of the Israelites’ escape from Egypt. During the escape, they could not wait for their bread dough to rise; the bread they baked was flat. – Ed. 98 As they can now, even at the last moment from numerous factories, under different brand names. 99 Also spelled cholent, a Jewish Sabbath-day slow-baked dish. – Ed.

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money for the Holidays. Some made the dough, some kneaded it, and some cut it into small pieces, while others rolled it with a wooden roller into discs. Still others went over the discs with a small steel needle-pointed wheel, making the tiny holes in the matzoth. Finally came the strong man, who put the matzoth on a long flat piece of wood, directly into the brick oven, which was kept hot by burning red-hot wooden coal. This man, the only professional in the group of helpers, also knew when the matzoth were ready to be taken out of the oven and piled them up on a fresh linen sheet, brought from home by the family. Our parents stood watching the production of our matzoth, watching until the last pound of flour had been used up. We children were waiting for that crucial moment when, from the dough leftovers, the baker made small matzoth, rather thick – for this was our reward for getting up so early and participating in this important mitzvah100 of baking the matzoth. Now came the moment when Father paid the baker whatever fee had been previously agreed upon, and the helpers also received their wages. They thanked us, wishing for us that we eat the matzoth in good health and that we meet again in the coming year in mazel and broche (with good fortune and blessings). This done, a treyger (from the German Traeger101), who was on the production line, took the linen sheet, full of matzoth, made it into a bundle, threw it over his shoulders, and the family procession started its way home. Then the matzoth was stored in a place which had already been cleaned for Pesach, out of the reach of us children, until it was time to use them. I remember another important feature in connection with preparations for Pesach Holidays. This was the time when we children got our new outfits for the coming year. Since there were no stores for readymade shoes, dresses, or suits, these had to be made to order by the local shoemaker, tailor, or dressmaker. And it was a very complicated, drawn-out affair. Many weeks in advance, these Jewish artisans were asked to come to the house, and prices were bargained and argued – a simple matter with the shoemaker, but not so simple with the tailor because the quality and color of material had to be discussed, whether the suits would be made from his material or from some bought by our parents. Then discussions of style, and finally, the price. Eventually the shoes, suits, and dresses were ordered, and measurements taken. Later, all of us had to go to the workshops for fittings (these workshops were also living quarters – one room, with a stove for cooking and heating). The final fitting took place in our home under the critical eyes of our parents. Since all the families in our shtetl had 100 A mitzvah is a commandment of the Jewish law, and can also mean a meritorious act (good deed). – Ed. 101 Träger – porter, carrier. – Ed.

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the same idea and ordered everything for the same deadline, it frequently happened that our outfits were delivered very shortly before the seder.102 You can imagine the excitement and tension in such cases. The new outfits were worn with great pride and feeling of festivity on our way to the synagogue. Our parents also wore new garments. Mother had ordered an up-to-date, modern dress from the nearby larger city (Przemyśl or Lwów). She always looked beautiful in her new dresses and used to be admired by the other ladies of our shtetl (I wrote about this previously). If our shoes squeaked while walking to the synagogue, it filled us children with pride, for then everyone could see and even hear that they were new. Often, in spite of many fittings, the shoes were tight, but we would suffer the discomfort rather than admit it to our parents. The week before Pesach was quite busy. Our home was thoroughly cleaned. One room after another was made ready for Pesach and couldn’t be entered, until finally we could gather and eat only in the kitchen. The last night before the seder, the ceremony of bodek chometz (the search for chometz) was performed.103 Mother went around with a lit candle, followed by Father, who held in his hand a wooden spoon and a goose feather. Mother pointed out some crumbs of bread which she had specially placed, and Father collected them in the big wooden spoon. Finally, the spoon, the feather, and the chometz were wrapped in a piece of white linen and the package was wound around with white thread. Next morning, this was burned together with the chometz of the entire community. During this last evening, the kitchen was koshered, particularly the iron stove and the iron kitchen plates, by heating the plates until they became red hot. In addition, glowing charcoal was put on the iron plates for good measure. This cleaning and cleansing by fire eliminated completely even the slightest trace of chometz in the kitchen. Next day, the day of the seder, was full of excitement for us children. We had to get up early (these were always beautiful spring mornings), and we had to pray early, since breakfast had to be eaten no later than nine o’clock. As the kitchen was prepared for Pesach, we would eat outside, sitting on the steps of the back porch. Then a special fire was started in the yard, and water was heated to boiling point in a special kettle. The

102 The Passover service at home. Israel’s historic liberation from Egyptian bondage is reenacted annually through a festive service in the home on the first two nights of the Passover festival. 103 Also spelled bedikat hametz is the Jewish ceremony of searching for leaven in the home on the evening before Passover. – Ed.

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silverware was suspended in that kettle of boiling water to make it permissible for use during Pesach Holidays. The pots and pans used for Pesach were kept in the attic, reached only by a wooden ladder. To get these down was the task of us children. Also, we had to stack away the kitchen utensils which were used all year long. Mother, with the help of Hania, took an entire day to clean the Pesach dishes from the year’s accumulated dust and dirt. Some of the pots were made from clay (fired in a primitive kiln) and it took several treatments with boiling water to get all the dust and smell of humidity out of them. With all these goings-on, plus the fact that no matzoth could be eaten before the seder, we went around hungry. However, Mother always managed to cook some Borsht and potatoes late in the afternoon. The climax of the day was, of course, the seder. Pesach was considered by all as a family holiday and, in later years when we left our home and lived in faraway places, we did everything to be reunited and to spend at least the first two days at home. Everything about the day was exciting for us children: the different pattern of our china, our own small, glass, wine cups in different colors and forms, the different melodies and ceremonies characteristic of the day, which Father conducted according to old family tradition, been passed down through generations. Last but not least, the delicious dishes, prepared by Mother with so much love and taste. I recall that in later years my oldest sister, Lusia, used to come home with her little daughter Gisa, and Mother would write special poems for her in German, the theme being the seder and its stories. Gisa would memorize them a day before with the help of her governess, who was not Jewish, and would recite them at the beginning of the seder with much gusto, to everybody’s delight. At the first seder, I was very happy, knowing that another was coming the next day, but after the second, I was sad, since there was nothing more to look forward to. Of course, we would go to the synagogue to pray, but somehow those services didn’t seem so important after the holidays. There was one quite important event on the first Pesach morning, when our Mojshele Chazan considered it his professional pride and duty to present to the balbatim a new kedushah, composed by himself and presented with the assistance of the the boys’ choir, which I have already mentioned. This was always a big event as the new composition was presented at mussaf time in the so-called Shul. Many balbatim from other synagogues came specially to listen to the new musical work. And for the following days, the new composition was the topic of comments and criticism, just like a new concerto by a known composer in our present times. This new kedushah was frequently accepted by the other synagogues in our shtetl and sometimes even found its way to other cities. I never liked

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the last day of Pesach. All the colorful china had to be taken back to the attic; the usual chometz pots and pans were brought to the kitchen, and with this, the festive mood disappeared and the drab workday came back, with its problems, sorrows, and so little joy. Pesach brought the spring, which was beautiful in our part of the country. At this time, we were given the privilege of entering the big orchard in the neighborhood and of gathering some wild field flowers. I was so happy whenever I could find violets hidden in the grass. They smelled so beautiful; and the colors were fine and delicate. When I brought them home, everyone admired them. This was actually my only contact with nature. There was nothing else to delight my eyes or to inspire and bolster my imagination. No rides into the country; no hiking in the woods; no climbing hills or mountains. There were no parks where children could laugh, play, and have fun. Only a few patches of grass, a shining hot sun, and lots of dust everywhere, stirred up into clouds by the passing horse carriages. Sports were considered unworthy of a Jewish boy, who should concern himself only with learning. A bicycle was something unheard of in those days. I don’t think that I even saw one until I was eleven or twelve years old. Summer vacations from school were spent at home – there was no vacation from cheder or, later, from private Hebrew tutoring. We had no camps. We traveled nowhere. My free time was spent in studying the subjects for the next year of school or repeating some from the last year to not forget them. I did help my father in his business, running errands in town, and helping unload the freight cars filled with fertilizer at the railroad station. This was during my childhood years, from six to ten. Since  I started to describe the Holidays and the way we celebrated them at that time, I can hardly omit the High Holidays – Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Preparation for the High Holidays was a very serious matter. These Holidays used to come in the chilly, rainy days of the Polish fall. Seven days before Rosh Hashanah was slichoth104 time. The shames105 of the synagogue used to walk around in the early morning hours, when the stars were still out. He would knock with a wooden hammer on everyone’s front door, calling Yidden, shtejt ouf zu slichoth.”106 We would dress hurriedly and go out into the cold early morning to the synagogue, where prayers of repentance were recited before the usual morning prayers. Everyone was in a serious mood during these 104 Also spelled Selichot are special prayers for forgiveness, recited on fast days and in the period leading up to Yom Kippur. – Ed. 105 Also spelled shamash or called gabbai is an official of the Jewish community who acts as an administrator of the synagogue. – Ed. 106 From German “steht auf” (get up).

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days – even the children. What could be more serious than the approaching day of judgment when even (as we were told) “every fish in the water is trembling” awaiting his day in the highest of courts. So, the days passed in prayers, and more prayers. The highlight of those days was, of course, the blowing of the shofar before the mussaf services on both days. This was done by a very pious man, while all worshippers covered their faces and heads with the heavy tallesim, rocking and shaking in ecstasy until I, as a child, was afraid the whole synagogue would tumble down on our heads. Since early boyhood, I remember Yom Kippur as the most solemn occasion. The day started at noontime before the Kol Nidre night, when everybody was in a hurry and was always already “zu speyt” (too late), no matter how early we started. We would go early with Father to the mincha services; I remember one part of the services which I have never seen elsewhere. It was the “malkes shlogen,” meaning “beating with a cat-o’-nine-tails.” Every bal bais, before leaving the synagogue after mincha, would fall down on his knees, his head touching the floor, and the shames, who stood at the door, would lash out – not too heavily – a few strokes with a small whip while the kneeling man would beat his chest with his fist, saying a few verses from El-Chajt (confession of the sins, normally recited several times during Yom Kippur services). It always made me sad to watch my father humbling himself this way before the others. This was certainly a very strong expression of repentance. Before leaving the synagogue, everyone would leave some money for different charitable causes in plates placed on a table for that purpose. After the last meal was eaten in a silent and somber atmosphere, we would kiss one another, beg for forgiveness, and extend mutual good wishes. We would also go next door where our uncle, aunt, and cousins lived, and do the same. As our relationship during the previous year was never too good, this was a rather difficult task. My parents would ask them for forgiveness of all the wrongdoings and they, in turn, did the same. When our grandmother, Bubeh Gitele was alive, we would finally go to her. She cried every day while saying her prayers, so she had few tears left for this occasion. I can still remember her blue dimmed eyes and her soft wrinkled skin, when I kissed her hands. After these emotional hours, we would all go to the synagogue, approaching friends and enemies alike with this same spirit of forgiveness, until that solemn moment when the old and venerated prayer and chant of Kol Nidre was sounded. The layman who led in the Kol Nidre was chosen because of his piety and Talmudic scholarship as well as the chazzanic abilities required for this solemn occasion. Regarding the Sukkoth Holidays, which followed in due course, there is nothing extraordinary to report with the exception of our sukkah itself. One of our forebears had the ingenious idea of building our closed-in porch in such a

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way that the normal roof could be lifted from the inside, and so we practically had a sukkah in our own house. Of course, it needed some adjustment, such as covering the open space above with branches, and the usual decorations inside. But in this way, we were spared many inconveniences during chilly nights when food had to be brought to the sukkah, normally built outside in the backyard. I also remember from those Sukkoth Holidays the fact that we could stroll again into the nearby orchard as all the fruit had been gathered and sold and no damage could be done to the property of the Catholic canon, our neighbor.

Father’s Struggle for Our Sustenance

When  I turned eight, Father was faced with the loss of the source of sustenance for our family. As you will remember, our meager income came from two sources. One, the flour mill which my father rented; the other, the wholesale of fertilizers. Now, the following happened to the flour mill. It belonged to a big landowner nearby and he rented it every three years to the highest bidder. Father kept the mill, as the highest bidder, for nearly ten years. Business was not too good and so the rental conditions remained more or less unchanged through the years. It was a sort of gentleman’s agreement among the citizens of our shtetl not to take away someone’s livelihood by overbidding. Of course, there was enough competition in every trade, but this was considered normal. To take away a family’s source of income was, according to our code of ethics, unfair, and even immoral. It so happened that a Jew from a nearby village (called a dorfsyid107) did just this. These dorfsyiden, about whom much literature was written, were rather coarse and crude, very primitive, with very little education, and possessing no understanding of the customs and manners of the city Jews. This particular individual had already had many dealings with the same landowner, renting a farm and an inn from him, and making money. Now he wanted to move to our shtetl, so he grabbed the opportunity presented when my father’s lease had expired and was up for renewal. He offered a higher rent for the mill, which was accepted by the landowner, and thus my father lost the mill. When this news reached us, it was a very sad day indeed. True, the flour business was not too good, but there was nothing else and somehow we had managed to live off it.

107 Dorfsyid – i.e. a Jew in the village, in literature, this term is used to describe a Jew living almost entirely among non-Jews in the East European countryside. – Ed.

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Since Father was very enterprising and optimistic by nature, he didn’t despair for long. Looking around, he found that another landowner had a brickkiln, with an adjoining clay bank for rent. Father rented both the kiln and the clay bank; and in a short while, he had switched from milling flour to manufacturing bricks. Manufacturer is a rather euphemistic expression, as it was not a factory in the true sense. At that time, bricks were produced in the following way. The clay was manually dug out from the clay banks and brought in by wheelbarrow. It was then mixed with water, and by shoveling it over and over, then by stomping on it barefoot, it turned into a smooth, mud-like heavy paste. This clay mixture was put into wooden forms, which held two bricks each. Then, the bricks were sprinkled with dry sand and placed on an open level field to dry. All this was done by a team of three workers, not professional laborers but peasants who lived nearby and had to look for additional work since their land wasn’t large enough to produce enough food for their sustenance. On a good day, this team could produce 2000 to 2500 bricks. One such table (stół in Polish) was of course not sufficient, so Father organized several such teams, depending on the demand for bricks. Some years people were building more; at other times, very little. The brick factory was situated some two miles from our home; in order to help out, I had to walk there quite frequently. I became friendly with the workers and admired their coordination in their teamwork. Of course, just making the bricks this way was not the end of production. There was more to it. After a few days in the field, the bricks had to be removed and piled up, to give them a chance to dry out further. They were then brought by wheelbarrow to the kiln. This kiln was nothing more than a pile of raw bricks, stacked in a way to allow ventilation between the rows. Logs of wood were placed in these airshafts. This done, the pile of bricks was covered with clay and straw, and the pile set afire. The kiln burned for several days; with additional wood being added to keep the heat going. After the kiln had cooled down, it was dismantled by removing the outer layer of clay and taking out the bricks, layer by layer. Such a primitive way of manufacturing bricks had, of course, many hazards. If a heavy rain came up while the bricks were laid out in the open field, the entire production could be destroyed. This could also happen after they had been piled up for additional drying, even though there was some protection over them – in the form of small, moveable, wooden rooftops. In both these cases, in addition to the loss of labor, additional expense was involved since the damaged bricks had to be removed and the fields cleaned and leveled again. An even greater hazard was the kiln itself. Since there was no control of the fire, nor the temperature inside the kiln, the quality of the fired brick was a matter of luck and accident. Sometimes the bricks came out

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even in shape and in color; on other occasions some layers were overfired, thus losing their shape. In other cases again, the layers were hardly touched by the fire and were therefore without strength and of a yellowish red color. Needless to say, such a batch could hardly be sold, so was a complete loss. The entire production was a seasonal one, starting early in the spring and lasting until fall. There was no production in winter. Father was very busy with running the production and selling the end products, and I helped him in every way that I could. I remember negotiations with the workers early in spring, when they would come to us to negotiate the rates per 1000 bricks (including the various phases of production), and to decide on the number of teams and who would work with whom. Sometimes fathers brought in their sons, who were growing up and becoming strong enough for this work. Of course, fathers took their sons as teammates. Our attitude toward these workers was a patriarchal one. We took personal interest in the men and in their families. Sundays around noon, after the workers had attended church, was pay time. They would come to our home, where Father had the money and the account of their production during the past week ready for them. Father had a very good understanding of technical problems and liked manufacturing, he wasn’t satisfied with this primitive method of brickmaking. Traveling from time to time to the larger cities in our vicinity such as Przemyśl or Lwów, he found a more modern way of brick production, namely the use of the round kiln, divided into smaller chambers where fire and temperature could be controlled and directed. The kiln was constantly fired and because of the control, it could be stopped at will so that some chambers, after cooling down, could be emptied of the fired bricks and refilled with raw bricks. It was a continuous operation (the Germans called it a Ringofen). It was no longer necessary to build and dismantle a kiln each time, with such uncertain results. This new method allowed firing of bricks constantly, without interruption, summer and winter. Only a certain grade of coal was used for firing and the results were a larger production, more uniform quality, and greater economy. However, to embark on such a new method of production required a lot of money – a special completely new kiln had to be built and a very high smokestack (from fired bricks) needed to be erected to insure a permanent draft inside of the kiln. This could only be done by an outside construction company, specialized in this process. The huge smokestack had to be built by a special engineering company in Vienna, which sent out highly skilled bricklayers and specially prepared bricks for this job. Father had no money for the project, so he had to look for partners in this new venture. He found a father and son, with the name Reches. The father was a money lender, who financed one of the big landowners, and the son was a grain merchant. The name of the

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factory was “Landau and Reches.” Having the technical knowledge and being very good at reading blueprints, Father supervised the new construction. It was more than a year before the new kiln was ready for operation. I spent all my free hours there, sometimes running errands, and was fascinated by the smokestack specialists (steeplejacks), who started on the ground and worked themselves up from the inside to a height of 300 feet (91 metres), piling one layer on top of the other, in circles. I was very proud of my father, for he was the first in our community to erect a real modern factory, and the symbol of his work, the smokestack, could be seen miles away. It was the first industrial stack in our little town and became a landmark. Upon completion of the structure, Father and his partners held a party for the workers, and everyone drank to the good future and success of the enterprise. Father’s energetic drive didn’t let down, and in a very short while, brick production began. The bricks came out in good quality and – what was most important – a uniform red color. The business prospect was very promising, for there were no bricks of such good quality on the local market. Unfortunately, Father was not able to enjoy the fruits of his hard labor for very long. The Poles couldn’t stand the idea of a Jew pioneering the foundation of a factory, which could be beneficial for everybody concerned. Here was employment for many people, a better product was being manufactured for the same price, and families could make a decent living. So, the Polish mayor – there was always a Polish mayor, despite the fact that the majority of the population in our town was Jewish – decided that the township itself should build another kiln, exactly the same as my father’s. It was done, using the taxpayers’ money, with only one purpose – to harm the Jewish enterprise and initiative. Magistrat Miejski built a brickkiln, profiting from Father’s pioneering work, copying everything Father had done. Money was no problem since they used the city taxes for it and, in addition, were able to get very cheap loans, on easy terms, from the State Bank, something which Father couldn’t obtain. In the rough competition which started, Father was the loser. Many prospective brick buyers were compelled to buy from the municipal factory, so that the mayor would overlook certain building regulations. In addition, the antisemitic argument was used, especially among the peasants, and in all instances where churches were built. Father had to think of something new. He got the idea of manufacturing, in addition to the red bricks, roof tiles. This was a complicated production. First, a clay suitable for tile production had to be found. It had to have sufficient plasticity to stand the contraction during the firing, and not to crack or break (the normal clay contained too much sand and was too brittle). Secondly, tiles had to be even, a pleasing fire red color and not different shades of red. Father searched hard for such a clay,

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sending samples to Vienna for analysis, and finally discovered a clay bank, with deep layers of fine clay, and he leased it for exploitation for several years. Now he had to buy special mechanical presses and a diesel motor to run the machines. He also had to get new loans, since he hardly had any capital left. I was nine years old at the time and took great interest in all the plans. I remember how Father showed me a German catalogue of diesel motors and special clay presses (all special ceramic machines at that time came from Germany), and asked me for my opinion as to which motor he should choose. I couldn’t have been more proud that Father found it worthwhile to ask for my advice, and it amply rewarded me for all my interest and help. Thus, Father developed in me an interest in technical matters which was of tremendous help in my future career. After several months, the new machines arrived, were installed, and production began. Of course, it was Father who had to figure out how the tiles were to be fired so that they would come out uniform in shape and color. For me, it was like music to my ears to hear from a distance, the humming of machines and the puffing of the motor; and as I came closer to the factory, to hear the laughter of the peasant girls who worked in that section – there had been no girls in the brick production since the work was too heavy. The municipal brickkiln didn’t manufacture tiles – I guess the work was too complicated for them – and so Father had an edge on them in this competitive struggle to earn a living for his family.

Problems With My Education

There were some four or five boys and one girl of my age attending the same grade of elementary school, who were my playmates. Actually “playmates” is not the right word, for there was no time and no opportunity for play. We were just school friends. At the age of nine, it was time to decide what sort of education I should get. The normal established pattern in our shtetl was that the boys finished elementary school, so that they knew how to read and write, and then went on to study more Talmud, to be eligible for marriage at eighteen to twenty years old. If the Austrian Army interfered, this was considered a great calamity. The girls didn’t have to engage in more religious studies. They were required only to know how to read the prayers. The more refined, more ambitious girl used to read some novels or poetry in Polish or German, usually on her own; very rarely did she have a tutor. Sometimes a girl was sent away to relatives in a nearby town, to acquire Polish and good manners. At the age of eighteen, she

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was ready for marriage and became the object of consideration by professional or amateur matchmakers. Had it not been for my mother, my education would have followed the usual pattern. I have already spoken of how Mother was hungry for learning and knowledge; and how she studied by herself and became very progressive in her way of thinking. Father was rather conservative and willing to conform to the established way of life, but Mother wouldn’t agree. So, with Mother’s perseverance and insistence, Father agreed that I should try for a higher education. This meant that I had to prepare for an admission exam to the gimnazjum. This was no simple matter, as there was no gimnazjum in our town, the nearest being in larger cities such as Przemyśl or Lwów, or even further away, in a city called Sambor. The prerequisite for admission into a gimnazjum was completion of the fourth grade with good marks, and then to pass a special entrance examination. Since we had relatives in Sambor, with whom I could board, I was to try for the gimnazjum there. My parents engaged one of my regular teachers to prepare me privately for the examination. I attended the usual classes in the mornings and went to the home of the teacher for private sessions in the afternoons. Some other families in our shtetl wanted their children to go to the gimnazjum. In all, there were five boys and one girl preparing for the entrance examination. But complications arose. The balbatim, and particularly our rabbi, felt that the education of young people was not only a matter for the families concerned; they too should have just as much, or even more, say. After long and heated discussions among the members of the community, the rabbi posted a proclamation on the entrance doors of the various synagogues, condemning those families who were sending their children to study secular subjects at the gimnazjum, instead of devoting their time exclusively to religious studies. We were called the “lost sheep,” and the parents’ decision was compared, in the proclamation, to a plague which would bring the entire community to destruction. Fortunately for us, our parents didn’t give in under the public pressure, and so we proceeded with our preparations for the entrance examination. The uproar did have certain repercussions for my family and myself. At that time, Father was elected president of the Jewish community (Juedische Kultus-Gemeinde), an honorary office in the community. As a result of the rabbi’s action and because of the revolt of some fanatic balbatim, Father had to resign from this position. It was very hard for him to have to relinquish the honor and its high social standing. Something else happened to me. I returned home from Sambor, having passed the entrance examination, proudly wearing the special cap, which was part of the student’s obligatory uniform. The following Saturday, I went as

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usual to the synagogue for prayers with my father, to the naye klaus. And, at the entrance, some of the fanatics met me and threw me out. My father didn’t find out what had happened until later, as I was accustomed to going to synagogue later than he. I can still vividly recall the shock of this episode. From then on, I attended the Saturday services separately from Father, namely at the shul, where the balbatim were more liberal and didn’t object to my aspirations for a secular education. To get ahead a bit in time, it is interesting to note how future events, or we might call it fate, caused the same people to change their attitude toward me. A few years later, when I would come home for vacations and for the Holidays, and after my reputation as a pious student had reached the shtetl, those same fanatics who had expelled me from the synagogue now asked me to return. But I did not accept their invitation. I continued going to the services at the shul by myself. Another thing happened. The rabbi who had signed the proclamation against me was named Chaim Nuchem Halberstam, he was a descendant of a famous Chassidic rebbe (known as the Sandzer108), a contemporary of my great-grandfather. My family had seats in the shul, near the official seat of the rabbi – this seat was inherited property – and the rabbi, who had scarcely any secular education, became most interested in what was being taught at the gimnazjum. This rabbi had a son who had been left deaf-mute through some infantile illness and was sent to a special school in Vienna. When he left, the boy had long earlocks and the traditional garb befitting the son of a very pious rabbi. A year later, he came home for summer vacation, and no one, including his parents, recognized him. He was dressed as any other modern European boy. He could speak, though with difficulty, and wrote only in German; and privately expressed contempt for the fanatic way of life of his own rabbinic family, calling them Dummköpfe (stupid). With his own son dressed in modern fashion and showing no sign of any piety or religious tendencies, the rabbi found it difficult to maintain his previous attitude toward secular education. Having no common language with his son and being most desirous to find out what the lad was being taught, he came to me. At the services, he would talk with me so constantly that sometimes the worshippers would become annoyed and express their indignation by shouting “shah” or “nu.”109 108 Chaim Halberstam or Chaim ben Arie Lejb Halberstam, known as Divrei Chaim (1793– 1876), lived in Nowy Sącz, tzaddik, founder of the Chassidic Sandz dynasty. – Ed. 109 I lost track of him later but heard rumors that he had become a communist and had gone to Moscow, where he had a position in the Comintern as an expert on Jewish affairs.

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To get back to my education – my journey to Sambor, sixty or seventy miles away110, for the entrance examination was the first time I had ever traveled by train. It was also my first visit to Aunt Leika (diminutive from Lea), my father’s sister. The examination included both oral and written portions and upon passing it, I could then wear the special cap I mentioned previously. It had a metal emblem on the front, consisting of a big letter “G” surrounded by laurel leaves. The other four boys and the girl went to Przemyśl and Lwów; they also passed their examinations. The six of us became the first students aspiring to a higher secular education in the history of our shtetl. The vacation after passing the exam was a very exciting one. Not that I was having more fun, but I somehow felt that I was on the threshold of a new pattern of life – that I was embarking on a new adventure. Knowing that my schooling created quite a financial burden on my father, I helped him in every way I could, running as many errands as possible. Then, an unexpected change in my immediate plans took place. As I have mentioned, the six of us children were getting ready to go to our respective gimnazja upon completion of the vacation period. Then, the following happened.

Gimnazjum

I have mentioned before how my mother’s cousin, Benjamin Fraenkel, was a grain merchant and frequently travelled to Odesa (Russia), and eventually settled there. He married a widow there, who had one son from a previous marriage. But after many years, my cousin came back home with his Russian-Jewish wife and two sons. Her name was Mariem Rifke; the sons were Abram and Yoma (Yoma, an abbreviation of Jeremias). She was a giant woman, and spoke a Russian Yiddish, with many Russian expressions interpolated which always struck me as strange and funny. Yoma, the younger son, was very brilliant and was already attending the Russian gimnazjum in Odesa. Now he was sent to Lwów to continue his studies, switching from Russian to Polish. He supported himself in Lwów, tutoring students with poor marks, who required assistance. Yoma was learned, intelligent, and while still living in Odesa, had acquired a good knowledge of modern Hebrew. He made many friends in Lwów’s literary circles and, while still in gimnazjum, became a respected literary critic. He wrote book reviews for a Polish-Jewish newspaper and a Hebrew monthly magazine. Quite naturally, he became interested in the Zionist movement, which already had found many 110 It is around 40 kilometers in direct line. – Ed.

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adherents among the Jewish gimnazjum and university students. Yoma could speak three languages – Polish, Yiddish, and Hebrew, and he became a wellknown leader in the Zionist movement in Eastern Galicia. Under the economic and political conditions prevailing in 1908 in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, there was not too much that even such a brilliant young man as Yoma could do. Meanwhile, his father had died in Mościska and had left very little, and Yoma had to support his mother. At the time, the study of law didn’t require regular attendance at lectures; much could be done while staying home and studying the law textbooks alone. This he decided to do. The only thing law students had to do was register at the beginning of the term and get a signature on their matriculation book, called “Index.” Even this could be done by some colleague residing in Lwów. He would naturally appear in person to take the examinations, but otherwise could live at home. After graduating from the gimnazjum and matriculating as a law student at the University of Lwów, he settled in Mościska. Then it was decided that instead of sending the six young people away to school, Yoma would organize a private school, from which he would derive a steady income. Being a brilliant student, he was well-versed in all required subjects, so he rented a special room, ordered the necessary textbooks, and opened the first private gimnazjum in our history for the six young people. We had five hourly lessons per day, six days a week. There were no school holidays, with the exception of the Jewish holidays. Homework kept us busy until the late evening hours. There were quizzes every day on all subjects, and we had no excuse for not being prepared. We were given daily marks, which we had to show to our parents. Cousin Yoma believed in memorizing. We memorized not only poems but also entire pages of history and other subjects. He loved Latin and implanted in us a love for this ancient language. We had been registered by the gimnazja to which we were accepted as private “externists.” This meant that after the end of the school year, we had to pass a written and oral exam covering all subjects taught during the year. Yoma was very strict; he took nonsense from no one. Even the fact that the girl was very pretty was of no importance to him. He accepted no excuses for lack of preparation. I recall once claiming a headache when I was not properly prepared. This was put into my report notebook. When Father found out I had complained of a headache, he gave me a substantial portion of castor oil, for he believed every possible sickness came from the stomach. I bravely took the dose rather than having to admit that I had just not prepared the lesson. It is understandable how at the end of the school year, all six of us passed the courses with good results and were ready to begin our second grade. The arrival of Yoma began a new cultural era in our shtetl.

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Suddenly, many people became interested in secular education. We six youngsters were, of course, the first beneficiaries of his varied talents but soon other people – some openly, some secretly – became his students. Some girls, among them Lusia, my sister, were tutored by him in Polish and German literature. A young man, already known for his Talmudic scholarship as far away as in the Jewish Theological Seminary in Florence, took private evening lessons with Yoma to prepare himself for the Matura.111 This young man, Shaye Sonne, became Professor of Talmud in Florence and, in later years, taught at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. Yoma organized a Zionist group among the young people, under the name Agudath Achim. He would give lectures, as well as bringing in guest speakers from among his friends in Lwów. He lectured about Jewish history about Zionist ideology and about Yiddish and Hebrew literature. He changed the entire outlook of our shtetl. Even those who had been so opposed to education in secular matters couldn’t prevent their own sons and daughters flocking to Yoma; and in time even became members of the Zionist group which he organized. It is difficult today to realize how a young man in his twenties could exercise such a profound impact on the cultural life of an entire community. We who were in daily contact with him were greatly impressed by him and drawn to his ideology. We heard about Theodor Herzl112, founder of the Zionist movement who died in 1904 at the age of forty-four, just a few years before we began our education. How Herzl, a celebrated writer in Vienna, completely estranged from Judaism, moving in the highest literary and artistic circles, became aware of his Jewishness while witnessing the Dreyfus trial in Paris as a correspondent in Paris for the then famous Viennese newspaper, Die Neue Freie Presse. How, brooding and pondering the future of the Jews and their present conditions, he finally came to the conclusion that a Jewish state in Palestine was the only solution to the Jewish problem. From then on, Herzl devoted his entire life to this aim, publishing a book Der Jüdische Staat113 in 1896, which started the Zionist movement of which he was the first leader. Herzl visited the kings, statesmen, and governments of all European countries, as well as of Turkey (at that time ruling over Palestine), in his effort to win support and sympathy for his revolutionary idea of a Jewish state. 111 Matura – Polish school-leaving examination of the material covered by the secondary school curriculum, necessary in order to apply for admission to university. – Ed. 112 Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, political activist and writer, the founder of modern political Zionism. – Ed. 113 In 1902, he published another book Alt Neuland, dealing with the same Zionist idea in novel form.

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These are the bare facts about Theodor Herzl and the Zionist movement; all the rest is history. What we are witnessing now is the realization of his dream, which he once called “ein Märchen,” a fairy tale. Considering our way of life at that time and our mostly Polish environment, which was both hostile and antisemitic, even at the elementary school level. The Zionist movement had great appeal to us youngsters, especially since our teacher, whom we loved and respected, was the promulgator of the idea in our shtetl. And so, we attended all his lectures and actively participated in special events such as evening recitals on Chanukah. The Chanukah festival lends itself to comparison (between the old Maccabean uprising and the new spirit of a Jewish renaissance),114 with its idea of the rebirth of the Jewish nation, living in Palestine, its ancient historical homeland. On such evenings, a very emotional speech was given, usually by Yoma, followed by recitations of patriotic poetry (mostly by the then famous Hebrew poet, Bialik) and vocal or musical renderings. Since we had no entertainment whatsoever all year round, such an evening was a very big event. Everyone looked forward to it for weeks in advance, and afterwards, it was the talk of the town for months. Yoma was a very handsome young man, some six feet four inches tall, and his company was much in demand. We considered ourselves very fortunate that he liked to spend some evenings at our home, engaging in literary discussions with Mother, who was well-read in Polish and German literature. Sometimes religious discussions would take place, during which Yoma outraged those present, especially Father – for Yoma was a very good Jew in a national sense but otherwise, a non-believer and an agnostic. After we passed our first grade examination at the gimnazjum, we came home for the second vacation. Of course, we did have fun when our small group would meet from time to time. The parents of Josio Hausman, who was one of our group (he was Yoma’s cousin and also related to us) had a farm with horses and stables at the outskirts of our shtetl and we frequently went to visit him. We would roam the fields, and bathe in a pond, which was part of their farm. However, most of our time was spent preparing for the second grade, reading the new textbooks which we had bought. There was rivalry amongst us, in our scholastic pursuits, and naturally our adored beauty was always the best. She had additional help with her homework since the teacher practically lived with her family. Another year passed, a year of intensive study. And at the end of the school year, I traveled to Sambor again (where I had already passed two exams), to 114 The Maccabean Revolt was the Jewish uprising between 167 and 160 BC, directed against the Hellenistic Seleucid dynasty ruling from Syria. – Ed.

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take the examination for the second grade. Such an exam lasted an entire day and was quite a strain. Written tests in the morning; oral tests, with different teachers whom I had never seen before, in the afternoon. The next day, I received my certificate with quite good marks. And so, I became a student of the third grade. Proudly, I bought three silver stripes for my uniform and came home to be congratulated by family and friends. This next vacation was spent in the usual manner – helping out Father in his business, going on errands to the brick factory (there were no telephones and no electricity in our town), or traveling in the buggy to the station to pick up fertilizer. In addition, I did some advance studying for the third grade. There was very little fun, other than occasionally meeting with my colleagues and visiting the farm of Josio’s parents.

Leaving Home for My Third Grade at the Gimnazjum

During this vacation, my parents decided that I should go to Sambor for the third grade and give up the private tutoring group. And so, with the beginning of the new school year, I arrived alone in Sambor, to live as a boarder with my relatives. The relatives were my aunt Lea (also called Lajcia or Leika) my father’s sister, and her husband, my uncle Philip. Their family name was Gruess. They had a son who, at that time, was some five years old. I arrived just at the time when Uncle Philip gave up his job as cashier in a liquor business, having decided to embark on some business of his own. Because a special, very expensive license was required for a liquor business, he established a wine and beer store where wine was sold in bottles and could also be consumed at some tables in the store. Business was not too good. The Jews bought wine only for special Holidays and the Polish peasants were not accustomed to drinking wine, which had to be imported from Hungary and was quite expensive. They preferred hard liquor or beer. And so, Uncle Philip sat most of the time waiting for customers, brooding over whether he should have given up his secure job. He was always in a very bad mood and unloaded his bad temper on Aunt Lajcia, a gentle, sensitive person who suffered greatly because of her ill-tempered husband. This was especially noticeable during the evening meals, which we had together. He would sit in silence, rolling his eyes, speaking to no one, and I would swallow my food in tension, afraid of his bad temper. Cousin Henio, the young and only child was wild, and also spoiled. I had no room of my own. I prepared my homework after school (which took some six or seven hours) in

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the sitting room, where I also slept, as did Henio, and which also served as our dining room. Henio was constantly screaming and yelling, making it so difficult for me to concentrate on my studies that I frequently had to go out on the balcony facing the backyard, to get a little peace and quiet. Getting adjusted to the new environment in the gimnazjum was difficult. Both the teachers and the students were strange to me. The majority of our class were Poles – a few Jews and a few Ukrainians. Within the first few days I experienced the antisemitic impact of the Polish students, who passed insulting remarks and even tried to inflict bodily harm. I was looked upon as a shy youngster who came from a small hick town and didn’t yet know the ways of a big city. There was another strike against me: I didn’t write on Saturday, a normal school day. I was the only Jewish student in our class who observed the Sabbath in this way. Some written tests were given on Sabbath, and some answers in oral exams required written explanations. In all such cases, I had to refuse participation. The fact that I didn’t write while the other Jewish students did, was held against me by some of the teachers. But in time, by studying very hard at home, having all the required homework completed, and being prepared for classes every day, my status improved. I was considered a good student and even received occasional praise from some of the teachers and classmates. Life in Sambor was not too pleasant, and in the beginning, I was very homesick. I felt like a stranger in the house of my relatives. My parents were paying for my board – I didn’t know how much – but for some reason I wasn’t treated well. After a few months, my father came and spent a day in Sambor. When I accompanied him to the station after school, I was crying and so was he. Knowing I was homesick and not happy, he asked me to return home, but I refused, and decided to stick it out. I had no friends; the few Jewish boys didn’t take to me. I was the small town, provincial boy, and they considered themselves to be something special, talking about sports, bicycles, soccer, about which I knew nothing. So most of the time I spent alone, and studied a great deal. There was a small synagogue next to my relatives’ house, and this became the place where I spent many evening hours for relaxation. Nowadays, it would be called a sort of escape. In those days, people didn’t rush to the synagogue for a few minutes just to have a chance to say Kaddish. They would come long before the mincha prayers. They came to hear news from strangers who happened to drop in or from someone who had just returned from a business trip to another city. Of course, there was no radio or television, and very few read newspapers, so the synagogue became a substitute for a social club.

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During the winter months, some folk would come early to warm up, and would sit around the big stove, warming their backs or their hands. After mincha was said, there was a long pause before the evening prayers (maariv), and even after the conclusion of the services, some people stayed to study, either alone, or in a group under the leadership of one who was considered a Talmudic scholar. The discussions of these people fascinated me, and I became a daily visitor in the evening hours. I also began to attend morning prayers in the early hours before school. I was conspicuous there because so few students attended daily services, and also, I wore the official uniform of the gimnazjum student. So, I became known in town as the frummer115 (pious) student. Here I learned a lot about Jewish lore, prayers, and customs. One Saturday afternoon, something special took place. During the summer, people used to get together to study the Pirkas Avoth (Ethics of the Fathers), and in winter the Mishnaith, under the guidance of some fellow who wished to establish his reputation as a rebbe. After the chapter was finished, someone who had Jahrzeit would bring refreshments – challah, herring or fish, beer or some hard drink. There was hardly enough for everybody present, particularly because there were always some orchim – itinerant paupers – around who stayed for the Sabbath. We ate and drank at the same table that was used for study, and it was important that each person washed their hands before we could say the blessing over a slice of challah. Thus, the person would perform a mizvah, participating in the afternoon meal, called seudah shlishith (Yiddish, shale shidith). The food was eaten up in a few moments, but spiritually it extended for several hours with saying Torah and zmiroth. “Saying Torah” was usually a short Talmudic discourse given by whoever was conducting the study that afternoon or by anyone who felt that they had something to say regarding the chapters being studied. Sometimes very lively discussions ensued, which I found difficult to follow, having insufficient background and being the youngest of the group. But I was always an eager listener. The zmiroth part was my favorite. Those were tunes and melodies, sometimes with, sometimes without words. The words were usually sentences from the Psalms. No one knew where the melodies originated – perhaps at the court of some Chassidic rebbe and imported here by a follower. And so a particular tune was called “der Belzer”116 or “Czortkower”117 or “Sadagorer Nigun” (the composer Ernest Bloch has a composition called the “Nigun,” which is a stylized Chassidic tune). 115 From German – fromm. 116 From Bełz/Belz – a locality in the former Polish Lwów/Lviv region, today Ukraine. – Ed. 117 From Czortków – a town, today in western Ukraine. – Ed.

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These gatherings were very modest replicas of what was taking place on Sabbath afternoons at the courts of Chassidic rebbes, where hundreds of people would gather. They lasted until darkness fell, and ended with bentshen.118 Then the mincha and maariv prayers were said, and the people went home, to recite the havdalah, with a cup of wine and a candle kept high, usually by the youngest member of the family. With this ceremony, the Sabbath ended and the everyday commenced, with good wishes for a good and healthy week. I looked forward to those Saturday afternoon sessions and preferred them to the sports field where most of my colleagues went. During those hours, my thoughts would return to our home in Mościska. And so, my life was centered around school and synagogue. School took all my waking hours, lasting from eight until one or two o’clock in the afternoon. As soon as I came home, I was given my noon meal, which I ate alone as my aunt and uncle usually ate in the store – someone always had to be in the store, so my aunt and uncle would come home individually at different times. As I ate, I began preparing my homework which consumed my time into the late evening hours, with only a small pause when I went to the synagogue to mincha and maariv prayers. I was determined to be a good student and worthy of the effort and sacrifice on the part of my parents to keep me in the gimnazjum. Persistent hard work made up for my lack of brilliance. I still think of some of the teachers with a certain trepidation. It was not enough to know each assigned lesson and have homework ready for inspection; certain teachers required us to know the entire subject as it was taught throughout the year and to be able to take a test at any moment during our daily oral exams. It meant that I had to go through the entire textbook each day before attending school. And the few Jewish students had to be on our toes always, as we could expect no leniency. We received our diplomas (those were more than report cards) twice a year, but during the term, we were unofficially classified twice. There were also several occasions when one’s family could inquire about their son’s progress directly from the professors, who gathered in a special classroom for the occasion. This was usually on Sunday mornings, after church, and the days were announced in advance. My uncle would go to get a report on me, and I would wait for him outside. One look at his face gave me the results. If he put on his rare smile, I knew that all was well. If he looked stern and grim, then I knew something was wrong and that improvement in some subject was necessary. Rigorous discipline was maintained in all classes. No one dared speak except when questioned, and answers were always given while standing. Each 118 Yiddish, to say a blessing, recite prayers. – Ed.

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morning school began with recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. Jewish students simply stood at attention. A crucifix hung on the wall above the podium where the teacher sat. Whenever a teacher entered the room, all students got up and remained standing until he had taken his seat. The same was required when a teacher left the room at the end of the class. Cases of undisciplined behavior were rare but when this did happen, the offender was punished severely, often by expulsion from school and, if the offense was out of the ordinary, even by expulsion from all schools of the country. Since we wore uniforms, we were under public control all the time, in and out of school, and no student – regardless of class or age – could be seen on the street after ten o’clock in the evening. Smoking in or out of school was severely punished. Such discipline was maintained in gimnazja all over the country and I found the same condition in later years when I found myself attending a German gimnazjum in Vienna. Contact with my family was limited to letters, which I wrote once a week. There were no telephones. I was lonely, and still had not overcome my homesickness. So when occasionally someone came from my small town, I was very happy. It would come about this way. Mościska was known as far away as Berlin as an export center for eggs and poultry. It didn’t produce these items itself, but a few enterprising families used to travel to nearby villages, buy the products, and bring them back to Mościska for sorting and packing in special crates in their own storerooms. So, once a week, residents of Mościska would come to a place as distant as Sambor, on a Wednesday, the day of the big weekly market. Here they would buy eggs from the peasants, at a stand in the market. Of course, I knew these people, so right after school I would go straight to visit them at their stand, and would inquire after my family, about the news in our shtetl and would ask them to give my regards to everyone at home. I always looked forward to this weekly visit. Although they were very busy and hardworking people, having to pack the eggs right on the spot in special crates, they were always willing to chat with me for a few moments. It was an all-night journey by horse-drawn carriage to return to Mościska, but I sometimes wished I could make the long trip with them. High Holidays were approaching and although we Jewish students were free from school, I couldn’t return home for the distance was too great. It took a full day to go home by train, and I couldn’t be excused from school for an additional day. These first High Holidays away from home were sad days for me. I was soon to become Bar Mitzvahed.119 What a difference in the way I celebrated it and how it is conducted now! I remember that I went to a melamed 119 At the age of 13, a Jewish boy becomes a full-fledged member of the Jewish community with all its rights and obligations.” Bar Mitzvah also refers to the initiatory ceremony

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who prepared me for the haftora.120 And on a Saturday in February, for reasons I do not recall, I went not to the small Bes-Medresh which I attended daily, but to a big synagogue where Rabbi Lewin121 – later to become a Deputy in the Polish Parliament – officiated and I was called to the Torah. No one from my family was there; there was no feast, no party, no celebration. Just a Sabbath as any other.122 And so, the first winter came in a strange town, with no friends, and with relatives who were really strangers to me. My first visit home was for the Pesach Holidays. It was a time of great joy for all of us and I participated in the exciting preparations for the Holidays and especially for the two seders. I visited all my relatives, saw all my colleagues as well as my secret love,123 who had also returned home for the Holidays. They came home from other cities such as Przemyśl or Lwów where they were attending school. We had much to talk about, exchanging school experiences and relating stories of our teachers. Each of us thought that our teachers were the toughest. It was very hard for me to leave that morning, after the eight-day visit was over. I can still recall the mood of the evening when I went to say goodbye to my relatives, when the fiaker had to be ordered for the first morning train, and when I packed my suitcase which contained, as the most precious thing, my new uniform, to be worn only on special occasions, and the many books which I had brought home to study. I hardly slept that last night. Everyone got up very early the next morning. Then came the sad moment when I went to Grandmother Gitele’s room to say goodbye. Those moments of parting from her were always terribly painful for me. She would bless me, touching my face, as she could hardly see. Each time I left Bubeh Gitele, I was afraid it might be the last. The fiaker always came earlier than he was expected and then the rush began. It was rather good that leave-taking went on in such a hurry because Mother always cried and Father had tears in his eyes. I exchanged kisses with

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recognizing a boy as a Bar Mitzvah, and to administer this ceremony is to be Bar Mitzvahed (verb). After the portion of the week is read in public from the Torah on Sabbath or Holidays, the prophetic portion called Haftorah is recited. Aaron Lewin (1879–1941) – rabbi, local government leader, social activist, chairman of the Council of Rabbis in Poland and member of the Polish Sejm of the first and third terms of office. He was the father of Isaac Lewin (1906–1995) – Polish-American-Jewish rabbi, historian and politician, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. – Ed. I always become emotional when witnessing Bar Mitzvas in the synagogues here in the US. I recall Henry’s Bar Mitzva which we celebrated in Teheran a few weeks after we came out of Soviet Russia in the most modest way, and the Bar Mitzva of George in Little Rock at which I was not even present, being at the time in Australia. Genia Sonnestrahl. – Ed.

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my parents and sisters and took my place in the fiaker. As the fiaker disappeared, looking back, in the distance, I could see my family standing in the street, waving at me. I can still see Father who even in later years liked to see me off, standing near the departing fiaker or at the railway station, waving to me and murmuring prayers, until I could see him no more. Passing through the silent streets and the green field, the fiaker finally reached the station. I was sad and kept silent. There were so many things on my mind. I thought of my family, of Father who had to work so hard to earn our livelihood, of the hard studies in front of me, how I must not disappoint my parents. And I was thirteen years old. The next three years passed uneventfully both at my school and in our family life. To compensate for lack of special abilities, I spent long and diligent hours of study. I established a good reputation at school, and sometimes had excellent marks at the end of the school year. I still recall some of my teachers, who gave me a good background for future studies, such as the ones for Latin and German. I also remember some who did not. I already had a good foundation in Latin from my cousin Yoma, and later from Sack, and was fortunate at the gimnazjum to have a Ukrainian priest by the name of Ilnicki as a Latin professor.124 I do not understand to this day how he could be a priest in a church and also a Latin and Greek teacher in a public school, but that is the way it was. He was a rather coarse man, using very simple language in the translation of Latin texts, but he was excellent in Latin grammar, and this was most important. For some reason, he liked me and occasionally would single me out as an example for the entire class, saying that to achieve good results a student didn’t need to be brilliant but could accomplish much by thorough study. Sometimes, he would recommend me as tutor to students of lower classes who required some help in Latin. Unfortunately, Professor Ilnicki didn’t teach us Greek, which we commenced in third class. The teacher who did was eccentric and a very poor teacher. As a result, because of a lack of a good foundation in grammar, my knowledge of Greek was quite poor. This caused a lot of hardship for me in later years. My German teachers were excellent, and this proved of great assistance to me several years later (I will describe it at the proper time). The name of my

124 Professor Ilnicki (he was called officially Ksiądz Ilnicki) was an ardent Ukrainian nationalist and was considered a Russophile. This was an ultra-nationalistic faction among the Ukrainian intelligentsia, who wanted to become part of Tsarist Russia. In later years I was told that after the outbreak of World War I when Austria-Hungary found itself at war with Russia, he was arrested, on suspicion of secret collaboration with the enemy and, according to some rumors, was executed by the Austrians.

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German professor was Herman Sternbach.125 He was a German poet in his own right and had several volumes of poetry published in Germany, receiving more recognition there than here at home. He was a small man, thin, with receding red wavy hair, and dressed as the artists and writers of that period did. He always wore a special black tie, called a Kuenstlerkravatte, and a black hat with a very large brim. I did quite well in German and in the fourth grade, when Professor Sternbach initiated a German speaking and reading circle as an extra-curricular activity, he designated me as a leader of this group.126 Professor Sternbach was a great disciplinarian; and being Jewish, as well as of small stature, he was very sensitive and suspicious of signs of disrespect. Some three years later, when I was in the sixth class, Professor Sternbach singled me out again. A youngster from a wealthy Jewish family in Drohobycz, a nearby city, had been expelled from the gimnazjum there because of poor marks and bad behavior. Because of some connection, Professor Sternbach took the lad into his home in Sambor as a boarder; and prepared him for an examination at our gimnazjum at the end of the school year. Privately, he taught him several subjects, and he asked me to tutor the boy in others. It was indeed a great honor to come every afternoon for several weeks to Professor Sternbach’s home, where he greeted me in person and turned the spoiled boy over to me for tutoring in Latin and science. After returning home for vacation at the end of the school year, I received a letter from Professor Sternbach saying that the boy had passed his examination and enclosing 30 kronen as a reward for my help. This was a huge amount of money at that time, and I gave it to my father. I used to tutor also other students, for which their parents paid a small fee. One of my pupils was a pretty girl, Genia Segall, I was most attracted to her. Ten years later she became the wife of my older brother, Bulek. More later about the tragic circumstances in which I met her for the last time.127 For one year, I had another professor in German, by the name of Fischel Rottenstreich128. He was quite good, though his pronunciation was poor. He 125 Hermann (Hersch) Sternbach, writer, literary scholar and teacher. Born in Drohobycz, 1880; studied philosophy and literature in Lemberg, Vienna (1902–03) and Berlin from 1900–04, then returned to Galicia as a German teacher and was a grammar school professor in Sambor until 1928, then in Lwów, where he was a lecturer at the university from 1931–41 and a writer. Murdered in the Lemberg ghetto, probably 16.08.1942. See, Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon (ÖBL) 1815–1950, Vol. 13 (60, 2008), p. 231. – Ed. 126 A German book by Franz Grillparzer, an Austrian writer, was read and discussed. 127 Actually, nothing will be found later in the book about Genia. I decided to write about her and my brother separately. 128 Fischel (Fiszel) Rottenstreich (1882–1938), from Kołomyja was a lawyer, teacher (in gimnazjum in Sambor), social activist, Zionist, senator of the first term and member of the third term of the parliament of the Second Polish Republic. – Ed.

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spoke German with a Yiddish accent.129 My mention of two Jewish teachers at the gimnazjum could leave the impression that there were many Jewish professors at the gimnazjum level. Actually, there were very few (most German professors were Jews), and the two I mentioned were the only Jews among some twenty teachers. Yes, there was one other, who brought no honor to us Jews either in the school or in the community. He was a teacher of religion, with the name Gottfried. What irony for a man of his type to have such a name! Religion was taught for three different faiths: Roman Catholic for Poles, Greek Catholic for Ukrainians, and the Jewish religion for the few of us. At the hour assigned to religious instruction, students from the several classes gathered in different classrooms. While the two other religions were taught by priests, our religion was taught by a secular teacher who knew hardly anything and throughout all those years never went beyond the first chapter of Genesis and the Ten Commandments. He was happy when he didn’t have to teach us anything and we asked no questions. Everyone was free to do as they pleased, and we usually did some homework during that hour. The only requirement he had was that we be quiet; and this we were – he could very easily have spoiled our marks in our diplomas at the end of the year – as the marks in religion and in behavior were very important. I suppose the gimnazjum was quite happy with such a man as teacher of the Jewish faith because they were not interested in making ardent and well-informed Jews out of us, particularly at the time when most Jewish students were interested in the Zionist movement, which made them aware of their proud heritage. Incidentally, the Jewish students were forbidden to belong to any Zionist organization existing in any city, including, of course, Sambor. My private life as a boarder in my uncle’s home kept the same pattern as in earlier years. Most of my time was spent studying, sometimes relaxing a bit during the day in the small synagogue next door. I remained very religious and very observant. I didn’t write in school on Saturdays and strictly obeyed the dietary laws. I frequently made a nuisance of myself when watching the Christian cook preparing the meals, for I couldn’t help complaining to my aunt as I saw the milk (which had to be boiled at that time) spill over into the dishpan which contained meat. Poor Aunt! She was busy helping her husband in the store and would rather have known nothing about it. I never became close 129 I mention him because in later years he was transferred to Lwów and, after World War I when Poland was created, he went into politics. Running on the Zionist ticket, he was elected deputy to the Polish Sejm. Later, his son became Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and just recently I learned that he was elected to the high office of the Rector of the Hebrew University, being the first Rector who had commenced his career as a student at the same University.

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to my uncle, who hardly ever smiled, nor was ever in a gay mood during all those years, always worrying and brooding. During my four years at the gimnazjum, I did make some friends among the Jewish students (we never had any contact outside school with Polish or Ukrainian schoolmates) and was even invited to their homes. But no lasting friendships developed. I never really became one of their group for I was too serious for my age and didn’t participate in their jokes or sport activities.

Sister Lusia’s Marriage and Wedding

In the summer of 1912, I was fourteen years old, and had finished the fourth grade in the gimnazjum. That summer an important event occurred in our family: Cila (later called Lusia), our oldest sister, got married.130 As it later turned out, Lusia’s marriage changed the entire life of my family – not always for the good. How did Lusia’s marriage come about? Love was not the prerequisite for marriage at that time. In fact, girls in our shtetl hardly had any chance of meeting eligible young men. Young people were brought up with complete separation of the sexes. I remember that I suspected Lusia of being secretly in love with cousin Yoma; this was quite natural for he was handsome, brilliant, a promising young man with many talents. In addition, he was her private tutor, and they spent many hours together. But for the two of them, love was out of the question. After years of private tutoring, Lusia passed the sixth-grade examination in Przemyśl, and this made her eligible to start working in the only apothecary in our shtetl.131 Being an apothecary was a highly honorable profession, considered equal to being a doctor or lawyer at that time. It was a licensed profession (only one to a certain number of inhabitants) and the prerequisite was six grades of gimnazjum and an apprenticeship of several years. Since the apothecary was a neighbor of ours (he happened to be Jewish), he accepted Lusia as an apprentice. This was quite a revelation because never before in the history of our shtetl had a daughter of a good Jewish home, such as ours, embarked on such a professional career. Pretty soon the mills of the matchmaker started grinding. An amateur matchmaker, a relative of ours with the name of Abram Fraenkel,132 was successful 130 Lusia’s name was Cila and the author used both names in the original text. – Ed. 131 These days known as a pharmacy and pharmacist. – Ed. 132 His only son, Joseph Fraenkel (we called him Józek) was bright and witty, as was his father, and settled in the 20s in Lwów, where he worked for an oil company. In addition to being

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in this instance. Abram was cousin Yoma’s oldest stepbrother who had, after their arrival from Russia, married and settled in Drohobycz. I still remember him very well – a jovial man, with a good sense of humor, very witty, and warm. Drohobycz was a growing city because of its vicinity to Borysław – one of the greatest petroleum-oil centers in Eastern Europe. Petroleum was discovered there at the end of the nineteenth century; foreign capital moved in, establishing huge petroleum companies, drilling successfully for oil – building first primitive, and later very modern, oil refineries. The industry was growing by leaps and bounds, giving employment not only to workers and specialized technicians but also to young men trained in accounting and business. Abram Fraenkel, who was doing business with these petroleum companies, recommended one of those promising young men as a prospective husband for our eldest sister. The young man’s name was Arnold Schneider – I shall call him Arnold from now on. I imagine that he found out everything about our family and sister Lusia before they met. We, on our side, naturally relied on information provided by Uncle Abram. Arnold came for a visit to our home in Mościska from his native town Borysław. It was a long journey back in the winter of 1911; but worth it, as he liked what he saw. I was not at home at the time. I don’t think it was love at first sight for Lusia, but everyone seemed to have been impressed by Arnold’s very energetic and forceful personality. I met him later, after the two had become officially engaged. He was an ambitious man – probably to the point of being too much so. Of course, there was the question of dowry, before the wedding took place. I don’t know how much money was involved, but it must have been a substantial amount for people from the petroleum industry were very money-minded. In any event, Father had to take another loan, mortgaging part of the house, which belonged to Mother. This meant more promissory notes, more interest, more debts. Financial problems were always with us, as far back as I can remember. There was the brick factory which constantly required more investment; the fertilizer business, where long term credits had to be granted; and now, this loan. In addition, we five growing children had to be dressed, fed, and educated. Quite frequently Mother used to worry, and she often wept out of frustration. When this happened, Father became very sad and silent. Maybe he knew we couldn’t afford all these expenses. God knows, he had sufficient problems, fighting all the prejudices around us. Maybe he thought we should live as related, he became a good personal friend of mine. He was my “guardian” on the day of my wedding. A bridegroom is not supposed to be left alone on this day.

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everyone else and bring up the children in the same way. But Mother wanted a better life for us, and this was only possible through education. Then we could leave the shtetl behind, with all its drabness and struggles. No matter how difficult it was to meet all the private, social, and financial difficulties, no matter how frustrated and helpless Mother was so many times, she was determined to equip us better for life and to find for us a place in the world. Lusia’s wedding took place in summer, while we children were on vacation from school. This involved another expense for my parents, for the bride’s family had to provide for the wedding. It was customary that if the shtetl was too small, with no facilities for a big wedding – especially if many outside guests were expected – the wedding would be held in another place, convenient for all concerned. And so, it was decided to have the wedding in a small town called Chyrów, halfway between Mościska and Borysław (the residence of Arnold’s family). There was a hotel not far from the station; Father made all the arrangements beforehand for meals and the number of rooms to be occupied by guests from both families. It was a catered affair. I still remember the day. We set out early in the morning from Mościska, the entire family with Hania.133 This included of course Mother’s brother and his family (the Hollaenders), her many cousins, the Hausmans and Fraenkels. There was a very trustworthy, loyal, and devoted young man named Hersch Feuchtbaum, who worked in the brick factory, and took over the details of this transport. In time, this young man was also considered part of our family. Hersch was in charge of the entire expedition, which meant that he had under his supervision: all the suitcases, the transportation to the railway station in Mościska, the boarding of the train, and changing trains in Przemyśl. I might add that all the sweet delicacies – torten and the special challah – were also brought along in suitcases. Poor Hersch was sweating amidst all the confusion and excitement. It was not surprising that after our arrival, one suitcase was missing – or rather, had been stolen. This was the one containing Mother’s and our youngest sister Rózia’s new dresses. It was unthinkable that at the first wedding in our family, the mother of the bride should be dressed in an everyday dress, such as used for travelling. Poor Hersch was desperate. No search nor inquiry produced the missing suitcase. The dresses had simply disappeared. Mother’s cousin, Gitele Hausman134 – who was a very witty and lovely lady, with an unusual sense of humor – saved 133 My older brother was not present at the wedding, as he was then living in Vienna. More about him later. 134 Mother of Aron Hausman whom all of you know – he came to visit us many years later in Teheran from Palestine while serving in the English Army during World War II.

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the day. After all the guests were assembled for the wedding ceremony, she declared in a little speech that Mother was the most elegant and best dressed person present. Everyone laughed and this helped Mother overcome her emotions and annoyance. The wedding ceremony took place according to the old tradition and customs. Arnold’s family was there – a married brother and a married sister with their respective wife and husband and daughter, as well as his parents – rather simple people who had a small grocery store in Borysław which the mother ran. From our side were all the relatives from Mościska, and aunts and uncles from Father’s side who came specially for the occasion. One feature, which still stands out in my memory, was the moment Gitele Hausman – otherwise quite heavy – came in, after the wedding ceremony, dancing very gracefully to the tune of the Klezmer band, and carrying in her arms the huge challah, called the sudeh-challah, brought from home. This dance, performed by a favorite relative is symbolic. It expresses the wish that there should be no want or lack of sustenance in the household of the newly established family. All the guests left the next day, going in different directions. Sister Lusia and Arnold left for their new home in Borysław, where they took up residence – but not for long.

On Marriages and Wedding Customs

Every Jewish girl had to get married – the sooner the better. It was considered one of the fundamental duties of Jewish parents to marry off their daughters. In families with more than one daughter, the parents were very careful about the generally accepted rule of priority, or rather seniority – which meant that the older daughter had to marry before the younger one. Many tragedies were caused through strict adherence to this traditional rule, for it sometimes happened that the younger daughter was prettier or more attractive and would have had a chance for an earlier marriage, but she had to wait. If – on very rare occasions – this sequence was overlooked, then it reflected on the reputation of the older girl and it became increasingly difficult for her to get married. As a matter of fact, to let the younger daughter marry before the older even reflected upon the character and reputation of that family who allowed such a thing to happen. In cases where families were very strict about the custom, it sometimes happened that the younger missed her chance and both daughters remained spinsters. Horrible to even think of! I might also mention that the same rule applied to the sons, however not in such a strict manner.

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Marriage because of love very seldom took place. How could it happen? Boys never met girls, even from the immediate neighborhood. Of course, they knew each other, just as everybody knew everybody in the small town, but they never had a chance to talk with each other. There were no dances, no social gatherings, no birthday parties, no co-education. Perhaps they might have glanced at each other occasionally, perhaps they felt attracted, or were secretly in love, but this was not confessed to the family nor even admitted to oneself. Any contact between the two sexes before marriage was frowned upon and considered indecent. It could harm the reputation of both parties involved. In the exceptional case when this did happen, it was done in great secrecy, but naturally couldn’t be kept a secret for long, and it was said in the town that the two youngsters “spielen a liebe” and consequently the entire town was in an uproar and outraged. In such circumstances, the only way for young people to get married was through matchmakers. These were men or women (mostly men) who having failed in business, had established themselves in this profession – quite an honorable one. They made it their business to get to know as many families as possible who had young sons and daughters eligible for marriage. They tried to bring together families with similar backgrounds, the same social standing in the community, and the same piety. It was very seldom that young couples from the same town got married through a matchmaker. I don’t know the reason for this, but this was the fact. Perhaps people in the same town knew too much about one another, or perhaps there was too much competition or jealousy. The matchmakers, called shadchen, thus usually brought together families from nearby towns or cities. A marriage from a faraway city was considered extraordinary and was accomplished only by a very experienced shadchen, operating through their local representatives. A shadchen who brought families from two different countries together, such as Austria and Russia, or Germany, or Belgium, was in the highest bracket and was called a welt shadchen. After preliminary talks between the two families through the shadchen, who had to travel for that purpose and sometimes brought together the parents, or perhaps only the fathers, it was agreed that the two young people should meet. The young man visited the girl’s family, where he met the girl who was, of course, prepared in advance by her parents for this visit. This first meeting was naturally very awkward, since quite frequently it was the first time that the young man had talked with a strange girl, and vice versa, and many jokes used to circulate about their topic of conversation, which had to be very impressive on the part of both. If the mutual impression was favorable, then the young man’s parents had to meet the girl for the benefit of their

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own impression. These preliminaries taken care of, the financial problems had to be discussed – this sometimes brought to a halt all further negotiations if the shadchen was unable to mediate properly. As a rule, neither the young man nor the girl had a profession. The boy had to know quite a lot about theology, but not so much about secular subjects; with all this knowledge, he could hardly earn anything. It was generally accepted that the parents of the prospective bride had to provide all means for a future livelihood. If the bride’s parents had a substantial business enterprise, then it was quite simple since the future son-in-law could be taken in as a junior partner and be taught the particular line of work. If not, then the girl’s parents had to give her a dowry which would enable the young couple to start some enterprise of their own, as a means of earning an income. Sometimes the two families couldn’t agree on the necessary sum of money, or the demand of the young man’s parents was so exorbitant that the family of the bride simply couldn’t afford it. The dowry was a very important issue and was considered an undisputed obligation on the part of the bride’s family, and even on the part of the whole community. It was not unusual that sometimes two respected members of the community visited the homes of the better-situated citizens and collected money for the dowry of an unknown bride. No one asked any questions; and gave as much as they could as a contribution to the important goal of marrying off a “yiddishe tochter.” It was important that the collectors were of accepted respectability so that beyond any shadow of a doubt, everyone knew the collection was not for a member of the collector’s own family. Although the shadchen generally tried to bring together people from similar backgrounds and social standing, there were definite exceptions. There were girls in very good families, who had sometimes become orphans, or situations where the family had lost its wealth due to some mishap or misfortune. On the other hand, there were upcoming families, which suddenly became rich – this happened during the war or due to inflation as an aftermath of war – and were looking for respectability or higher prestige. This could sometimes be accomplished by taking the girl from the good family (whose family had gone through misfortune) as a bride for the offspring of the nouveau riche family, for she brought “yiches,”135 and improved the family’s social standing. Another exception was the tendency of wealthy but uneducated families to marry off their daughter to a yeshiva bocher, with a reputation of brilliancy and sharp thinking. These were students of the Talmud with no practical goal. 135 Also spelled yichus, lineage. Good yichus – meaning descent from a family of high reputation. – Ed.

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Theirs was study for the sake of studying, with the implication that a reward would be bestowed on him in the future life, as well as on those who helped him in his task. So, marrying a daughter to a young man of this sort brought not only glamour and distinction to the family but also insured them a special place in the life to come. Such a young man was not expected to work or to engage in a trade or skill. He only had to study, and the parents of the bride provided all sustenance. If for some reason, they could no longer afford it, then the wife herself took on the burden and responsibility of upkeep of the entire family, usually blessed already with many children. Some of these women were the ones who were traveling from market to market, as described in a previous chapter. In very orthodox or Chassidic families, marriages were arranged at a very early age – it being decided by the parents that their children would get married upon reaching a suitable age. This was done by a simple handclasp, called tkias kaf, and such a promise was binding by accepted custom. According to common belief, breach of such a promise would bring misfortune to the party responsible for breaking off the solemn agreement.136 Among the followers of the Chassidic rebbes, it was not unusual that a marriage was suggested by the rebbe himself. Such a marriage had the greatest prospects of success, being proposed and blessed by the holy rebbe himself. As I have mentioned, the dowry to be given to the daughter, or rather the amount, was a very important problem in prearrangements for marriage. But this was not the only problem. In the case of the daughter, there was another thing which could be an insurmountable obstacle in bringing together a young couple after everything else had been settled, and that was the first name of the bride. It was completely unthinkable that the prospective bride should have the same name as the mother of the young man. Many marriages didn’t materialize because of this. When this small detail was overlooked, it was considered an ill omen. According to common belief, it meant illness and even premature death for the mother-in-law. For reasons unknown to me, this was not important insofar as the bridegroom and future father-in-law were concerned. The same name for the males carried no bad consequences for either. The young man was not expected to bring to the marriage any financial means, not even a trade or profession. His parents equipped him with a trousseau and with an engagement ring for the bride. That was all. A gold pocket watch with a golden chain (there were no wristwatches at that time) was given to him by the father-in-law as an engagement gift. Before the wedding, he also 136 The tragic story, in the famous play by Anski, “Der Dybbuk,” is based on the breaking of such a promise.

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received a heavy tallis with silver or golden embroideries, and a fur hat, called shtreimel (consisting of sable-fur tails, worn on the Sabbath and Holidays). Bachelors didn’t wear a tallis.137 There was another provision for the bridegroom. Since he had no trade or profession, he and his young wife had to be supported by the bride’s family for a certain number of years, agreed upon in advance by both parties. The young couple was provided with room and board, usually at the home of the bride’s parents. A separate room was assigned to them, and all meals were at the table of the bride’s parents. This institution was called essen kest.138 The purpose of the essen kest institution was a two-fold one. First, it gave the young couple a chance to adjust themselves to married life (there was no such institution as a honeymoon), without any responsibilities and financial problems at the outset. No problem of coming home from work tired and irritated. Second, it gave the young man a chance to look around and find some sort of business or occupation with the best prospects of success, without being compelled to make a quick and hurried decision. Sometimes, the young man would find a good opportunity to start something on his own sooner, and he would shorten his kest period and move out, even to another city. Sometimes again, the young man would overstay the kest time, and this usually resulted in friction and reproaches on the part of his impatient in-laws. After all the problems were solved, and all the conditions agreed upon – often requiring prolonged negotiations and the mediation of the shadchen – the official engagement took place. This happened usually at the home of the bride. The bridegroom’s parents and family, many relatives, and friends were present. The rabbi of the town was the guest of honor (some money was normally presented to him later for his participation). A big dinner was prepared, and during the dinner, it was customary to break a china dish for good luck and all present exclaimed “mazel tov.” During the dinner, the bridegroom presented the engagement ring to his bride; it was shown around and admired by all present. He usually received his gold watch from his future father-in-law on the following day. From this time on, the bride and bridegroom addressed each other as “du” instead of the customary form between strangers, namely “ihr” or, in German, “Sie” – the English language makes no distinction in this respect, as everybody is addressed by “you.” Next day, the bridegroom’s party usually left for their hometown. In more progressive circles, this was the second occasion at which the young couple 137 This is not the case in the US, where it is customary even for young boys to wear a tallis. 138 The word “kest” originates from the German “Kost,” used in the phrase “Kost und Quartier,” meaning room and board.

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saw each other and had a chance to exchange a few words. In more orthodox families, they met for the first time at the engagement party. During the engagement dinner, there was no small talk. Discussion centered around a Talmudic problem, with the rabbi and some guests participating. It was expected that at this time the bridegroom would show off his knowledge of the Talmud and contribute to the discussion. Between servings were songs, called zmiroth. These were mostly sentences from Psalms, sung with a well-known melody of Chassidic origin, or composed ad hoc by some musically inclined participant. During the dinner, a mutually agreeable wedding date was fixed by both families. The engagement period was never very long. A year’s time was exceptional; six to eight months was rather normal. From the moment the engagement was announced, the couple started an exchange of letters, usually in Yiddish. If the couple was better educated and more progressive, the correspondence took place in German or Polish, to impress one another with their higher education. Since everyone knew that the letters would be read by both families, including aunts and uncles, no privacy was anticipated and the topics covered were very lofty. The future bridegroom would write about theological subjects and the future bride would write about books. No reference was made to their actual life, to their problems, or to the new kind of life ahead of them. Since neither of them attended any concerts or theatres, such topics were naturally never mentioned. There were professional letter writers who frequently helped – for a fee – the young people with the composition and content of their letters. There were even Yiddish books containing letters for engaged couples. These books were called “brief stellers.” During the engagement period, some Holidays invariably occurred, and an invitation from the bride’s family was extended to the future bridegroom. The best time was for the chol hamoed days during Passover, or Sukkoth Holidays.139 It wasn’t customary that the young man should stay in their home. A room in a nearby hotel – if there was one – or in the house of some relatives was provided for him. Naturally the young man was the center of attraction for the whole neighborhood, even the whole town, for everyone was eager to get a glimpse of him. One very nice custom was that relatives and friends would send to the bride’s home some wine or a special cake (torte) in honor of the guest. It was an unusual sight to see the girl, never before seen in the company of a man, appear on the streets – especially Saturday afternoon – for a stroll (spazier) with the bridegroom. All the windows of the neighbors were filled with curious onlookers. 139 Refers to the intermediate days of Passover and Sukkoth. – Ed.

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It happened very seldom that an engagement was broken off and when it did, it didn’t improve the reputation of either the girl or the young man; it often became quite difficult for either of them to get engaged again. Reputation was a very important factor in marrying off young people. Ill health, or the mere fact that the girl sometimes went to a health-spa (there were many of them in this part of the country, then Galicia), was detrimental. Also, the fact that the girl had sometime in the past been in love with another young man – quite an exceptional occurrence – was damaging to her reputation. Sometimes people from the outside would try to disrupt the engagement. In every little town, there were a few individuals, misgiving or plainly mean, who were always trying to stir up some discontent, especially if the family of the bride was not too popular, or if the prospective marriage caused jealousy among other families. So anonymous letters were sent to the respective families, informing about alleged misdeeds or about poor health. However, it must be said that such things were rather an exception. I will not go into detail concerning the marriage and the ceremonies connected with it. These orthodox wedding functions are well-known. Many recall them from their own past; the younger generation can read about them in many books. I would like to mention just a few highlights, so characteristic of weddings in those days. First, the place of the wedding. Normally it took place in the hometown of the bride, either at her home or in a place rented for the purpose. All expenses connected with the wedding, including housing of all out-of-town guests, were paid for by the bride’s family. If, for some reason, the wedding couldn’t take place in the girl’s hometown, then it was agreed mutually to hold the wedding in a third town (usually halfway between the towns of the two concerned families), as was the case at sister Lusia’s wedding. Then everything was ordered in an inn or a hotel in advance. Naturally all expenses were covered by the bride’s family. Such a wedding was called a “zusammen-gefurene chasene.” Before the actual wedding ceremonies, performed by the town’s official rabbi, called stuet rabbiner,140 a marriage contract, written in the Aramaic language, was signed by both fathers (who were called mechutanim from then on)141 and by the young couple, with the rabbi as witness. Stipulated and enumerated in this contract were all the financial clauses hitherto agreed upon. This contract, called ketubah, was binding according to Jewish law. Another important feature, tragic at the same time, was the accepted ritual, to cut the bride’s sometimes beautiful hair and replace it with a wig, called 140 Stuet from the German Stadt (town), in small towns there was normally one official rabbi. 141 Mechutanim that is in-laws. – Ed.

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a sheitel. This was done immediately before the wedding ceremony, after the bride was dressed in her splendid wedding gown, in the bride’s chamber, with the women guests looking on. I am not sure, but it seems to me that the cutting was performed by the future mother-in-law. I mention this morbid ritual because in my mother’s case an exception was made, since she definitely opposed and defied it. It was customary to have an entertainer, a marshalik or badchen, at the wedding. He was a sort of jester, who could also sing – of course principally Chassidic melodies or folk songs. He usually had the talent to improvise some rhymed songs, incorporating the names of all the principal persons involved in the marriage, praising their alleged virtues with a certain wit, to the amusement of those present. To get more laughs from the audience, the badchen sometimes donned costumes impersonating certain characters from the Jewish environment. Other parts of his program were rather obligatory. There was for instance one song called “kale beweinen” (to shed tears over the bride). This was a sort of monologue, recited with a rather sad melody (singsong), describing how the bride was going to leave all her loved ones and enter the marriage status, full of dangers and uncertainties. This song was presented after the ceremony called kale bedecken, when the bride’s attendants covered her head with the veil before she was led under the canopy (the chuppah). After the well-known wedding ceremonies, it was the badchen again who was the first to intone a very gay melody, called freiliches, from the German Fröhlich. Another highlight of the wedding was a small band consisting at the most of four players, called klezmers.142 These were not professional musicians by any stretch of the imagination. They were men normally engaged in some vocational trade who played an instrument as a sideline. They knew no notes, playing only by ear. The main instruments were a violin, a flute, a bass violin, and a drum with cymbals. In exceptional cases, a second violin was added. People looked down on musicians at that time and not too much respect was shown to them. The repertoire of the klezmers was very limited, consisting mostly of a few dance tunes, which were specific to the part of the country they were from. And so, one could hear waltzes, mazurkas, polkas, and even kozak.143 Near the Romanian border, fast tunes could be heard, utilized later in the now so popular horas. At the Hungarian border, czardasz were played. The band sometimes accompanied the badchen during his recitations if they could find a common melody known to both parties. Otherwise, the band played during the short 142 Plural also spelled klezmorim. – Ed. 143 Kozak, polka and mazurek (oberek) are Polish folk dances characterized by stamping feet and clicking heels, usually to a lively tempo. – Ed.

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procession when the bride was led under the chuppah and after the wedding ceremony. Later, the band played during dinner, and later still, functioned as a dance band. The women danced among themselves, for men didn’t dance with ladies. The men also danced among themselves. The dancing was in a circle which became bigger and bigger as nearly everybody joined in. Actually, this wasn’t a dance at all. Everyone walked around in a circle, holding hands with the person on either side, and trying to stay in tune with the music. Most of the time, the bridegroom or the respective fathers were pushed into the middle of the men’s circle and encouraged to perform a solo dance. The whole thing was a rather clumsy affair. Once in a while, it would happen that one of the invited guests was a “man of the world” and really knew some of the Polish or Russian dances. He became the center of attraction. There was one dance, which was danced by the bride and someone of the opposite sex, the so-called mitzvah tenzel. This, the bride danced with one of her grandfathers, her father, or one of her uncles, but not holding hands directly, each partner holding the end of a handkerchief. Why it is called a mitzvah (good deed) dance, I am not certain. It seems that in older days it was customary for the bride, and considered a mitzvah, when she danced (through a handkerchief of course) with anyone at the wedding who asked to – even with beggars, who used to swarm to every wedding, looking for a free meal. Another duty of the badchen was to announce all gifts presented to the young couple. These were mostly objects of silver, such as tableware, bowls, goblets, salt and pepper shakers, and so on. The badchen called out every gift, mentioning the donor and whether the person, or family, was from the bride’s or bridegroom’s side. There was no custom of giving money or checks as exists today. In exceptional cases, some gold coins would be given, not for spending money, but rather to be kept as a souvenir and for good luck. These gifts were called “droshe geschenk.” There was a good reason for this name. A “droshe” was a sort of pilpulistic discourse which in olden times was delivered by the bridegroom at the dinner table, during the wedding festivities. This discourse dealt with Talmudic problems, or rather Talmudic opinions, expressed by some well-known sages, which on the surface seemed like contradictions. It was the task of the bridegroom, in his droshe, to reconcile these contradictions; finding somewhere in the commentaries an explanation, or even giving his own interpretation of the mainly superficial or apparent differences in opinion. Such a discourse was supposed to prove his Talmudic erudition and the sharpness of his logic and reasoning. Talmudic scholars present (there were always a few in every gathering) would nod their approval – the more territory the speaker covered, and the more Talmudic quotations he

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brought into his discourse, the more delighted they were. This was expressed at the end by congratulations and by adding some comments of their own. Such a discourse was a very carefully prepared project, with the help of the bridegroom’s rebbe and teacher, and was delivered from memory. No oratory was involved. Usually, it was rattled out in a big hurry, but a certain singsong melody or rather intonation was used – the same as normally accompanying the study of the Talmud. In old times, those gifts mentioned were presented after the bridegroom’s discourse and hence the name droshe geshenk (from the German Geschenk – gift). A wedding celebration lasted more than one day; actually, it lasted seven days, with an elaborate meal served each day, after which a special blessing was pronounced by some of the guests of honor. There were seven such blessings (sheva brochoth), one for each of the seven days. Some guests stayed the entire week, creating some hardship for the bride’s family, as well as a financial burden. Just a few remarks on the music band – the klezmers. There were no records or concerts that the musicians could hear. Where did the music come from? Most of the time the melodies were handed down from father to son, and the ability to play one of the aforementioned four instruments normally stayed in the family. Sometimes, there was real talent among them; frequently, when one composed a tune, it became a hit, and in some strange way spread all over the country. The tunes had mostly one pattern: they were supposed to be sad but at the same time convey a feeling of gaiety, reflecting the Jewish mood prevailing at every festive occasion. These klezmers were a very poor lot and played only at Jewish weddings for very meager pay. A generous guest would add a few coins, asking in return, for some favorite melody. However, descendants of the klezmers were some of the finest musicians, playing later at concerts in many European capitals. A playmate of mine was the son of a violin klezmer and he later became the concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. I understand that there are still some klezmer bands here in New York, playing at old-fashioned orthodox weddings.144

Sister Adela’s Marriage

An important event took place during sister Lusia’s wedding. Arnold brought along his friend and colleague at his office, a young man named Joseph Bern. 144 Station WEVD sometimes plays recordings from the klezmer band during the Yiddish Hour.

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Adela was very pretty and full of charm, and he fell in love with her. After his return home, Joseph began writing letters to her in German, expressing his love and affection. After a few months Adela was invited to visit Lusia in Borysław. During this visit, Joseph proposed to her. They became engaged and were married less than a year after Lusia. Since it was a love affair, no matchmakers and no dowry was involved (I don’t believe Father would have been able to secure another loan). This time it was a small wedding and with shame I must admit that I do not recall where the wedding took place nor whether I was present. Adela also lived in Borysław. Her husband was the only son of parents who were farmers. They leased a big farm from an absentee landowner and were, in a way, Jewish peasants, engaged in agriculture and dairy farming in a village not far from Drohobycz. They lived among Ukrainian peasants, had Ukrainian maids and hands working for them, spoke Ukrainian – in addition to Yiddish – and had scarcely any Polish. The mother, a pretty and strongly built lady, ran the farm. She did the buying and selling and laid out the work each day (I know this because I was invited there once during my vacation, after sister Adela had be-come their daughter-inlaw). Joseph’s father was a hunchback, a very nice man with a ready smile, and gossip was that Mrs. Bern, from a very poor family, had married him because his family was quite well-off.145 Joseph was an only child and received his education by private tutoring since there was no school in the village where he was born. He had a good Hebrew background, knew German, Ukrainian, and Polish quite well, and his favorite subject was history, particularly the history of Napoleon who was his big hero. He had an excellent memory and could recite Hebrew prayers, even from High Holidays, by heart. He could also recite German poetry. He was a capable accountant – his profession – but had no executive abilities. Throughout the years Joseph worked under Arnold, who had a strong influence on him. Although good-natured, Joseph had a very short temper and would easily lose control of himself. When this happened, he would become violent and behave like a madman. In later years, I realized how my sister Adela suffered because of this. Today, Joseph would be called neurotic. He had no personal friends. In his free time, he liked to walk by himself in the street for hours, so absent-minded that he didn’t see people unless the person physically bumped into him. He was blond, with a rosy complexion, not bad looking, very shortsighted and rather heavy, as he liked to eat very much. Sometimes I got the impression that he was like a country boy who loved nature and suddenly, moved to a big city, and had lost his way. He always needed fresh air and 145 Joseph/Józef and his parents, Lea and Leib Bern, died in the Holocaust. – Ed.

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wherever he went, the first thing he did was to open all the windows, summer or winter. Joseph showed more respect towards my parents, and we got along quite well. In 1913, Arnold was promoted and transferred from Borysław to the headquarters of the Petroleum Company, called Premier, for which he worked, to Vienna. A few months later Joseph was also promoted and transferred to Vienna. And so, in a matter of one year, the interest of my family stretched-out far away from the environment of our shtetl to the capital of the Habsburg Empire, the big city which was the dream of so many. There was a famous popular song at the time, “Wien, Wien nur Du allein, wirst die Stadt meiner Traume sein …”146 In a short while, the majority of our family had taken residence in Vienna, namely sister Lusia, sister Adela, and my brother, now called Bernard. My studies at the gimnazjum in Sambor and my life with aunt and uncle Gruess continued along the same pattern as in previous years. I continued to study hard, was still very pious – spending most of my free time in the nearby synagogue. I would write home at least once a week and I kept contact with my sisters in Vienna, either directly or through my parents. Both sisters had apartments in the same Viennese building. Lusia with Arnold on the third floor – three rooms and a kitchen; Adela and Joseph on the second floor – two rooms and a kitchen. The same year, 1913, the good news reached us that Lusia had given birth to a daughter, who was called Gisa,147 after my beloved grandmother, Gitele. Gisa was the first grandchild in our family and there was much joy among all of us. In the beginning of 1914, another good message reached us. Adela and Joseph had a son, and he was called Max Heinz.148 Max stands for Mayer, and he was named after the same grandfather (Mother’s father), after whom I received my name. Having finished the sixth grade of my gimnazjum with good marks, I came home for vacation in the summer of 1914. This was the fateful summer when, on June 28, the heir to the Habsburg throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and 146 “Wien, Wien, nur du allein/Sollst stets die Stadt meiner Träume sein!” – “Vienna, Vienna, you alone shall always be the city of my dreams!” – refrain of a melody created by an Austrian composer of Polish origin, Rudolf Sieczynski. – Ed. 147 Gisa was known as Gisèle. She later worked for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Her autobiography: Two European Lives, is about her and her husband, René Podbielski. They had one son Pierre-André Podbielski, who lives with his family in Italy. – Ed. 148 Max Heinz Bern survived World War II as a POW and medical officer in the Polish Division of the French Army. Moved to Australia in 1946. He is the grandfather of the language editor of this book, Laura Garland. – Ed.

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his wife Sophie, were assassinated in Sarajevo, Serbia, by a student from the Serbian radical national party.

As Refugees in Vienna

On July 28, 1914, Austria declared war on Serbia, and World War I erupted. I still remember the gloomy day when a proclamation by Kaiser Franz Joseph to his subjects, together with a mobilization order, was posted on the walls of our homes. Almost every family was affected by it, and no one knew what the next day would bring. I was too young and too immature to foresee the implications of this disastrous event. Somehow, I felt rather excited. I felt that this might be the beginning of a new chapter in our lives, and this might mean an end, temporarily at least, to all our financial troubles, our debts, our promissory notes which were an everyday feature of our lives. A day or two later, people started talking about leaving our shtetl because we were not far away from the then famous fortress of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Przemyśl. Everyone foresaw heavy fighting in our territory and the terrifying prospect of an invasion by Russian troops. This prospect became true several months later, with the historic and famous communiqué from the Austrian Army headquarters, “Przemysl noch in unseren Händen” (“Przemyśl still in our hands”). When this fortress fell shortly afterwards, the entire Austrian military force defending it was captured and taken as prisoners of war. These prisoners were sent by the Russians to the farthest eastern regions of Tsarist Russia. The people from our shtetl who had relatives abroad moved first. The Hausman family, who had one son and two married daughters in Berlin, left everything behind and moved there. We decided to go to Vienna. No passports were necessary, and trains were still running. And so, we packed our most essential belongings, went to the station, and took a train to Przemyśl. We left Hania behind; later she moved in with relatives in her native village. From Przemyśl, after a few transfers, we reached Vienna some two days later, as refugees. Our sisters had invited us to come to Vienna, but it was one thing inviting us and another facing the reality of four people – my parents, sister Rózia, and myself – arriving with few belongings and very little means. We came to sister Adela’s small apartment, consisting of two rooms, a kitchen, and a small dark corridor. Here we lived together with Adela, her husband Joseph, and their baby Max Heinz, then a few months old.

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We were among the first refugees to arrive in Vienna. In the beginning, there was a lot of sympathy on the part of the Viennese toward those who had to leave their homes and start a new life in a strange environment. But as more and more refugees arrived, and apartments grew to be so crowded, the sympathy became thinner and thinner. As time went on, the food situation in Vienna, as well as in other parts of Austria, became worse. Rationing was introduced for bread, milk, and other essential products. The quality of bread – Vienna had always been famous for its rolls and for the good bread – became very poor. Refugees were blamed for this, and the population’s original sympathy turned into outright hostility. My family was in a much better position than many others. We didn’t have to pay rent, and we had regular, though very meager, meals. The Austrian government organized help for the refugees, paying a cash allowance to each family – which was barely enough to cover the most essential expenses. Since it was still summer, life was made a bit easier as no heating was required. We lived in the IX. Bezirk,149 near the Elizabeth Promenade, with its shady trees and benches. Father often spent hours there talking with many other men of similar background and in the same predicament. Naturally they discussed the war communiqués, and there were “strategists” and “military experts” among them. Some were optimistic, predicting that the war, being conducted with the most modern weapons, couldn’t last longer than a few weeks, or a few months at the most. Others were rather pessimistic. All were eager to return home; little did they realize that the war would last five years. It was time for me to look for a gimnazjum, to continue my studies. The Austrian government, or rather the Ministry of Education organized schools and two gimnazja for students like us – refugees. They found among the refugees, professors from Polish gimnazja, and appointed two principals for all the students to continue their studies in the Polish language. Living in Vienna, I wanted to get away from the Polish language and everything which went with it. I was determined to continue my studies in the German language, at a German Gymnasium.150 I found a German Gymnasium called Maximilian Gymnasium, and I applied for admission to the seventh grade. After an interview with the principal, and 149 Bezirk means district in German. The ninth district of Alsergrund is a central district of Vienna. It is located just north of the first, central district, Innere Stadt. Alsergrund is associated with many notable names of Viennese art and science, including the former residence and office of Sigmund Freud. – Ed. 150 Gymnasium is the German spelling, and the spelling used in Austria. – Ed.

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having presented my diplomas from previous years, I was accepted. It turned out that the Maximilian Gymnasium was one of the most difficult schools in Vienna, with the highest standards in teaching. Teachers were candidates for faculty positions at the University of Vienna and some were already “Privatdozenten.” Interestingly, my son Henry (and subsequently George) repeated a similar feat at the Bronx High School of Science, some thirty-two years later, upon our arrival in New York in 1946. My German was inadequate for the seventh grade of the Maximilian Gymnasium. It wasn’t enough, for instance, to translate verbatim a Latin text into German, the German had to be literary and express the qualities of the Latin original. In addition, I didn’t know the German technical terms for math, physics, and natural sciences. And so, I had to work as hard as ever, just to keep passing grades. To improve my German, I stopped using any other language, even at home. There was hardly a day when I could go to bed before midnight, studying in the crowded apartment. About a month before the end of the school year, I became very weak, lost my appetite, and ran a temperature. The doctor recommended that I quit school immediately and go to the country for three months. We went to Gloggnitz, a few hours south of Vienna, where the air was good and fresh, and there was the possibility of obtaining milk and better food. We could afford to do this as Father had earned some money a few weeks before Pesach. He organized a small matzoth production. He rented an abandoned bakery, hired some refugees like ourselves who were willing to work and earn some money, found a partner who financed it, and started manufacturing. Of course, the enterprise lasted only a few weeks but it was quite successful. So, Mother went with me to Gloggnitz, where we found a furnished room in the home of an Austrian widow who lived on a small pension. Mother organized our household, did all the cooking – her only concern was getting me well. There were a few Jewish families living in the town, and they even had their own little synagogue. We were quite a curiosity to them, being the only refugees they had ever seen. I recovered slowly. After a month, sister Lusia decided to send Gisa with their maid to Gloggnitz for the summer, and we rented another room for them. So, we had pleasant company and frequent visitors. Having lots of free time, I began studying Kant’s “Kritik der Reinen Vernunft” which I had found among Joseph’s books and brought with me. This was the beginning of my interest in philosophy which was to last for many years. We remained in Gloggnitz for a full three months and I recovered completely. At that time, bread was rationed everywhere, but in this town, which was actually a summer resort, the bread was of better quality. We returned to

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Vienna. I came to the conclusion that the Maximilian Gymnasium was too difficult for me. At the end of the eighth grade, everyone had to pass the final examination, called Matura, a most difficult one even compared with later examinations at the University. I looked for another gimnazjum and found the Sophien, which didn’t have as high standards as the Maximilian but was good enough for me. What a difference! From being a student who barely passed, I moved to the upper level and became one of the best. The hard work I had put in at the Maximilian Gymnasium had not been wasted. Now  I completed my homework very easily, and even had time to attend an evening philosophy course at the University, given by Dr. Wilhem Jerusalem.151 Dr. Jerusalem was one of the most popular lecturers of that time and his course, entitled “Einführung in die Philosophie” was so crowded that the largest lecture hall – I still remember, Room 41 – had to be assigned to him. I would like to share more about this outstanding teacher, a forgotten man by now, but certainly still living in the memory of those whose privilege it was to attend his lectures. He lectured in a kind of German which was spoken in the province of Austria, called Burgenland. His lectures were interspersed with quotations in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, French, and English. He spoke freely, using no notes, sitting at the podium (called cathedra) and would get up only when he became enthusiastic about a particular topic. He was a great admirer of the American pragmatist, William James, whom he introduced to Viennese students of philosophy. I also remember that he devoted an entire lecture to the psychological phenomenon of Helen Keller. Dr. Jerusalem’s background was quite interesting. For forty years he taught Latin and Greek in a gimnazjum and, after his retirement, became Privatdozent at the University of Vienna because of his many works on the history of philosophy as well as his own philosophical system. As far as I remember, he was never appointed even as an “ausserordentlicher Professor” (the equivalent of an Associate Professor) because he was Jewish. I was fascinated by his lectures, which I attended religiously. They invoked in me a lasting interest in philosophy and whenever I could, I would read more about philosophical problems from books in the library of the University. I remember the math teacher, named Professor Mader. This poor fellow was very religious and didn’t write on Saturdays. It was quite difficult for him to explain math problems without writing and, for the fun of it, a few students pretended not to understand without the use of actual figures on the blackboard. The professor would become quite excited and try to explain by gesticulations. The tragic part of this was that his own son was a student in our class, 151 Wilhelm Jerusalem (1854–1923) was an Austrian Jewish philosopher and pedagogue. – Ed.

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and I could feel his suffering, watching his father’s ordeal. I was always sorry for both the father and the son. Speaking of religion – I recall that I was not as pious as I used to be back in Sambor. Of course, I prayed every day, but I didn’t run to the synagogue, with the exception of Friday night. Somehow, the zeal was gone. The atmosphere at home – not a home in the usual sense – was not always pleasant. Father and Mother did everything possible to stretch their meager means, but there was always the “money problem.” Our sisters helped out where they could, usually hiding it from their husbands who were very money-conscious. Both husbands, Arnold and Joseph, were afraid of being drafted in the army. They had already been rejected as physically unfit, but frequently such rejects were called back. Both men were neurotic and they would burst into a rage for the most trivial reasons – occasions painful to witness. We could do nothing about it; simply suffered silently. I intend to write the story of my brother Bulek separately, but I do wish to mention here that he was drafted four weeks after our arrival in Vienna and sent for training to some place in Moravia – another Austrian province which, after World War I, became part of Czechoslovakia. At the end of 1915, our landlord rented us a very small attic on the fifth floor. So, we moved out of sister Adela’s apartment, and everybody was happier. The only discomfort was that the Hausbesorgerin – counterpart of the Parisian Concierge – was terribly mean and as she was the mistress of the landlord, she did whatever she pleased. She didn’t want us to use the elevator so every time she saw one of us using it, she would stop the elevator. Sometimes she would stop us between floors. Not only was it difficult, particularly for my parents to climb all those stairs to the fifth floor, but it was embarrassing. She did this to show her contempt for us, the refugees. She was a hateful antisemite. Other members of Father’s family arrived in Vienna shortly after we did, and for the first time, we met Father’s brother and his family. They had lived in Brody, near the Russian border. We also met two of Father’s sisters and their families. Only a few families from Mościska came to Vienna. Uncle Alter and his family fled to Prague.

Drafted Into the Austrian Army

On May  11, 1916, being already eighteen years old, I was called to the army. Despite my lung defect of the previous year, I was found physically fit and was drafted. Those students who were drafted were allowed to graduate earlier, and I graduated “mit Auszeichnung” (with excellent marks). This was the Matura, which made me eligible for enrollment at the University of Vienna. The day of

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my departure was a sad one. I was sent to a military base in Western Galicia for basic training – a town called Bochnia, halfway between Kraków and Tarnów. By a wonderful coincidence, Cousin Menio Hollaender, already in the army, was stationed at the army base to which I had to report. He was in charge of the financial administration of the entire military base. My life at the base became quite organized. It was an eight-to-six job, with evenings to myself. Menio introduced me to many people, mostly in the army (practically everybody was in the army), and also to some Jewish families. I was still eating only kosher, so couldn’t eat at the Kaserne,152 where the food was practically inedible. Father sent me a monthly sum, sharing his meager means so that I could eat my main meal with a Jewish family who used to cook for a few private customers such as myself. Life was more or less routine. Of course, there was always the excitement about the war and its outcome. Another cause of excitement was the fact that we didn’t have permanent classifications, and every few months, the army wanted to find out whether some soldiers could be reclassified and made eligible for front duty. More and more men were needed at so many fronts, and Austria commenced drafting men up to fifty-five years of age, to replace the young like myself who were still occupied in various offices, not doing very essential jobs. It was quite interesting to live in Bochnia for a time. I met there people from many nationalities and countries. Some were even from Germany but hadn’t acquired German citizenship and thus had to serve in the Austrian Army. Some were of my age; many were much older, with sons my age. We were all comrades together in the army.

Officer’s School

In the fall of 1917, an order came down from headquarters that the Einjährige Freiwillige153 with a B category like me could volunteer for Officer’s School, where training would be given to become administrative officers, employed not in the front line, but in the so-called Etappe (behind the front line). I had the urge to see something of the world. Here was an opportunity, and I volunteered. I arrived in November 1917, in Troppau, Moravia, to attend this special 152 Barracks. – Ed. 153 Einjähriger Freiwilliger is a one-year volunteer conscript – in the Austrian-Hungarian, German, and Prussian Armies, a person with secondary education (Matura) or higher who volunteered for military service and paid the costs of their stay and training, in return for which their service was reduced to one year. – Ed.

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Officer’s School. Troppau (also called Opava) was a rather large city with a German theatre, and a German and Czech speaking population. Our food was served from large pots in the Kaserne, and it was terrible. I could scarcely eat anything. There was foul-smelling frozen seafood, imported from northern countries, and inedible meat. There were no restaurants nearby and besides, I couldn’t have afforded them. Once a week, on Sundays, we would go with comrades to a Czech restaurant and indulged in their famous dumplings. The taste of this had to last for the entire next week. Our training program in the school was a rather complicated one. We had the regular field training – handling rifles, strategy, map reading, formations, commanding units up to battalions, and more. In addition, we had subjects such as military administration and financing. The school lasted five months. After final examinations in field and administrative subjects, we were promoted to various non-com ranks, depending on our individual grades. I was given the rank of “Einjähriger Freiwilliger Zugführer,” which gave me three stars on my collar. This was quite an advance rank and was considered such an important event at the time by my friends that I received more congratulations than when in later years I completed a PhD. A few weeks later, my name appeared in the “Tagesbefehl” (order of the day), which meant that on orders of a department in the Ministry of War in Vienna, I had to report to an occupation command in Odesa.154

Occupation Forces in Russia

What happened in Russia in March 1917 is part of modern history. There was a revolution, the Tsar was overthrown, the Central Powers155 lost an enemy, and occupied part of Russia.156 The Bolsheviks took over on November 7, 1917. Here, I would like to make a few personal observations and I will mention some historical dates which were, during this part of my life, of particular significance. Jewish sympathy in Austria and Germany was on the side of the Central Powers. 154 Earlier spelled as Odessa. Today the city is in Ukraine and is spelled Odesa. – Ed. 155 Central Powers – the alliance of the German Empire (Prussia), the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire that existed during World War I. The name of the alliance comes from the central location in Europe of Germany and Austria-Hungary, which were surrounded on all sides by the Entente Powers (Great Britain, France, and Russia, referred to in the text as the Allies or the Allied Powers). – Ed. 156 The German and Austrian-Hungarian Armies occupied the western part of Russia (mainly the territories that became Polish after WWI, today Belarusian and Ukrainian territories) – Ed.

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We weren’t hoping for a victory of the Allies while Russia was a partner. Jews well-remembered the pogroms in Tsarist Russia and didn’t pray for their victory. After the Russian November Revolution,157 the situation changed – particularly in the Zionist circles. And after the Balfour Declaration,158 in which England promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine, Jewish sympathies switched to the Allied Powers. What happened in Russia after the November Revolution? In the beginning, the Soviets were still fighting the Austrians and Germans – but not for long. Trotsky, military leader of Soviet Russia, commenced negotiations with the Germans, and on March 3, 1918, the Soviets signed a treaty with the Germans in Brest-Litovsk. Under the protectorate of Germany and Austria, a new Ukrainian state under Hetman Skoropadsky was created. The German and Austrian Army remained in the area, now Ukraine, as a friendly occupation army, to help establish law and order. By military order, I was sent to the new state to join the Austrian occupation force. I arrived in Odesa on a hot July day and was impressed by the broad streets and beautiful buildings. Odesa was a famous port on the Black Sea and under the Tsars, was a very prosperous big city. I remembered from my youth back in Mościska that cousin Yoma had relatives in Odesa, a stepbrother from his mother’s side, who used to come for an occasional visit to Mościska.159 I remembered their name and found where they lived. I visited them frequently; they were most hospitable and friendly. A recollection from my stay in Odesa, which is still vivid in my mind, was my visit to a Karaim synagogue on a Friday evening.160 Everything took place in complete darkness. It was their interpretation of the precept in the Bible that no work should be done on the Sabbath. I was told that there was quite a large and wealthy community of the Karaim sect in town. They were very privileged, for they disassociated themselves completely from the Jewish community, even practicing antisemitism. 157 On 6 and 7 November 1917 (or 24 and 25 October according to the Julian calendar, which is why the event is often referred to as the October Revolution, sometimes November Revolution) revolutionaries led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin carried out a coup against the government of the Duma. – Ed. 158 The Balfour Declaration was a statement issued by the British government in 1917 during World War I proclaiming support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then a region of the Ottoman Empire with a small Jewish minority. – Ed. 159 Yoma’s mother, Mariem Rivke, who was from Russia, had a husband and son there and after she became a widow, she married for the second time Benjamin Fraenkel, Mother’s cousin. 160 The Karaites, also known as Karaims do not accept as binding the written collections of the oral tradition in the Midrash or Talmud. – Ed.

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After some two weeks, I received orders to report to another military command in Nikolayev, also in Ukraine. I gladly left Odesa and traveled by train through Kyiv to this important port, situated at the point where the Bug River empties into the Black Sea. Considering there was a war going on, life in Nikolayev was quite comfortable. We had to be careful, we weren’t allowed to walk alone at night, and had to always be armed. There was a radical Russian underground, opposed to the Ukrainian puppet regime, and on various occasions, we were shot at. I still remember how a young officer, a Jewish student from Vienna by the name of Weiss, was found shot-dead on the street. On the same evening, he had returned from a vacation at home. Frequently, printed announcements were posted in the streets, in Russian and in German, listing those who had been executed for their murderous and sabotage activities.161 One day, I went into a very fine grocery store on one of the main streets. The owner, who turned out to be a wealthy Jewish merchant, engaged me in conversation and invited me to his home. He had a lovely family, living in a luxurious villa, furnished with old-style solid furniture and a lot of heavy silverware. They were very hospitable as only the Russian Jews can be – actually, all the Russians were hospitable and frequently someone would start talking to me on the street and in no time had invited me for dinner at his home. The wealthy merchant had eligible daughters, and through them, I met other Jewish families. I became so popular that these other families considered it an honor for me to visit them. They were impressed by my rank in the Austrian Army; Jews in Russia couldn’t advance in the Russian Army. On the hot days, we would bathe in the Bug River. In the evenings, we would go to the Jewish and Russian theatres; even though it was dangerous going home at this late hour.

Return to Vienna

During the month of October  1918, rumors spread that the war would soon come to an end. Then, like a bombshell, on November 3, 1918, came the news that Austria had signed a separate armistice with the Allied powers – independently from the Germans. What followed was complete chaos, for it meant the disintegration of the Austrian Army. The Germans were still holding out and maintained their discipline. There is nothing more confusing than an army when all discipline breaks down and the barriers of rank, authority, and jurisdiction suddenly disappear. Everyone is on their own and each for himself. The one bond holding us 161 Activities of Russian underground groups. – Ed.

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together was the common fate of being stranded in a foreign and hostile country, coupled with the general desire to get out as quickly as possible and return to wherever we called “home.” After November  11, 1918, when an armistice was signed by the Germans, the army revolted, and their discipline collapsed as ours previously had. The resulting chaos was compounded, since the Germans were just as eager as we were to leave everything and go home. News of a revolution in Austria and Germany reached us. New committees were organized, this time according to nationalities. I stayed with the Austrians since I was eager to join my family in Vienna. It was December 1918, when I came home. My family was glad to see me. They had been worried the past few weeks as they hadn’t heard from me. It took me some time to recuperate. My sisters were in their apartments; my brothers-in-law were at their jobs; Gisa and Maxi were growing bigger. My brother, Bulek, came home from the Italian front and got a job with the same petroleum company for which Arnold and Joseph worked. My immediate problem was to pick up my studies at the University. This was a rather difficult situation for there were thousands of students in Vienna, eager to begin their studies again. Also, there were many Jewish students who normally would have studied at the universities of Lwów or Kraków, who couldn’t go back to their homes, and were stranded here. Those who had served in the army (called Heimkehrer162 – a sort of veteran) like me had certain priorities as far as admissions were concerned, and could enter accelerated programs, but it was still difficult – particularly in studies requiring laboratory space. I was accepted at the University of Vienna late in December, after the semester had already begun, as a Heimkehrer, on an accelerated program.

My Family’s Return to Poland

During this time, after the Revolution, Russia pulled back its forces from Galicia, including Mościska; and Father returned home under the most difficult conditions. He found our home badly damaged, and the brick factory damaged, with all the machines gone. There was a need for bricks and roof tiles in Mościska and the surrounding villages, and so Father returned to Vienna, established contact with a brick factory there, and started importing roof tiles to Mościska. This was a profitable business and made it possible to cover our expenses in Vienna, as well as repairing our home in Mościska. 162 Literally, “homecomer.” – Ed.

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Then the problem of returning to Mościska, for good, came up. Some refugee families who had nothing to return to, or saw better possibilities for themselves in Vienna, decided to stay (for instance, Cousin Franka’s parents). One day in the spring of 1919, Father, Mother, and sister Rózia went back to Mościska. I remained in Vienna, attending to my studies. It wasn’t a happy return for my family. However, it was a great help that our Hania left her village, where she had spent the war years, and rejoined my family. Also, our faithful Hersch Feuchtbaum, our devoted administrator, returned from Russia where he had been a prisoner of war, and assisted Father in rebuilding the factory. Father’s partners, the Reches family, also came back. But soon the Polish-Ukrainian war broke out. The Ukrainians didn’t accept the fact that the new Polish state had incorporated Eastern Galicia (with a Ukrainian majority) into its borders and didn’t recognize Polish sovereignty. So, a brutal war began between the Poles and the Ukrainians, and the Jewish population was caught in-between.163 One night, Ukrainian bandits came to our home, looking for money, and tried to attack sister Rózia. Hania, herself a Ukrainian, saved Rózia’s life, shielding her with her own body (this was the second time Hania almost sacrificed her own life for our family). On another occasion, Father was nearly arrested by the Poles. Jewish families in Mościska, particularly the young men, tried to organize a sort of militia for self-defense and when the question of securing arms came up, Father hinted that there were ways to get them. After that, the Poles came to our house, searching for arms which they suspected my father was hiding. The warden of the Mościska prison, who was friendly with Father, warned him of the planned arrest and hid him for the night in his prison. Next day, my family fled to nearby Przemyśl, and returned only after several months, when order had again been restored. With the establishment of the new Polish state, the oil wells and refineries of the petroleum industry were on Polish territory. Consequently, the main offices, which had been in Vienna, had to move to the capital of the new state, Warsaw. Only a representation was left in Vienna. Arnold, who held an executive position in Vienna, was transferred to Warsaw. He moved in 1919, but kept the apartment in Vienna, for Gisa and her governess and a maid remained. At this time, Joseph was also transferred, not to Warsaw, but to Borysław. This was where the oil wells were located; and where the drilling and piping of crude oil 163 For more on the insecurity faced by the Jewish population during this protracted period of power change, see, for example Ludwik Mroczka, Przyczynek do kwestii żydowskiej w Galicji u progu Drugiej Rzeczpospolitej, in: Żydzi w Małopolsce. Studia z dziejów osadnictwa i życia społecznego, ed. Feliks Kiryk, Przemyśl: PWIN 1991, 297–308.

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took place. Joseph and Adela took Maxi along but didn’t give up their Viennese apartment. So, I moved in and lived there. My brother Bulek went to Warsaw to work as a bookkeeper in the headquarters of the petroleum company. My father earned his livelihood dealing in petroleum products for Arnold; and in this way, he was able to support me during my studies in Vienna. While living in Przemyśl, Father was still travelling to Mościska, working hard to bring the brick factory back to production. The motor and machines, which he had installed before the war, had been either destroyed or simply carried away by the Russians. And so new machines had to be bought. The Poles who, according to the peace treaty were obligated to help rehabilitate and rebuild the destroyed industry in the former Austrian territory, didn’t pay a penny – particularly when the owner was Jewish. In the summer of 1919, I went for my first vacation between two semesters to Przemyśl, where my parents were living after they had escaped from Mościska. Citizenship-status of the Jewish students in Vienna at that time wasn’t certain. We could become Polish citizens since we were born and lived before the war in a territory which now became Polish; but we could also become Austrian citizens because we were veterans of the Austrian Army. Most of us couldn’t decide which citizenship to apply for, so the Hochschulausschuss164 arranged interim passports, issued by the Viennese police, for us. I traveled of course by train – it was quite a long trip – passing three borders before finally, on the third day, arriving in Przemyśl. Here, I was picked up by the Polish military police, who were looking for young men of military age to draft them into the Polish Army. Naturally, my parents knew nothing of this. After serving in the Austrian Army for three years during the war, I wasn’t too eager to interrupt my studies and serve in the Polish Army. The attitude of the Polish Army towards the Jewish population, immediately after its inception,

164 The Hochschulausschuss (H.A.) was a unique student organization created in 1919, during postwar conditions, to which every student belonged. A president and a cabinet were elected each academic year. The H.A. gave loans, and even grants to Jewish students for rent, textbooks, and such fees as the University required. The organization also took care of students in times of illness, and in relation to political problems connected with the status of the students. The H.A. extended help to thousands of Jewish students – most of whom would never have completed their studies without this help. Its leaders had the support of the American Joint Distribution Committee and Jewish philanthropic organizations. In 1921, I was an ex officio member of the new cabinet of the H.A. and managed the cultural department of the H.A. I organized what could be called a nucleus of an institute of higher Jewish learning, with university courses on many Jewish subjects. To see these courses running during my year in office was a source of great satisfaction.

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is a very sad chapter, including the military detention camp in Jabłonna165 for Jewish officers and pogroms in Lwów and other cities.166 I pretended not to understand Polish and spoke to the police only in German. They took me to a military barracks where different members of the police interrogated me several times, but I consistently refused to admit having anything in common with Poland, other than the fact I had come to visit my parents. Finally, after keeping me the entire day, they gave up on me and let me go. Under these conditions, my visit with my parents was much shorter than I had anticipated, for I was eager to get back to Vienna. Przemyśl was a completely strange city to me. I used to pass through the city in the days when I was studying in Sambor, on my way home, but I never knew anyone there. There was a large Jewish community with a frustrated Jewish youth, with no future, who had a tendency to be bitter. I never made any friends there. And so, I spent a few weeks with my family, studying a bit.

My Life in Vienna

The city of Vienna, during the socialist period, practically took control of all private apartments. Rents were frozen and didn’t amount to anything.167 In 1920, someone who was interested in the Berns’ apartment reported me to the city authorities, and I was ordered to move out. The apartment was later taken over by a family who denounced me. The furniture was shipped to the 165 The internment camp in Jabłonna was a camp where several thousand Polish Jews were imprisoned at the time when Bolshevik Russia attacked the newly formed Polish state in 1920. Leaving the camp without permission was considered desertion. Its establishment was the result of the decision of one of the high military commanders, who feared that the Jewish soldiers might favor Russia (Judeo-Bolshevik myth). The Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, Ignacy Daszyński, intervened against this decision and the camp was quickly dissolved (after three weeks of existence). In Polish historiography, it has the status of a shameful episode in the country’s otherwise successful war for independence. – Ed. 166 Conf. William W. Hagen, Anti-Jewish Violence In Poland, 1914–1920, Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press 2018 (especially the chapter: Polish Dawn, Jewish Midnight: The November 1918 Pogroms in West Galicia and Lwow); Jeffrey Veidlinger, In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918–1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust, London: Picador 2022. – Ed. 167 This had to do with the Mieterschutzgesetz (Tenant Protection Act) of 1917. Despite persistently high inflation, the act mandated a freeze on apartment rent at 1914 levels. In the postwar period, the ruling Socialist Party tried to solve the acute housing problem in Vienna through a radical public housing policy. The 1919 law Wohnanforderungsgesetz law provided for public investment in new construction and facilitated the repossession of property. – Ed.

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Berns in Borysław, Poland. I became a tenant in the small room that had been Gisa’s for the rest of my stay in Vienna – until the spring of 1923. My studies proceeded normally. While I spent some seven to eight hours daily in the laboratory, I must admit that I skipped many lectures. There existed at the University of Vienna, as in most European universities, the socalled “Lehr- und Lernfreiheit” (the freedom to teach and to learn), and it was up to the student to take advantage of the lectures, which were not compulsory. Most of the professors followed textbooks, and it was more convenient to study directly from these. However, there was no substitute for laboratory tests and experiments. Antisemitism was always prevalent at the University, and one had to learn to live with it. The University of Vienna was a hotbed for the ultra-nationalistic German movement and the German fraternity students were at the forefront, as potential future political leaders. There was quite an unbelievable discrepancy between the outside world and the everyday reality within university grounds. Outside, there was a socialist government with a socialist President (Carl Renner) and a socialist Foreign Minister (Dr. Otto Bauer), but in the University, Jewish students were frequently beaten up and not admitted to lectures, or even to exams. Yet, nobody interfered. The University was an autonomous institution where police couldn’t intervene, unless called in by the Rector, which never happened. Police could only act when fighting spread into the streets, and this seldom happened. I remember attending a lecture in one of the university halls by Dr. Bauer, the Foreign Minister, at the invitation of the socialist student organization, the nationalistic fraternity students posted themselves at the exit door with sticks, and everyone who left was clubbed over the head. Dr. Bauer had a hard time escaping. I myself was caught up in the socialist spirit for a while. I even delivered a lecture at the Halle entitled, “Die Socialisierung des Geistes” (socialization of the spirit). My line of reasoning was that every period in human history has a “Zeitgeist” to which every human being contributes and is a part of. So, if someone expressed certain ideas – as a writer, philosopher, scientist, or worker – the individual should receive no credit for what they did, it should be done in an anonymous way.168 I realized later that this was a rather naive way of thinking but, at the time, I really believed that if there should be a socialization of material goods, why shouldn’t there also be a socialization of spiritual values. It didn’t take me long to dissociate myself from these unrealistic ideas. Actually, our entire life at that time was unrealistic. With all the endless 168 In a similar way as we use expressions such as: the psalmist, the sages.

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theoretical discussions about ideas and ideologies in our student circles, we lost touch with real life. This also had its charm. Then  I fell into the other extreme and became ultra-conservative, in those student circles in which I was active, I was labelled as “Schwarzer Landau” (schwarz, meaning black, was the name given at that time to reactionaries).

Visits Home to My Family

During the summer of 1920, I went to visit my family, who were at that time back in Mościska. I hadn’t been to Mościska for nearly eight years, and many changes had taken place. My parents now lived on the first floor of the building which had replaced the old barn. The house on the main street, where I was born, was rented. I renewed acquaintance with some of my distant relatives who had also returned to Mościska after the war, as well as with some of the young people I had known years before. After the First World War, the younger generation in our shtetl became progressive and showed exceptional intellectual curiosity. They wanted to hear about the Zionist movement, about literature in general, and even about the theory of relativity, in which the entire world was interested at that time (this was shortly after Einstein had published his theory). Coming from the big world of Vienna, the young people invited me to lecture. And so, I lectured in the Verein Agudath-Achim founded by cousins Yoma and Menio back in 1908, flourishing now more than ever. My parents were always present, visibly proud of me, and somehow, I was always embarrassed and self-conscious lecturing in their presence. On my way back to Vienna, I had a very unpleasant experience. Father gave me fifty dollars (in American notes) for my living expenses. I had it hidden in my underwear since foreign currency couldn’t be taken out of the country. I was caught during the bodily search at the Polish-Czechoslovakian border. The Polish customs officer simply took the money and put it in his pocket. When I asked for a receipt, he threatened me with jail. This was a heavy loss and a very frustrating experience for me, as well as for Father, who had to send me more money in another way. One day, while working on my doctoral thesis, I received a letter from my family that my brother was getting married in Sambor and the family would all gather for the wedding. What happened was that my brother, working at that time for the petroleum company in Warsaw where Arnold was one of the executives, went to visit Uncle and Aunt Gruess in Sambor. There he met

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the same girl, Genia Segall, whom I knew when I was a boarder at the Gruess home while attending the gimnazjum in Sambor. Genia had developed into a most attractive young lady. She and my brother fell in love and after a very short courtship, decided to get married. Later, I found out that Aunt and Uncle Gruess had invited my brother to Sambor with the express intention of bringing the two young people together. Everyone considered this to be a very good match. The Segall family was highly respected, Genia was a very attractive young girl, and my brother was a very eligible bachelor with a good position. As my parents still lived in Mościska, I traveled there – it wasn’t simple, with special visas, passports, and three borders to cross. Then, we all went together to the wedding in Sambor.

Doctoral Thesis and the Interwar Years

For my PhD in I had to cover inorganic and organic chemistry, including qualitative and quantitative analysis, physical chemistry, and physics. There were several heavy volumes, which I had to study and remember. In addition to all this, I had to prepare for the examination in philosophy. At that time, the graduation ceremonies at the Vienna University didn’t take place on any fixed date, but rather when there were enough candidates for the so-called “Promotion”. There were some twenty-five candidates for the PhD, from different fields of the philosophical faculty, who were ready, and so the office of the Dean set graduation date for March 15, 1923. There was some ten days between the date of my last examination (in philosophy) and that of the official Promotion. These days were the most carefree and happiest ones of my life. No more examinations, no worries, and nothing to do – looking with great expectation to my future, it was like sweet music whenever friends called me “Herr Doktor” and each time it happened I would turn around, thinking that they meant somebody else. Finally, the day arrived – a clear winter day. Because of the small capacity of the hall, each candidate had permission to invite only two people. There was none of my family in Vienna at that time, but my girlfriend who was very attached to me and faithful through all the years of my studies, was present. After the ceremony, I officially became a Herr Doktor. I left the original diploma in Lwów when I was arrested with my family by the Soviets in June of 1940. Luckily, I took along the official copy, and this is still in my possession. A few days after receiving my PhD, I left Vienna – the city which had become my second hometown and where I spent, with the interruption of the First World War, nearly ten years of my life – for good.

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Many things happened between 1923 and the time when I met and married Mami and the years when both of you were born. During 1923 and 1924, I worked as a chemist at the Magyar Oil Refinery in Budapest, during their fascist regime, after the Communist Putsch169 of Bela Kuhn. In the winter of 1924, I moved to Aussig, Czechoslovakia, where I worked at the Color-Works paint factory. In 1925, I became the technical manager of the Zabłocie Chemical Company in Żywiec, Poland. This factory, as well as an apartment-house and a beautiful orchard, was acquired during the inflation of the early twenties by Arnold and his friends, who were also executives in the Polish petroleum industry. Originally, they manufactured malt extracts. It was my task to introduce paints as the main line of manufacture. In 1926, I came to Lwów, at the request of my entire family – already settled there – to take over the management of two brick factories. During the inflation, Arnold and Joseph bought out the shares of a brick factory called Keram, in Gródek Jagielloński, a small town between Lwów and Mościska. In addition, Arnold now owned most of the brick factory which Father had founded in Mościska. This was a very unhappy time for me. Arnold was too ruthless. In 1927, the commercial manager of the Zabłocie Chemical Company died suddenly, and I was called back to take complete charge of this chemical plant. It was in the fall of that year, while organizing an exhibit of Zabłocie products during the Targi Wschodnie170 in Lwów, that I met Mami. We were married on March 18, 1928. Our happy little family lived in Żywiec until the summer of 1933, at which time I decided to start on a career of my own. We liquidated our household in Żywiec and moved to Lwów, where we lived with Mami’s family. In the fall of 1933 (after the High Holidays), I went alone by ship to Palestine, then under British Mandate, where I planned to establish a paint factory in Haifa. I stayed in Palestine for four months, but for many reasons too complicated to enumerate and explain here, I wasn’t able to materialize this plan nor other plans to settle there. So, in the spring of 1934, I returned with the intention of starting a paint factory in Kraków. At that time, my brother-in-law Runek was in Lwów,171 helping his parents run their textile business. He was most unhappy there; so, with the consent and financial support of his parents, Grandpa and Grandma Thaler, I took him in as a partner. After several months of very hard work, the factory 169 Coup d’état or coup. – Ed. 170 Eastern Trade Fair – an annual exhibition of Polish and foreign industry held in Lwów from 1921 to 1939. Lwów was to be the centre of Polish trade with eastern countries, especially Romania and the USSR. – Ed. 171 Aron Thaler, also known as Aharon Tal, and called Runek by the family (1911–1986) was the brother of the author’s wife Edda. – Ed.

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was in operation under the name of Zakłady Chemiczne Kopal. It was an immediate success; its products were readily accepted by the trade all over the country. With the outbreak of World War II in September of 1939, we left Kraków and everything we possessed there.

Part II





Polish Jews in Siberia, copyright Nancy Margulies

The Russians Are Coming

The Second World War started on September 1, 1939, with the invasion of Poland by the Nazis. After two weeks, western Poland was occupied. The Nazis kept a front line along the rivers Bug and San. They waited there until September 17, 1939, when the Red Army invaded from the East and occupied the eastern part of Poland. As it was established later, this whole scheme was part of a secret agreement, the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact, signed on August 23, 1939. These facts, which already belong to history, are well-known and it’s not my intention to elaborate on them here. At the time Poland was invaded, the Polish government was run by a political machine which was in turn controlled by a small military group. This group considered itself the heir of Marshal Piłsudski’s powerful authority and the sole interpreter of his ideology; however, nothing was left from the overadvertised Polish democracy. Unrest developed inside this group by suppressing all minorities, by breaking down every legitimate parliamentary political opposition, and by establishing a concentration camp in Bereza Kartuska for political opponents. The economic boycott of the entire Jewish population was

© Brill Schöningh, 2023 | doi:10.30965/9783657791644_004

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officially encouraged.1 Jews were eliminated from nearly all professions, were beaten, and molested in streets, trains, schools, and universities. Outside the country, the Polish government started quarrels with its neighbors, Lithuania and Czechoslovakia. Due to favoritism and arrogance, the government lost all touch with the population, especially with the progressive and democratic parts of the nation. After the war broke out, the same government, which had assured only a few days earlier that the Polish Army would march straight to Berlin, lost control of the country on the second day of war. The highest government authorities ran away with their families in the finest government cars, some even took their furniture and carpets with them. The army, which didn’t have the most advanced weapons, despite the tremendous army budget, was infiltrated by German spies and saboteurs, and collapsed in no time. There were sporadic instances of heroic fighting and extreme sacrifice on the part of some commanding officers and enlisted men, but this didn’t change the overall picture. The morale was very low, soldiers deserted, some changed their military uniforms to civilian clothing, others tried to reach the Hungarian or Romanian border by every means possible. Some of the officers, still having the authority of their uniforms and pistols, while deserting, confiscated cars from refugees on the main roads, leaving them to their fate. I myself experienced a taste of this jungle law while escaping from the Nazis with five friends in a car. I was with my brother-in-law Runek, Mr. Strauch,2 Sascha Winnikow, and a friend of Runek’s (Mami and the boys were already in Lwów). Two miles from the town of Równo, we were stopped by a Polish lieutenant who was in charge of a small patrol. The officer asked us for a favor, to bring him with one of his sergeants to the nearest Polish Army Command where he had to report that the Russians were already nearby. We gladly agreed and brought him and a sergeant to the Command. Arriving there, the officer closed the gates of the yard behind us, then he pointed his pistol at us and asked us to get out of the car. We had a hard time leaving our car, and our few 1 In 1936, Minister of the Interior Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski endorsed in a way the economic boycott in his exposé with the slogan: “Economic struggle, yes, but no harm done.” The boycott option was argued to be justified by Poland’s overpopulation, the need to emancipate the peasant classes, and the defense of Polish trade against foreign domination. See: Ezra Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars, Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press 2001, p. 71; Bernard Wasserstein, W przededniu: Żydzi w Europie przed drugą wojną światową, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Magnum 2012, p. 34–38 – Ed. 2 Mr. Strauch was one of our salesmen in our factory Kopal, he covered the territory of Upper-Silesia (not far from the German border), in Katowice. After the Nazi invasion, he escaped from Katowice to Kraków, where he joined Runek and me. Then we escaped to eastern Poland together.

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belongings, which he also wanted to take along. There, in our presence, he and some of his colleagues fled with our car, leaving us and the whole military post behind. There was nothing for us to do but to walk to the nearest town, bitter and resentful, having been treated this way by our army, who were meant to protect us against the enemy we were escaping from. I hardly believe that anybody today could visualize the great tragedy, confusion, and psychological impact caused by the Nazi blitzkrieg with all its cruelties, on one side, and the Russian invasion, on the other. Refugees streamed from the West to the East to escape the Nazis – some now went back to avoid falling into Soviet hands. Roads were jammed by millions of people marching for days, some riding in horse wagons, some in cars or trucks, some pushing baby carriages – a lava stream of human misery. The border between the two occupation zones was not yet fixed, and many towns and villages changed hands several times. Families split apart. There was some wishful thinking and belief, which later proved to be completely wrong, that women and children were safer under the Nazi regime than men. Therefore, husbands and fathers left their families and ran away to the East, hoping to survive and return after the war. It so happened that husbands and wives found themselves under two different occupation zones and some were never reunited again. Children were lost in this turmoil, many died on the roads, some were robbed and murdered by bandits, human coyotes, ambushing them on side roads. After fifteen days and nights of hell, with German planes over our heads bombing and machine-gunning civilians on the roads, we found ourselves in a territory which became suddenly quiet and peaceful. No bombs, no machine guns, no cruelties, no misery, no death. It was like after being ship-wrecked for several days in stormy seas, we were washed ashore on a quiet island. We had reached eastern Poland. The Red Army was marching in. They were coming by the thousands; they were coming by foot, in trucks, in tanks, with artillery, with weapons never seen by us before. Soviet silver planes, each with the red star, were roaring by the hundreds in the skies. We had arrived in Lwów. My family and I (my wife Edda and our two sons) were housed with Edda and Runek’s father, Józef Thaler (on 8 Boimów Street). Runek and Mr. Strauch stayed with us too. It was crowded, as were many homes, with refugees from the East. My parents had a very small apartment, at Janowska 14, in Lwów. A few days after the war broke out, my father’s youngest sister, Aunt Franka, and her husband, who lived in Nowy Sącz (the birthplace of my father), moved into my parents’ apartment. My youngest sister Rózia, her husband Mundek, and their daughter Iza escaped from Jarosław, and they also moved in with my parents. It is easy to imagine how difficult life was under these crowded conditions.

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There was much confusion at the beginning because in some places the Polish Army was still marching to nowhere in one direction and the Russian Army was coming the other way. The confusion became even greater because of the incomprehensible attitude of the Soviet Army towards the disintegrating Polish Army. In some places, the Russian Army waved to the Polish Army, who waved back, greeting them as allies in the common war against the Nazis. In other cases, the Russian Army disarmed the Poles and let them go. In different cases again, the Russians took the Poles as prisoners. Nobody really knew in the beginning what the mission and the intention of the Soviet Army was. Complete disorder and chaos ensued, there was no Polish government, and no Polish Army Command anymore, the municipal civil authorities were equally confused. In some towns, the mayor, accompanied by civic leaders, greeted the Russian Army at the city entrance with bread and salt – a Polish custom for welcoming a friend (usually with schoolgirls offering flowers). In other towns, the mayor was the first to run away and there was no greeting or reception. It was only after a few days, after reading the now well-known Soviet proclamation, printed in two or three languages, that everybody understood that the Soviets had not come to help fight the Nazis but to liberate the oppressed Polish minority and the Polish working class. The Soviet Army took very good advantage of the psychological state of the population as described above. The occupation of the eastern part of Poland was very well organized and staged. They came from different directions in endless columns with their impressive tanks and weapons and it didn’t take long before every city, town, and village was occupied. What happened when a military group marched into a town to stay there? There was in nearly every settlement in Europe a “marketplace” around which everything else was centered. The Soviet Army stopped in the marketplaces first. The population, which until now had hidden in the cellars of their homes, came out to walk in the streets again and to enjoy the daylight, not afraid anymore of the Nazi bombing. People were rushing to see the Red Army. At the marketplace we were at, people were standing facing the Russians, who looked rather strange with their unknown uniforms and weapons, with their different languages, and the mixture of so many races. The less timid people engaged them in conversation, which was exactly what they were waiting for. It turned out that the soldiers from this advanced first group could give answers in every language the local community preferred to speak (Polish, Yiddish, Ukrainian, or Russian). Later, we found out that the avant-garde of the army consisted of the Politruks, the political commissars of the army. Some of them were officers, some were of non-commissioned rank. Their role was to tell everybody, who

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was willing to listen, how wonderful life was in Soviet-Russia, the land of great opportunity, with Stalin as their great leader; and how rotten and miserable life had been here (in Poland) up until now, being exploited by the big landowners (pany, panowie in Polish) and by the capitalists. Now it was the Soviet officers turn to ask questions. They asked the people grouping around them about their professions. The artisans, knowing they belonged to the working class, so favored in Soviet Russia, came out first. One presented himself as a shoemaker, one as a tailor, and the third as a plain manual worker. The answer, of course, was that life for them would be just wonderful. There would be plenty of work for them and plenty to eat – in the Russian language there was a special hand gesture which accompanied the expression that somebody could eat in abundance – the officer raised his right hand above his head and then moved his forefinger in a horizontal direction. This gesture gave you the impression that the person eating could actually drown in the amount of food available to eat. Less courageous in inquiring about his future was a storekeeper because he knew that his kind of occupation was frowned upon in Soviet Russia – he was a go-between the producer and the consumer and was therefore not considered productive. But “Why not,” was the answer, “We need people like you. You will sell as you did up until now, and we shall buy from you, targowat budiem, and everything will be fine.” Now, there was also a landlord in this group. Everybody knew by now that homeowners were considered exploiters and despised by the Soviets. So, the man was very hesitant to ask a question as to what the future had in store for him. Encouraged by the good mood and laughter of the group, he found out that there was nothing wrong with his occupation: “Nitchevo, you will keep your house and you will collect rent from your tenant as usual.” An engineer, who was also in this group, found out that he would become a very valuable citizen, with no employment problems, and that Russia was waiting for him to help build the greatest country in the world. Somebody who inquired about antisemitism was told that nothing like that existed in Soviet Russia. Everybody who offended another citizen for being a Jew or used an offending name received a four-year prison term. This statement was always accompanied by a hand gesture – the first two fingers of the right hand were placed diagonally across the first two fingers of the left hand, indicating prison bars and the number four. Everybody went home with a smile on their face to bring the good news to their family, no war anymore, no persecution, plenty of work, everybody could pursue their trade and profession with no restrictions whatsoever.

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Immediately afterwards, the Soviets occupied all the municipal government buildings and offices. They seized all military installations; the city was taken over by a military commander. Small military units patrolled the streets. Already in the first few hours, several arrests were made. Mostly political leaders from different parties, including socialists and Zionists, as well as district attorneys and judges, who had participated in anti-communist trials. Some of those imprisoned disappeared forever, some were found several years later as prisoners in Russia. It seemed that the Russians came in with a prepared list of people who should be imprisoned in those early days. A few days later, another group of Russians arrived, who took over the civil administration, railroads, public services (including gas, electricity, city transportation), hospitals, schools, and prisons – an integral part of Soviet Russia. It was quite difficult to find out whether the Russians who arrived were civilians or not. Nearly everybody wore some sort of a uniform, and when it was not a full uniform, it was at least a military coat or military pants. Besides, nearly every one of them carried a pistol in their side pocket. In the beginning, life was more or less normal, with the exception of a few families affected by the arrests, and some families whose nice homes were taken over by Russian officers. Otherwise, people did what they had always done up until now. They went to work, and children went to school. The stores were open, and the factories were operating. Only the streets looked different. Filled with thousands and thousands of strange people. From the way they behaved and acted, we had the impression that most of these people had never in their lives seen a city and people like us. One of the first orders was that the Russian ruble be made equal in value to the local currency unit, the zloty, and that rubles be accepted everywhere, interchangeable, with no restrictions whatsoever. The Russians came in with a tremendous amount of ruble bills, everyone had their pocketbook piled up with brand new rubles. It seemed they received, before coming to Poland, a special high allowance.

What Happened to the Trade?

Now this was the situation. The stores were packed with merchandise and the Russians, with plenty of money, were eager to buy anything they could get their hands on, starting with watches to wool and silk materials, to shoes, to liquor and cigarettes. On the other hand, the native population, knowing that the Polish currency had no more value, tried to exchange their money against

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some goods. So, the stores were literally stormed by customers, standing in line for hours, sometimes for the whole night, in order to get in first in the morning. The Russians used to walk into stores without waiting in line. Here we noticed for the first time the lack of discipline in the Soviet Army. Soldiers pushed back officers by force when they thought they should be served first. They were not particular or choosy in selecting their merchandise. They bought everything, items for men or women; old things which couldn’t be sold in normal times. Remnants and odd ends when there was nothing else left to buy. The prices soared sky high. The merchants soon found out that once sold, the merchandise couldn’t be replaced anymore. The Russians issued an order that goods had to be sold at pre-war prices. This made the situation even worse and inflation, at its best, started. The goods slowly disappeared from the stores and were sold on the private, or rather black market, which was from then on, a regular source of supply. In the center of the city a so-called tolczok (bazaar) was established where everything could be bought and sold without any price control. I later found this institution everywhere in Soviet Russia. There was no regular, legitimate trade anymore.

American Dollar Under Russian Occupation

At the same time, a new trade started flourishing. A private stock market dealing solely with foreign exchange and especially American dollars. Everybody tried to secure the remnants of their savings or property in American dollars, especially the merchants. Selling their goods and having no chance to buy new merchandise, instead of piling up Russian or Polish bills, they preferred to change their money into American dollars. The reason why, among all the foreign currencies, the American dollar was the most desirable was obvious. First of all, the American dollar had always been very popular in this part of Europe. There were many families who were used to receiving support from American relatives, in dollars, since many, many years. Secondly, after the First World War, during the inflation periods in the Central European countries, which lasted from 1919 until 1926, the whole system of trade learned to base every financial transaction on the dollar parity. It was even a time when factories, depending on imported raw materials (for instance the textile industry), billed their goods in American dollars. The American currency was considered the unchangeable, solid ground in the economic fluctuation. In this whole attitude towards the dollar was implicitly expressed a vote of confidence to the soundness of the American economy. The third reason was that people hoped

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to reach sometime in the near future, in a legal or illegal way, some foreign country and the dollar would be the only money of value, which proved later to be true. And so the private stock exchange, confronted with a tremendous demand, changed the value of the American dollar from day to day. Sometimes from hour to hour. The market was most sensitive, like a seismograph during an earthquake. Every political and military event, even in a faraway country, every speech by Churchill overheard during late evening hours from the BBC in London, every speech by President Roosevelt, influenced the dollar market. Rumors about Russian plans concerning the population were accompanied by an immediate reaction in the dollar value. The much-criticized Wall Street is a resting place in comparison with the feverish activities and upheaval in a small obscure side street – where people walking by whispered to one another, passing along the latest quotations, and closed their deals. A secret code for the dollar notes was developed, they were called “the greens” or rather humorously the “noodles” because the dollar notes were rather long in comparison with other bills. The dollar soared sky-high, starting from the official exchange rate, where one dollar equaled 5.20 Russian rubles as a theoretical value – I doubt whether even one transaction was made on this basis. Going up already in a few days to 70 rubles for one dollar and established, after two months, somewhere around 300 rubles for one dollar. Many years of savings of families were melted away before our eyes. I saw with my own eyes how people considered wealthy only a few months earlier brought home, after converting their whole capital, ten to fifteen dollars in American notes as their hope and basis on which to build a new existence for themselves and their families in the future. From this example of a transaction, it is easy to understand that no big sums were involved and a man with several hundred dollars in cash could operate a big foreign exchange business. In addition to that, many counterfeit dollar bills appeared on the market because there were no experts in American notes. Those counterfeit bills were easily absorbed by the eager buyer. There was an unexpected additional source of supply of American dollars for this unusual foreign exchange market. Some Russians brought along with them American dollars. It turned out that many Russians, lacking confidence in their currency, were hoarding American dollars saved from Tsarist times by hiding them underground in metal boxes. They were soiled, damaged by moisture and by the corrosion of the metal containers, and in a denomination which had already been out of circulation for years. It would be difficult to use them in the United States, but here, everything that looked like, or reminded one of, a dollar was gladly accepted. The Russians knew they couldn’t get anything

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for those dollars in Russia. In fact, they could only get themselves in trouble if they brought them out into the open there, because they were supposed to have rendered them to the Soviet government many years ago. So, they brought them to this part of Europe, knowing they would be accepted here, and they were indeed not mistaken. In exchange for these bills, they bought quantities of merchandise they’d never before even dreamed of.

Changes in the Employment Market

Now let us see what happened in the meantime in other fields. I mentioned that people went back to their jobs in offices and factories, but soon tremendous changes took place. The old government and municipal offices were taken over by the Russians. Having different ideas of how to run the administration of a country, they found it simpler to fire most of the civil servants, instead of reorganizing the offices, and filled the positions with new people. The top positions were of course immediately occupied by Russians, and only people who claimed to be communists or communist sympathizers were accepted as employees. At occasions such as this, and similar events, people soon realized they had to be very selective in how they presented information about their parents, their education, and their occupation to be accepted by the new Soviet order. Life and survival depended on whether somebody was born into the family of a peasant, shoemaker, tailor, or bookkeeper. If you were born into the family of a banker, manufacturer, or landowner then it was too bad; there was little chance for a decent job. Later, it turned out that a human being born into this group couldn’t even stay in their hometown, even if their family had lived there for generations. I will come back later to the subject of people who had to wander throughout the country to find a place to live. Now, as far as the first group was concerned, it wasn’t always good to be a descendant of a peasant. There were peasants and peasants. A peasant who had around ten acres of his own land was considered a kulak, a sort of landowner, because the Russians didn’t expect him to work the land by himself. In other words, he had to employ hired help and so he became an exploiter of the working class. These peasants were considered potential enemies of the Soviet system and as future opponents of the collectivization of farms – the already well-known institution of the kolkhoz. If you were able to select your parents at that time, you would make the best choice by selecting a tenant farmer, what we call a Lone-Ranger in the United States, but, of course, without his adventures. As  I also mentioned, a good

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choice would be a descendant of a bookkeeper because of their particular role in the Soviet economic administration, more on this later. And so you would see people, who were previously very proud of their social register, digging out some great (or great great) grandparents who started as manual workers, to appear as poor descendants of poor laborers, dressing and behaving accordingly. Some people were too well-known to conceal their register, others too proud of their ancestry to do it. What happened to those people who because of their ancestry or background couldn’t get jobs? Some of them lived doing nothing, eating up their savings, and selling what they could from their belongings, hoping for political change. After all, a war was going on and during a war, anything could happen. For a time, this kind of life was possible. Until people had to work to keep their apartments or at least a room in them. Some went to other places where it was easier to conceal their background. Others tried to cross the border illegally, which was not yet so closely watched, and succeeded in escaping to Romania or Hungary or even back to the Nazi-occupied part of Poland.3 The State banks were immediately taken over by the Russians. The private banks were still allowed to operate. It turned out that there was a special purpose behind this. It was a way to regain the confidence of citizens, who started to do some business with the private banks. The citizens handed over their promissory notes, to cash them, in exchange the private banks took a commission. The banks promised to do business for their clients, even in parts of the country occupied by the Nazis. After the private banks accumulated plenty of promissory notes, the Russians confiscated all their holdings. A strange thing happened then. The very same clients who gave their promissory notes to the private banks, for them to cash in the money from their debtors, received from the Russian government bank, strong orders to pay the money for their debtors who could not be reached or refused to pay. There was no use protesting or appealing to reason. These notes were now considered Soviet property and the debtors or creditors had to pay. It made no difference to them where the money came from. Because nobody was looking for trouble with the Soviet occupant, people preferred to pay, not giving second thought to the strange logic of the Soviet economy. I know about this, as I experienced it firsthand. 3 My sister Lusia and Arnold escaped from Lwów to Romania. In Romania, Arnold received one of the first immigration certificates to Palestine. It was possible owing to the help of Dr. George Halpern, a personal friend of Prof. Chaim Weizmann, and the founder of the Palestine Colonial Bank (which became later Israel’s State bank). From Palestine, they emigrated with Gisa’s help (who was at that time a lecturer in economics at the University of Melbourne) to Australia. Arnold established himself later in Sydney in the electrical torch business and did very well.

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While escaping from Kraków, I took some promissory notes from the clients of our company Kopal, who lived in the eastern part of Poland; but when I tried to cash them at a bank in Lwów during the Soviet occupation, not only did I not get any money, but I had trouble with the Soviet authorities, who actually wanted me to pay the money owed to me. The representative of our factory Kopal in Lwów, Mr. Samuel Wagner, visited our customers with me, asking them to pay their overdue bills, but they simply laughed at us. I was bitter and disgusted with them. I could see with my own eyes how our customers were selling our products for fantastic prices – our cans could easily be spotted on their shelves as they were very colorful and had very modern designs. With the money they received for only selling two kilos of paint, they could easily have paid our bill for the fifty kilos they owed us; but still they refused to pay a penny. The fact that I was there penniless with my family didn’t move them at all. Some of them were old customers and considered themselves as my friends. Everybody was thinking only of himself and his best interest. Ethics, good business practice, compassion were completely discarded. This was among several strange first encounters with Soviet ideas of financial dealings. There were no direct taxes in the Soviet system – Russian propaganda made a point of it. Suddenly delegates from the Office of Internal Revenue came to collect taxes from people who had lost everything, for their earnings during the previous year under the Polish regime. In some cases, they asked for taxes which had already been paid but the receipts had been misplaced or lost in the turmoil of war. The whole thing sounded so incredible that people at first thought they were victims of some fakers, who had gotten hold of the pre-war records of the Office of Internal Revenue and who were trying to make some easy money in all this confusion. Unfortunately, this was not so. The tax collectors had been sent by the Soviet authorities to get as much money as possible from the people, and they got it. Another thing happened which sounds unbelievable. A steady feature of Soviet life was to order people to register. Every time registrations took place, they had tragic consequences. There was a registration for officers who had been in the Polish Army, and one for non-commissioned and enlisted men. There was a registration for technical men and another for physicians. Among others was a registration for sales representatives of different companies and factories. They were told that since there would be no private commerce and trade, the Soviets wanted to organize them to use their great experience and abilities in some government institutions and enterprises. It sounded quite reasonable to everyone concerned. So every sales representative registered with their address and, among other things, was asked which company or factory they

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represented and what their sales territory was. After a short time, the salesmen received notice to present their books and copies of all the bills in their possession to the Soviet authorities. And now the Soviets started cashing in all the unpaid bills. So this was the purpose and also the end of this salesmen organization.

Nationalization of Private Industry

According to the first propaganda promises, the manufacturers went back to their factories and started working as usual. Some owners of bigger companies, who were not too popular around town, were arrested in the first days and disappeared. In their factories, the manufacturers didn’t find the same working conditions as before. The politeness to the boss and to management disappeared and so did the discipline. There were no “Sirs” anymore but only “Comrades.” The workers were organized by some self-styled leader amongst them and elected a committee which was supposed to run the factory together with the former management. The idea of labor-management cooperation was good and sound, but the practical result was that every small issue had to be decided by the committee, and consequently it was always in steady session. After a while, a new committee was organized to politically re-orient the workers and indoctrinate them in the teachings of the Marx-Lenin-Stalin theories. Of course, there was nobody among the workers who would have the knowledge and the experience for this job, and so an outsider came in, who became the secretary of this political-educational committee. This secretary was by no means elected but delegated by the Communist Party and within a few days, everybody realized that this was now the most influential person, the real boss of the factory – despite the fact this secretary didn’t have the slightest idea of the technical or administrative part of the company. These political secretaries were 95 times out of 100 Russians, of course. The factory changed face again. The manufacturer, who up until now still had some illusions of cooperation with the labor committee (after all some members of the committee had worked with the manufacturers for many years), now lost all hope. They were pushed aside and ignored completely by the political secretaries. Old workers were fired overnight and new workers were hired, faces never seen before. Men who had never worked in the factory’s particular trade, who had come from distant towns. These men were not of the hard-working type and did a lot of talking, especially during meetings, which became nearly a daily feature. Their favorite topic was to condemn the capitalists who were exploiting the workers, and to praise everything in Soviet Russia.

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They urged for more work to contribute to the final victory of the Soviets. The old people, who were still left in their jobs, walked around the factory as complete strangers. And the previous bosses did better to stay away from the factory altogether. Father used to travel to Mościska, where we had our brick factory, hoping he would get some money from there, but he wasn’t successful. Hersch Feuchtbaum, who had been in charge of the factory for many years and was practically part of our family, was very helpful in getting some food for father to bring home. Father finally gave up his trips, since it became more and more difficult to travel by train and since the workers, incited by the Soviet propaganda against the “exploiting” factory owners, became quite hostile. I personally couldn’t help my parents because I didn’t have anything myself. Finally, the big day came. A meeting of all factory employees was called, over which the political secretary presided. A resolution was brought to a vote, which read more or less as follows: There has been enough exploitation by the capitalist owner and from now on the factory will be taken over by the workers as their property, to the glory of the Soviet Union, and to the glory of the greatest leader and genius of all times, Joseph Stalin.

The owner of the factory, whose name was in this official document, was declared as being deprived of his property from that day forth and expelled from it once and forever. The workers were told at that meeting that this was the greatest and happiest day of their lives and that generations had been longing for this glorious day. Of course, this resolution was carried unanimously even though there was not too much happiness on the workers’ faces. Most of the workers knew already by now that their ownership was not to be taken literally, and that they had only exchanged their bosses. They knew that the change meant more work with less pay and that even as co-owners they could be fired at any time. But still, they were told to be happy, and nobody dared admit that he was not. This was the official “nationalization” carried out in every private enterprise according to the same procedure and pattern with only a slight difference in the words of the resolution. In such a way, in a period of a few months, the whole industry was nationalized. The structure of the factory itself was completely reorganized after the nationalization. In the first place, the factory was given the name of one of the members of the Politburo.4 The most important 4 Politburo was the highest political body that managed the affairs of the Soviet State on a dayto-day basis, between plenary meetings of the Party’s Central Committee. The Politburo was

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names like Stalin and Molotov were reserved for bigger factories. Smaller outfits had to be satisfied with names like Budyonny, Kaganovich, or Khrushchev. The name of Mikoyan was reserved mostly for food processing plants. Every nationalized factory became part of a greater economic unit called “trust” or “combine,” with very complicated names. At the same meeting where the factory was nationalized, a director was elected. Somebody from the ranks of the workers who had some radical leftist affiliations from before and preferably a woman worker. There was a clever psychological reason behind this. The Russians wanted to prove their progressiveness and to win over women, whose support for the new ideas and the Soviet system became stronger, more radical, and more enthusiastic than that of men. So women became directors of factories but of course this was only a nominal function, connected with higher pay and some higher status. She carried a visual sign of her authority: the round rubber stamp (with the official name of the factory, with all the paraphernalia such as the hammer and sickle). You must know that there was nothing like stationery with letterheads in Soviet Russia. Every letter or document was made official only by a round rubber stamp. This stamp became so important that the director always carried the stamp with them, and never trusted anybody else with it. The director took the stamp home at night, and sometimes no business could be transacted and no paper signed because the director was away. The factory was technically run by a manager, a technician delegated by the Communist Party. The manager was of course Russian and a member of the party. The administration was run by an accountant, whose official status in a Russian enterprise was higher than elsewhere. The accountant had to sign and countersign everything; all the responsibility for the smooth functioning of the factory was his. He was known as Glavbuch (an abbreviation for Gavnyj Buchhlater, which meant Chief Accountant, Buchhalter is taken directly from the German word for accountant). This is the reason why I mentioned that bookkeepers belong to the favored occupation group, which was good to be descended from. The Glavbuch might have one or several assistants. In addition to the position of the Glavbuch, there were other new positions in the administration never known here before. The Planovyk was the person informally chaired by Joseph Stalin. During the period in question, the Politburo – in addition to Stalin – consisted of Andrei Andreyev, Nikita Khrushchev, Lazar Kaganovich, Mikhail Kalinin, Anastas Mikoyan, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, and Andrei Zhdanov. Semyon Budyonny was the military commander, First Deputy Commissar (Minister) of Defense of the USSR, also a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. – Ed.

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who laid out the working plan for the plant. It is already known that the whole Russian economy was a so-called planned economy, at least on paper. Normally every five years, a new economic plan embracing the whole Soviet Union was announced to the world with much fanfare and propaganda speeches. This was the Piatoletka. This general five-year economic master plan was based on the five-year plans of individual industrial units within a particular republic and then within the whole Soviet Union. For instance, with an iron ore mine, the production of the mine was put in a five-year plan, considering the equipment, manpower, shipping facilities, and other factors. The plan of this mine was the basis for a five-year plan for one or more steel mills, and the five-year plan of the steel mill formed the basis of a five-year plan of a sheet metal factory, and its plan in turn formed the basis for the plans of an armament factory, a truck factory, and so forth. All these plans were interwoven and dependent on one another. All the individual five-year plans were built into an overall fiveyear republic or state plan, and all the state plans were combined into a general Soviet Union five-year plan. Even though we read all the time that factories were already reaching their goals in the third year and even going above them, 120 to 150% of the five-year plans were never fulfilled and a new five-year plan was necessary. As I already mentioned, there was in every enterprise, even in the smallest ones, a man who planned the production and who was, together with the Glavbuch, responsible for the plan being carried out. Besides him, there was another new position created in the Russian economy. It was a position often called normovyk. The man who established the working norms. The norm, norma in Russian, was a phrase with tremendous impact on the life of every worker. The Russians professed to everyone who listened that the Western Capitalists were exploiting the workers through their piecework system. Now the Russians didn’t have the piecework system but had the norm system. It worked like this: for every worker, wherever they worked, and for every kind of work, a minimum output was established which must be accomplished and upon which minimum wages were based. For instance, with somebody who worked at a stamping machine, at a machine shop. For the norm, the best machine was taken, with the best man in the shop, with the best tools and perfect conditions, and his output was then used as a normal standard for every worker at a stamping machine. As I mentioned before, the normal production called “a norm” was the basis for minimum wages. To earn more, the norm had to be overdone by 50 or 100 percent, or sometimes even more, there was no limit. There was also no limit to working hours, a worker could put in over the normal eight hours, as long as his output reached two or even more norms. Of

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course, you wouldn’t call it piecework because piecework was an invention of the capitalist system. Nevertheless, piecework was a child’s game compared to this kind of hard labor. There were no differences in norms for men or women workers. A worker had trouble meeting the first norm. There were stoppages in production, bottlenecks, and machine breakdowns because of the very poor maintenance, which was not excused or taken into consideration. At first, the foreman would appeal to your ambition to match the efficiency of some other fellow. If this didn’t help, then some of your colleagues would be induced to denounce you for lack of efficiency in a factory bulletin posted every day in the factory meeting hall or in an open letter to the local newspaper, where it was printed amongst the most important news. Finally, the political secretary would call you in and threaten you with court and accuse you of sabotage. Now, let us look at those who were able to reach the norm and even produce more than that. The higher earnings were at the beginning an incentive for this hard work, but later when money was of less value, and a time came when there were no goods to buy for the money, new means were found to get the utmost from those hard-working men. At first, they appealed to their working-class conscience, to help build the great Soviet Union, the “paradise of the working people.” Then, the Stakhanovite movement started. The history of the Stakhanovism movement is as follows. It happened in 1935 in a Donets coal mine that a miner by the name of Alexey Stakhanov worked out a new system for his group by which he increased his coal output fourteen times. He was declared a Hero of Socialist Labor and set as an example for all the workers in the Soviet Union. Everybody was challenged to live up to his example. Stakhanov himself was brought to Moscow, was received by Stalin himself, and was given all possible honors. It was later very much doubted amongst the workers themselves whether Stakhanov actually did what he was praised for, but he became a shadow in every worker’s life. I found out more about this later, when living and working deep in the Ural, where I was confronted with the “norm” and Stakhanov problem myself. The name Stakhanov became an idea, and it was the duty of every worker to become a Stakhanovite, which meant to overdo their norm many times in their daily production. The mere fact that Stakhanov increased immensely his output by some machine improvement didn’t absolve the manual worker, who had only their hands and tools, from the obligation to increase manyfold their production and to become a Stakhanovite. So a working race started, stimulated by promises of future honors, by write-ups in factory bulletins and local newspapers, and by establishing a sort of “Aristo Club”5 – in every eating place in a factory, a 5 Aristocratic club. – Ed.

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few tables were put aside at which only workers could sit who had become Stakhanovites by unusual high production outputs. Now the Normovyk was the man in the factory administration who was in charge of all this norm business. When all this was not enough, then another movement started, called the “Socialistic Competition.” This sort of a sports game went as follows. One factory challenged the other to increase the plant production by some 50 or 100 percent in a certain time period (from one to three months). This competition – driven by different tricks, threats, and sweat – brought the winning factory praise, rewards, and medals from the local party leader and press publicity. The winning factory’s victory and glory then became a challenge for other factories. A sort of a merry-go-round, which would be lots of fun, if human lives and human misery weren’t involved. In Soviet Russia, there was always a standard question directed to working people, “If I can do it, why can’t you?” There was a fallacy to this question. First, it wasn’t always true that “he did it,” even if he said so. Secondly, it was well-known that two men with different physical or mental conditions, with different backgrounds, couldn’t achieve the same results in their work. But you couldn’t argue with the Soviets about it. To do so was considered counterrevolutionary. All this was accompanied by slogans: “Long live the working class,” “Long live the Soviet Union, the homeland of the workers and peasants,” and “Long live the genius of all mankind, Joseph Stalin.” After these descriptions, it may be now possible to visualize the conditions under which the workers in factories were operating. The atmosphere was tense and loaded with threats and promises, with rewards and punishments, with intimidation and challenges; and if this was not enough, there were denunciations and constant spying, with no friends to talk to. Everyone on their own, lonesome, and left alone with their thoughts during sleepless nights. The reason for this was that by now the political secretary in each factory had tremendously enlarged their activities, which were modest at the beginning. They started with political education (or “reorientation” as it was called), with lectures and courses on the history of the Bolshevik Party; you would see pictures in the local papers of a group of workers studying the short history of the Bolshevik Party. Political meetings in the factory were convened at least once a week, with Russian speakers appearing from out of nowhere. The topic was always the same, how rotten the capitalist system was and how wonderful life was in the USSR. Attendance was of course obligatory and absence from the meetings was considered a deliberate demonstration against the Soviet system. Alongside the political secretary, a spy denunciation system developed in the factory amongst the workers, where every expression which could be viewed as critical or non-conforming, was reported to the political secretary, who in turn reported it to the secret police. Finally, the political secretary had a file on everybody in their office; and knew the background and the ideas

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of every worker and their family. They now worked behind closed doors with screened windows, accessible to nobody unless you were called in, which was always a bad sign. Factories taken over from private ownership were not the only means of production. Cooperative production units spread all over. Artisans working until now in their own little shops, like barbers, tailors, and shoemakers – afraid to continue working independently, lest they be considered as capitalists, exploiting their employees – joined hands and organized cooperative groups. They became part of greater economical units (trusts) of what was referred to as the light industry, and at the same time, were subjected to the same technical and political control as the factories. However, the discipline in those cooperative groups was not as strong. Artisans working there knew each other from before as colleagues or even as competitors. The director of the group and the officers were some of their own people, and nobody was eager to exercise their power of office over their co-workers. After all, those people belonged not long ago to the lower-middle class and they were always looking with one eye towards the future; the end of the war could change the whole system and they would have to depend on their colleagues and their old customers. It was a rather closed group because no stranger could walk in and ask for a job. Every member of the collective unit had to contribute some investment, either in kind (such as machine equipment, tools, or raw materials) or cash as operating capital to keep the shop running. It was decided, for instance, by the organizers of the cooperative that the unit should consist of twentyfive members with five thousand rubles investment capital. So, every member, after being accepted by a special committee, had to pay in one way or another. If they didn’t pay the fixed sum, the machine equipment or the raw materials which they contributed were appraised according to the prevailing private market price. Everyone worked as an employee and received wages in return, fixed by the cooperative and confirmed by the Russian higher control organization.6 The only stranger in these cooperatives was the political secretary, a Russian, who of course made it his business to let everybody know what he stood for. How did the factories and cooperatives keep their production running? Every factory had, in addition to its machine equipment and buildings, a certain working capital, an inventory of finished goods, and some raw materials. As a matter of fact, the stock of raw materials was even higher than normal, 6 Officially called the People’s Control Commission. The Commission dealt with issues of state control, officially having custody of the activities of government, local administrations, and enterprises. – Ed.

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thanks to the Polish government – which had urged every manufacturer, several months before the war, to pile up raw materials, especially those imported from abroad. In case of war, the industry was told to be prepared to work for the Polish Army and to supply all necessary goods to assist the army in fighting the Nazis and occupying German territory. After some of the raw materials were exhausted, the Russian supplies came from confiscated warehouses, whose owners had escaped. After those materials were used, then the factories and cooperatives were encouraged to buy raw materials on the black market from people who had managed to hide them away. There was a definite tendency to live by all means necessary from what was available in Poland rather than to bring in raw materials from Russia, which weren’t available at all or were very scarce. Finally, materials had to be brought in by the Russian authorities but most of them were of a mediocre quality. How was the merchandise sold and how did the money come in? Of course, there was no sales organization, and no salesmen, because there were no private stores to sell to. The products were not sold directly to private consumers either. The products were taken over by the warehouses of the big economic units (trusts or combines) at a fixed price and then, after a certain time, paid for through the government bank. From those warehouses, all the industrial products were dispatched to different destinations in Soviet Russia according to their five-year plan. The Russian civilian authorities started immediately working on a five-year plan for the occupied territories, which became a part of the general Soviet five-year master plan. It would not be fair to say that it was a one-way traffic and that no merchandise came in return. There were certain consumer items which came from Russia, and I will talk about them later. There were some commercial dealings between the factories and cooperative units, but more of a private or unofficial nature, like in the following case. In the Russian planned economy, everything was centralized and there was tremendous red tape to even obtain the most trivial item. Nobody wanted to take any responsibility and so everything went to Moscow, to some central office for approval. But sometimes a situation arose where the factory management couldn’t afford to wait weeks or months for the particular product or raw material to arrive because their whole production plan would go haywire, which would mean a looming prison sentence. In such circumstances, the factory manager had to obtain the product in their own way, either by bribing the director of the factory that produced the particular item, or by bartering merchandise with them. I recall a case when a hard candy factory ran out of technical fat, used to lubricate the bearings. In the same city, a small cooperative manufactured exactly the kind of lubricant the candy factory needed so badly. So, they suggested bartering candies against grease. The cooperative

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was very eager to get the hard candies because sugar hadn’t been available for a long time, and the candies could be used with tea or coffee. Those transactions of course never appeared in the books but were covered up with different accounting tricks. I am indulging in describing this little transaction because it had some significance in illustrating Communism in action. Here is the side story. After the much-coveted candies arrived (there were some hundred kilos), the efficient administrative secretary prepared a list of all the members of the cooperative, equally divided the hundred kilos of candies amongst them, and asked the head of the higher economic unit to okay it. The Russian became furious seeing the list and said, “For such ideas, people in Russia are going to jail. There is no such thing as equal shares for everybody.” Saying this, he tore the list to pieces and made himself a new list. He put himself first with twenty kilos, his deputy and the chief accountant with ten kilos each, and the rest, he said, could be divided in equal parts among the other working people. You can imagine that the people were quite astonished learning Soviet Russia’s idea about Communism.

Nationalization of Stores and Houses

On this subject, I left you with a picture of stores jammed with people, with Russian officers and soldiers buying anything they could lay their hands on. Civilians rushed to buy merchandise to salvage some of their devalued money, or to resell the purchased items for a huge profit at the tolczok. The stores were compelled to sell at pre-war prices but there was no price control on the private market. The Russians bought products they had never seen before to send them home to their families. Some Russians made a regular business of it. Buying large quantities of wool and silk materials, which they shipped home to be resold at a big profit. There were certain types and colors of materials which were very popular amongst the Russians and were sold at a premium price there by their families. Legitimate business had a hard time indeed. Store owners not only saw their stock melting away, they received inflated money,7 and were exposed to intimidation and blackmail – a Russian would appear with a witness who declared that a certain product was sold before the war at a lower price and threatened the store owner with denunciation. True or not, to avoid any contact with the Russian police authorities, the store owner had to silence the blackmailers with 7 They received more money, however, it was of little or no value. – Ed.

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lavish gifts in merchandise. The public and the Russians demanded that stores be open every day, and the physical strength of the whole family, including the sales personnel, was necessary to close the store late in the evening because of the resistance of the always present public. The demand for merchandise continued to increase more and more every day. After several weeks, the families of Russian officers and civilian officials arrived, with their children and even in-laws, due to the Russian policy to live on their occupied land. The picture of the streets changed completely. Instead of ladies dressed as before, according to the latest Parisian or Viennese fashions, the streets were filled with women in drab coats with kerchiefs on their heads, or with little hats, according to some very much standardized fashion. Most of them in men’s high boots, some with high heels on their shoes. No makeup. Their hair was either cut very short or pulled together in a knot. Some wore decorations for achievements in sports or at war. The faces – some dull, some good looking – were definitely not of the glamorous type. There were thousands of them strolling along the streets, with their husbands, mostly in uniform, and with their children; looking to buy dresses, coats, and materials for clothes. Also, lingerie was in great demand. The strangest thing happened after a while. Some ladies appeared in the street in nightgowns as street dresses because they thought they were too nice to wear underneath their clothing. Dressmakers who frequently made dresses for them told their friends that at the beginning those Russian ladies seldom had any underwear on, as we heard. Those Russian families, who came by the hundreds every day, took over the apartments of people who had been arrested by the Soviets, or who had run away at the beginning of the war and left everything behind. However, there were not enough empty apartments, so they soon forced themselves into the homes and apartments of the population. Many families had to share their living quarters – crowded already by the masses of refugees from the Nazi-occupied territory – with Russian families. Some of them were friendly and tried to be helpful, and to find a modus vivendi with the inhabitants of the apartments; but most of them were arrogant, demanding, and tried to convince us that they were the ones to teach us culture. The phrase kulturnij, which meant cultural, was very common in Russia, even when not properly applied. They felt superior, even if they had trouble in the beginning with the proper use of a water toilet and bathtub; the funniest stories were told about it. Our ladies bitterly complained about sharing our apartments with the Russian families. As the Russians had found food here in quantities they’d never seen before, there was no time of the day or night when the Russians weren’t cooking something in the kitchen. Meals were served all day long, beer which was plentiful, was consumed at all times, starting in the early morning.

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Even children were given beer already at breakfast. The Russians were very inquisitive and asked many embarrassing questions. Many men, who lost their jobs during this upheaval, left their homes early in the morning and spent the whole day wandering the streets, coming home late in the afternoon, dead tired from doing nothing, to avoid the same question every day, “Why don’t you go to work?” The store owners didn’t only have the problem of their goods selling-out and handling the public who wanted to buy everything, but they also had the problem of their personnel. My father-in-law, Mr. Thaler, was the owner of the apartment we were living at, and also of the big textile store on the ground floor in the same building. He was well-known in Lwów as a Jewish communal leader. The following is based on his personal experience, the experience of others as shared with me, and my own observations. Immediately after the Russians marched in, committees among the personnel were organized, similar to those in the factories, as outlined above. The old form of addressing people as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” ceased to exist and everybody became “Comrade.” The boss was immediately considered a representative of the exploiting class and was of course treated accordingly. The good old forms of discipline and respect vanished completely. The old loyal employees (some had been employed for many years), afraid to protest or to express their opinion, had to comply; because the younger and more vigorous representatives of the committee reported every day to a political secretary, from whom they received direct orders. The owner was barely tolerated in his own store. After some more weeks of this sort of management, the committee decided to get even with the store owners and to present them with a bill for retroactive pay: for overtime in previous years, for vacations which should have been longer than they actually were, and for a three months’ severance payment and one-month vacation – as they expected to stop working in the near future anyway. Those bills were multiplied by the number of employed sales personnel and amounted to very big sums. They were accompanied by threats of denouncing the store owner to the proper authorities, having of course in mind the omnipotent NKVD. The employees considered these demands as only proper, and in accordance with the people’s opinion on Communism and Soviet law. It happened that one of the biggest businessmen became quite friendly with a senior Russian official, who used to go to his store every day to buy large quantities of materials, so he asked the Russian official how to go about these exorbitant demands. The Russian official told him that in Russia they wouldn’t dare come out with anything like that, there were no such laws, and he advised him to simply throw the demands out. Of course, our businessman didn’t

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follow his advice and worked out some compromise. However, the personnel were quite shocked, being confronted with such a discrepancy between their ideas of Communism and the Russian reality. Then, nearly five months after the Russian invasion, the following happened. Delegates from the civilian authorities arrived at some of the leading stores. At each store, they called in the owner and presented him with papers to the effect that the store was thereby nationalized. In other words, the owner had to hand over the keys, the store was closed; and in a short time, trucks came to transfer all the merchandise and moveable furnishings to some warehouse called baza (point of distribution). From there, all the accumulated goods were shipped to the interior of Russia. The news spread very fast, and other businessmen tried to get rid of their stock as quickly as possible. Later, when their turn for nationalization came, their stores were nearly empty. I mentioned before that it would be unfair to say that nothing came in from Soviet Russia in return. The Russian authorities, who were dealing with commerce, took over some of the nicest stores in the main streets and set up a few gastronomes, government stores which we would call “delicatessens.” A variety of sausages, different kinds of fish, some canned food, and candies were sold there at the so-called commercial prices, which were very high. An average worker couldn’t afford to buy anything there. These stores were overcrowded with Russians who hadn’t seen these products in a long time, and it turned out that the products were sent for propaganda purposes. For instance, from time to time, sugar was sold at these stores. Sugar had been a scarce item for many months and could only be bought at a very high price on the black market. At these stores, sugar which had been confiscated from occupied refineries was sold relatively cheaply (the equivalent of one dollar per kilo), and there was always a big waiting line. Two years later, in Soviet Russia, we were told that pictures of those big queues had appeared in Russian newspapers, with a caption that those were the people who until the Russian “liberation” had never seen sugar in their lives. There were also bakeries, taken over by the government, which sold bread at rather irregular hours. There were one or two stores where Russian cosmetics were sold. At some stores, pictures, paintings, and statues of all the Politburo members, and especially of Stalin, were sold at peculiar prices, such as one for 2376 rubles and 23 kopeken. This close calculation was a puzzle to us. We later learned that somewhere in Moscow, there were artists, who did nothing else but paint one Politburo member their whole life, and that there were very strict specifications – for instance, regulating the size of the moustache and other facial features of their dignitaries. There were also stores which didn’t

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sell anything but rather bought certain items from the population, such as pieces of art, Persian carpets, furs, and so forth. Of course, all those stores were government-owned and controlled by some central institution. After the private business ceased to function and went out of existence, and when the government-owned stores didn’t have much left to offer, the whole market shifted to the tolczok. A place where the Russians – who didn’t have the chance to buy before because they had only recently arrived, or who hadn’t bought enough until then – could get all they wanted. Big like Union Square in New York, all over the place, people were standing and displaying their merchandise; keeping a tight grip of their fingers, because it happened quite often that somebody grabbed the merchandise and ran away. You could see professional black marketers, called in the Russian terminology spekulanty, rubbing shoulders with high society ladies, who had to sell every time something from their belongings to keep their whole family alive. Once I saw there, from the far distance, my sister Adela who had brought some of her tablecloths to sell. I turned away instinctively; I didn’t want to embarrass her, and I for my part couldn’t bear to see my sister starting to sell all her personal belongings. Those were the few moments when we stopped for a while to reflect on our situation which was leading rapidly downwards. Some Russian soldier, officer, or civilian would come along and look at the displayed object. They tested it; tried it on when it was a coat, suit, or pair of shoes. Sometimes they didn’t say a word and turned away looking for something else. Sometimes they asked for the price. After the price was quoted by the seller, the Russian, when sincerely interested in the buy, started bargaining, offering one-third, then half of the price. Most in demand were watches of any kind, preferably wristwatches of Swiss origin. Some brands were more sought after than others. Nobody knew why, for instance, the Russians preferred the CYMA brand and paid even a premium for it, compared with Omega or Longine watches. Every Russian considered himself an expert in watches. Before he bought it, he listened to it very carefully, not depending on one ear only, then he opened it and counted the jewels. Some of them, for some strange reason, even put the watch in their mouth. After the deal was closed, the Russian usually went to a photographer and ordered a picture with the wristwatch on his hand, very conspicuously displayed, and sent the pictures to his folks, as proof of his material success and prosperity. Next in demand were second-hand men’s suits, but they had to be doublebreasted, and a special blue color was preferred, they were sold at a premium to the Russians. Then, woolen materials (solid colors), ladies’ shoes, and Persian lamb furs – everything second-hand of course – were also very much sought after. If somebody was interested in a suit, the trying-on took place on the spot,

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in the open space of the bazaar. No alterations or fittings were required. The Russian paid the money mostly in new bills, he took the suit under his arm, and a handclasp finished the deal. This sort of inter-commerce was not always smooth and peaceful. There was a law (I don’t know whether written or customary) that everything could be sold and bought at the bazaar at any price as long as somebody was willing to pay for it; with one exception only, that the product was not bought in a government store and resold here at a profit. So, it happened quite frequently that some Russian came up, and to intimidate the seller, started accusing him of selling government merchandise. Sometimes he tried to get a cheaper price with this blackmail; sometimes he dragged the seller to the police, called militsiya, and the results were unpredictable. It also happened that the militsiya arrived in a big contingent to round up the whole bazaar. Some managed to escape, others were brought to the militsiya headquarters. The lucky ones were set free with their merchandise, some were set free after their merchandise was confiscated, and some were put in jail. I mentioned before that high society ladies were standing at the bazaar and selling items from their household, things they had previously thought to be indispensable. In general, it could be said that women played a very important part under these abnormal conditions. On one hand, the women were more inclined to accept the new ideas and slogans, especially after they obtained high positions and were elevated to many high offices in the Soviet system. In such cases, where they exercised power, they often became more radical, stricter, and less lenient than men in similar positions. In marches and parades, they displayed a greater excitement and enthusiasm than would have been proper. For instance, men were very much afraid to come under the jurisdiction of a woman judge because they were sure of a more severe sentence. On the other hand, women showed, in those times, abilities never noticed before. They were stronger and more capable than men in coping with the most difficult situations. In a time when most of the men lost their heads and their nerves – became unemployed, lost everything: positions, businesses, land, and factories, were hounded by the Russians because of their political or social standing, didn’t know where to turn, and behaved sometimes like helpless children – the women took over, did all the thinking, managed the family affairs, and quite frequently became responsible for keeping the family alive and feeding everyone. There were so many instances of nearly heroic self-denial, especially in the later years, during the deportation period, that a special book to their praise should be written. How many families survived only because of the calm evaluation of a sometimes very complicated and dangerous situation, and because of the sacrifices made, by mothers and wives. I shall give some examples later.

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It must be mentioned that the quality of goods also dropped tremendously. Under normal conditions, nobody, even in Eastern Europe, would accept such low-quality products. The businessmen and the consumers would have rejected them flatly. Of course, under the prevailing system, every competition and private initiative was out of the question. Everybody was glad to get anything – even at a high price and at the lowest quality – just to keep alive. After another month or so, something new happened. I mentioned in the beginning the different promises made to the population. None of them were kept and there were no more disillusions about them. Nobody was surprised when suddenly after the nationalization of the industry and business, the nationalization of privately-owned apartments and houses started. The procedure went as follows. Two Russian civilians, who could by now be recognized easily by their unique sport caps, high boots, and the never-failing blue double-breasted business suits, came to the house and asked for the owner, who in most cases lived right there. After they were shown in, they presented to the owner, who was already completely broken by fear and expected the worst, some credentials (which seldom anybody could read, and even if they could, they hardly bothered to do so). Then the Russians declared to the owner that they were going to nationalize his house and all of his property – furniture, clothing, carpets, jewelry, watches, silver sets, and more – for being a landlord and exploiter. They prepared some kind of a protocol and asked the owner to sign it, which he did of course, with no resistance or protest whatsoever. Having been completely shaken down, he wanted to get it over and done with as soon as possible. He also hoped that by being cooperative, they might spare him in other ways. Then they asked him and his family to leave their home, took their keys, and sealed off the entrance to their apartment with some official stamp. It happened quite frequently that the owner, confronted with such a reality, with no place to go, committed suicide – leaped from the window. Of course, some Russian family moved into the apartment immediately. I witnessed such nationalization by pure accident. Since several weeks, quite frequently a Russian, or somebody disguised as a Russian, came into the home of a wealthy man, under the pretext that he was on official duty, and robbed the family. Fleeing with my family from the Nazis to Lwów in eastern Poland, we left Kraków and everything we possessed there. My factory was confiscated by the Nazis. My brother-in-law Runek, an energetic young man, who worked in the factory, fled from the Nazis with us, and came with us under the Soviet occupation in Lwów. My wife’s father, Józef

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Thaler, referred to as Grandfather Thaler by our sons, had invited us to move into his apartment, where he lived, and where Runek stayed too.8 On a cold February afternoon, the doorbell rang unexpectedly. As soon as we opened the door, a Russian forced himself into the apartment, ran from one room to the other yelling in Russian: “Where is your money, give me all your money.” Being under the impression that he was exactly one of those bandits, Runek and I grabbed the man and told him that if he didn’t leave immediately, we were going to close the door and keep him until the militsyia arrived. The man became nervous and ran out the door. Fifteen minutes later, the bell rang again, and the same man was standing at the door, but this time he had company. Another man was standing behind him, a short and stout fellow in the same civilian attire that looked like a uniform – both of them forced their way into our apartment. Now, the second man did the talking. He was very indignant and furious as to why we had given such a rough welcome to his Comrade. He presented us with some typewritten credentials which didn’t say much. Besides, we were too shocked by this second unexpected visit to take in what was written. Now the two intruders sat at the table in the dining room and ordered us to pull down the window shades. The lamps were already burning in the apartment because it was dark. With the window shades down, nobody from across the street could see what was happening. Then they asked for the owner of the apartment, Grandfather Thaler, who was sick and bedridden – the events of the past month had strained his weak heart. We introduced the two Russians to him. As he lay there, bedridden, they threatened that they were going to nationalize his house, and all of his property, and asked him to voluntarily hand over everything he possessed. They threatened that if they found out that something had been hidden away and not handed over to them, they would put all of us in jail. First, they asked for all our money. My father-in-law gave them the key to his safe and they took all the money they found there, in Russian and Polish currency. The money was put on the dining room table, and after they counted it, the short fellow became angry and declared that it was not enough. According to his information, there should have been more. Grandfather Thaler was sorry that he couldn’t please him with more money because there wasn’t anymore. 8 In the original manuscript, the scene was said to have taken place at the home of Meier Landau’s friend, but George Landau confirms that it was the flat of his grandfather, and the author’s father-in-law, Józef Thaler. – Ed.

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Then they asked for the jewelry and silver, everything was put on the same table. They noticed a wristwatch on Runek’s right hand. They took off his watch. They asked me for my wallet and took the 500 rubles which I had there. Then the search began all over the apartment. After they were satisfied that no more money, jewelry, or silverware could be found, they sealed all the closets so that nothing could be taken out. Searching the bedroom where Grandfather Thaler was lying in bed, they noticed that on a chair, near his bed, lay his underwear and his suit. They took them from the chair, put them into the closet, and sealed the closet as they had done in the other rooms. He asked them politely with watery eyes, “What will I put on as soon as I get out of bed?” The answer was, “Nitchevo.” Grandfather Thaler was weeping, confronted with such brutality. They asked for a suitcase which was given to them. They started throwing into the suitcase the money, all the jewelry, and silverware. A big Sabbath candelabra – a piece of antique art, an old heirloom that had been in the family for centuries – couldn’t fit into the suitcase. After all, suitcases were not built for such occasions. The short man took the candelabra with both his hands, bent it over his knee, and broke it into two pieces. Then he was able to place it into the suitcase. We suddenly realized that we were confronted with people to whom our values had no meaning. We had witnessed a desecration. Now, before they finished their dirty work, as they were about to lock the suitcase, I stopped them. I told them that since I didn’t belong there, I wanted a receipt for all these things to claim my property from the authorities these men came from. The short fellow saw that I was very serious. So, rather angrily, he tore the edge of a sheet of packing paper, wrote his name on it, and gave it to me as a receipt. It was all he left us with. The two men closed the suitcase which was quite heavy and left the apartment in a hurry. We looked through the window from our first floor. A car with a chauffeur was waiting for them. Carrying the heavy suitcase, they entered the car and drove off in a hurry. The ordeal lasted three hours. We felt as though we had been physically beaten up and spit on, even though they hadn’t touched us. We slowly recovered mentally from this macabre experience and considered ourselves still lucky. After all, they hadn’t dumped us on the street. With the name of the short man on this little scrap of paper, I started looking and asking around for him. I was sure that we had been robbed by some enterprising Russian adventurers. Especially recalling they took with them all our valuable things, with no receipt whatsoever, and drove off in such a hurry. In the next days, we heard of similar procedures from other homeowners, but I still didn’t give up. After weeks of unrelenting search and inquiry in every

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possible civilian Soviet office, I finally traced the man to a big Russian office, which occupied the building of one of the former biggest banks. I entered the building and when I asked for the man, I was sent to the first floor. In a large waiting room, a secretary was sitting there, and when I approached the desk, suddenly a door opened. Somebody walked out, and through the open door, I saw my man. The stout, short fellow sitting in the very luxurious office of the former president of the bank, behind a tremendous desk. Of course, the secretary, using some excuses, didn’t let me in to see the man. The man was the Finance Commissar of the newly established West Ukrainian Socialist Republic,9 in other words, the Minister of Finance in person. He had personally attended to the nationalization of Grandfather Thaler’s belongings. I didn’t ask for anything further. The nationalized houses came under the authority and supervision of government officials called Upravdom. These officials were our own nationals, Communist Party members or sympathizers from the lower echelons, whom the Russians awarded with positions for their former pre-war activities. They became very powerful because several blocks of houses came under the administration of one Upravdom. They collected rents, decided who would stay in an apartment, and how much living space a family was entitled. All the privacy, which had been the privilege of every tenant, was gone. The Upravdom could walk into your apartment at any time, seemingly for no reason at all. But there was a reason, these officials had to know what was going on in every family because they had to report their observations to the secret police. For the same matter, all the janitors had to do the same thing, to report who was coming and going, who was getting visitors – how often and who the visitors were. During elections, a family which happened to have a bigger room was frequently informed that a propaganda meeting would be held there. So, the family had to clear the room, a living room or even a bedroom, and had to provide sufficient sitting facilities. The family had to play host to the tenants from several houses who gathered there to hear some Russian propaganda speaker. Attendance was obligatory because the Upravdom checked carefully and took notice of those who were absent. 9 On September  17, 1939, the Soviet Army entered the Polish territory. In October, fictitious elections were held in the occupied territories to elect representatives to the Western Soviet Republic of Belarus and the Western Soviet Republic of Ukraine. In the following weeks, both new administrative formations were incorporated into Soviet republics on the basis of voting by their representatives. Lwów/Lviv was therefore now part of the territories incorporated into the USSR. – Ed.

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There were only a few houses left out of the nationalization procedure and those were small, one-family homes. However, at the same time, those homeowners were burdened with such heavy taxes, brandished as capitalists, and as such, were discriminated against while seeking employment. So, finally, they had to beg the Russians to take over their homes too.

The militsiya and the Secret Police

One of the first things organized by the Russians was the police. However, they didn’t like the name “police” because, according to their loudly expressed opinions at this point, only imperialistic governments, hostile to their people, needed a police force. Being the government of and for the people, they called the force responsible for peace and order, the “militsiya.” They brought with them all the staff and non-commissioned officers of the militsiya, and additionally hired patrolmen from the population. Of course, the Polish policemen, if they had not escaped beforehand, were fired and some even arrested. The new policemen, put in Russian uniforms, were former Communist sympathizers taken from the lower ranks, who were not eligible for higher positions in the Soviet hierarchy. Those were the men who carried out, on higher orders, all the arrests and took over the prison. In the beginning, the population somehow managed to get along with the militsiya. One could talk to them in the native language and could find someone who knew somebody in the militsiya in case of trouble. But after a short time, the situation changed. New faces arrived. Some of them in civilian clothes, with distinctive short brown leather coats, and high boots, with trousers tucked inside them. Others wore military uniforms, with red chevrons on their caps but with no rank distinction. Friendly soldiers explained to us that the men in military uniforms were from the secret police, the NKVD, and warned us that we were heading for terrible times.10 We didn’t know yet what to expect from them but we noticed that even the Russians, who should have been used to them, were scared to death by the sight of them. The NKVD occupied one of the biggest and nicest buildings in town and began its gruesome and strange work. The first thing we noticed was that the building was heavily guarded, some windows were equipped with iron bars, and people were working there the whole night. After a few weeks, the first 10 Soviet security services changed their name and organizational structure several times, which can be broadly outlined by starting with the Cheka (from 1917), through to the NKVD (from 1934), MVD and MGB (around 1946) to the KGB (since 1954) – Ed.

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results of its somber activity could be felt and seen. Those were the first doorbell rings at night. Long ringing bells and when the door was not opened quickly enough, then came vehement knocking at the door. Somewhere a whole family was awoken at night by a group of men, some of them in uniform, some in civilian suits with those short brown leather coats. People still half-asleep, halfdressed walked aimlessly between rooms. The strange men with grim looking faces turned everything upside down, searching for documents and weapons. Children, scared and frightened, started crying as if from a bad dream with nobody to comfort them. Then after many hours of questioning, searching, threatening, intimidating, and insulting – someone was dragged away and never brought back again – leaving behind the bewildered and shocked family. The next day, the neighbors asked one another what happened in the apartment next door where such terrible noises were heard throughout the whole night, until they found out that Mr. I, whom they had known for so many years as an honest and good man, had been arrested by the secret police that very night. The inhabitants of the block heard during the day that similar arrests took place in the past night in several other places. The whole town was terrified. Nobody knew who was going to be next. Families huddled together at nighttime with strained nerves, listening to every step in the streets, and waiting to hear the bell. Sometimes a friend came, ringing the bell, involuntarily sending the family into a panic. On the next day, news came about new arrests, everything happened at night. People tried to get an idea of who was subject to such nightmares. They were people from various walks of life. Manufacturers, public servants, merchants, bank managers, physicians, officers in reserve, political leaders, workers known as leaders in trade unions. Nobody felt secure, except for the Communists, but even some of them were unsure. People were thinking of different means of escaping their fate. Some moved to another town, making themselves suspicious there. Some spent the night outside with friends, every night in a different place. I wonder whether people here, who consider their home as their castle, can fully visualize this horror of life – not being sure whether you would survive another night. Respectable people wandering with a few belongings every night to some new place, according to planned arrangements. Watching carefully not to be seen by anyone as they entered a strange apartment. Spending sometimes the whole night sitting in a corner because not every family had room to accommodate them. When the long-expected morning came, it was first necessary to find out, by asking other friends, whether the secret police had searched for them during the night, to determine whether it was safe to go back home. During the day, a plan had to be worked out as to how to spend the next night. In nearly all the

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cases where men were arrested and carried away at night, either the next night or several nights later, the secret police came and arrested the whole family – they also disappeared. After a few weeks, we heard from some families. Letters came from strange places in Central or Southern Russia. Some family members, the ones who survived, were found three years later, after being liberated as Polish subjects. They were never reunited with their arrested husbands who were sent to far away prisons or labor camps, and in most cases, perished there.

Daily Life

After the description of changes which occurred in the few months after occupation in nearly every strata of life, it may be interesting to know what the daily life looked like under the omnipresent shadow of the NKVD. As I mentioned, the streets were always full of people, mostly of Russians in uniform. There was no difference in quality between the materials used for the uniforms of soldiers and those for junior officers. The Russian soldiers and officers didn’t carry any heavy personal belongings. We didn’t see any suitcases or duffle bags. No bed rolls or sleeping bags. They only had one uniform which they wore on their back. They carried a mostly empty knapsack and one blanket which was rolled around it. Not all of them had a second change of underwear, as we heard. They had no socks because only linen rags were used while wearing boots. I learned later that after the war with Germany had started, the Russian government passed a special law to the effect that the Russian soldier became the owner of their uniform. This was a tremendous incentive because a Russian soldier who survived the war became the owner of a pair of boots they would never have otherwise been able to afford. It was quite a different sight considering that every officer in the Polish Army was dressed in tailored uniforms, full of silver, wearing patent leather shoes or boots handmade by shoemakers. Specialists in their skill, saber-rattling, and saluting one another a hundred times a day. The Polish officers filled all the cafes, restaurants, and night clubs at any time of the day or night. The Russian staff officers had uniforms and boots of some more refined quality. We saw for the first time women in uniforms – there were no women in uniforms in any European army before. Their uniforms were made of the same coarse material, they wore the same high boots, the only difference being their skirts. Nearly every Russian wore some medals. Some wore uniform-like jackets, buttoned up to their chins (high neck tunics), as you could see in pictures of some members of the Politburo. The problem of not owning a shirt or tie was very simply

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solved with this kind of suit. The civilians very seldom wore long pants; they preferred breeches which went better with their high boots. Nearly all the civilians carried large pistols beneath their jackets, on a very conspicuous belt. Every man, soldier or civilian, had a haircut which seemed to be obligatory under the Soviet system. Their hair ended in a straight abrupt horizontal line at the top of their neck, with the part below shaved. In contrast, every other European made himself conspicuous with his unique haircut. They were from different ethnicities, mostly Slavic, some Tatars, Mongols, Kalmyks, Kirgizes, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks. They were of very strange physical appearance to us. The most heard language was of course Russian, some of them spoke Ukrainian on official occasions, and some spoke in unknown languages to us, their native tongues. Very few knew any of the European languages, such as Polish or German. The Jews of the elder generation understood and spoke Yiddish. The Russians surely enjoyed themselves and had the time of their lives. They lived in apartments they had never seen before, they ate and drank heartily, and could buy many things for their valueless money. They spent their spare time in restaurants, cinemas, the theatre, and night clubs. The restaurants, which were of course previously privately-owned, were in most cases taken over by the waiters and run as cooperatives. At the movie theaters, Soviet Russian pictures of the propaganda type were shown, with the capitalists and their spies as the villains, and the Communist Commissar as the hero. The theatre, which belonged to the city, was also immediately taken over; touring Russian theatre and dance groups performed there most of the time. Sometimes, a visiting symphony orchestra played classical and semi-classical music. Those performers and musicians were not only devoted to their art, some of them had to do political work too. I remember an instance when I had to attend one of the frequent propaganda meetings in a cooperative where I was employed for a short time. A guest speaker was invited to indoctrinate us more deeply in the Engels-Marxist-Lenin doctrines. The face of the speaker seemed familiar to me and then I recalled that he was the conductor of the symphony orchestra that I had heard a few days earlier. The man was surely more at ease when conducting Tchaikovsky, but still he was ordered to deliver his propaganda speech. There were some cases where this change of life brought tragedies to Russian homes. I knew of a case where, after spending several months under these new conditions, a Russian officer committed suicide because he was ordered back to Russia. In some families, the Russian wives, who were brought over later, expressed bitterly their dissatisfaction with their new life, in their new environment. Their argument was as follows. As long as they didn’t know any better, they were happy and satisfied with the little they had. But now they

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could see that they had been cheated their whole life, and that the whole propaganda about the misery in Europe was a bunch of lies. Living with the Russian families in one apartment wasn’t easy as I explained earlier. However, in some cases, a sort of friendship developed, and after the host proved to be trustworthy, the Russians started sharing the real truth, talking about their misery and their life of terror. They told us how they were promised an improvement in their standard of living every five years, with a new five-year plan. But that nothing had changed since the early 1920s. There were no consumer goods, everything was invested in industrial power, or rather war. They had the same over-crowded quarters, where one apartment was shared by several families. The same lack of primitive necessities. And most importantly, the same reign of terror of the NKVD – with prisons, deportations, and enforced disappearances. They couldn’t have imagined that even the working class here in Poland was living in such good conditions. Now our own population, with a few exceptions, didn’t participate in the same enjoyment of the Russians. The restaurants and places of amusement were mostly only visited by the Russians and their families. I said “with a few exceptions” because there were always certain characters who tried to make connections for their black market dealings or other purposes, and there was always a group of women who were eager to make new friends. Speaking of restaurants, a funny custom could be observed when the Russians ordered their meals. They were afraid that there wouldn’t be enough food for them because in Russian eating places (they couldn’t be called restaurants), only a certain amount of portions were served, and after a while, nothing was left for the latecomers. Therefore, the Russian patrons insisted that all the courses of their meal be brought by the waiters at once, including several bottles of beer. So, you could see a man sitting at a table completely covered with dishes. It was not pleasant to visit these places. They were also too expensive for our lack of income. A girl who had been a waitress for many years was asked by a family friend of ours how she liked the new system brought in by the Russians. Having watched their way of life and their money-spending, she said that she thought it was quite a good system, but only for rich people. Our people had their own specific problems. Some were at home in the Nazi-occupied part of Poland, and some were refugees arriving from that part of Poland (such as our family). The people settled here in Lwów, sometimes since generations, were of course well-known everywhere. The prominent residents such as landowners and businessmen didn’t know what to do. They couldn’t get any regular employment and only a few succeeded in joining cooperatives, paying big money for their share. They considered themselves settled, for the time being. To be employed was very important. After a while,

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an apartment, or part of it, could only be occupied by working people and there were rumors that bread would only be sold to working people. The first question the Russians asked a human being was, “Where do you work?” Some were planning to escape to Hungary, Romania, and later to Lithuania, but only very few could seriously think of it. It was too great a risk to cross the border high in the mountains or to wade through some deep icy water during this cold winter.

The Refugee Problem: Crossing the Border

Now the refugees were in quite a different lot. In the first place, they were not too well-known in the places where they had settled temporarily. So whatever their profession was before the war, they could claim working class ancestry, apply for some odd jobs, and obtain employment; unless they were denounced by somebody. Some of them had no attachment whatsoever to their new residence, it was one of the temporary stations in their aimless wandering. They were also younger. The older generation preferred to stay and to meet their fate in their own homes – they even had a saying, if we have to die, we want it to happen in our own homes. The poor people who said this couldn’t possibly foresee that they would be slaughtered by the millions under the Nazi occupation, not in their homes, but in extermination camps after years of inhumane suffering and degradation. The refugees had their problems too. Some left their parents behind, husbands left wives, some lost part of their families on the crowded roads – when they were hounded by Nazi planes which quite frequently machine-gunned civilians for the sheer fun of it. So, there was the long-discussed problem of when and how to cross the German demarcation line to bring their family members to the East. This line was still very flexible and not too heavily guarded. For a time, nearly daily, people crossed the border. They brought messages to people here from their families in western Poland. The messages encouraged family members to go back home because in the beginning they seemed to have worked out some modus vivendi with the Germans. So here was another problem. The crossing of the Russian-German line became gradually more difficult. When people were caught by the Russians, there was no rule as to how they would be treated. It depended on the mood of the local commander. When they were caught on their way to Germany, the Russians deprived them of all their belongings, but they often let them go. If they were caught on the way into the Russian zone, they were frequently arrested by the Russians as spies and put into jail. If they were caught by the

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Germans, in either direction, they were beaten up, all their possessions were confiscated, and they were mostly sent back to the Russian side. A new trade developed. Peasants from the border villages became guides who smuggled people at night through the demarcation line, for a certain agreed-upon fee. It was a two-way traffic. Some guaranteed the crossing and others didn’t. Some insisted on being paid in advance, some agreed for half to be paid upfront and for the rest to be paid after the crossing. The trade became so big that the guides employed agents, who prepared the human cargo and organized them into groups, until the guide took over at night. The agents received their commission from both sides. People often had to look for the guide or his agent after arriving in some little town near the border, sometimes the agent was working a hundred miles away and so he sent his clients, with instructions, directly to the guide or to his family. The guides themselves could very seldom be seen because they were either on their way to or from the border or sleeping after coming back from the night’s adventure. Some guides couldn’t be trusted because they were working for the Nazis or for the Russians or for both – they handed the human merchandise directly to either side. They received their payment first from their victims and later another payment from the captors. Sometimes the guides scared the people as soon as they arrived close to the border, by saying that a patrol was approaching and told them to run to an indicated place, leaving all their suitcases behind. This was a trick to get hold of people’s belongings which were later picked up by their helpers. There was also the problem of crossing the border with small children and babies because their crying attracted the unwanted attention of the border guards. So the refugees spent many hours, days, and weeks in their rather crowded living quarters discussing these problems with their family and friends. Nobody wanted to undertake the border crossing by themselves. People were always looking for trusted company. There was not only the question of joining and uniting families from this or the other side of the German-Russian demarcation line. There was also the problem of escaping altogether, as life under the Soviet occupation was unbearable for most of the people – on this subject, the existing population and the refugees found themselves on common ground. There was the Romanian border and the Bulgarian border. In the beginning of the war, it was quite easy to cross these borders. In fact, a big part of the Polish Army and the whole Polish government crossed the Romanian border. But later it became very difficult, and it was necessary to engage special guides, as described above. The Hungarian border was even more difficult to cross because of the Carpathian Mountains, which divided the two countries, and only a few young and strong

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men could risk it. So there were long discussions about these possibilities. People tried, few succeeded, and many got caught. The Russians now guarded these borders very heavily, with specially trained NKVD frontier troops. They created a no-man’s-land, evacuated many villages located near the border, and every stranger who happened to appear there was considered a suspect and closely watched. Specially trained bloodhounds were used; anyone who was only a few yards away from the border found himself suddenly caught by a dog, trapped until the guard arrived and arrested them. Those victims could later be found in slave labor camps in Ural, Siberia, and Kolyma, with sentences ranging from six to twelve years. We found this out later from my brother-in-law Runek’s border crossing attempt. Runek spent several months with us but somehow he couldn’t stand it anymore. He decided to cross the Romanian border and chose as a crossing date May 1, 1940, which was a Soviet national holiday. The Russian-Romanian border (previously Polish-Romanian) was already very tightly guarded at that time and there was very little chance of success, but he was so desperate that he decided to take this great risk anyway. He figured that on May 1, the Romanian guards would be celebrating this Russian holiday, with the usual drinking, and might relax a bit. So, he went into the night with only a nap-sack as his luggage. Such a departure could easily be a goodbye forever. We didn’t hear from him for several weeks. One night a man came into our home, in secrecy and high conspiracy, he brought a message from Runek. It turned out that being only a few yards from the border and ready to dash over, he was caught by a trained bloodhound, which kept his leg in his teeth, while alarming the patrols. Those dogs helped the NKVD guard the border. He was captured, transferred through several prisons, and finally wound up in a bigger prison where he met the man who brought us his message. The man himself was set free in the meantime and asked us for money to get my brother-in-law out of prison. It was sad news indeed but at least we knew that Runek was alive. We gave the man the money he asked for. Later, it turned out that the man was an informer, and as such was set free; he visited our family only to extort money. He learned about us from our brother-in-law, while being together in prison, Runek took him into his confidence and told him about our family. More on my brother-in-law later. When people tried so hard to cross the border and reach one of those border countries, it wasn’t because they wanted to stay there, but to reach from their relatives or friends abroad. It was a general tendency to reach England, Palestine, or some North or South American country. Some people tried to leave the country in a legal way with a regular visa for a foreign country. Somebody

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started a rumor that the Russians would respect foreign visas as there had been no elections yet and we could still be considered as foreign citizens. A real cable boom started. Mass psychosis in action. Whoever had relatives or friends overseas cabled for a visa. People who didn’t have anyone abroad cabled to complete strangers whose addresses they had gotten hold of. There was no preference for the country concerned and some couldn’t even find the desired country on a map. Some who had friends in different countries, cabled to all of them expecting that some visa would come through. People spent their last money on these cables, which were quite expensive. At the telegraph office, there was a tremendous line of people waiting for their turn. Some stood there the whole night. People earned money just standing in line for someone who might come along for a cable. Of course, nothing happened, the visas didn’t come. Even the people who had visas from before couldn’t use them because the Russians wouldn’t issue exit visas, which were the most important thing. Yet another great hope blew up; and the Russians were laughing, counting the big sums of money they received for cables, which were probably never sent at all. There was another big discussion topic: Wilno.11 The lovely city of Wilno was given to Poland after the First World War because of its historical claims; however, the Lithuanians never consented to this.12 Many Polish citizens moved to Wilno as it was still part of Poland after the outbreak of the Second World War. After the Russians assigned Wilno, with all the surrounding villages, to Lithuania, many Polish citizens and refugees suddenly found themselves in Lithuanian territory, which for the time being was still an independent state. The Russians kept a token force stationed outside the city limits of Wilno, and also outside Kaunas, the capital of Lithuania. People lived a normal life there and considered themselves lucky compared to the fate of the population in Poland. They pursued their business and occupation, had their own highly valuable currency, and could keep contact with the whole world. Naturally, people in the Russian-occupied territory started thinking about how to get to Wilno. So, the same story about the borders happened again here. In the beginning, until the final border line was established, it was quite easy to cross into Lithuania. Later, people had to resort to the same means described above. After a very long trip in unheated trains during the cold winter months, 11

Wilno is the Polish name for the city that was within the borders of the Polish state during the interwar period. From 1939 the city was first in the hands of the Lithuanians, then from 1940 the Soviets, and today it is the capital of Lithuania, and in English is referred to as Vilnius. – Ed. 12 The history of the political relation or rather lack of relations of those two neighborly countries, which once in the Middle Ages formed a united kingdom and were reigned by one royal dynasty, is very exciting.

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arriving in some small border town or village, contact with local agents and guides had to be made. It was dangerous because the Russians sent people caught at the border to jail; and the Lithuanians handed the captured people over to the Russians. Nevertheless, many people succeeded through this border crossing to take up their residence in Lithuania. It’s amazing how some people can make money in every condition of life. With Wilno, now reunited with Lithuania, there were rumors that the new Lithuanian border was not fixed, and that some additional small towns and villages could be added to Wilno – in order to create some small hinterland for the city, and for Wilno not to be situated right on the border. So now people went around and claimed that on grounds of their inside information they could, for a high fee, give you the name of a town or a village where you could settle with your family, without crossing any border, and become a citizen of Lithuania as this place would be incorporated into Lithuania in the near future. And people in their despair to find a place to escape to, paid money for such information. Of course, the whole story was not true at all, and after arriving at such a place under the most terrible conditions, people lost all their money and had to go back. The independence of Lithuania didn’t last too long. In accordance with the secret Hitler-Stalin agreement, Lithuania, together with Estonia and Latvia, were taken over by the Russians as new Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union. The refugees there tried everything possible to leave Lithuania, which had been for them a wonderful temporary haven. With all the foreign missions still residing there, they tried to obtain visas at random, to any country willing to put a rubber stamp in their passports. What was the use of having a visa to Haiti, for instance, or to Guatemala, without a transit visa? The Japanese Embassy was reportedly very helpful and cooperative, and issued to everyone who was able to present a valid Polish passport, a transit visa through Japan, knowing that such destination visas were not real and that nobody intended to go to these exotic countries. The most important problem was to get a permit from the NKVD to leave the country and to travel on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. This was the only place where people could embark on a ship to Japan and to make use of their transit visas. The story of the several hundred families who filed their applications (with their passports and visas) with the NKVD in Wilno is rather extraordinary. After months of interviews, investigations, threats that each one of them would go to jail for presenting false documents, one day they were called and asked to bring American dollars to the Russian Intourist,13 to buy tickets for the 13

Intourist was a Russian travel agency, founded in 1929, it served as the main travel agency for foreign tourists in the Soviet Union. – Ed.

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Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. People were scared stiff because handling foreign currency, and keeping American dollars, was a crime punished with many years in jail. However, the greatest miracle happened. The American dollars were accepted without asking any questions about their source or origin, tickets and exit visas were issued, and several hundred people could leave Russia, or rather Lithuania, in the greatest comfort. They spent even a few days in the fashionable Hotel National in Moscow where only foreigners could stay (everything of course was paid for in American dollars). Even now, the people who escaped this way can hardly understand what caused the Russians to suddenly change their mind and let them go. From Vladivostok, those families went by ship to Kobe in Japan and from there they proceeded after a short time to India, Australia, New Zealand, and some to the United States. Mr. Strauch was one of them. Mr. Strauch was one of our salesmen in our factory Kopal in Kraków, covering the territory of Polish Upper-Silesia (not far from the German border). Mr. Strauch escaped from Katowice to Kraków, where he joined Runek and me, after the Nazi invasion. As mentioned before, the three of us then escaped from Kraków with two other friends in a car. In Lwów, we settled for a while and Mr. Strauch, who was a bachelor, stayed with us. One day, Mr. Strauch decided to try to cross the border to Lithuania. We had a distributor in Wilno, under the name Rattner & Swerdlin, who owed us money. I gave Mr. Strauch the best recommendations to our distributor and asked them to give Mr. Strauch any assistance they possibly could. Mr. Strauch never came back to Lwów and we didn’t hear from him – whether and how he crossed the border – until much later.14 It turned out that Mr. Rattner helped him in Wilno to make the proper contacts with the men who smuggled people over the Lithuanian border and helped him also with money. He left Kaunas (the capital of Lithuania) later, as many others did, by the Trans-Siberian Railway through Soviet Russia for Japan and from there he managed to get to Bombay (India), where many Jewish families from Poland settled and established themselves in various enterprises.

Daily Routine Again

Now a time came when there was no place to escape to anymore, and people had to face their reality. Life was very drab. A workday under difficult conditions. 14

He told us about it, when we met so miraculously in Teheran, in the same hotel, where we were staying.

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Spare time was always spent standing in line somewhere, attending compulsory propaganda meetings, or courses on the history of the Bolshevik party. The evenings were full of fear because all the arrests happened at night, and nobody knew who would be next. Suddenly, the prison became everybody’s concern. There was hardly a family who didn’t have somebody, somewhere, in a prison. People stood in long lines outside of prisons to find the whereabouts of their relatives. People from out of town spent the whole night outside – as they didn’t have anywhere else to go – to inquire the next day about their family. There were certain days when packages with food and clothing were accepted. People were “happy” when those packages were accepted by the prison guards. It was always a bad sign when a package was not accepted because it meant that the prisoner was not there anymore; sent away to another prison or deported far away. No indication was given to the family, and the prisoner sometimes disappeared forever. Sometimes a message arrived after a year or so from a hard labor camp. Frequently fathers and mothers could be seen waiting for hours outside the prison gate, waiting, trembling, to find out what happened to their children. I will never forget those faces and those eyes. Sometimes people were standing outside the prison gates for days, waiting to get a glimpse of their imprisoned relatives. It happened occasionally that the prisoners were marched during the day to a disinfection station located in town, where they took a shower. During that time, their clothing was deloused – the prisons were full of rats, lice, and vermin of all kinds. Every such transport of prisoners was a sight which nobody who saw it was likely to forget in their lifetime. It looked like this. In front, marched a secret police officer, constantly blowing a whistle and carrying a pistol with one finger on the trigger. Behind him, marched a mass of human misery with emaciated unshaven faces, and with bundles of clothing and some sort of blankets under their arms. Men of different ages, women, sometimes youngsters. Some of them could hardly walk. This mass, which looked like a vision from Hell, was surrounded by a whole contingent of uniformed militsiya men – also with drawn pistols, yelling, and pushing those poor creatures to move faster and watching that nobody from the outside talked to them. Whenever I saw this macabre procession (and you couldn’t help seeing it quite frequently), I felt ashamed of our culture which made such a degradation of human dignity possible. For our family, our life started to run along a certain routine. Even the idea that this should be our future pattern of life was repugnant to us. There were schools where our children had to go. However, the school system was in continuous fluctuation. At first, there were the Polish schools, now some

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of them were changed to Ukrainian schools where everything was taught in the Ukrainian language, known only to the Ukrainian minority, then suddenly some schools switched to the Yiddish language, with no teachers who knew enough of it and with no textbooks. Some children started a new school three times in one year, in three different languages. Of course, even the little kids, had to be indoctrinated in the Communist teachings, starting with songs, poems, and celebrations for the holidays and anniversaries of the Soviet Russian Revolutions. They already started organizing the school children into pioneer and Komsomol youth groups, the future cadres of the Communist Party.15 The higher institutions of learning were immediately reorganized. Many professors of the University and the Institute of Technology were either arrested or dismissed. Instructors with pre-war leftist affiliations became professors and the teachings of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism became some of the most important subjects. Of course, Russians were brought in to teach those courses. Communist students, organized as an advisory committee, decided upon the admission of students. Admission was no longer a question of merit, but of origin and political affiliation. Hospitals were in a state of complete chaos. Many doctors escaped; some were arrested. Few Russian doctors were added to the medical staff. There was the problem of many wounded soldiers, hospitalized with no place to go because their families were under the German occupation. From the public service institutions, gas and electricity were provided quite normally. The streetcars ran without any schedule, always over-crowded, with people even riding on steps, nearly suspended in the air. But the worst confusion was at the railways. We were used to a rather punctual railway schedule in the past. Now suddenly trains arrived with a delay of twenty-four hours and more. Besides, the number of running trains had been considerably decreased. It was difficult to imagine the confusion and congestion caused by such a system. People were waiting by the thousands for days in waiting rooms, sitting on top of their belongings or in the streets. People were standing in tremendous lines before the ticket counter. Nobody knew when the train would arrive, when the tickets would be sold, or how many could be purchased. Babies were crying, mothers were yelling at their children, afraid to lose them in the crowd – the same picture could later be seen in Soviet Russia, with additional features which will be described further on. 15 Soviet organizations brought together and indoctrinated children in associations for Octobrists and Pioneers, and youth – in the Komsomol association. – Ed.

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The trains always arrived crowded, with no lights, and with broken windows. No heat in winter. The leather straps normally attached to the windows were cut off with knives and stolen. Whole pieces of seat covers in first and second class were torn out (the third class had wooden benches only). In addition to this, there was a strange system in the Russian trains where every car had its own conductor (provodnik), and every conductor considered themselves the boss or rather the owner of the car. He or she, there were many women employed in the railroad system, let in whomever, and how many people, he or she wanted, and his or her say was final. Of course, this system invited bribery and a nice sum of money pressed into the provodnik’s hand always helped. And if all this wasn’t enough, there was a special NKVD for the railway that controlled and watched everything and everyone, making the life of the travelers even more miserable, if that was possible. Religions were not officially forbidden but the practice of religion became nearly impossible. It is true that Sunday was an official holiday but all the other Christian or Jewish holidays were plain working days and everybody absent from work on those days made themselves doubly conspicuous. Heavy taxes were imposed on churches and synagogues; special high electricity rates were introduced, which they could not afford to pay. One church or synagogue after another closed and only a few remained open. Big anti-religion propaganda amongst the youth and working class started ridiculing all the religious leaders. In every town, one street was given the name of Bezboznaja (Godless Street). On a related note, there is a little story about how Santa Claus was celebrated in Russian schools here. The children were asked by the teacher to pray for Santa Claus and for gifts. They prayed but there was no Santa Claus and no answer and no gifts. They were then told to ask Stalin for their gifts. Then the door opened, and Santa Claus came in with a big bag of gifts for every child in school. The workers received their payments twice a month instead of their weekly wages. Because of many formalities and because there was only one bank, the State Bank (Gosbank), which took care of all financial operations and never had enough money. The wages were paid around the twentieth day of each month for the first half of the month, instead of the fifteenth as should be expected from a government so much concerned with the well-being of the working class. I had more experience in this matter later. I remember distinctly the following incident. At Christmastime 1939, the workers received late in the afternoon of December  20, their money in Polish currency which had been accepted all along, with the Russian rubles. As soon as they sat down in their homes to plan some sort of Christmas shopping or at least to prepare some food for the

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holiday, the message came over the radio that from the next morning on, the Polish currency would have no value whatsoever and should be taken out of circulation. I remember distinctly what happened the next morning. People going to work, took the streetcar as usual, but they were asked to pay in Russian money. Some people had Russian ruble notes, but Russian coins were required. However, there were no Russian coins in circulation and even the conductors didn’t have any small change. So the workers had to walk, frustrated, and in helpless anger. I saw the grim faces of those hard-working people whose earnings became worthless overnight and who could not even buy bread for Christmas. There was some intervention by some worker committees at the Communist Party and eventually some part of the wages, and only for some public service workers, was converted into rubles. But the majority of the working-class people spent the holidays (which of course were not official) with no gifts whatsoever, cold and hungry. The Russian radio, with their loudspeakers on every street corner in the most populated places, was blaring how wonderful life was and how happy everybody was under the leadership of the greatest genius of all times, Stalin. People didn’t even laugh. Several elections took place in the meantime, to different bodies, to some sort of city council or city soviet,16 to some trade unions, but the biggest election was to the Soviet of the West Ukrainian Socialist Republic. The Russians were very broad-minded in this respect and everybody who lived here was entitled or rather obliged to vote. My experience of Russian elections was rather unusual. There was only one list of candidates, whom nobody knew, made up by the Communist Party. The interesting thing was that some candidates were listed as members of the party, and others as party-less (bezpartyjnyj), what we would call independent. Of course, there was no such animal, but still it appeared there. I guess the reason for it was to impress the foreigners; that after all the USSR was not run by Communists only. Anyway, there was only one list of candidates but still there was a lot of propaganda going on for weeks before the elections, in newspapers and on the radio, praising and exalting them. There were also special election meetings organized in factories, in offices, and in private homes. Nobody could understand why, because there were no rival candidates, and there was no danger that somebody could vote for another party. When finally the Election Day arrived, there was a big holiday. The factories, schools, and all public institutions closed, and a mass parade was organized. 16 The word “soviet” refers to an elected local, district, or national council in the Soviet Union. – Ed.

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The political secretaries in every place ensured that everybody participated. The pictures of all Politburo members, with Stalin’s picture being biggest and first of course, were carried by specially selected distinguished people in the parade. It reminded me of holy pictures carried during some religious processions. Banners and posters, with political slogans which had a special significance at this particular time, were everywhere. Youth organizations were marching, bands were playing. Every factory was represented by a special group and a special banner. For this particular day, and only on this day, specialties were sold at stands set up by the government agencies along the streets – items which were otherwise unavailable the entire year, such as pastry, chocolate, and candies. Beer was sold in unlimited supply. At the polls, special provisions were made for mothers with children. The children were taken care of in special nurseries, which were established for this day in a room close to the voting places. Trained kindergarten teachers, with plenty of different toys, were there the whole day. There was also a room with refreshments, with delicacies not seen throughout the whole year. What happened at the polls? According to the Soviet Constitution, voting was secret and there was a special booth installed for this purpose. People were supposed to step into the booth to fill out their ballot paper the way they wanted to, for instance, by crossing out some candidate and substituting them with some other. But nothing of this sort happened. It worked this way. The first people who came to vote were people from the Party and they were instructed to take the official ballot and to put it openly in the box. The next people who came in, seeing what the people before them did, had to follow suit, and to do the same thing. Anybody who acted differently and went through the trouble of stepping into the little booth, made themselves conspicuous and suspect of having different ideas about the official candidates. You could be sure that the government representative sitting there, checking the voters list, and watching the box, took good notice of every individual who acted this way. In addition to this sort of “secret” voting, nearly everybody was compelled to vote. Some sort of delegates canvassed every apartment, sick people were brought on stretchers to the polls, ballot boxes were brought to the hospitals – every patient no matter how sick had to vote. No wonder that the next day it was made known to the whole world that the Soviet candidates were elected by a majority of 98.11 percent. Who cares? It might as well have been 100 or 150 percent. These 1.3 percent who didn’t add up to 100 percent were useful for the Soviets. They “proved” that there were still enemies of the Soviet system, whom the Soviets had to watch out for, and be alert to, at all times. It was also “proof” for the outside world that there were independent voters in the Soviet Union.

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On the day after the elections, the whole excitement was over. The special food stands, the special nurseries, and the beautiful toys all disappeared. The drab everyday life started again. Before the war, we were used to newspapers edited by different political organizations, covering the domestic and foreign news. Now all those newspapers ceased to exist and only one local paper appeared which was the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party. It was a completely new type of newspaper, unknown here before. It contained four pages and the whole paper was full of letters of admiration for the great leader Stalin, or resolutions of different factories expressing the gratitude of their workers for their liberation from slavery. On one hand, there were reports from factories on how they were achieving their production goal in a shorter time than predicted; on the other hand, there were denunciations of persons, quoting their names, who were said to be deliberately slowing down the efforts to exceed the production capacity. A frequent feature in this paper were pictures of workers and management studying the history of the Bolshevik party. Only on the fourth page, some foreign news concerning the war was included in small print from time to time. In one or two sentences some speech by Churchill or Roosevelt was mentioned but only in a very casual way as if it would be of no interest to anybody. Of course, we knew better than that, we listened during the night hour to the BBC News from London. At this point, I would like to stress how important those BBC broadcasts were for us. It was like a religious ritual when our family and friends gathered at ten o’clock at night and tuned in the radio. The opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which were the signal for the BBC News, were fateful for us. The name of the Fifth Symphony called sometimes “Schicksals” Symphony was never more justified than at that time.17 We heard more bad than good news, we heard how the Nazis conquered one country after another. Our hearts were heavy with sorrow when Paris fell but, still, we were full of hope and did not despair. We derived our hope from every word spoken over the radio, even from the famous speech by Winston Churchill which became a classic. Promising his nation only “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” Those words contained so much courage, there was so much strength in the attitude of the English people towards the Blitz. I wonder what other nation would be able to stand alone, for nearly two years, against the tremendous impact of the Nazi warfare.18 17 German for: fate, destiny. – Ed. 18 I feel obliged to express my admiration for the English nation. It has been very sad to notice how soon this heroic endurance, on the part of the English people, has been forgotten.

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At the same time, the Russians, having a friendship treaty with the Nazis, were supporting them. In Russian propaganda speeches, the Germans were not called “fascist dogs” as before, not even “Nazis,” just simply “Germans”. Only the “British Imperialists” were blamed for prolonging the war, which according to the Russians should have already been over, after the Nazis occupied nearly all of Europe and the Russians received their share. We saw with our own eyes how tanks with Russian oil were rolling day and night towards the German border to help them in their war against the Western Allies. There was one interesting feature worthwhile being mentioned. In the course of the historical events of the First World War, it happened that some families living here, left behind some close relatives in Russia, after the Bolshevik Revolution. They were in some sort of contact as sometimes the Russian relatives were allowed to write abroad (at other times they could not). Now, after this part of Poland became part of the USSR, all those relatives were very eager to re-establish a close correspondence again, but like everything in Russia, it was done on some sort of higher order. All these letters were equally full of joy and congratulations that we were finally liberated by the invincible Red Army and that we finally became part of the happy family of the Soviet Union. I want to mention one particular letter which a friend of mine received from his sister whom he had not seen for nearly twenty years. After the basic introduction along the established pattern, praising the great leader and the victorious Red Amy, she told him about her family. She wrote that she was a physician working in a hospital, her husband was a mechanical engineer working in a factory. She told him that their children attended school; and that with both of them working, they made a comfortable living. In the last sentence of the letter, however, she asked whether he could not spare a pair of old pants, to send them for her husband who would be very grateful (such a letter was no surprise to anybody after several months of contact with the Russians).19 There was not very much known about the countryside, or about what was going on during this time among the peasants and farmers in the village. There was little contact because of travel restrictions. In the beginning, some peasants from nearby villages used to bring in their products. But this stopped after a while. The land in Poland belonged mostly to big landowners (some with nobility titles) who were in fact absentee landlords. They and their families spent most of the time in the bigger cities or abroad, leaving the administration to their plenipotentiaries (managing agents). The problem of a fair land distribution, the so-called land reform, was discussed during all the years of 19

As this fragment shows, correspondence in the USSR was subject to strict censorship, and one had to write and read between the lines. – Ed.

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Poland’s independence, but no serious attempt was made for a solution. The peasants with their large families were living on small farms with little acreage, and in order to make ends meet, they had to work as hired labor in nearby factories (if there were any) or on the big farms of the rich landowners. Another thing aggravated this situation even more. The Polish government, who also owned big land areas, distributed land among Polish nationals, mostly veterans from the Polish-Soviet War in 1920, referred to as the osadnicy.20 They settled the osadnicy among the Ukrainian peasants in order to break the big minority masses politically and to proselyte the Ukrainians culturally, by introducing the Polish language and compelling the youth to attend Polish schools. This caused a lot of bitterness and resentment especially because the Ukrainians claimed this part of Poland as their own on historical grounds. Now that the Russians occupied the country, they immediately took advantage of this situation. The landowners who were not already abroad, fled, and the land was taken over by peasant committees, organized ad hoc, even before the Russians arrived and distributed the land amongst them. However, the whole situation changed considerably after the Russian political secretaries arrived. They brought with them the Soviet idea of farming, and especially collective farming – where the land didn’t belong to anybody, where the peasants worked on land which was not their own. After the government received its big share from every commodity produced there, the peasants were entitled to a share of the crop, depending on the amount of work they had put in during the year (trudodniej). I don’t intend to discuss here the whole problem of the Russian idea of collective farming, the so-called Kolkhoz, because there is already an entire section of literature on it. I wanted only to register the events in connection with it and to describe my personal observation. The process of farm collectivization never went smoothly and there was always resistance on the part of some peasants, whose attachment to the land which belonged to them since generations was so great that they couldn’t grasp the idea of not possessing it anymore. All the political slogans of Marxism and Stalinism didn’t mean a thing to them. So many were arrested and brought to the big city prisons where they were lost sometimes forever. 20 Osadnicy (the settlers or the colonists) were families of Polish soldiers and peasant volunteers who were granted land in the so-called Eastern Borderlands by decision of the Polish Parliament on December 17, 1920. The decision followed the military strategy of creating a defense line along the Polish-Soviet border. A second purpose was to contribute to the Polonization of the Ukrainian agricultural areas. The settlers were the first to be subjected to Soviet deportations (starting February 10, 1940) to Siberia and Central Asia, which along with the so-called 1943 Volhynia Massacre (attacks by Ukrainian nationalists on Polish villages) brought an end to Polish settlement in the area. – Ed.

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The First Deportations

Sometime around the end of February 1940, in the middle of the very strong winter, a strange load of human beings passed through the streets of our town, in the early morning hours, on their way to the railway station. Horse-drawn carriages were loaded to full capacity with peasants, their families, and some of their belongings, with bedding piled up. These carriages were flanked on both sides by uniformed men from the NKVD, some with rifles, some with pistols. People who had a chance to talk with them later at the station told us their story. These people were the osadnicy, the Polish peasants mentioned before among the Ukrainian villages. The homes of these Polish peasants were surrendered to the Russians that previous night. They were told by the NKVD to pack their personal belongings only and to leave all their property and inventory behind. A couple of hours later, they were picked up by those horse-drawn carriages and they reached the city in the morning hours. It was a terrible sight to see these terrified people with many children. After waiting at the station for a long time (in some cases it took several days), they were loaded into cattle cars and left for an unknown destination and unknown future. Some died already at the station, from frost exposure. We found out later that this first large-scale deportation wasn’t only a local affair but had taken place at the same time in all parts of the Soviet-occupied land where those Polish colonies, the osadnicy, had settled. Their biggest concentration was not far from the Polish-Soviet border, an area called Kresy.21 We were shocked witnessing this first deportation and there were rumors that this was only the beginning, with more to follow. We didn’t have to wait too long. One month later, one morning, we were told that during the night many families were arrested and transported to the station. Those were the families of officers of the Polish Army and higher officials of the former Polish courts and government agencies. All their apartments, with all their furniture left behind, were immediately taken over by Russian families. After the Russians conducted the elections in “Soviet style,” the territory where we were was declared as the Western Ukrainian Socialist Republic and so became part of the Soviet Union. Now every resident was considered a Russian citizen and was supposed to obtain a Soviet passport. The thousands of refugees from the part of Poland occupied by the Nazis, even compelled 21

Two years later, I met thousands of them in Soviet Russia after they had already left their places of exile – where they had been working as lumber cutters in the woods of Ural or Siberia or in some mines. It was after their liberation according to the Sikorski-Stalin treaty, in October 1941, which I will describe later.

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to vote during elections, were not considered as residents. Nobody – with the exception of the few die-hard Communists – was happy about the Russian passports. To receive the citizenship of an adopted country is normally a great honor and a happy occasion. It wasn’t so here. First of all, the country wasn’t an “adopted” one and the new citizenship was rather imposed upon the people. Besides everybody was aware of the fact that being a Soviet citizen meant giving up once and for all the idea of leaving the country, of travelling abroad, and of seeing your family and friends again. There weren’t many formalities connected with the issuing of the Soviet passport. They were given away rather freely. However, there was one exception. If somebody came to ask for a passport and they happened to be a former landowner, landlord, manufacturer, or businessman, then they were given a passport with “Paragraph 11.” This meant that he and his family couldn’t stay in the city, or in any other city – and in no place within forty miles from a city. In addition to the sad fact that the man would be the holder of the not coveted passport, he would carry along with him a stigma, like that of a marked criminal, for his whole life. Here started his misery. When a man of this unfortunate category found some place forty miles away from the city then he found out that the same place was close to some other restricted city. He also couldn’t settle in some villages because the peasants who were on the verge of collectivization weren’t interested in taking strangers into their community, who hadn’t been working on their land. These were the unhappy human beings. They lost all their property, their belongings, and they were thrown out of their homes. Now they became Soviet citizens with no right to work and no place to stay. As I heard later, these people lived somewhere in hiding, under assumed names, or with papers they acquired through forgery or bribery. It was their only solution.

The Soviet-German “Repatriation Plan”

The refugees, ourselves included, were in the meantime happier than the residents because we weren’t required to apply for the Soviet passports. In a way, the refugees considered themselves foreigners of sorts, and it was known that foreigners were always in a better situation than the Russians. Of course, we knew that we couldn’t travel and couldn’t officially leave the country, but we were hoping that the Allies would win the war, and then we would return home. But it didn’t work out according to our hopes and plans. Here is what happened to the refugees. As you know from before, some refugees escaped at the beginning through different borders to foreign countries. Some went back to the Nazi-occupied

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territory and joined their families there, some brought their families over here. Some were single or still without their families, men and women alike. This fact is important in understanding what happened next. One day in the month of May 1940, the tremendous news broke that several Nazi officers in full uniform had been seen around town. Rumors immediately started that they were members of a German commission which had arrived to organize the repatriation of the refugees who were willing to go back to the German-occupied territory. They established their headquarters in a fancy villa on the outskirts of the city and people started swarming there to find out what this was all about. Actually, they had come to repatriate those German families who were settled here, and had lived here since several generations, building their Lutheran churches and German schools. It seemed that this was part of the Hitler-Stalin secret agreement. A week or so later, we saw many German families leaving with all their belongings, on their way to Germany or to the western part of Poland, occupied by the Nazis – where they immediately took over the apartments and businesses left by the Jews, as we later found out. Now another thing started. Some of the Poles, Ukrainians, or even Jews who were eager to go home and couldn’t do so illegally anymore, stood around the villa every day from the early morning hours to obtain the necessary permits from the Nazi officers. To please the Nazis, these people presented themselves as Volksdeutsche, which meant that not being German they considered themselves as German, being descendants from German parents or grandparents. Many could convince the Nazis of this assumed origin even if it was not so. The Russians honored all those German permits and big masses crossed the Russian border, traversing the bridge over the San River in the middle of the city of Przemyśl (the San River divided the two occupation zones). Only very few Jewish families left this way, who somehow persuaded the German officers to grant them permits. The other Jews were told to register and were promised that special transports would be organized by the German commission for them. In the middle of the registration however, the repatriation described above suddenly stopped, and the Nazi officers left for Germany; revealing to some waiters in night clubs where they used to wine and dine that they would come back later. The NKVD made known that they would continue their registration of those, mostly Jewish families, left behind who wanted to be repatriated. Some people became suspicious of this close German-Soviet cooperation, but others saw nothing wrong with this whole scheme, and so people continued their registration in the headquarters of the NKVD. Now as a digression, I should explain why some Jews who fled the Nazis still wanted to go back to their homes and to come under the Nazi occupation.

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There were many reasons. Firstly, there were separated families – husbands here who left their wives and children there, or children separated from their parents who wanted to join them under any condition. Secondly, the impact of the Nazi’s oppression wasn’t felt immediately. The ghettoes, the concentration camps, and the mass murder of millions of Jews came later. In the beginning, letters came reporting that the living conditions were acceptable, and that Jews could pursue their occupation and engage in business. So, some families encouraged the return of their relatives. Besides most people were convinced of the Allied victory and preferred to be at home at that time instead of in a territory which the Russians already considered their own, and from which it would be difficult to leave under normal conditions. Of course, nobody could foresee that everything would turn out differently and that the Jews who succeeded in getting home went to their torture and their certain death. These were the reasons why many Jews were so eager to go back. So, the registration of the families who wanted to be repatriated continued in the offices of the NKVD and people started speculating as to when this would take place. Another kind of registration was now added. People who didn’t want to go back, but preferred to stay here, had to register too. There were always some self-styled leaders who tried to organize groups of people who wanted to stay together during the expected transports. This was a good breeding time for rumors and uncontrolled news. Some heard of repatriation transports that had left other cities, others saw special trains at the stations being prepared for these transports. Suddenly on a June morning, shocking news spread through the city like a forest fire. Many apartments were visited the night before by NKVD agents who asked for the refugees living there. Wherever they found refugees who were single, women without husbands, men without wives, unmarried men or girls – they arrested them on the spot and brought them by truck loads to the prison. Some of these unhappy people succeeded in sending out messages from the prison, reporting their miserable plight, but most of them were never heard of, nor seen again.22 The same procedure was repeated during the next night. Of course, some of the single refugees became wise and went into hiding at night, but the NKVD still had plenty of victims. The news was shocking indeed because it didn’t make any sense at all. Here was an official registration being conducted by the NKVD for all those who wanted to be repatriated, and most of those singles 22 I met some of these arrested and disappeared singles after two or three years, deep in Soviet Russia, and will describe this later.

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were the first among them – and at the same time, these exact people were being arrested at night, put into prison, and disappeared. This was against any human logic, and no one could give any reasonable explanation for it. There were always people among us who warned not to trust the Russians, not to look for any logic in their orders and actions, but only very few were willing to heed the advice of those realistic pessimists. Another thing brought even more confusion. It happened during those nightly arrests of single refugees that some family man – a man living in an apartment with his wife and children – was also arrested, because, as it frequently happens in Soviet Russia, some of the NKVD agents didn’t receive clear instructions. Those arrested family men were released the next day from prison and came back home to their now happy families. The conclusion drawn from this event was that refugees in family groups were safe and nothing would happen to them. They were sure that whoever wanted to be repatriated would have a chance to do so, even if they didn’t want to admit to themselves that no logical explanation could be found for the arrest of the other group of refugees. But more and more people became shaky in their convictions; and it dawned upon us that the whole registration was a fake, a dirty trick, worked out in close cooperation between the Nazi Gestapo and the Soviet NKVD, to get hold of the addresses of Jewish refugees and to crack down on them in one heavy and effective blow. And this blow came with such a devilish device that surpassed even the most pessimistic expectations.

The Second Deportation

It came this way. A few days before June  28, 1940, the public was informed through radio, newspapers, and posters that an air-raid exercise would be held during the evening and night hours of June 28. Beginning from seven o’clock in the evening, nobody should leave their house and no lights should be turned on, neither in the streets nor in our homes. The janitors of the nationalized houses were instructed by the house administrators, Upravdom, that no stranger should be let in. All these orders were explained as “standard” procedure during an air-raid in Soviet Russia. Most of the people didn’t think too much of it. After all, although the Russians didn’t want to admit it, there was still a war going on and air-raid exercises were nothing unusual. On the evening of June 28, everyone was sitting at home, looking through closed windows to see what a Soviet air-raid exercise was like. All of a sudden, at around ten o’clock at night, many Russian military trucks came speeding through the streets with headlights at full beam. It didn’t make any sense.

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There was an order that no lights should be used, even on the streets, and here were Russian trucks with lights at their brightest, driving full blast, and making themselves conspicuous to enemy or pseudo-enemy planes. The explanation came a few minutes later. We suddenly heard screams of human beings, captured, and brought to those trucks. It came like a flash to our minds that the announced air-raid exercises were not an exercise at all but a treacherous swindle and fake. As we learned later those thousands of trucks were secretly mobilized during the day. They were taken over by the NKVD who led them to the addresses and apartments of those people who registered either to go back or to stay. High officers of the NKVD took personal command of this manhunt and directed the traffic according to streets and houses. They personally looked to the human round-up being quick and efficient. Now the Russians didn’t have to pretend anymore and could lift their masks. All the lights in the streets and homes were turned on. An air-raid “Soviet style” began worse than a real enemy bombing. I want to share my own experience with you because it was the night when my family and I were also deported. Sometime after midnight there was a heavy knock on the door. Everybody was awake anyway because we already knew what to expect. Only our two children were sleeping. A patrol of four uniformed NKVD men with fixed bayonets, led by a uniformed man with no rank distinction (he seemed to be an officer), entered our apartment. They asked for our names and checked us on their list. The leading man (let’s call him the officer) declared that we were under arrest, and that we and our children had to be ready in two hours to be transported to the station. Then this officer said that he had to search the apartment. I don’t know what he was looking for, but the man turned everything upside down. Then he left two men from the patrol posted as guards at the entrance to our apartment and left with the other two, I guess to arrest other families. In the meantime, some other patrol came in. It seems there was some overlap in the whole hasty action. As soon as they found out that we were already being taken care of, they left. Some high-ranking officers of the NKVD also came to check. It was a coming and going of NKVD men, all with heavy weapons, during the whole night. It wasn’t a private apartment anymore but like living on the street with heavy military traffic. It’s still difficult to describe our feelings and emotions during this unforgettable night. I lost myself completely. I was filled with despair and couldn’t coordinate my thoughts. I didn’t know what to do next. Faced with such an extraordinary situation, I had the feeling I had failed completely, not being able to protect my family from such a disaster. I was thinking of committing

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suicide and slipped out in an unguarded-moment to the bathroom. I had a razor blade in my hand, ready to cut my wrists. I thought for a moment that this might protect my family from deportation. I thought that the Russians confronted with such a situation would let my family stay. Then I thought, suppose they wouldn’t, how much greater would the suffering of my family be, compelled to go and to leave me behind. So, reason prevailed, and I gave up my desperate plan. Fortunately, my wife, Edda, was more composed. She remained calm and thought of first things first. She let the children sleep as long as possible. And started packing. She was thinking of the most essential things which were necessary to keep us all alive under the most unusual conditions. The leading officer who had come first with the patrol and left, dropped in again. It seemed that he was impressed by the sight and atmosphere in our home, maybe even touched. He saw my wife calm, controlled; he heard no crying. He saw the children sound asleep, maybe dreaming of a nice morning. My wife asked him where we were going. He said to some big city, where I could find a better job, because here there were too many of us (he didn’t tell the truth or maybe he didn’t know any better or was told so). Then she asked him what we should take with us. He advised her to take as much warm clothing and underwear as possible, because it would be very cold where we were going (here he told the truth). Speaking later to other people we found out that we were fortunate because some of the NKVD officers hardly allowed them to take anything. It took longer than two hours until they were ready for us. It seemed that they had to assemble many more families. It was already dawn when they came to pick us up. Edda woke up our two children in the same way as always, with a “Good morning” wish, with a kiss, and a smile on her face. The children stood up in their small beds as they always did in the morning, and they looked around for the familiar faces. Suddenly they saw strange and grim faces of men in uniforms with rifles and fixed bayonets in front of them. They got frightened and started to cry. My wife calmed them down and told them that we were going for a long, exciting trip, where they would find many other children who would play nice games with them. She dressed them in a hurry. We could hardly think of eating anything for breakfast. We went down the stairs to the street where a dirty truck, which had been carrying bricks the day before, was waiting. There was a macabre sight in the street. We saw trucks posted in front of many houses and people were loaded with children and some of their belongings. NKVD men were running back and forth because they were responsible for the safe delivery of this human merchandise to the station.

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Being dragged from our even temporary homes and loaded into trucks under the NKVD guard was like witnessing and experiencing one’s own funeral. Somehow, our friends and family heard of our fate, and they came in the early morning hours to see us. Grandfather Thaler was present, also our friend Sioma Tolpin came running, when he heard about our deportation.23 It seemed that nobody in the whole big city slept during this terrible night. They could only see us when we were brought down the stairs to the truck because the NKVD did not let them into our apartment. Seeing one another in such misery and tragedy, nobody could control their nerves and emotions anymore. Everybody was weeping. My father-in-law was broken when he saw his daughter and his beloved grandchildren being taken away. They followed us until the truck disappeared around the corner and everybody had the feeling that we had seen one another for the last time in our lives. It so happened that this was the last time we saw Grandfather Thaler. He died under the Nazi occupation, as did his youngest daughter Lucynka, Edda and Runek’s sister. This was a sickening sight in the streets. From every direction came all kinds of vehicles loaded with miserable and gloomy human beings. There were trucks, droshkies (a very common horse-drawn vehicle in Eastern Europe), and even horse-drawn carts used by peasants for their work in the fields. It turned out that these wagons were mobilized during the previous night in the nearby villages for the well-organized deportation action. All these vehicles headed for the railway station. People were looking one to another, with a kind of consoling sympathy knowing that we would all share the same unknown fate. Some discovered their friends or even relatives in the vehicles moving alongside ours and exchanged desperate greetings. People going to work in those early morning hours looked at us with eyes wide-open, stunned, and horrified. Others looked at us from open windows knowing already what had happened during the night, with an expression of fear, wondering whether they would encounter the same fate in one of the nights to come. We noticed a family we were friendly with on one of the peasant wagons – the Zussmans. We asked our cooperative NKVD officer whether the family could join our group because there was still some space in our brick truck. He exchanged a few words with the NKVD escort of our friends, stopped our truck, and let the family board our truck, after he duly signed a receipt for his colleague, like signing for accepted merchandise. The reunion was a happy

23

He was a loyal and helpful friend for our entire family during our stay in Lwów and for many years later.

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moment for everybody concerned. Bunio and Ala Zussman24 had a six-yearold girl, Irenka, who happily joined our children. I last saw my parents on the day of our deportation – when we left Lwów forever. In the early morning hours, the truck which carried us to the railroad station passed through the street where my father and mother lived, and I could see their windows. I hoped that they were still asleep, not knowing what befell us. I didn’t yet know that my sister Rózia had been taken from my parents’ home that same night, together with her husband Mundek. They had a hard time finding their daughter Iza, who was then living with sister Adela, so she could join them. Iza could have stayed with sister Adela, but she didn’t want to part from her parents. My parents were heartbroken, since in one day two of their children, with their families, were violently taken away from them.25 Neither they nor I knew on that day that we were parting forever. I know neither when they were put to death nor where they are buried. Sister Adela, always very devoted and loyal, perished with our parents, she didn’t want to leave them.

Arriving at the Station

Arriving at the station we experienced a tremendous confusion. Thousands of people were unloaded here and nobody knew where to go. We were heavily guarded by the NKVD uniformed men with fixed bayonets. Many friends and relatives of the deported came to the station looking for a chance to speak to them, to give them some food, or something important – a blanket, pillow, or a teapot, forgotten or left behind in the rush of the last hours. Some just wanted to have a last glimpse of their dear ones. Finally, one of many trains consisting of an endless row of cattle cars pulled up and we were ordered to board the train. Here, once again, our escorting NKVD officer expressed in a way his human feelings – he entered the cattle car first, installed himself on the wooden planks which divided the car in an upper and lower part and accommodated us in the corner of the upper part near the small window hole. My wife moved by this human touch thanked him and asked for his name. Strange as it might seem he said, they have no names 24 Ala known also as Alta (née Englard) Zussman, born 1901; Bunio – Aba, born 1896. 25 As we found out in later months, when we established a written contact, they learned very soon about our deportation. We used to receive very sad letters from them to the posiolok, worrying about our fate. At the same time, their life was also very hard, since soon they had nothing more to sell. Sister Adela was always at their side, helping and supporting them. When the Nazis invaded Russia, all our contacts ceased.

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for the outside world while following their orders and duties. It didn’t take long for the cattle car to be filled with forty-odd people. Men and women of all ages (one family had their 75-year-old grandmother with them), children, and one pregnant woman completely by herself. Later, in the afternoon hours, a man was running breathless along the train yelling some name. It was the husband of the pregnant woman. It turned out that while he was working the night shift in some factory, his wife was taken away. He had a hard time convincing the guards that he wanted to volunteer for deportation, and he had an even-harder time locating her in our car. There was still happiness in this sea of human misery. In the evening hours, our car was sealed with iron bars from the outside and the four little window holes in the corners of the car were the only way of communication with the outside world. A little unnoticeable thing happened just before our car was closed, which suddenly became a matter of the highest importance, and was bound to change our whole aspect of life. A little bucket, the size of a five-gallon can, was pushed into the middle of our car, by some NKVD man – it was meant as a toilet for the forty-odd passengers of our car. I don’t know whether somebody who didn’t experience it can realize what we were confronted with. People who lived in apartments with relative comfort, having bathrooms and a toilet of course, were now suddenly deprived of the most primitive privacy. Horrified by the mere thought that everybody, men and women alike, had to execute their bodily necessities in the presence of all the others. We felt degraded to the state of mere animals. It seemed to us that we were no longer treated as human beings. Our morale was at the lowest level. The problem we were confronted with occupied our minds more than all our thoughts about our unknown future. Some people became sick because they tried to restrain themselves as long as possible. We later found some sort of solution. Somebody offered a bed sheet which was suspended and tied above the bucket to the ceiling and everybody who went to use it, covered their face and part of their body with it, but still we had the feeling that we lost our self-respect and dignity. It was already late at night and the train still hadn’t moved. We were at the same place where the human cargo was first loaded. Nobody was eating even though there was some food around. People tried to accommodate themselves, knowing that we would have to live together here for many days to come. The first quarrels began because the cattle car was too crowded with people and their belongings. We could hardly stretch out our legs or lie down without pushing or kicking somebody. There were a few better spots and we decided to give them to the women and children, but we still couldn’t satisfy everybody. No wonder people were short-tempered; there were friction and quarrels all

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the time. The atmosphere was full of tension and loaded with nervousness. Everybody was occupied with their thoughts, and nobody could sleep. Only the children fell asleep. Suddenly it started to rain quite heavily. There were holes in the roof and the rain was pouring in, on our sleeping children. They woke up, not knowing what was happening to them. My wife was desperate. Finally, we found an umbrella among our belongings and protected at least their faces with the open umbrella.

On Our Way to Soviet Russia

Suddenly the train started moving with a sharp pull. The sound of the wheels banging on the steel rails was somehow soothing our nerves. The rhythm of the wheels synchronized with the sound of the engine exhaust brought back memories of well-known marching melodies. Where were we marching now? We were glad when the day dawned, and we could see the first rays of sun through the small window holes. Was this the same sun that was shining during our normal days of life, shining down now unmoved by our misery? Sometimes it seemed to us that the sun would stop shining altogether. The morning brought to light all our tired and worn-out faces. There was no water to wash or to refresh ourselves with. The train was moving eastward. We didn’t stop at any stations. Sometimes the train stopped in open fields. The day passed by with discussions and quarrels. We tried to guess where we were headed and what would be our fate. We became more acquainted with our copassengers. They were all families with different backgrounds, a lawyer, some manufacturers, some businessmen, and working-class people. After spending a night and a day in this cattle car, we started thinking of eating. There was some bread and some cold meat which people brought with them. Some people still had cold tea or coffee in bottles to drink. The lack of water became a serious problem. The next day the door of our car was opened, and during some stops in open fields, we picked up some water. We noticed that we were still in the territory which belonged not long ago to Poland. We crossed the previous Russian border during the night. I remember it because we were woken up at around two o’clock in the morning and were told that every car should send out four men to pick up food and bread for the whole group. I volunteered for this service. The four men from every car were lined up and then were marched under guard from where our train halted to the station. It was already a Russian station. Here I had, for the first time, a chance to meet some other people from our train. We picked up two buckets of soup and several loaves of black bread.

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We also brought some water. After we came back, only a few were willing to eat at around three o’clock in the morning a soup which turned out to be a smelly fish soup with heads and tails of fish swimming in it. The water was of course welcome. The bread was divided in equal parts and kept for the next day. Now this became the standard procedure during our whole journey. The NKVD men who had their own comfortable car, attached to our train, fed us only during the nights at a time when we couldn’t have any contact with other people at the station. Only on few occasions, when it couldn’t be avoided, we passed during the day, or even stopped at, some bigger Russian stations. Normally, they were intentionally omitted. I remember distinctly one such occasion, it is an incident I will never forget. The train stopped at noon, in front of some bigger Russian station. There were many passengers there, waiting for their trains. The Russians looked at our load. Everything seemed strange to them, our looks, our language, and our way of dressing. They knew immediately what our transport meant, and they looked at us with curiosity mixed with a feeling of pity. Some elderly women stood there and shook their heads in silence. It meant more than words. They knew our fate better than we did at that time. Some tried to talk to us, to find out where we were from, but the NKVD men, who immediately took up guard in front of our cars, shoved them aside. Of course, every Russian knew better than to disregard orders. It happened that our car was a bit further away from the center of the station and so it was given less attention by the guards. A man came closer to our car and started some conversation. It was a hot July day and we had used up all our water. We handed the man an empty bottle and asked him to fill it. The man was willing to do it and went to a nearby water pipe. When he approached our car with the filled bottle, he was spotted by some of the NKVD guards. One guard came running, picked up the bottle filled with water from the Russian’s hands, and before our eyes, smashed the bottle on a rail in front of our car. It was the first time in my life I cursed a man with all the bitterness of my heart (I cursed for the second time two years later). As I mentioned before, we were fed only at nighttime, but not every night. Some nights were skipped. I want to also record that it wasn’t always the same fish soup. We became acquainted with what we found out later to be a standard item in the Russian labor camps, kasha, barley cooked with water to a heavy paste. It was not too tasty but at least eatable. From time to time, we had a chance to see the outside world, because the door wasn’t always closed. Sometimes the doors were closed for three days, then they opened them again after heavy revolting on our part. We saw the Russian people working in the fields, some groups of people working along

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railroads. What struck us was the fact that many women were working, even as firemen on engines. We noticed that men and women seldom wore shoes but only rubbers of the heavier type and their feet were wrapped with some sort of rags. We saw some very big factories far from big cities, and close to them primitive shacks and barracks where the workers evidently lived. We saw very large strips of uncultivated land despite the land being mostly czarnoziem26, very fertile soil (we were in the Ukraine). The spirit among our group improved a bit. We had no more quarrels about the places in the car because everybody settled somewhere. The bucket standing in the center and serving as a lavatory was still a thorn in our eyes, and it was bitter to admit to oneself that we adjusted ourselves so quickly to this lowest level of existence. A strange psychological situation developed. Our co-passengers somehow became class-conscious. It wasn’t that those of us who belonged to the socalled upper class were aloof or kept to themselves. It was rather the other way around. Those from the working-class group became conscious of the fact that their status would be more appreciated from now on. From time to time, they passed remarks to the effect that our time was over and we should as quickly as possible get rid of our bourgeois habits. This situation become rather annoying even without practical consequences. If we had some illusion regarding our future, those remarks intended to ridicule us, and made us more conscious of our rather difficult situation. Without any direct impulse or influence from the outside world, we were divided with an invisible demarcation line into two groups, with the middle class and intellectual group in defense. There were still discussions going on about our immediate and later future. There were the optimists who argued that the war wasn’t over, and that after the victory of the Allies, we would surely go back to our homes. Others were doubtful as to whether we would survive under these new difficult conditions, and if so, whether we would be completely cutoff from the whole world. Nobody even knew where we were, and our families wouldn’t be able to find us in these God forlorn and forsaken parts of the world. Others again, the real pessimists, maintained that nobody would survive the hardships and the climate to be expected. Something happened which spoke rather in favor of the last group, the pessimists. At one of the stops, somewhere in an open field, a man in our transport who spoke Russian fluently engaged one of the guards in small talk. And then asked him rather naively how far we were from Moscow because he had some relatives there whom he hoped to visit. The NKVD guard asked the man rather 26 Czarnoziem means black earth. – Ed.

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angrily, “Can you see your ears? So similarly you will never in your life see any of your relatives again.” In our situation and in the time to come, we were inclined to pay close attention to every word, to comment on it, and to conclude from it some important significance for our fate and future. So, the pessimists had their field day. There were guesses about our destination and what our occupation would be there. Some maintained for sure that we were going to some big city. We were, after all, city folks, and only in cities could they find suitable work for everybody in their profession. Commenting on these discussions, our ladies had some fun, making plans of how they would organize their life and their household there, showing the Russians a different way of life. You could even hear for the first time some laughter. But there were also quite frequently relapses into despair. You couldn’t help but think: why should all this happen to us? After all those years of studying and hard work to make good, why should you now, doing nothing wrong, and having committed no crime whatsoever, now be on your way to destruction. Or in the best case, why should you become a slave and prey to some brutal tyranny, you and your children? Yes, the children too – this was the most horrible thought. Those innocent children, engaged in some little play with the others confined to the cattle car, couldn’t visualize the future this train was bringing nearer and nearer. Was it their fault that they were brought into being by people whose life could be considered according to every human criterion as decent and honest, and who tried to bring them up the same way? But there was no answer to these questions, you couldn’t even ask them. They stayed in you, nagging, and revolting against the events which brought this situation about. Only bitterness and despair remained. A strange incident occurred. One day in the afternoon, the train was brought to a halt somewhere in the fields with no human being in sight. Our guards went from car to car, and before closing the doors, they warned us not to look out the four little holes for the next hour. Everybody who would be found looking would be shot. Of course, you always found curious people among such a group as ours. So, we stacked up a few suitcases in the middle of the car and looked out at some distance from the window holes as soon as the train started moving. What we saw was a train crash – which had happened there sometime before. The engine and several wrecked cars were derailed, and many men were already working on them. We started thinking and discussing why such precautionary measures on the part of our guards were necessary? After all, similar accidents happen at any time, all over the world. The explanation for it could only be given if you knew something more about the Soviet system.

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First, accidents like this were never reported in any Soviet paper. There were no air or train crashes in the Soviet Union as far as the papers were concerned (for that matter, no murder or theft cases either). It wouldn’t be good for a group like ours to witness this accident and spread the news around. Secondly, the Soviets were always suspecting sabotage behind such accidents and didn’t want us to get any wrong ideas for the future. It seemed that in every car people had the same idea as we did because we found out later that everybody knew about the train crash, and we exchanged our comments on this accident and the Soviets’ reaction to it. In the afternoon of the tenth day of our journey, the train was brought to a halt along a riverbank, and we were ordered to leave our cars and to get out. It was the first time since we were boarded into the wooden boxcar that we could move our legs, walk, and stretch out. We went to the river on this hot day of July 10, some for a swim, some just to wash, and to clean. Unfortunately, many were already infested with lice, which was only to be expected under these conditions. So, people sat there collecting the lice from their bodies, shirts, and underwear. Mothers were looking over the small bodies and particularly the heads of their children. It was a sickening sight considering that most of us, only a few days ago, were living under normal conditions, and now we were completely helpless and rather desperate. But this was only the beginning. We learned later about how lice were steady companions of millions of human beings in Soviet Russia, and how thousands and thousands had to pay with their lives for it. Being on the river, we mingled with the passengers of the other cars of our long train, and many found old friends amongst them. In some cases, there were even moments of sadness and joy at the same time, as in the following instance. In our car there was an elderly couple with their youngest son. The old gentlemen, a former big lumber merchant and landowner – as I learned later, one of the noblest men I ever met – spent most of the time praying. In our discussions, he was always very optimistic and encouraged us not to give up hope (the life and fate of this noble gentleman is worthwhile recording; I will do so in another chapter). He and his wife were always worried about their married son and daughter-in-law, whom they left behind in the city they were deported from. Suddenly their young son, who played with our children and was enjoying this short spell of freedom, came breathless to his parents, saying that his brother and sister-in-law were here and were riding all this time three cars ahead of us. How emotional was this family reunion. This young couple moved over to our car and nobody objected, despite the fact that we were so

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terribly crowded, we all respected this very happy family occasion. This was the Ferster family. Mr. and Mrs. Józef Ferster27, from Warsaw, with their youngest son, Lutek, their oldest son, Benno, and his wife, Lotka.28 As I reported already, we were fed at night and never approached any big stations during the daytime. As we found out later, we passed Kyiv, as well as other big cities, we were once not far from Moscow, but we never came close to them. On the eleventh day, our train stopped in the open field again and we were halted there nearly the whole day. Finally, another engine came in and the train was divided into two parts. The part of the train our car was in went the opposite direction. This whole time, our train had been heading East. Now, after several hours, we noticed that our train had changed its course, we were heading North. All our previous guesses about our destination, figuring out some bigger cities we would prefer to live in, were of course wrong. We didn’t know where we were going or what our destination would be. After a year or so, we found out the reasons why we had been waiting in the fields, while our train was divided into two parts and changed. Here were the reasons. The NKVD was a tremendous enterprise dealing in one sort of merchandise, human beings. It provided slave labor to different Soviet enterprises, such as lumber and mine combines, against a continuous commission (we also found out later that every slave worker paid from his payroll a certain percentage of his earnings to the NKVD). A contract was signed to this effect between the NKVD and the particular Soviet trust or combine. It turned out that in the case of our deportation transport, there were troubles and frictions between those two contracting parties. In the first place, those lumber and mining combines didn’t have confidence in our skill and our physical strength (how right they were) and didn’t want to pay the price for us as requested by the NKVD. After all, even in old times people who bought slaves, wanted at least to have a good look at them. Secondly, those government enterprises were not prepared for such big masses of people with families and children and didn’t have even the most primitive housing facilities prepared. We had therefore to wait until the two contracting parties bargained out, under some pressure on the part of the NKVD, a deal concerning our human slave freight, and until some barracks or huts could be found 27

Mrs. Ferster died in Samarkand in 1942. Mr. Ferster settled after the war in Israel and he never left the country. His sons and their families live in Sydney, Australia. 28 Józef Meir Ferster (1879–1975) and his wife Felicja Ferster; the couple had a daughter, Regina, who died at Treblinka; the son Bernard Ferster with his wife Rodia (Lotka) Ferster, and the second son Stan (Lutek) Ferster. Bernard and Rodia’s children established The Bernard and Rodia Ferster Prize in Australia recognising high-achieving students in language and culture. – Ed.

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for us. In our case, it took only a few days (and we later waited a couple of days more – however, we heard from other people that they were shipped back and forth for weeks until they landed somewhere). The NKVD guards took inventory of their merchandise several times during our journey, checking and rechecking again. At one time, we noticed that they were quite nervous and excited, and it turned out that two young men had escaped. Of course, we never found out what happened to them, but as a result of it, and as punishment, our doors were closed for two days – we nearly suffocated during those hot July days. Only a revolt, which spread like wildfire through the whole train, compelled them to open the doors again. They threatened to punish later those of us who shouted the most. Nobody cared because we were punished enough as it was, and we couldn’t think of a worse situation to be in.

Siberian Destination

On the fourteenth day, our journey came to an end. The train stopped at a dead end, on a sidetrack. In front of us was a large empty field, behind us a big river with barges and small ships in sight. In the far distance, buildings from some city could be seen. A large detachment of uniformed NKVD guards were waiting for us, and as soon as we arrived, they immediately spread out and surrounded our train and the empty lot. Some new faces, seemingly high officers of the NKVD, took over the command and gave orders to unload us. Everything had to be done in a hurry. It took them fourteen days and nights to bring us here but the unloading of the whole train had to take place in a few minutes. We heard once again the ominous word, which we had already gotten used to, davayte. This phrase cannot be strictly translated, its real meaning is “give it” but there is more to it, it expresses something like “come on, hurry up, make it fast” and the like.29 Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem “Grad” (“Hail” in English) ends with the word “davay.” In the English translation of the poem, the word “davay” is translated as “let’s get on with it” – an entire sentence for one Russian word. In a few minutes, some 600 people were spread out, all over the open field, in little groups according to families or friends, sitting on their few belongings, 29

It is quite difficult to translate the word “davay,” in singular, or the plural “davayte,” into any other language. It is the imperative of the verb “dayuh” (I give), an expression which the Russians used when they were in a hurry, and most of the time they were, particularly when they wanted others to work or have things done faster.

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and waiting anxiously for things to come. We had time to reflect on our immediate past and the sudden change. The wooden boxcar, normally meant for six horses, had been a temporary home for some fifty people, deprived of the most primitive privacy. In our car, forty-six lived through days full of excitement and emotion. We had our days of despair, but also our days of hope. Some could even find some humor in our tragedy. Our children had their playground and were quite often scapegoats for our nervousness. We had discussions about religion, human destiny, fate – as these problems were of immediate concern to us. Such discussions were not of a theoretical nature, like sitting among friends, after a few drinks, trying to solve world problems. Our morale, our hope, or despair depended on these discussions. We also had to solve psychological and sociological problems, to make our life in this helter-skelter group bearable. All this in a place no bigger than your living room (with far less than the bare necessities of life). Now this chapter of our new life was finished, and we were waiting for the opening of another one. A new NKVD commander took over our human load and signed the receipt of the officers who brought us here – they left with our empty train, evidently to pick up a new shipment of human cargo. The new NKVD officers strolled among our little groups and looked us over. Their faces were not happy or satisfied. Especially one of the officers, who was more inquisitive than the others, and paid special attention to everything we were doing. It turned out later that he was put in charge of us, and he became our master for the next years, nobody knew his rank – because the NKVD don’t wear any distinctions on their uniforms, but we guessed that he must have been of higher rank. We learned later that his title was “Rayon’s Commandant.” It meant “Commander of a District.” A strong-built six-footer with a pockmarked face, who never smiled, with piercing cold eyes. Nothing happened, we waited. It seemed that our new NKVD Commandant was waiting for something too. Suddenly, a car arrived, and another NKVD officer stepped out, accompanied by a woman in normal dress. He was the man our NKVD Commandant was waiting for. We noticed that he must have been from an even higher rank because he was approached by the others with visible respect. It turned out that he was the NKVD Commander of the whole Oblast (something like a big district) and the accompanying woman was his wife. As I mentioned before, the 600-odd people were spread out in little groups. Many were Jewish and some were of the very religious orthodox type, with beards, earlocks, and dressed in black garments so typical of the “old country Jews.” The Commander and his wife walked around, followed by the other officers. Everybody eagerly turned their eyes towards them, instinctively all

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the children did the same, awaiting some answer to our silent question: What next? Suddenly, we noticed that the Commander’s wife was weeping. Here was the answer to our question. She evidently knew what the future had in store for us and our children. She was Jewish and started speaking and asking some questions in Yiddish – Where had we come from? What was our crime? It seemed that the whole sight of us was too much for her. She left after a short while with her husband. After an hour or so, her husband, the high-ranking officer, came back by himself with a truckload of wooden boxes. He gave orders to distribute those boxes amongst us. There were hard candies for the children and Chatka’s canned crab meat for the adults.30 It was the result of the Commander’s wife compassion and pity for us. And she did another thing for us. We didn’t know where we were, because nobody told us the names of the nearby town or the big river. We found out later what they were. We only knew that there were no railroad connections anymore. We sensed that we would be shipped somewhere along the river, which did indeed happen. We were told later that we were supposed to wait there in the open space for a couple of days for the arrival of a freight barge. However, thanks to the intervention of his wife, the Commander gave orders that we would board a small passenger vessel which was anchored there. Late in the afternoon on the same day, with our belongings, as always in a hurry, our group boarded a little passenger ship. The crew watched us carrying our suitcases and bundles. It seemed that they had never before seen suitcases of this kind. They passed critical or rather ironic remarks – that we would never need them where we were going now, and besides, a Russian never travelled this way, he took only what he carried on his body. The ship lifted her anchor and moved up stream. For two days on this small vessel, we had the illusion of being on our own. We moved around freely and enjoyed the fresh air and the sight of the riverbank. We could buy, with our own money, some warm food. The Rayon’s Commandant, whom I mentioned before, took charge of us after we left the train, and we never left his custody. He made it his business, from then on, to learn about us from our records, which followed us at all times – to learn our names and to recognize our faces. It seemed that NKVD men were especially trained for this. We were later amazed how every NKVD man, even after a long time and only having come in contact with us once, immediately recognized us and called us by our name. After two days, we were unloaded again. It was late in the afternoon, at an open space along the riverbank. Our group spread out again, families and 30

The brand Chatka can be seen in some fine delicatessen stores around New York.

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friends huddled together. We knew we would spend the night here. It didn’t look like the end of our journey yet. It got darker and darker. We put our children to sleep on top of our suitcases. They said their prayers, as they always did, and we kissed them and wished them “good night.” It was all the comfort we could give them. Suddenly, millions of mosquitos cast over us from the river. It was like they had been waiting for us for years. They fell upon us with such a vehemence, we could hardly protect ourselves. It seemed as if the mosquitos were going to eat us alive. They came in endless swarms, buzzing around our ears like airplanes. We had to even cover the faces of our children with heavy blankets in the heat of this July night. People were desperate. Nobody could think of sleeping. We started a bonfire and spent the whole night sitting around the fire and feeding it. The morning sun brought relief for everybody. The sun shone upon tired faces, blackened and red-eyed from the burning smoke and the sleepless night. It was a macabre, ghostly picture. Our Commandant spent the night in the nearby town. As we learned later, this was the town of Czerdyń,31 where he had his steady residence and office, from where he controlled and supervised all the slave labor camps and deportee settlements in his Rayon.32 He arrived in the morning, fresh, rested, and full of pep; he told us to get ready to be transported by trucks to our destination.

The Big Lie

People from our group who knew Russian complained bitterly about the terrible night and asked him where we were going and what would be our destiny. He told us that we were heading now for a kind of “sunnier resort” where we would rest for a while after such a long journey. It was a nice place where we would sit under shady trees, and we would only have to reach out our fingers to pick up the most beautiful fruits. Some die-hard optimists actually believed it. Around five trucks pulled up, people jumped in and filled them to full capacity. In conglomerations like ours, there were always the strong ones who wanted to be the first, the first to get away from this terrible spot, and the first to occupy the best places in the “sunnier resort.” My family and our friends never belonged to the strong ones and go-getters, and so we had to wait patiently. We were told that the trucks would shuttle back and forth, and that the entire transportation would be accomplished in a matter of hours. Of course, everything turned out

31 32

Cherdyn in Perm Region. A Rayon can sometimes be as big as half a state in the U.S.

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differently. Two trucks broke down on the way, and only three came back after several hours. It seemed that our final destination wasn’t so near after all. Under these conditions, we had to spend another terrible night in the same place, fighting again the onslaught of millions of bloodthirsty mosquitos, protecting our children as best as we could. And it wasn’t before noon the next day that we were loaded into the trucks as part of the last shipment of our group. We were driven in a truck, loaded to its fullest capacity with people and their belongings. Down dirt roads and small paths in the woods, wondering how the driver could find his way. Bumping up and down, shaken to all sides, sitting high on our luggage, or standing. We had to hold onto one another, to avoid being thrown out of the truck. We were in a gloomy mood; and one man, who couldn’t help himself, fell into a loud hysterical laughter, which was frightening. We thought he had lost his senses and gone mad. We saw no trace of human life; we only once passed a sort of a village inhabited by some strange looking people of Asian race. Late in the afternoon, our truck came to a halt, in front of a broken wooden bridge over a river which the truck couldn’t cross. Here we were at last. This was our last stop, our destination. We saw, in the distance, little huts spread out over a hill. This was called a posiolok, a sort of a settlement.33 With our frightened eyes, we could see people from our group moving around the little huts. We were just about to unload our truck, as always in a big hurry of course, when a friend of ours, a lawyer, who arrived with a previous transport and had already spent a night here, came to meet us.34 It wasn’t good news that our friend brought us. He said, all of us were going to die here. This place was not meant for human beings. Nothing here to keep humans alive, only to destroy them. To this conclusion he came after the experience of the previous night – it wasn’t encouraging, what our friend had to say. Now it was our task to find a hut to move into. We were told by people, while approaching the settlement, that the huts were meant for two families. The family I mentioned before, who were reunited on the way, the Fersters, consisted of five persons, and our family consisted of four. The nine of us decided to share one hut. And so, we moved into one of the empty huts on top of the hill. There was not too much choice left because all the other huts were already occupied by the people who had arrived before us.

33 Posiolok Njariz was located in the Perm region, Cherdinsky district, in the sub-arctic climate. – Ed. 34 Dr. Wilhelm Leon Immerglueck (1893–1961) a lawyer in Kraków, in a boxcar together with his old mother (Wiktoria), his wife Franciszka (Goldberg) and a young daughter. – Ed.

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The first impression was more than discouraging. It was a log cabin divided by a wooden partition into two rooms, one room for each family. Both rooms had a brick stove and that was all that was in there. Four bare walls with one hole where there was once a window and an entrance where there was once a door. This was meant to be a home for our family. The whole settlement was a natural prison. The place was surrounded from three sides by inaccessible woods and the front side was closed-off by a river. We couldn’t pull ourselves together to think or to do anything. We spread out our suitcases and sat on them like mourners. We couldn’t look at one another’s faces, and especially couldn’t look our children in the eyes. Why did they deserve such a fate? Maybe it was, after all, our fault. People started coming in, everybody complaining, everybody desperate. The night was approaching. There was no light, no lamps, no kerosene. No toilets, no place to wash. Of course, there was a river, but far away. People found in the meantime some drinking water in a sort of well, some half a mile away, but there were no water buckets to carry it. We had to bring it in pots and pans. My wife fed the children with bread and some of the crab meat we saved from the distribution, and we put them to sleep on our suitcases. My wife managed nearly always, even under the most difficult conditions, to undress them and to wash them thoroughly with soap and water. Of course, there were the prayers, the good night wishes, and kisses. But after a while, the same onslaught of mosquitos occurred. Buzzing, they fell upon us in millions. They swarmed in through the hole that was the window and the hole that was the door. We unpacked our blankets and tried to cover all these holes, but it wasn’t of much help. The beasts came in through every little hole and sucked our blood in hundreds of spots at the same time. My wife walked around our hut the whole night, chasing the mosquitos away from our children, and trying to keep them covered. Being mercilessly bitten herself, until her legs and face were completely swollen. We took turns in this helpless fight. The night was long like eternity. The first rays of sun were never greeted with greater relief. The next day the Rayon’s Commandant arrived and brought along a deputy NKVD man in uniform who was to be our steady guard and custodian. A Russian civilian in charge of civil administration was already there. The Rayon’s Commandant who promised the “summer resort” with shady trees and beautiful fruit was facing us as if nothing had happened. Life seemed to take care of itself. On the next day, we found some wooden planks and rusty nails from a hut which was falling apart and rotting away, and we closed the window hole for good. The two blankets we possessed were used for the door. The next nights were bad, but more bearable. Bread was brought

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by the civilian administrator, called a zavchov, in Russian abbreviation,35 who had at his disposal a horse and buggy. The bread was sold to us, a kilo per person. At noon, a small fire was made in front of our hut (there were plenty of dry wooden branches around) and my wife cooked some soup from food remnants which we had with us. People were helpful in the beginning; one gave another a hand and shared their meager food supplies. We were told that we were specpieresielency (special deportees) and were addressed as such.36 What it meant and what our legal status was, nobody knew. Maybe the NKVD men knew, but they never told us. As we learned in future months, our situation changed from time to time, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, and we never knew why. Retrospectively, after several years, I found some connection between the war and world events and the changes in our status. However, at that time and in the following years, we were completely cut-off from the outside world and didn’t know what was happening. Our next urgent thought was how to communicate with our dear ones: parents, relatives, and friends left behind. They were very much in our thoughts all the time. Knowing how much they must have suffered after we were dragged away by force from their midst to some unknown and uncertain future. It was also in our self-interest to get in touch with them as soon as possible. It was our illusion that maybe the whole deportation was some tragic mistake and that by some effort on the part of our families we would be able to return. Maybe they could help us otherwise to survive and to make our lot easier. It was essential to let them know that we were alive and where we were. But where were we? We didn’t know ourselves and nobody told us. We knew only that we were somewhere three hundred miles away from the nearest railroad station, with no communication, unless provided by the NKVD, who was in complete charge of our lives. Our Rayon’s Commandant was gone again, he had his own horse and buggy for his travels; and his deputy was in charge of us, a young man, an apprentice in his profession. We approached him with a request that we would like to communicate with our families. He promised to comply. This was how it happened. The rumor that some foreigners had been brought to this desolate settlement spread around the neighborhood very quickly. So the next day, a few curious women came from the other side of the river to see what we looked like. We 35 36

The author also spelled this as zavchoz and zawchos in the text. – Ed. A term used in Soviet documents to refer to the deported population resettled from eastern Poland. – Ed.

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learned from them that some five miles away there was a village inhabited by Russians. Those people were deported as kulaks,37 from south-western Russia and brought over here under the most difficult conditions some fifteen years ago. Many died, some survived. After many years of hard work, they were now organized as a collective farm, they lived in small houses which they built by themselves. They also cultivated some small pieces of land for their own use, and some of them even owned a cow and a few chickens. On one of the next days, a little man with long gray hair, with a gray beard, supported by a tall cane, with a leather bag around his shoulder, crossed the broken wooden bridge over the river and approached our settlement. He looked like a figure from a Russian fairy tale. As soon as he reached some people, who curiously looked at every stranger coming into our midst, he said that he was the postman from the nearby village. Like a forest fire, the good news spread that the postman had arrived. People came running from all over. Everybody wanted to see him and to shake his hand. The little old man with his gray beard, blue eyes, and a friendly smile, became immediately our dear friend. We called him diedushka (grandpa, little father), we never actually learned his real name. At first, we learned from him our rather complicated address. Secondly, he offered to sell us postcards and stamps, and finally, he promised to come to pick up our mail on certain days, twice a week. I don’t know whether people today, who can send and receive cables from all over the world in a matter of hours and receive air mail letters from the furthest corners of the world in a matter of days, can realize what this little old friendly man meant to us. For us, he arrived like a Messiah. He waited patiently until everybody wrote their messages and we followed him in our gratitude and good wishes until he reached the wooden bridge on his way back to his village. How great was our joy when after some ten days or more, our postman arrived with the first cables (among them also a cable for us) in which our families confirmed receipt of our postal card, expressed their happiness that we were alive, and wrote that they already knew where we were. It was a tremendous uplift for us to know that the contact with our families was established. It improved our morale and gave us courage to endure the present hardships and the more to come. The nights were still terrible. We had to spend the hot nights in a room closed as tight as possible with no air to breathe. With every

37

Kulak was a pejorative term applied in the USSR to a rich peasant. The aim of Soviet policy during forced collectivization (in the interwar period) was “de-kulakization,” which meant the confiscation of all property, the seizure of the land by the kolkhoz, and the subsequent deportation of the family to forced labor in remote areas of the USSR. – Ed.

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evening came the onslaught of the millions of buzzing and biting mosquitos, wave after wave. Nobody could just sit around in the Soviet Union and so the Rayon’s Commandant left orders to keep us busy. Some of us worked stacking hay, some in the nearby woods repairing dilapidated roads and wooden bridges. We learned later that this settlement was once built as a penal colony for criminals and had not been used for years. We were the next inmates. The contact with the nearby village, once established, made our lot much easier. Some men became steady visitors because they used to bring over their horses to graze in our area, to the great enjoyment of our children. The man in charge of the horses on the collective farm, the koniuch, took a liking to our younger son George and became his big pal. He even allowed him to sometimes ride his horses. The women from the village brought, from time to time, some milk and even eggs to sell but they didn’t accept any money because as they said, money was of no value to them. They couldn’t buy anything for it. They wanted instead to barter the milk and eggs for blouses, shirts, linen, towels, and the like. Our location being on top of the hill became a disadvantage for our family because all those mentioned luxuries were immediately exchanged by the people living down the hill, where the women started their way to our settlement.

Families Torn Apart

It was a strange phenomenon, how being in seclusion in our settlement, with no contact with the outside world, how suddenly a rumor started. It seemed like some people had the ability, in abnormal conditions, to sense by intuition future events. So, the rumor started that the Russians wouldn’t leave things as they were, and a big change was bound to come. And so it happened, the big change came. After fourteen days here, our Rayon’s Commandant arrived and brought with him three strangers, two women and one man. They entered one of the huts, which was established as the office of the NKVD guardian. After a while, some of our youngsters were sent out to every hut and to every place of work, to spread the word that every man from sixteen years onwards, and every woman with no small children, had to appear at the office. It turned out to be a medical commission consisting of three physicians, tasked with classifying every able-bodied man or woman for physical work. People were standing in line outside, rather depressed. Little groups were called in, the Commandant checked them on his list, and one of the doctors approached them with a wooden stethoscope. The doctors sometimes asked

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questions or people complained themselves about some diseases. But the Commandant cut every discussion short and decided that he or she was able to work. Considering that those physicians were probably deportees themselves, they couldn’t object to his overruling, and they simply had to obey the orders of the NKVD Rayon’s Commandant, who was also their superior and guardian. I remember a short discussion between a man who was in front of me in line and the Commandant. The man, who was incidentally a rosin and turpentine manufacturer, complained that he had arthritis in his left arm and sometimes he could hardly move his hand. Then the Commandant showed the man a wooden match and asked him whether he could lift it. The man could hardly answer “No” to such a question. Then the Commandant decided, with an ironic smile, that he would certainly be able to work because it would be so easy, like lifting a match. After such a statement, I, of course, had no complaints and passed with flying colors. Some people, seeing what was going on and hearing about the farce of the medical commission were rather reluctant to appear, but soon special messengers were sent out for them. In a matter of a few hours, everybody passed the physical examination. Now this was the situation. Men and women over sixty years of age, and mothers with children under sixteen years, would remain. All the others – the husbands of those wives with young children, couples without children, boys and girls sixteen years old and over – were ordered to appear at six o’clock at night at the wooden bridge, with a few belongings, ready for shipment somewhere. An exception was made in two cases. One was a man with two young boys without his wife and the second was a dentist who was allowed to stay to take medical care of the whole settlement, as a general physician. Confronted with this completely new situation we were desperate and horrified. To leave behind our families with no means, no support, and no protection in this wilderness, and to be sent away again – who knew where and for how long and to what destiny. It was like a second deportation but even more tragic. At six o’clock we arrived at the wooden bridge, carrying our little bundles, accompanied by parents, wives, and children, weeping. The trucks were already waiting for us and the Commandant with his deputy in front of them. Some wives and parents couldn’t control themselves and, in their despair, started screaming and yelling at the Commandant. Seeing the anger and threatening position of our desperate relatives, the Commandant made a speech. “I am amazed that you people are so angry,” he said. He continued: Every Russian woman would envy you because your husbands are going to a city where they will be working in a big factory and earning plenty of money. Every couple of weeks they will come back here for several days for a visit to look after

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you, they will bring money with them and plenty of food. So why? You should rather be happy and not crying.

Needless to say, we saw our family only after a year. Here is what happened after we boarded the truck. We were driven through the woods into the night, on roads too small for our truck and known only to a few people. It seemed that even our drivers got lost because they had to turn back several times. There were no traces of human life on our way.

Arrival at the Labor Camp

Around noon the next day, we arrived at a place consisting only of three big barracks, in the middle of the woods. We were taken in charge by another NKVD deputy, a reddish-blonde fellow, with a brutal face, who acted very tough, and made it immediately clear that he meant business. Now, we realized that the second part of the Commandant’s promises, that we were going to work in a big factory, was not going to happen. The Big Lie again. We were divided into three groups. The men were in one barrack, the couples in another, and the girls and single women in the third. Each barrack consisted of a row of iron cots and some sort of mattresses filled with straw. The blankets were our own. There were no bedsheets or linen. No closets. The suitcases, if anyone had one, or the knapsacks, were put under the bed or were used as pillows, where they were safer. In the middle of the barrack was a table with two benches used for writing or just sitting. During our journey, my family became very much attached to the Zussman family – whom the NKVD officer had allowed to come over to our truck during our deportation. We stayed very close together the whole time. We were in the same cattle car. At the same posiolok, Bunio left behind his wife and a little girl, and I left my wife and two sons. We decided to stick together here. In the barrack, we occupied two adjacent cots in the corner. He was a true friend in our darkest moments, and we cherish his friendship to this day. Near the barracks, there was a little wooden hut. A completely open latrine, without seats, which served as communal toilets. For washing, water was poured in little containers, by pushing a knob a bit of water ran out – which we could splash over our face and hands. To shave, we had to use our own ingenuity. In the yard, there was a little store and another small hut. The store sold us bread and some sort of coffee (ersatz), a package consisting of burned and ground barley and chicory. The coffee we bought to use for our breakfast, by

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mixing it with hot water. We noticed that the other hut in the yard was the office of the NKVD Deputy, who also slept there. Besides his office, there were two little buildings, one occupied by the technical administrator called naczalnik, and the second, what we might call a first aid station run by a twenty-yearold Russian girl. We found out that this place was a so-called uczastok, a labor camp from which people were sent out daily in groups to work in the nearby woods cutting lumber. The place had no name but only a number. We spent the afternoon making ourselves acquainted with the place, resting, and writing letters to our families left behind in the posiolok. We found out later that it took the letters eight to ten days to reach our dear ones. No wonder, because the only means of communication was when, on some occasion, a truck or some horsedrawn wagon passed this way. It took, of course, the same time the other way, so the exchange of news between families took some three weeks. In the evening, around six o’clock, we were shown a place called stolovka. This was an eating place typical of Soviet Russia – they were the same all over, only different in size, and sometimes in the kind of service – in bigger cities, there was frequently a waitress service, normally it was self-service. This stolovka was a small room divided by a wall in two parts. At the entrance, a man in charge sat, selling coupons. The choice was normally: soup, kasha (thick boiled barley with a teaspoon of some fat on top of it), and dried seafood. We had to pay for whatever we wanted to eat. Everybody brought their own bread. We stood in line in front of a little window in the wall and, after presenting the coupons, the food was handed over to us. In the kitchen, were big pots where the food was prepared during the day. I bought only the soup and the kasha but not the fish – which was all we could smell, all over the place. There were wooden spoons around, and the meals were served mostly in wooden bowls. After eating, we left the stolovka and went back to the barracks. Some people complained amongst themselves. Others thought that we were better off than our families and children left behind, they didn’t have even these primitive eating facilities and might be starving soon. In the evening, we had a visit from our new NKVD Deputy who informed us that our rest today was exceptional, and that starting from tomorrow, we had to work. He ordered us to be assembled at seven o’clock in the morning in the yard of the uczastok. We went to bed with rather mixed feelings. A kerosene lamp was burning in our barracks the whole night. It turned out that all the beds were infested with bugs, which immediately came out from the mattresses and from the cots as soon as we laid down. They crawled all over us, and most of us spent a sleepless night.

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The next day, we got up very early, some said their prayers, some went to stolovka where they could buy the same dishes as in the evening before. My friend Bunio and I pooled together the little food our wives had given us before we left. We decided on a breakfast consisting of our bread and ersatz coffee, which we tried for the first time, pouring a few teaspoons of hot water over this stuff. It didn’t taste exactly like “instant coffee,” but it resulted in a brownish bitter liquid which gave, with some imagination, the illusion of coffee. There was no sugar of course. Everything was a problem, so was the hot water. However, there was a stove in the middle of the yard which was meant for those families who preferred to cook their own meals, and here we boiled our water. How? Now another problem had to be solved. My wife gave me a little cup which she somehow took along in the last-minute packing before our deportation. It was an enamel-glazed little brown metal cup with a volume capacity of less than a pint of water. This little cup I used for boiling our water. Incidentally this little cup, to a large degree, saved my life. It became my daily companion. Besides boiling water, I used it to boil milk on the very rare occasions I could buy some. During the long winter months, at noontime, when we stopped our work for half an hour, here again I used the cup to melt some snow in it and prepared a warm drink for my bread, which I used to keep beneath my shirt, to protect it from freezing.38 It was also used as a shaving cup. I used to shave only once a week, on Sunday, which was our day of rest, when we could stay in our barracks. I heated in the same cup some water and with a few chips from my soap, which I managed to keep, I used to beat some foam and shaved. I have kept it as a souvenir and family treasure until now.

Lumberjacks in the Woods of Ural

After our breakfast, we packed a few slices of bread and joined the others, who were waiting in the yard according to the orders from the day before. There was a hustle and bustle, full of nervous tension, in expectation of things to come. Around seven o’clock, the NKVD Deputy arrived with the technical manager (naczalnik) and several civilians; they divided us into groups of five of more men and women. We were taken to a little shack, where a man handed one axe to every man and woman, and a saw and steel wedge to each group. Then we were led by those civilian Russians into the woods. There were no roads, no paths. We had to pass and sometimes jump over little brooks, sometimes 38

Normally a bonfire was made from the branches of the trees, which we fell.

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across disrupted and neglected wooden bridges, very dangerous to cross – we had to help one another. I remember distinctively an elderly gentleman (a former bank executive), he was scared to death to jump over those holes in the broken bridge and we had to carry him. After an hour or so, marching in silence, we were told that we reached the spot where we had to work. The groups were spread out over a large area. One of the Russians led our group to a huge pine tree and told us to cut it. We looked at one another because none of us had ever handled a job like this, or even seen how it was done. Bunio, who was in the textile manufacturing business and spoke Russian fluently, told the Russian that we didn’t know how to do it. The Russian became angry and said, “I have hands and legs like you have. If I can do it, you can do it too.” After the angry remark, he took one of our axes, approached the tree from the front and started to chop it, just above the ground, until he carved out a notch. Then he took the saw, asked one of our men to fetch the other end, and they started sawing the other side of the tree, at the same level as the notch. Once he came close to the notch with the saw, he withdrew the saw and pushed the tree, which fell with a big crash, after living peacefully there for several hundred years. “Here it is,” he said triumphantly. Now, let me say something about this man. His official title was desiatnik, it meant “a man who is in charge of ten people.” There were several of them in our uczastok. You weren’t meant to take this literally, it didn’t mean that he was in charge of only ten people, in fact sometimes fifty or more people were working under him and his duties were manifold. The desiatniks were themselves generally deported former rich peasants (kulaks), who came over some fifteen years ago, and worked themselves up to this position; working at first many years as woodcutters under the most difficult conditions. With time, I gained the trust of some of them and in conversations, during our rest period, or after work in the barracks, I learned more about their past and their present life. (And in the meantime, I slowly learned the Russian language.) Their duty was: to bring us in the morning to our place of work and to assign the work to the group; to supervise our work, that it was done according to the Soviet Russian standard and requirements; to speed up our production; to see to it that all branches from the fallen trees were burned on the spot; to take over our day’s work and figure it out in cubic meters; to check that all our tools were sharp and in the best shape; to bring us back to the barracks; and to report our production, specified according to groups, to the technical manager of the uczastok. This wasn’t all yet. They also had to figure out our wages bi-monthly, but this belongs to a separate chapter.

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Now about our groups. We were working in groups of five or more men and women in working units called “brigades.” This was part of the Soviet labor system and brigades could be found everywhere. In fact, even later, in other parts of the country and in other industries, I never found anybody working individually, but only in brigades. The name was strange for us in the beginning because a brigade has a military meaning, but that’s what they were called. The man or woman who headed the working unit was called “brigadier,” quite a nice title when thinking of generals, but here it didn’t mean a thing. Approaching a group of people ready for work, the desiatnik pointed at one of them at random and said, “you’ll be the brigadier of the group.” It didn’t even mean more pay. The only thing it meant was that the desiatnik reported the brigade’s accomplished work in the name of the brigadier, which could cause the brigadier trouble when not enough work was done during the day. It happened that when our group of five who wanted to work together stood waiting, the desiatnik pointed at me and assigned me as our group’s “brigadier,” maybe because I was the tallest of the group. I know from people whom I met after the war that in some other places, especially in corrective labor camps where people were sentenced for years of hard labor, the brigadiers who were in charge of more than twenty people didn’t have to work themselves, but in our place, it was as here described. As soon as the tree was cut down, the desiatnik ordered two of us to cut the next tree in the same way. Two others had to clear all the branches from the fallen tree, leaving no bumps, only a smooth surface. Then they had to saw the tree into four-meter and two-meter beams. The fifth person had to pile up the tree branches and make a bonfire. This was supposed to be the routine of every group. But it seldom worked out this way. The two men who were supposed to cut down the tree, very frequently, needed the help of the whole group, especially when a very old tree was involved. Additional axes, the steel wedge handed to us in the beginning, and the strength of the whole group was necessary, especially when – as a result of the weight and pressure of the mighty tree – the saw got stuck. The burning of the branches also couldn’t be accomplished by one man or woman only. It required skill to build the pile in a proper way with air channels left inside in order to burn the branches from all the cut down trees in the same working day, especially in wet weather. Then, at the end of the day, the beams had to be nicely piled up, according to their dimensions – this could also only be done by skillful teamwork. Then, and only then, the desiatnik took over the day’s work of the brigade and here came the most characteristic thing.

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As a basis for figuring out the total cubic volume of the beams, the diameter of the smaller ends was taken, and not of the larger, which was a tremendous disadvantage for us. Especially with old trees, there was naturally a big difference in the diameter between the lower and upper ends of the beams. We wondered all the time whether anybody would dare suggest such a calculation to lumberjacks in a capitalist country. We had an hour to rest at noon. During our rest period, we ate the bread we had brought along with us. Some carried a bottle of cold black coffee prepared from the ersatz. The rest of the time we spent talking about our first day’s experience. Afterwards, we worked until five o’clock in the afternoon. Considering that we had to walk at least one hour to work and one hour back, we returned to the barracks after spending eleven hours in the woods. Some rushed to the stolovka to eat, others were so tired that they fell down on their cots, preferring to rest instead of eating. Then followed a night fighting the bedbugs again. The next day, the same routine followed. There were troubles all the time – such as the problem of the “norm.” I mentioned already, in a previous chapter, how the Soviet system frowned at piecework as a capitalist device to exploit the workers and developed instead the “norm” and the “Stakhanov” system. So, there were of course “norms” for our tree felling too. I think it was something like six cubic meters per person. In other words, our group had to produce thirty cubic meters of cut, cleaned, and piled up beams, with all the tree branches burned. Naturally, with our experience, abilities, and physical training, this norm wasn’t even approximately reached. Very far from it. So, we got our portion of tongue-lashings on every occasion. At first, our desiatnik was rushing us and did his best to speed up our pace. Then the NKVD Deputy came nearly every day to our place of work, and he did his part, using tougher language. Then our Rayon’s Commandant arrived. He had promised us and our families that we would work in a big factory, earn plenty of money, and we would visit our families after every few weeks. Here he stood in front of us and asked us to work more and harder. He threatened us with different means of punishment. “Nada rabotat” (you need to work) and “davayte rabotat” (let’s work) became the slogans which accompanied us for the next years. Nearly once every week, tired after the day’s work, we were summoned to a meeting at one of our barracks and here again somebody who came from the outside (we never knew who they were) started a sermon on how we should work more and more, how we should fulfill our norm, and how we should become Stakhanovites. Of course, all these pep talks didn’t help too much and there was no increase in production. Our morale was quite low. We were always thinking of our families and children left behind in such uncertain conditions.

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Working Conditions

Before we arrived at our destination, on June 26, 1940, a decree was issued by the Supreme Soviet, establishing new working conditions in the USSR. Here were the highlights. First, the working hours were extended from seven to eight hours daily. Second, the working week lasted six days instead of five. Third, it was forbidden to leave an undertaking or to move to another one without special permission. Fourth, absenteeism without due cause, and for more than a very short time, was forbidden (reporting late to work, or leaving early, by fifteen minutes). The term created for this offence was “progul,” which translated to something like “loafing.” Any violation of this order was to be tried by the People’s Court, consisting of a judge and two assessors, and punished by wage reductions of twenty-five percent for the next six months. By repeating this offence, the worker was to be punished with four months in a corrective labor camp. Every criticism or words of protest against the prevailing conditions (working, living conditions, or otherwise) were considered as “hooliganism” or a sort of “banditry,” and were punished even more severely, by a minimum of one year imprisonment. We lived and worked under this permanent threat and strain. It wasn’t so much the danger of the twenty-five percent reduction in payment, considering our wages (which will be described later), it made no difference one way or another, but rather the threat of imprisonment and being sent away again. This threat was constantly hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles. For you to understand, I must be more explicit. As  I mentioned before, nearly all of us had to work in the woods at long distances from our barracks, from two to five miles away. We had of course to walk those distances every day, carrying the axes, the saw, and the wedge. When the rainy season started, those little paths were slippery, and it took us even longer. Our places of work were very frequently changed, without advance notice. We were told in the morning, when we started out on our way, that today, we had to go to some other place, farther away or more difficult to find. Of course, it wasn’t our fault when we arrived late, but we were already liable for punishment. We were constantly visited by different persons, but mostly by our Rayon’s Commandant. Every time a meeting was called in the evening hours, we were told again and again how lazy we were, how inefficient we were – “davayte rabotat” was the essence of every such meeting. We were quite bored and sometimes too tired to listen to those tirades but still we had to be there. Nobody was excused and everybody who was absent made himself conspicuous. A trick was used, as we found out later, to boost our production and ambition. Along with us, some Russians were also working in brigades. Those

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Russians were deportees who came here many years ago but hadn’t advanced in their status; they had been working as woodcutters for years. They lived somewhere in nearby settlements or villages. Of course, those Russians (there were amongst them even brigades consisting only of women) were used to this kind of work, were more efficient in their production, and might have even reached the required norm. Now, during the evening meetings, our different speakers set those Russian brigades as examples for us, and we were challenged to match their production. “If they can do it, there should be no excuse or reason why you can’t do it too.” But now here came the reverse story. It seemed that even the Russians – with a long training in manual labor, specifically in woodcutting, with their families around them, living more or less a normal life – didn’t do too well either. Occasionally, their group was working close to ours, and we had a chance to talk to them at noon during the rest period. They asked us, “Why are you working so hard?” At first, we thought it was a joke and that they were ridiculing and making fun of us. Then they said that during their meetings they had been told that we fulfilled our norm every day, and if we, former capitalists and city dwellers, never used to manual work, could do it, why couldn’t they? At first, we were very flattered by their admiration, but we told them that this was the exact same thing that we had been told about them. Both groups got a good laugh out of it. There was another trick to enhance and speed up our production. The visitors and the Rayon’s Commandant were no longer satisfied with only meeting us in our barracks and came to visit us in the woods. Of course, they arrived, not by walking, but by carriage. Watching us work for a while, they were hardly satisfied with our performance. So, one of them took our saw and asked the desiatnik to give him a hand, and then for two or three minutes they gave us a lesson on how to saw. Of course, they performed a perfect job and asked us to work according to their example the whole day. At the beginning, they didn’t fail to impress us with their strength and speed. But after more of those shows, we came to understand that everybody could work at that rate for two or even five minutes. But how about working at that tempo for eight hours? We became wiser after some time, and as we told them later, during the usual meetings, we couldn’t better our work while we were still separated from our families, and during their performances in the woods, we told them that they should try doing it the whole day. The result was that they stopped this trick. It wasn’t always hewing lumber. Sometimes we got other assignments, like cleaning areas, for them to be free from tree stumps. This was particularly hard work considering that the Russians didn’t use any mechanical equipment for this purpose. The whole job had to be done by hand, using only an axe, saw, pick, and shovel as tools. Wooden logs could be used as support, and the lifting

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was done with our hands, arms, and shoulders. It took sometimes a brigade a whole day to dig out one stump, especially from old, deep-rooted trees. Amongst the visitors, two men came to see us (they all looked alike in their boots, black sports caps, and tight dark blue double-breasted suits) and we didn’t pay any attention to them. They came to watch us work in the woods, and then in the evening, at the usual meeting with the same speech about more work, davayte rabotat. There, we found out that these two visitors had a special interest in us. They were the representatives of the trade union to which we belonged, without knowing it, and we had even paid dues (those dues were deducted from our wages without asking us). During the meeting, they asked what they could do for us; we had only one wish, to join our families. Their answer was that they were only concerned with our work, our greater production and output, and that everything else was none of their business. It was our afterthought that in a capitalist country no union leader would dare to speak to his members in this way. The sad part of the story was that those unions sent their representatives to conferences of the World Federation of Trade Unions. They spoke on behalf of their six or eight million members, and everybody was impressed. My, my, a union with millions of members! When the biggest union in the USA had no more than seven to eight hundred thousand members. I always wondered why they didn’t speak on behalf of fifteen or twenty million members, to impress the Western World even more. Those union leaders were Soviet government officials. Who amongst the Soviet workers paid attention to them, and who checked their statements anyway? There was another significant meeting to be remembered, it was a month or so after working in the first camp. The NKVD Deputy called a meeting on a Sunday afternoon, and he started his speech with a question: “Kakoj ja vam tovarysh?” (What kind of a Comrade am I to you?) The story behind it was that our people thought that in the Soviet Union everybody was a “Comrade” and that it was the only proper way to address one another. So, people addressed every Russian as Comrade, including the NKVD Commandant and his deputies. It turned out that it was not done this way. So, in his characteristic speech, the NKVD Deputy explained in a rather angry way that he was not our “Comrade” and we were not his. Very far from it. We had to address him as “Grazdanin Komandant” (Citizen Commander). The title “Comrade” was reserved only for a certain privileged class of people to which we would never belong. This was the first sign of a class consciousness, and distinction, of which we later saw more proof. After the war, I spoke to people who were deported to Russia at the same time as our family, and we exchanged our experiences, I mentioned this speech which I considered very remarkable. To my amazement, I learned

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that in every place of deportation, at the same moment, the same speech was given by the NKVD deputies. It meant that this lecture to our people was given on higher orders. I also learned that not only this speech, but all the others, were never given by initiative of the lower echelons, but were sent out mimeographed from the central government to all local authorities. Sunday was our day of rest. This day was put to good use. First of all, we could sleep a bit longer. Then we had time to wash more thoroughly. As a substitute for a bath, we could wash our laundry, patch up our clothes – very much abused during our work in the woods – and mend our socks. Last but not least, we could take care of our correspondence, firstly writing to our families some hundred miles away from us. During this day of rest, we visited one another in the barracks, and we had our usual discussions about our future. Some were sick and exhausted. Some had news from their families left in the posiolok. I noticed that our conversation turned more and more to food. This was a result of our slow starvation. We turned in our memories back to times when we had plenty to eat. It became somehow a common topic to recall some favorite dishes with all the details, how they were prepared, and the way they tasted. Even when our discussions started at a very high level, reflecting on our experience, and how we will be changed when living a normal life again, all our discussions always finished with conversations about food. It was always a busy day and we made ourselves ready for the next week’s work. The rainy season started. And the rain was no excuse from work. Only in exceptional downpours, they found work for us somewhere not far from the barracks. Normally, we had to work in the rain, standing in the open fields, soaked with water.

Religion in the Labor Camp

The month of September was coming near, and it was usually the month of the Jewish High Holidays, New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). As I mentioned before, there were many Jews in our deportation transport and of course also here in our labor camp. Some of them were very pious and said their prayers every day. Pious Jews prayed with a quorum of at least ten men (minyan) and were always led by a reader, a professional or layman, who was sometimes gifted with a pleasant voice, being a learned man in Hebrew and in religious matters. There was among us a very pious man, who in his hometown held the office of assistant rabbi, being at the same time an orthodox reader (chazan), with a beautiful tenor voice.

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Being a very orthodox pious Jew, he of course didn’t eat even the meager soup or kasha, sold to us twice a day. He wasn’t sure whether the food was prepared and cooked in a proper way, so he lived for months on dry bread and water. At the same time, he worked particularly hard in the woods. It was somehow his ambition to prove to the Russians that there was nothing to be laughed at in our work. With time, he became a much-admired specialist in digging out the heaviest stumps. However, he became weaker and weaker, and nobody could persuade him to eat anything else, besides bread and water. It would have been different if he was living with his family, his wife might have cooked something for him, which he would have eaten of course. But he was taken away from his wife and little boy, who stayed behind with the other families at our posiolok. So, every day, very early in the morning, at a time when some others still slept, he led the group in the morning prayers – which, even when said in a hurry, lasted at least thirty to forty minutes. The Russians here didn’t know anything about Jews and the Jewish religion. They never saw a Jew in their life. Only one of the desiatniks (his name was Kovalenko) knew Jews from before and knew their religious holidays. In his youth, he had been the apprentice of a Jewish textile merchant in Odesa. As it was customary in the old days for an apprentice, he lived in his boss’ home and as part of the family. He sat with the family for all meals and on occasion for the religious holidays. So, he knew more about our life and religion. Our NKVD Deputy, who came into our barracks early every morning to see whether we were up and ready for work, didn’t like our religious practice and especially disliked our pious man leading us in morning prayers. In the first few weeks, our pious man tried not to work on Saturdays; to not observe the Sabbath was considered by him to be one of the greatest sins. The NKVD Deputy threatened him with imprisonment, so, he had to give in and work. When the High Holidays were approaching, we tried to work out a deal with the NKVD Deputy and our technical administrator. We explained to them the importance of the High Holidays and suggested that in exchange for being free to respect these holidays, we would work on the consecutive Sundays to make up for it. They agreed to it, but in the last moment they said “No.” Before Yom Kippur, we tried again, even harder. We asked our technical director who was a Russian Jew himself (his name was Feigin) to intervene. We were promised the same thing again but when we came back in the evening from work – sure that on Yom Kippur, the next day, we would be free to pray and fast and not to work – we were told that the next day was a working day as usual. Even the non-pious Jews were in despair. To work on Yom Kippur is sacrilege and beyond the imagination of even the most liberal and progressive

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Jews. It was dark already, late in the afternoon, we hardly had time to eat some dry bread, soaked with tears, which nobody could hold back. We put on our prayer shawls (talliths) and our pious reader started chanting the Kol Nidre prayer, the well-known melody hallowed by an ancient tradition. This prayer – normally chanted in a synagogue, wonderfully illuminated in an atmosphere of festivity and dignity, among people dressed in their best – sounded so sad among our little group; tired, hungry, and worn-out, in our dark barrack, lit only with a little kerosene lamp, full of smoke from our iron stove. Our thoughts turned to our families, whom we had left behind and might be spending this sacred evening in similar conditions. Our pious reader chanted the Kol Nidre with his clear tenor voice, so beautiful, as I had never heard it before. Somehow, he felt that it was the last time that he was leading our prayers, on our greatest and most important holiday, where we were praying for forgiveness and for life and not death, for bread and not hunger, for health and not sickness in the coming year. These prayers had at this time a special significance and meaning to us. The next day, we went to work as usual. We didn’t eat any breakfast and we didn’t take along our dry slices of bread as always. Instead, we took with us our prayer books and the prayer shawls, which we put under our jackets. At noontime, instead of eating, we started a bonfire (it was already very cold and we had some twenty inches of snow). We stood around and said the Mussaf prayers (the additional noon prayer of the Yom Kippur holiday). Our Russian desiatnik who heard about our holidays, watching us, remarked: “strange people, they work, fast, and pray, very strange people indeed.” On one of the next days, at noon, we had the surprise of our lives. Sitting around and talking, the pious man said he was going to sing something for us. We were of course more than willing to hear his beautiful voice, chanting some well-known prayers. But instead, he started singing the wonderful song, “Hallelujah” by Mozart. I was struck by thunder. I don’t think that anybody could realize what it meant for a pious Jew with a beard and earlocks, concerned only with Hebrew liturgy, to be singing this otherwise beautiful “Hallelujah” by Mozart, consisting only of this one word, and composed for a soprano voice.39 It seemed to me at this moment, that he belonged already to another world, to a world where it didn’t make any difference anymore in which way you praised God. By an old traditional Hebrew prayer or by a “Hallelujah” by Mozart. I would like to tell you, with some chronological anticipation, the life story of this most remarkable and unforgettable man, whom I ever met. I reported before about the Soviet labor decree and the punishments for being late to 39

“Hallelujah” is the last movement in the Exultate Jubilate Oratorio by Mozart – K 165.

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work. One day a meeting was called for the evening. There was nothing unusual about it, we had plenty of those meetings. However, unusual was the fact that three men were sitting on the platform confronting us, with the NKVD Deputy beside them. One of the men of the group of three got up and said, “sudit budiem” (we sit as a court and pass judgment). It turned out that it was a court of three judges who were brought to us. The NKVD Deputy called our pious man and three others to appear before the court. Then he turned into the prosecutor and accused our pious man of leading people in prayer every morning, that by doing so, he was distracting them from work, and as a result, the men were late (it wasn’t true because many people were late for work and not only those three men, for reasons which I explained before). In his tirade, he accused our pious man of counterrevolution and sabotage. The judge, flanked by his assessors, asked the men what they had to say in their defense. Our pious man hardly understood them, and he didn’t know of any committed crimes. It was a foregone case; the sentence had been decided by the NKVD even before the trial started. We learned later that those trials were nothing unusual, they were a threatening example for others, and we were even told that there was a norm for the amount of sentences the judges had to deliver. The judges themselves were peasants who were given a short course in Soviet law, consisting of a few paragraphs about counterrevolution. It was quite simple to stretch every case to fit those few paragraphs because everything could be considered as counterrevolutionary. We were shocked to hear the pronounced sentence. Our pious man received a sentence of four months imprisonment in a hard labor camp. The three other men, twenty-five percent reduction of their wages for the next six months. It was all a mock trial. Few people slept that night. Next day, our pious man was taken away to some distant place and neither we nor his family heard from him. After four months he came back, broken mentally and physically. He died shortly after. His name was Gesundheit, I never say Gesundheit when someone sneezes. I always feel, by saying it, a saint is hurt. There were some other men I met as a result of practicing my religion. In the so-called lesopunkt, where we were brought in open trucks, I met Reb Itche Meir.40 A tall, lean man, who walked slightly stooped, his face always turned downwards, as if deep in thought. He looked at us with rather sad eyes, which were at the same time saying, “come and be my friend.” Rarely, did I notice a smile passing his face. He looked much older than he really was. He must have 40 His name was Itche Meir Liss. We called him Reb Itche Meir. It turned out that he was deported from Lwów on the same train as us, and his family was in the same posiolok as mine.

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been in his early forties, but he looked like he was sixty. I was somehow drawn to him, and we talked frequently. I learned that he was a baker by profession, he lived and worked in a shtetl in the part of Lithuania which became part of Poland after World War I. He spoke the beautiful Litvak Yiddish,41 some Russian, and very little Polish. He was very handy with an axe and saw. I imagine, being a baker, he had to handle the rather large logs brought to him by peasants directly from the woods. Immediately, the Soviet overseers in our work of cutting timber recognized his physical experience and abilities and so he became the so-called brigadier of our group of some ten men and women at the lesopunkt. This did not mean that he himself didn’t have to work, just the contrary: he worked more and harder than anybody else and helped those who didn’t know how to handle an axe or a saw. He was also responsible for the output of our work and was blamed by the Soviet authorities for our deficiency in carrying out the daily norm. I was part of his brigade and so was his niece Chanale, who was only 16 years old, and she also worked very hard. The winter started early in September. The normal temperature was some forty degrees below zero; the snow was at least two feet high. At that time, we were living in barracks, some twenty men in each. Those who had their wives with them, or in his case, where he had his niece Chanale, lived in a small separate barrack. The barracks were dirty places, full of smoke, coming from the iron stove, which burned day and night in the middle of the barrack. Those stoves were also used to dry our wet clothes and our wet boots and shoes. It was still very dark when we started our trek to work, and our way was sometimes illuminated by the bright moon and the brilliant stars. What frequently happened was that our trail in the woods became covered by fresh snow and we couldn’t find our way. And so, two tall men had to walk in front of our group with a petroleum lantern to mark the way for others to follow. Since Reb Itche Meir and I were the tallest, we both found ourselves in front of the mass of marching people. During our march to work in the early morning hours, Reb Itche Meir used to engage me in theological discussions, on a level that I could hardly follow. Telling me of his Hasidic Rebbe, a Wonder Rabbi, with whom I was not familiar. I knew by name the Hasidic Rebbes from former Galicia, the Belzer Rebbe, the Czortkower Rebbe, and some others, but those from Lithuania or Bielorussia were unknown to me. His Rebbe must have been a mystic and acquainted with the Kabbalah because he used to tell me about the Sefirot – the different forms of the highest spirit which manifested itself in this world of ours, and he 41

Litvak is used to refer to a Lithuanian Jew. – Ed.

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spoke about how this world is connected with, and is part of, the other worlds unknown to us, but being of a higher spiritual grade than ours. Those were his thoughts and his problems on our way to our daily hard work ahead of us. Reb Itche Meir was a very pious Jew, like Gesundheit, but more of the philosophical type. He, too, resented working on Saturdays, which was a heavy transgression of the fourth commandment, but he also had to comply. He considered his deportation as punishment for his committed sins in the past, as an act of higher judgment, and worked very hard, far beyond his physical strength, to atone for it. He was not bitter about his fate, which brought us to where we were. He did not despair, as many others did. He observed the Jewish dietary law and didn’t eat anything from the soup kitchen provided for the workers in the camp; but it was less hard for him than for Gesundheit because he was in our labor camp with his niece. She was working in the woods too, but in the evening hours, she always managed to prepare for him some soup, so at least he had one warm dish a day. How she did it and what she put into the soup, nobody knew. When there was no snow around our barracks, she used to collect some herbs and plants. In addition, she managed to obtain some potatoes or flour, which became the most valuable ingredients, by bartering some dresses with Russians living in a nearby village. Chanale was the darling of the entire lesopunkt. She even dared to speak up to the Russians in authority, whenever injustice was done to us. One evening, Reb Itche Meir approached me, and I noticed that he was very much disconcerted and excited. Something very unusual for this calm and selfpossessed man. He asked me whether I could help him get a geographical map, which would include the eastern hemisphere. My first reaction was that this man, who was lost in the clouds of high ideas and far away from every reality, might think of escaping from here – and this would mean certain death in the endless surrounding woods. We were some 400 kilometers away from the railroad, it happened that people who innocently ventured further into these deep woods, just looking for berries or mushrooms, got lost and never came back. So, I tried to discourage him and to dissuade him. But  I was completely wrong. He wasn’t thinking of any such foolish earthly things. He was concerned with the more important problem. What he wanted to find out, with the help of such a map, was where to turn, while praying, to face Jerusalem, or the Western Wall there. A Jew saying his prayers always faced east because he was turning his eye to Jerusalem, the Holy City, where once on the holiest place, the holy temple stood, before it was destroyed (first by the Syrian Greeks and the second time by the Romans). This philosophical friend of mine came to be concerned that being so far away, somewhere in the northeast of Russia, and turning to the east the way he did, he was not actually facing the Holy City

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anymore. With the help of a map, he wanted to find out where he should stand in our barrack to face Jerusalem. This was his problem. We couldn’t find any map in the wilderness, but we sat down, and after a lot of figuring and drawing, we finally found that the east wall in our barrack was completely out of the question. However, in the southwest corner of his barrack, he would be facing Jerusalem. I saw a big smile on his face, for the first time, and Reb Itche Meir was the happiest a man could be. We had found the Western Wall in Siberia. This outstanding man who made a poor living before the war as a baker in a small shtetl near Wilno, accumulated through self-study, and under the guidance of this Hassidic Wonder Rabbi an unusual knowledge of religious philosophy and mysticism. He died two years later of typhus in Samarkand (Uzbekistan), after his liberation from our prisoner camp. There was another man. He was Russian, his name was Ivan Ivanovitch. He had of course some family name, but nobody knew it, and nobody was interested in it, because the Russians called themselves by their first name and their additional “otchestvo” – which was the first name of the person’s father with “vitch” added to the end (their patronymic name). He was over six feet tall, with gray hair, and very fine features. He took some sort of liking to me from the first moment we met. It happened that after some three months, a little group of twelve people from our detachment were eliminated – I was among them – and we were sent to another place again (the lesopunkt, mentioned above). Ivan Ivanovitch was put in charge of our group as our desiatnik. He told us that he was among the first Russians deported here from Kuban (Northern Caucasus) some fifteen years ago. He was very friendly and very helpful to me. I liked him too. Once when it became very cold and it started snowing heavily, Ivan Ivanovitch saw how I was freezing and especially how hard it was to protect my ears while working. So, one evening he called me into his barrack and offered me his Russian fur cap. It was the only additional piece he possessed. I was very much touched and moved to tears because no gift under normal conditions (even a Cadillac) could mean as much as this fur cap. It meant saving my health or even my life. I offered him something in exchange, from the few belongings I had with me, some shirt or sweater, but he refused to accept anything. It was a gesture of friendship which we didn’t experience too often in Russia. It happened that one of our Jewish holidays, Sukkoth, fell on a Sunday, so we could celebrate it by saying our prayers together, with somebody leading them. Ivan Ivanovitch, attracted by the strange sounds and voices, walked into our barrack. He never knew any Jews and he never saw Jews praying, but he sensed that it was some sort of religious service. Suddenly, he fell to his knees and with his deep bass voice, as only the Russians have, started singing a Gregorian

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chant. We turned our faces to him, amazed and impressed. It seemed to me that it was the first time in human history that people from different races, from different religions, were praying in the same place, at the same time, in a different language, in a different way, to the same God. And I think that I was never nearer to God as then. He told me later that he was a Greek Orthodox priest, called Pop, and was, of course, as a clergyman, deported. It was then, for the first time in fifteen years, that he saw people praying, and no matter what religion it was, he was compelled to join us in our prayers. More on Ivan Ivanovitch later. There was another man. He was a Polish gentile. His name was Młynek. There were a few Christians in our group, and he was one of them. Before the war, he was a branch director of the Polish government bank in one of the larger provincial cities. He was working in my group for a long time. Christmas came. Of course, as far as the Russian authorities were concerned, it was a working day like during the Jewish High Holidays. It was Christmas Eve. We were on our way back to the barracks. It was already dark. The glittering and gleaming snow crystals radiated glamor and beauty. My Christian colleague and I were the last in our procession of tired and frozen workers. We were the oldest and couldn’t walk so fast in the deep snow. My colleague stopped midway back and said that he wanted to stay behind. At first, I was afraid to leave the man alone. It happened that somebody being tired could fall asleep and then freeze to death. But suddenly, it came to my mind that it was Christmas Eve. I realized that he wanted to be alone that evening, even for a short time, with his thoughts going back to times when he sat down with his family around a Christmas tree, singing traditional carols. Here were millions of Christmas trees around him, but nobody from his family to extend a smile or even a word to him. So, I pressed his hand and left him in silence. I couldn’t bring myself to say, “Merry Christmas.” After a while, I turned my head. I saw him sitting under a pine tree with a burning candle in his hand. Maybe it was a candle of hope, that helped him to survive this ordeal and misery. It was already late and pitch-dark when we returned to our barrack. He didn’t eat anything and went to bed. My bed was close to his. He didn’t sleep that night. I didn’t either. I heard him sobbing.

Food and Supplies

As  I mentioned before, our food consisted of bread and of those dishes we could obtain in the stolovka. We had to pay for everything. The bread was sold in a little store. The only dishes we could eat in the stolovka were soup and kasha. There was also some seafood and on special occasions horsemeat but few of our people could eat it. Our diet became so very monotonous.

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Some people had relatives left in the Soviet-occupied territory, who were not deported. Those relatives started, after contact was established, to send food packages according to their means. Whatever those packages contained, they were always luxuries compared with our food. But only few were in this fortunate situation. This caused envy, especially because people became selfish and the spirit of the first days, when everybody wanted to be helpful, vanished. People were too much concerned with their own survival and so it was possible to watch how some received packages, unpacked them in the presence of others, and didn’t share. I, myself, experienced an evening when a man with an academic degree, who considered himself my friend, received a food package with some home-made cookies, among other things. He opened the package at the table where both of us were sitting and started to eat them. I was looking at him with hungry eyes. He finished all of them without even offering me one. Another man, who also received packages quite frequently, developed a habit of eating his delicacies at night, while the others slept. These things of course caused dissatisfaction and resentment. From this time, and based on this experience, when I am invited to parties, I have developed the habit of looking at the host with a rather critical eye. I am always asking myself whether this is genuine hospitality – when we are invited to share their food and drinks, they are often expecting a similar invitation from us in return – for us to repay everything in kind. I try at these parties to find out whether the hosts are the sort of people who would share these good things also in exceptional times, when reciprocity cannot always be expected. I must admit that my answer is not always a favorable one. I am inclined to think that even among friends, only very few will live up to this. It seems that hunger is a rather bad advisor. In times of starvation, people lost any consideration and human decency. People who we knew from old times as men with good manners and well-behaved, turned into beasts: homo homini lupus.42 Every man for his family, but quite frequently even within a family, everyone for himself. In another case, I witnessed the following scene. Very difficult to forget. There was a family consisting of parents in their late forties, with their son and daughter, who were teenagers. I knew the family from before the war as decent 42

A Latin proverb meaning, “A man is a wolf to another man.” This association was made by many participants in the Siberian odyssey. One of them, a Polish Jew born in Włodzimierz Wołyński, gave such a title to his autobiographical book on the same subject. See Janusz Bardach, Kathleen Gleeson, Man is Wolf to Man. Surviving the Gulag, Berkeley: University of California Press 1999 – Ed.

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middle-class people. The husband was an insurance broker; his wife managed a book and stationery store. Their children attended the gymnasium. They lived in a city famous for its textiles, not far from the German border. They fled from there. Being refugees, they were deported as hundreds of thousands of us had been. It happened that the whole family was in our deportation transport, and later on, they were sent away with me. The family had to live on the food provided by the Soviet authorities, as described above, and unfortunately didn’t have any relatives in the Soviet-occupied area who could help them with food packages. The young kids, working in the woods, were always hungry. So, quarrels started. Somehow the father, who was a quiet, nice fellow, was made responsible for their lot, and they stopped speaking to him. Consequently, he felt expelled from his own family and moved into another barrack (into the one I was in). The poor fellow was employed by the Soviets for the dirtiest jobs you can think of. We, who knew him and his background from before the war, tried to help him as best we could. One evening, as I came back from the woods and lined up in the stolovka to buy my usual soup and kasha, I saw him at the front of the line. He had been assigned to cleaning our latrines, so he didn’t have to walk back from work in the woods and was therefore one of the first in queue. In third or fourth place after him, was his daughter. A desiatnik and I stood further down the line. Suddenly the girl started yelling at her father, shouting that he shouldn’t be served. “He can wait,” she said, “because he didn’t work in the woods, I should be served first.” Those additional minutes made such a difference for her hunger. The man left his place, eyes down, and passing me he said, “Imagine, my own daughter.” The Russian who stood in front of me, witnessing this scene, spat with disgust on the floor. He also knew that it was the man’s daughter. I felt nearly sick and so deeply ashamed. We were at the lowest level. There was a store, as I mentioned before, where mostly bread was sold to us. Very seldom, hard candies were also available, a limited amount per person. This was always a great feast. Hard candy was used instead of sugar, with tea or ersatz coffee. We quickly learned the Russian way of drinking beverages, which was quite economical. A lump of candy, or even a small part of it, was taken into the mouth and then a whole cup of the hot beverage was slipped through, tasting sweet the whole time. I saved most of the candy, and when I could, I sent them to my family at the posiolok. Once pots and pans were sold, and on one or two occasions, shoes were sold. At some other times, a kind of strong tobacco called makhorka was sold. We got acquainted with it in the first days of occupation, when we first came in contact with the Russians. It consisted of very coarsely cut tobacco leaves

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with additional leaves from other plants. People who knew about it said that straw was one of the ingredients. The Russians smoked makhorka, not in fine cigarette paper, but in plain newspaper. Characteristically, the Russians never said that they sold anything. Their expression for this exchange was “dayut,” which literally meant, “they give away.” There was a word for selling in the Russian language “prodayut,” but it was never used in connection with selling commodities in stores. It seemed to me that the population’s impression was that what the government sold was not an exchange of goods against money, but rather a gracious gift on the government’s part. In the beginning, I was reluctant to buy those items. I didn’t smoke. And why should I buy shoes which didn’t fit? But I learned later that nobody was to miss such occasions. In the past, we were used to buying only what we needed, as we do now, but not in Russia. Everybody bought whatever there was to buy because nobody knew when another chance like this might happen. You must know that there were no private merchants who ensured a steady flow of merchandise according to the season or needs of the population. This was a so-called planned economy; somewhere in a five-year plan in Moscow was a provision that a certain number of shoes would be sent to a particular place, at a certain time – and then they arrived. Nobody knew about it in advance. However, old people, who knew the system well, used to say that high-ranking officials were informed about these shipments, and helped themselves before the shoes were for sale at the store. Suddenly, like a forest fire, the news spread that shoes had arrived. Everybody ran like mad to the store because they were sold on a “first come, first served” basis. People grabbed whatever they could get hold of, with no trying on whatsoever – big, small, women’s shoes, children’s shoes – it didn’t matter. The idea was: once you had a pair of shoes, even if they didn’t fit, you could work out a deal with somebody in the future. Someone might have a pair which didn’t fit them but might be good for you. Or you may have bought a pair of children’s shoes, which somebody else needed, and could give you a pair of men’s shoes in exchange. These deals were of course never simple because there was always a lot of bargaining involved. As a rule, one party had to throw in something in addition to the shoes to balance the difference – depending on the number of people in the buyer’s market at the time of the transaction. Another option was to use the shoes as an object for bartering against some other useful thing, like food or clothes. We noticed later, deep in the Russian interior, that the Russians were so used to this idea of buying everything they could get hold of, that when they passed some store and saw people outside or inside, they always stopped to ask “shto

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dayut” (what do they give). It went even so far that when they saw you carrying something, they asked you what it was and where you got it from, and then they immediately started running in that direction. So, I bought the makhorka and the other things whenever they were sold. It turned out to be a wise move because one year and a half later, when our wandering inside Soviet Russia began, we stayed alive for several weeks exchanging those makhorka packages against several loaves of bread, and a pair of children’s shoes against two pounds of dry smoked meat.

Clothing

Our clothing for work was quite a problem. We were deported in our European suits; the women, in dresses made according to the latest fashions. In addition, it was summer then and not everybody took along winter clothes. Some didn’t even have any to take with them, fleeing from the Nazis in the last moment, with only what they had on their bodies. Most of us were wearing summer half-shoes.43 Working in the woods or doing other jobs, like repairing bridges and roads, or chopping wood – our suits were simply not fit for it. Our shoes, good walking shoes for city pavements, couldn’t stand the mud, rain, and the underbrush in the woods, and were torn in no time. Our feet were wet most of the time. Our long suit pants got caught in branches. Our jackets were always in our way and when, because of bad weather, we had to wear an overcoat, then we could hardly move around – there was no end to our trouble. Some even wore Fedora hats in different colors. With our ladies, it was even worse. Can you imagine women walking through the woods for work, not just for a picnic, in high-heeled shoes and imprinted silk dresses, or in fancy overcoats, as you see here in the streets? Those dresses were torn apart very quickly and only shreds were left. It must have been a funny, colorful sight for the Russians, watching such strange people, but for us, it was a rather sad experience. We started patching and mending our clothes the best we could, but it was to no avail. The situation became worse and even tragic with the beginning of the winter, which started here very early. We had our first snow in the middle of September, and in no time, we were marching through the woods and working in one foot of snow, in wet summer

43

The author refers to “half-shoes,” translating literally from the Polish: “półbuty.” These are derby shoes. – Ed.

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shoes and in our street clothes, with overcoats. Nobody had any rubbers.44 The snow was melting around our feet, and then freezing again. We were hot and sweating while working, and then cold again. Our situation was desperate. We were doomed to sickness and frostbite. The Russians were better adjusted and equipped for these extraordinary winter conditions. They had their quilted pants and short quilted jackets called fufayka. Some of them had felt boots. The majority protected their legs with some self-made, quilted footwear, with rubbers put over them. Of course, every one of them had some sort of a fur cap with extensions to protect their ears. But, like a miracle, help came unexpectedly in our moment of greatest need. One day a shipment of winter clothes (quilted pants and jackets) and felt boots came to our store with definite orders to sell them to us, the deportees, men and women alike. We had to pay for them, but on the other hand, we would be willing to give away even our last shirt for these items. This winter equipment meant life for us. It was a tremendous uplift for our morale. In the first place, we felt physically better. Those felt boots (walonki),45 which could be used on a dry snow surface, were an ideal protection for our feet. Made as though they were from one piece of a mix of wool and animal hair, glued together under high pressure. They kept our feet, which also had to be wrapped in linen rags, warm and comfortable. No boots even from the best leather, and completely waterproof, could serve the purpose of foot protection as well as those felt boots.46 Coming from the outside into a warm room, those boots had to be cleaned meticulously from snow because the melted snow penetrated to the inside, which caused wetness and made them practically useless. We had to learn this the hard way. The quilted pants and jackets helped keep a steady body temperature and it was also easier to move around, as they were short and light in weight. Secondly, we felt spiritually better. It was proof to us that we were not considered here as normal deportees. We saw that we enjoyed some special status here and the Russians saw it too. Of course, we didn’t know at that time that 44

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Note from George Landau, “Rubbers or by some referred to as galoshes are a flexible rubber you put on the sole of the shoe – it covers the front part of the shoe, a bit more on the side. The important function that they provide is that they keep the shoes dry by not letting the water come up through the sole of the shoe. There was a heavier duty one, which you stepped into it as if it was a boot. It had a top that you could buckle up. These were very good when there was a lot of snow as otherwise the snow would somehow get into the shoe, melt and cause a problem!” – Ed. The author used walonki – the Polish version. Valenki in Russian. – Ed. I have never seen them here in the USA, but I was told that they have similar boots in the cold regions of Canada.

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this was done as a result of public pressure abroad, after the first report of our fate had arrived. The Russians working with us and even our supervisors (desiatniks) couldn’t believe their own eyes. They had been working here for many winters, and nobody had thought to sell them winter clothes. What they had on their bodies, they kept as precious treasure, and was the result of different private deals made after many years of hard work. Only a few of them had the felt boots (walonki) because it required a lot of money to buy them somewhere privately, and they could never save enough. And here we were, we had arrived just a few months ago, we were not doing too well in our work either, and we received these much-coveted winter clothes, practically presented to us on a silver platter. The Russians resented this fact and I think they have never forgiven us for it.

The First Winter in the Woods

I was now transferred with a little group to a small labor camp (lesopunkt, in difference to a bigger one called uczastok), some six miles away, distinguishing itself only by a new number and by a new address. Firstly, the only contact with my family by mail was once again interrupted and it always took weeks to get the mail straightened out again. Under normal conditions, it took eight to ten days for a letter one way. Secondly, I had to get used to new supervisors who were not always of the pleasant type. There was a special reason why I was always amongst the first to be sent out to a new post. The NKVD Deputy, who made up the list of those to be transferred, knew too much about me. Belonging to the so-called “intelligentsia,” whom they hated, and being considered a bourgeois due to my past, I was eligible for more hardship as a potential enemy of the regime. It is interesting to record how and under what conditions my third transfer came about. We had been working for nearly two weeks (end of December 1940 and January 1941), some five miles away from the barracks of our lesopunkt, loading the sledtrucks with lumber beams. Our working place was in the backyard of another lesopunkt. Instead of working there, which would be only logical, we had to march back and forth five miles either way in a temperature of forty degrees below zero. After two weeks, somebody got the idea of transferring us. It was done this way. We arrived late in the evening after the five-mile march, frozen and dead tired. It took us a long time to warm up, and to thaw out the ice from our clothes. We hardly started to eat when the order came that our working group (I amongst them of course) was to get packed and ready to move to the very

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same place we just came from. Every appeal to reason or human feelings was to no avail. A truck was waiting some half a mile from our barracks, because of the heavy snow, it couldn’t drive in. So, we carried our belongings to the truck. Our group was loaded, and the truck drove away. We had hardly moved a few hundred yards when the truck got stuck in the heavy snow. The more the driver tried to get out, the deeper the wheels dug in. Finally, he had to give up. He left us freezing in the open truck and went back to the barracks to inquire what to do. We were waiting for hours. It wasn’t before midnight when a tractor arrived to pull out our truck. The frost was increasing. People were helpless in this horrible cold. The drivers chained the axle of the front wheels of the truck to the tractor. Then the tractor lurched forward with a sudden, strong pull. And pulled out, from underneath the truck, its two front wheels. The whole truck collapsed, supported only by its two back wheels. Here, we were stuck for good. The two drivers (from the truck and the tractor) started swearing as only the Russians could, using all their tough four-letter words. No wonder – one of them would surely go to jail for this. And that was the end of that. The man in charge of this lesopunkt was in his past a gendarme under the Tsar’s regime; and as such, he was deported here many years ago.47 To prove his eagerness to cooperate with the new regime, he overdid in his duties and in his zeal. For nearly two weeks, he let us walk to work some eight to ten kilometers, one way, to load snow trucks with lumber hidden deep in the snow from previous years. One day, he came into our barracks early in the morning, before we left for our work, brought in some damaged saws, and accused us of sabotaging the regime by hitting the saws deliberately with our axes. Of course, the whole story wasn’t true. He made this accusation with a sly smile on his face, and even brought a frightened Russian worker as a witness. Nothing came out of it, but knowing what an accusation like this meant, he kept us in perpetual fear. And this was his intention. The work in the wintertime was harder of course than during the summer. First of all, it was still dark when we used to leave our barracks, with the moon and stars still in the sky, the march to work was much colder and more difficult. The sky was clear and beautiful with those millions of glittering stars, but I admit nobody was in the mood to admire the most beautiful nature. On some nights, we could even see the aurora borealis. Those little paths, leading to our place of work in the woods, trodden during the previous day, were covered over at night with new fallen snow. So, somebody had to lead the way. This meant carrying a kerosene lantern to mark the path ahead, falling with every step in some two feet of snow, and letting the rest follow, one by one, everyone tried to step into the same holes 47

The name of this desiatnik was Ladanow.

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as the person before them. Naturally, the leading man got tired in a short time, and the person behind them had to take up the lead. It was a macabre procession of silent men and women going to work in darkness, in these conditions. Each one of us, busy with our own thoughts on how to survive the day, which had just started. Death and hunger were everybody’s steady companions. We also had to keep in mind that we had to arrive, despite these conditions, at eight o’clock at the designated place of work in the woods (no matter how far it was), in order to avoid the penalties of the labor law. As soon as we arrived there, we immediately had to start our daily assignment. Now here was another problem. In old times, the woodcutters approached the tree and, in standing position, started sawing it. As a result of it, stumps two to three feet high were left over. We saw them in many places. Now, the Soviet authorities came to the conclusion that it was a waste of timber, and an order was issued that the trees had to be cut just above the ground. This meant continuous working in a bent position, which was very difficult. In summertime, it could be done, despite the bending, without any trouble; but in wintertime, it was quite a job. At first, we had to shovel a special path to every tree. Then, with shovels and picks, we had to clear the snow from all around the tree, in a radius of six to eight feet, down to the bottom of the tree – to have operating space for the men to cut down the tree. Finally, when the tree was brought down, it fell deep into the snow, and it was quite a job to get the tree out, then to clear its branches, and process it in the proscribed manner. You must realize that there was no auxiliary equipment of any kind, and everything had to be done with our own hands and shoulders. Some days, with the wind blowing and snow falling without interruption, we could hardly imagine how we would last the full day. It was true that we had a bonfire to burn the branches, but we could sit around it only during the rest period at noon. And there was no hot meal waiting for us either. The only thing we had to eat was dry bread, and even that wasn’t so easy. The few slices of bread we had with us became, as a result of the frost, so hard that they had to be broken with an axe. So, after a time, we developed a technique to make the bread edible. We carried the bread, the whole morning, close to our body, under our shirts, to keep it warm. At noontime, we got hold of a long stick from some branch, sharpened it at the end, and put our bread on the end of it. Then we stood in front of the bonfire like fishermen, with fishing rods, holding the bread over the flames until it got warm and burned – and with some imagination, we were eating black toast. The afternoon hours lasted an eternity. Especially the hour between two and three seemed endless. It was dark again when we left the woods, worn-out and frozen. It was another hour or more of marching in the deep snow. When we arrived back at the barracks, some were so tired that they didn’t care to eat the watery soup

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and kasha. They collapsed on their beds and fell asleep without even undressing. Next morning, the ordeal started again. I sometimes asked the Russians, working alongside us, whether after so many years in the woods, they got used to it. They said, even knowing that there was nothing else for them to do, they hated every day of their work here. They used a strange description, that the woods were “eating them up.” We had more meetings of the sort I described before. A new slogan was created for us. We were told time and again that we had to adjust ourselves to the present conditions and no complaints or brooding about our future would help us: “ile pryvykniesz, nie zdochnish,”48 which literally meant, “either you get used to it or you will die like a dog.” As far as our future was concerned the best we could do, they said, was to forget that there was another country waiting for us. We would stay forever right here in the woods, and we should know by now that there was nothing else to expect for our children. They would go to schools to learn to read and write, and that was all. They would have the same fate as us. After reaching their sixteenth year, they would have to work in the woods, cutting timber as we did. So here we were again, our spirits at the lowest ebb. Even our most hard-boiled optimists were sad at this prospect for our children. It wasn’t sung to them in their cradles, and in their fairy tales, that this would be their lot. The month of November came, and with it a national holiday on the seventh. The anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, which lasted two days. This was the occasion, according to newspapers, where the Soviet embassies in foreign countries invited high-ranking officials and personalities to the most elaborate parties – where caviar, vodka, and other specialties were served – and everybody raved about it. We were served none of those luxuries, we could only buy horsemeat hamburgers in our stolovka on this occasion. We were satisfied with the short rest; however, we still had the inescapable meeting. A young communist party member came from somewhere and delivered the following speech. He said: Look at ourselves, how wonderful is our life, how the sun is shining upon us. Where in the whole world can you find another nation where people live so free as we do? No persecution, no exploitation from the rich and fat capitalists. The universities are open not only to the rich, but to everybody. The whole world could enjoy our wonderful life, if it weren’t for the western imperialists, who are waging an unnecessary war with the Germans. 48

This saying, in slightly different variants, is often repeated, as practically an obligatory element of the Polish (Jewish, Catholic, and others) testimonies recounting their Siberian experience. – Ed.

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This was the gist of his speech. We looked at one other, asking with our eyes whether he was serious or just kidding and making fun of us. But he was dead serious. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Here we were sitting on our cots (there was no other place to sit) in filth and misery, working as slaves, living in a smoke-filled dark barrack, and here came a man telling us that our life was wonderful and full of sunshine. Not long ago, we were told that our children would soon start working as slaves, just as we did, and here he was talking about free access for everybody to the universities. For a while we thought that the script, sent out to thousands of propagandists got mixed up, and he received the wrong one, meant maybe for the population in Moscow. No, he was serious. Sometimes I wondered what went on in the head of such a man. Did he know that he was lying? I sometimes wondered whether they were human beings all together, in our normal sense. Sometimes, I thought that a new name should be created for them. I called them Sovietics. Yes, a human species, but one which developed a completely different sense of values and a different emotional system. A species which saw things differently than we did, and thought in a different category, where words and ideas had a completely different meaning. There were more troubles ahead of us. In the months of December and January it became bitterly cold. The frost, especially in the morning hours, was unbearable. Even the quilted winter clothes and felt boots were not enough. I had to put on practically everything I possessed, all the shirts and underwear under the winter clothes, in order not to freeze. But my ears and nose were constantly freezing. To protect my nose from frostbite, I made myself a sort of mask from a scrap of woolen material, which I kept in front of my face with pieces of string. Only my eyes could be seen when I walked out in the morning on my way to the woods. I had a lot of trouble protecting my fingers. We could buy, in the beginning, some working gloves; but they were torn in no time from handling the saw and axe. I had to use my own ingenuity to make some sort of gloves from scraps of material. They were torn every day, especially between the thumb and the forefinger, and I had to spend at least an hour, every evening, patching them up somehow. It was very difficult to prevent our fingers and toes from freezing, and even while working, I had to keep my fingers and toes constantly moving to not get frostbitten. There was no thermometer around our camp, but we guessed it must have been an average of forty degrees below zero. One day, in the morning, as we started our march into the woods, we noticed an unusual fog, and it was so bitterly cold that we could hardly breathe. As we arrived at our working place, we decided to start a bonfire immediately, to warm up. One man, who took off one of his gloves for a few seconds to light

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a match, couldn’t move his fingers anymore – they were frozen. They became white and he couldn’t feel them. The desiatnik rushed him, with an escort of two men, back to the barracks. After a short time, a messenger came to haul all of us back. Somebody told us it was sixty degrees below zero. It took the man years to recover and to regain strength in his frozen fingers.49 Every day was like going to a battlefield, not knowing how or whether you would come back. Now, what happened to those hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of timber accumulated during the summer and winter months? The timber couldn’t be transported in summer due to a lack of roads in the woods. The beams were piled up in certain places in big stockades, and this work was done by a special crew of Russians called izvoshchyki. Every one of them had a horse and a vehicle consisting of two pairs of wheels. It was their task to load those beams on the wheels to bring them to the stockade and to unload them there. This was done in a great hurry because those men had daily norms to fulfill, under constant yelling, cursing, and beating the poor horses with their whips and sometimes with heavy sticks. None of us could interfere because they were rough and tough characters – no wonder, with the steady strain and pressure they were working under. Even the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals could have done little here. Those little ragged horses were the most miserable creatures I ever saw. We could see how cooperative they were, how hard they tried, but they were helpless when the wheels dug into some hole, in snow, or mud. They were completely covered with sweat. The izvoshchyki expressed their outrage by cursing (the Russians had a big scale and collection of swear words) and in merciless beatings. Incidentally, we were told that the horses had their norms too, and they got their forage according to the norm fulfilled during the day. Now, during the winter, was the time to get the lumber from the woods. It was done by heavy-built tractors, to which several heavy truck-like sleds were attached. We very often had the task of loading the timber from the stockades onto those sleds. It was quite a job to dig out those beams from under the snow (they had sometimes been laying there for years) and to carry them with our hands, and on our shoulders, to the sleds, and then pile them up according to their dimensions. I have never been in the timber section of the United States, 49 We learn from author’s notes that this was Mr. Wietschner from Kraków. He, with his young wife and their little girl, his old parents, a brother, and sister, were with the family Landau in the same cattle car, deported from Lwów. They were wholesale grocers from Kraków. The full name of this man was Leon recte Mechel Wietschner. The family ran what was called in the interwar Poland “skład towarów kolonialnych” (warehouse of colonial goods) at Stradom Street 23, Kraków. See e.g. the weekly merchant’s review published in Kraków “Przegląd Kupiecki” 18.01.1936, p. 10. – Ed.

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and I have never watched the American lumberjacks at work, but I hope that my description of our work will not make them laugh – because this work was too serious – and will surely make them wonder at the waste of human energy and jeopardy of health and life. In connection with this kind of transportation, a new kind of labor was created. As I mentioned before, there were no roads in the woods, but they were easily built on compacted snow by the tractor-like snowplows. The roads were maintained by a large tractor-driven water tank which sprinkled water over the road at certain time intervals. The water froze immediately and kept the road slippery like ice so that the big sleds could move along it with their heavy lumber loads. And there was another obstacle. Snow was constantly falling, and the wind was blowing the snow over the road. This snow had to be shoveled away to keep the road clean, and this had to be done by human hands.50 The Soviet authorities figured that this was just the job for our women. So, our ladies were sent away with shovels to different distant places, from the first to the tenth kilometer. They each had to take care of their post of one kilometer of snow road during the working day. One met the other only when she reached the end of her road portion and then turned back again. Most of the time, they were completely by themselves with the exception of those few minutes when they met while shoveling the snow. This was a most terrible job, lonely, and exposed to frost and wind; they cried often and bitterly. One of those women workers told me how she and her neighbor worker, being so terribly frozen and cold, once started making a fire, after they met, to warm up a bit. Suddenly a Soviet official came along the road in a sled, wrapped in a heavy fur coat. He stopped the horse and stepped out. With his feet, he trampled and extinguished the fire. Proud of himself and of his heroic accomplished deed, with no comments, he stepped onto his sled, and drove away – leaving the two freezing women sobbing. The young lady was an accomplished concert pianist, a pupil of the late Artur Schnabel,51 and her colleague was the

50

For a detailed description of how such a road was prepared, see the published memoirs of another deported Jew from Poland, Stefan Waydenfeld, The Ice Road: an Epic Journey from the Stalinist Labor Camps to Freedom, Los Angeles: Aquila Polonica 2010. – Ed. 51 Artur Schnabel (1882–1951) was born in Lipnik (Kunzendorf) in Galicia (currently a district of Bielsko-Biała in Poland) to a Jewish family, pianist, pedagogue, composer. Considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, he emigrated to Italy and then to the USA (in 1944 he was granted American citizenship). – Ed.

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wife of a lawyer, an artist in her own right.52 Only during the rest hour, they were allowed to come together and make a fire to warm up. Besides this constant physical distress and misery, the most appalling thing was the fact that we were not considered as human beings with a soul and character, but only as bodies. We represented only as much as we were able to work, everything else was of no interest to them and had no value. As a professional man, a chemical engineer, I once approached our NKVD Commandant and asked him: “Why was I given only manual work, where I was not fit, why wasn’t I employed in my profession where I could do more and earn more?” His answer was, “I spit at your profession. We need only timber from you.” This answer expressed in a rather brutal and drastic way their whole attitude towards us.

Medical Care and Sanitation

I mentioned that, after our arrival to the first labor camp, a young girl was in charge of the medical care of several hundred people. She finished something like a first aid course, which lasted several months, and it seemed that this was a standard medical education for those medical workers. Later, in other camps, I met young men in the same role, with the same background, who took care of the health of workers. They had the official title feldsher and were as such admitted to the medical profession. The only things the Russian girl had at her disposal were a thermometer, a wooden stethoscope, pincers, and a pair of scissors. For medicine, she had aspirin, castor oil, methyl violet, and cotton. When somebody didn’t feel well, they had to see her in the early morning, before work started. If she found the person unfit for work, she gave them a spravka, which enabled them to stay in the barracks for the day. If the person didn’t get better during the day, they had to see her in the evening again, for a decision as to whether they would be able to work the next day. If they were still deemed unfit for work, another spravka was issued by her. In more serious cases, where she suspected pneumonia or a heart disease, she directed the patient to an ambulatory in the nearby little town. The ambulatory, after checking the person, sent them back to work, or directed them to the hospital. The most frequent diseases were caused by the lack of fresh vegetables, sugar, fat, and proteins – due to diet monotony, malnutrition, and starvation. I know, from my own experience, besides my daily bread, vegetable 52

Mrs. Immerglueck and Mrs. Frommer. Mrs. Frania Immerglueck was the wife of the lawyer, mentioned before. Frania died of typhus in 1943 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

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soup, and kasha, I consumed a total of only one pound of sugar and one pound of fat over ten months. During this period, I ate horsemeat hamburgers only two or three times. With this diet, I undertook hard physical labor at least eight hours a day and marched an average of five miles a day. As a result of this lack of vitamins, people developed a disease called zynga by the Russians. It was a sort of pellagra, which caused pus-filled eruptions on the surface of the skin. The Russians treated this disease by simply painting over those sore spots with a water solution of methyl violet, an aniline dye. When the girl (our medical supervisor) ran out of it, she recommended we use our blue pens instead, which we had for our letter writing. A man, whom I knew as a furrier from before the war,53 was discharging so much pus on his left wrist that the girl had to apply a cotton bandage. That night, when everybody else was asleep in our barrack, I heard the man sighing heavily. I got up and found him in pain. His face was red, I touched his pulse and his forehead, and I noticed that he must have had a very high temperature. He could hardly talk, and he pointed to the bandage. I opened it, and with the help of the kerosene lamp, looked very closely at the wound. To my horror, I found lice crawling around the cotton and the wound. The cotton used by the girl-feldsher for this bandage was infested with lice. It had most probably been used before and infected. I could never have believed it, had I not seen it with my own eyes. The man was temporarily relieved after I freed him from the bandage, and in the morning, I rushed to the girl-feldsher to tell her in the most indignant terms about that night’s experience with her patient. She sent him promptly to the hospital, where he stayed for several weeks. Imagine, this happened in 1940 when there was no war in Russia, under normal peaceful conditions, when everybody read how the five-year economic plan was more than 100 percent fulfilled in every field of production. Lack of fat caused night blindness in some people. I recall a man, who was working in my brigade, who became effected by night blindness. We had to lead him by his hand to work in the early morning hours when it was still dark and lead him back from work in the dark again. It was quite a picture to see a man, nearly blind, with his axe in his hand, being led to work. It took several weeks until we got some fat for him from a private package, and he was cured. As a result of continuous malnutrition, there were also cases of dysentery. In cases with blood discharge, people were loaded onto a cart, and then taken to the hospital in the nearby little town. Because of lack of space in the hospital, they were mostly brought back the same day. There were quite frequently 53

Dawid Landsberger was the owner of a furrier shop at 8 Piłsudski Street, Bielsko, deported with his wife and a little boy. – Ed.

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accidents in our work in the woods because, in the beginning, we didn’t know how to handle the axes. People frequently cut their fingers or toes. A regulation existed that brigades should work at least fifty meters apart because falling trees could cause accidents. This regulation was never enforced by the Russian authorities and accidents happened due to our inexperience. The trees fell quite often in a different direction than that which was intended by us. After being sick or recuperating from illness or injury, people were in some cases granted spravkas to the effect that the person should be given light work around the barracks. This spravka was not always respected by the authorities, and if respected, the person usually had to chop wood the whole day, for heating the kitchen and eventually the barracks. In this connection, I would like to pay tribute to one lady – the lawyer’s wife I mentioned before, Frania Immerglueck – she was cleaning the icy roads during the winter. Her husband had zynga boils all over his body, like the man in my barrack. He had to stay in bed and his wounds had to be cleaned nearly every hour. His wife got permission to do it, but in order to stay at the barracks to do so, she had to chop wood for the whole post, for nearly two weeks. Her sense of duty and sacrifice had no limit. Two years later, her husband came down with typhus. Nursing him day and night, she became infected and died. He survived. Those spravkas, issued by the medical supervisors, which entitled a day off due to illness or injury, weren’t easily obtained. The NKVD Deputy personally controlled the number of spravkas given out by the feldsher. When there were too many dispensed, then the feldsher was threatened by the NKVD Deputy, and had better comply. Those feldshers were themselves mostly deported Russians, or their descendants, and the NKVD had the same authority over them, as over us. For bathing, the Russians installed the so-called banja. This was a small room where water was poured over heated stones and hot steam was generated, like in a Turkish bath. There were wooden buckets which could be filled with hot water. The Russians had the habit of going to the banja en famille, with their wife and children, and they all bathed together. Normally, they took along a second set of shirts and underwear, and while bathing, the dirty laundry was washed on the spot in those wooden buckets. It was a bathroom and a laundry at the same time. Going home, they put on their second set of clothes, carrying the washed set home for drying. In those banjas, one had to be very careful because lice could be easily acquired. Dirty laundry and clothes of the undressed people hung all over the small, crowded room, cloudy with steam – it was unavoidable to come into contact with them – there were plenty of lice among our people, but fortunately we had no typhus in this part of the country.

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In two of the places I was moved to, there were no feldshers at all. The nearest medical supervisor was some four miles away. Here was a difficult problem. When someone didn’t feel well or had a temperature, they couldn’t be released from work unless they had a spravka. To get a spravka, we had to walk, in rain or snow, to the nearest feldsher, four miles away. It happened that the person’s state worsened, marching back and forth a total of eight miles, but it also happened that in this strange climate, the person arrived there without any temperature at all. Here was where the trouble started. This happened to a lady from our barrack, the wife of a steel merchant; she, herself, had a Master of Science in Chemistry.54 She had a hard time persuading the feldsher to give her the spravka for this day. If not, she would have been punished under the labor law because she would be considered as “loafing” (progul, the offence mentioned before for absenteeism without due cause). In the ambulatory, not only feldshers were employed, but also regular physicians with medical degrees (mostly women). They had a higher authority, and their recommendations were respected by the NKVD. The doctors there were mostly deported themselves, many years ago, and had to stay and work here. They had more understanding and compassion for us.

Being a Patient

After ten months working in the woods, I was at the end of my strength. My legs became swollen, and I felt very weak. I got permission to visit the ambulatory. Here I had one of those experiences which will remain with me through my whole life. A little schoolgirl was in front of me. A woman opened a small window, in the wall to the waiting room, and from the conversation I found out that the little girl hadn’t gone to school on this day, and she needed a spravka for the school principal. Children of deportees needed a spravka when absent from school, like a worker absent from work. The woman asked her, while filling out a form, for her name, age, and then came the question: “wolna ili niewolna?” It meant: “free or not free?” The girl answered with a loud melodic voice so characteristic of the Russian language: “niewolna” (not free). At first, I didn’t understand the question. But then it dawned on me that she was asking the girl whether she was a free citizen or a slave, and the girl knowing already that she was born with a stigma, answered in full earnestness that she was not 54 This was Mrs. Lilka Gutmann. The daughter of Mrs. Sercarz, who also lived in posiolok Njariz. She died some two years ago in Poland. – Author’s note, from July 1967.

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free, which meant destined to be a slave. It flashed through my mind that my children had to expect a similar scenario, and how they would take it. I slowly recovered from the shock and I was asked the same question. I had no trouble in answering that properly. The elderly woman doctor, after examining me carefully, started a conversation with me inquiring about my past and background. She was very sympathetic and sighed when she heard that I was working as a woodcutter. She asked me to come back in the evening when she would present my case to her superior. Around eight o’clock in the evening, the other woman doctor heard my case, and I was told to wait outside. After their short consultation, I was called in and presented with a spravka that I was relieved from manual work for the next four weeks. My gratitude to those two kind ladies and my joy was immense. It was worthwhile walking back at night those four miles through the woods knowing that I didn’t have to march the next day in the early morning hours to the woods. When  I presented the spravka the next day, before work, to our NKVD Deputy, he was outraged and pale with anger. It happened before that some man or woman from our group was sent back to the posiolok where our families lived because of illness or inability to work. Now I was eligible to join my family, but the NKVD Deputy didn’t let me go. It took nearly two weeks of consultation between our NKVD Deputy and the NKVD men where my family lived and the higher Rayon’s Commandant before I was allowed to start my way “home.” I recall a very characteristic incident in connection with my temporary release from work. My wife, after she learned from my letter that I was sick and free from work for the next four weeks, also tried on her end to get permission from the local NKVD Deputy that I might join my family. Bunio, who spoke Russian fluently, went to him on behalf of my wife and tried to convince him that I would recover faster by being cared for by my wife. Pointing to the NKVD Deputy’s wife, present at their conversation, Bunio said to them, “You see, you are together with your wife, why shouldn’t he be together with his?” At that moment, the NKVD Deputy turned to his wife and said, “I spit at my wife, and this ‘being together’ is not at all necessary.”55 Nevertheless, I was finally told that I could join my family. However, this didn’t mean that I was provided with any means of transportation. As far as my NKVD Deputy was concerned, I simply had to walk for some seventy miles, after being released from work, for being declared sick. And so, I went. It was on April 9, 1941. I remember this date because it took me four days, and 55

Kuklin was the name of the local NKVD Deputy at the posiolok Njariz.

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I arrived on my wife’s birthday. The snow was still deep. And I was only shown the general direction. Now and then, some sled appeared – because they had taken a sidetrack from the main road – and took me along some short distance. Sometimes I was luckier because they went to the next village in my direction. It was a sort of hitch-hiking, but not like here, where every few seconds a car passes by. I just kept walking. I was quite scared when my way led me through woods, and I hadn’t seen a living soul for hours. Especially when it became dark and there was no trace of human life in sight. And so, I had to keep walking, perspiring from a cold sweat. Until in the far distance, a dim light from a little window greeted me. It was like finding water in a desert. For the night, I knocked at the door of some hut and was always allowed to stay there or rather to sit around the stove during the night. During the winter, the Russian peasants slept mostly on top of a huge stove made from brick and mud, which kept warm being heated all day long. Spending several nights with Russian families in their homes gave me a chance to see how they lived, to talk to them, and to hear their life stories. Of course, they didn’t fail to notice that I was a stranger, and so they wanted to know about life in the West, and the reason for my being here. Some of them didn’t even know that a World War was going on. They were friendly and hospitable people, but they didn’t have anything to offer me because they were very poor themselves. Even for money, they couldn’t sell anything. I therefore had to economize my bread, which I took along with me. Of course, there was nothing to buy anywhere. These experiences, and all my other experiences, working and living with Russians have made it possible for me to describe from my first-hand knowledge, my impressions of the hundreds of Russians I met. Finally on my fourth day of wandering, around noontime, I saw in the far distance, the hill with the huts, our posiolok. I had the feeling of coming home. It was strange but genuine, the feeling of belonging to the wilderness, because here in one of those huts, was my little family who shared my sorrows and the little joy we were about to live through. I couldn’t compare this with any emotion or feeling experienced in my whole life. It was like coming from another world. Every soul approaching the posiolok from the outside was immediately noticed from the hill. People came running to see who was coming. They hardly recognized me in my outfit. But immediately, like a forest fire, the news spread throughout the posiolok that I had arrived from the woods until it reached my family. People followed me the whole way to our hut, and entered en masse, inquiring about their dear ones. It was like coming home from a battlefront, reporting about the others still left behind. I had no birthday gift for my wife, and there was no birthday cake either, but it was one of the happiest birthdays ever.

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Our Wages and Our Payment

Before coming to Russia, people thought that money would be no problem here. Everybody would be working, the State provided everything, and so logically nobody should have any financial worries. In fact, some people who had money, didn’t take it along during the deportation because, according to the general idea about Soviet Russia, they thought they wouldn’t need money here. But it turned out differently, just as everything else did. Money was not only a problem here like in every capitalist state, but even more so, and here is why. So far, I have mentioned money often, buying things for money, and so forth. So, it is quite natural to ask, “Where did the money come from?” We had to pay for everything, for our bread, our food, and whatever else was sold to us. At the same time, we were paid for the work we accomplished. What were our wages and how did we get paid? Nobody told us and nobody knew how much we got paid. We worked in brigades consisting of three to six persons, and twice a month (on the fifteenth and at the end of the month) our desiatnik made an account of the work of the whole brigade in cubic meters. This amounted to a certain number of rubles and the sum was divided amongst the workers of the group, on the basis of some mysterious algebra which nobody could fathom. And so it happened that between two men doing the same work (for instance, both were clearing branches off trees), one received more than the other. You asked the desiatnik for an explanation and he referred you to the office. You went to the office and the accountant was always busy, so he asked you to come some other time, after work in the evening. After several more attempts, most of the time, you gave up. But if someone was persistent and came again and again, he was finally thrown out of the office with a few juicy four-letter curse words, of which the language is very rich, and there was still no explanation. How much did we get paid? The highest wage I earned, during one and a half years, was 51 rubles for fourteen days’ work in the woods. Most of the time, my wages were no higher than 12 rubles (equivalent to 2.30 dollars) for fourteen days’ work (the official exchange rate was 5.20 rubles for one dollar). How were the wages paid? The desiatnik started working on those mystical figures on the sixteenth. He worked on them at night, after work, because he spent the day with us in the woods. It was hard work for the desiatniks considering the complicated accounting and that some of them had trouble with their “three R’s,”56 so it took them at least three nights. The list then went to the office for 56

As explained earlier, the three Rs are the basic skills taught in schools: reading, writing, and arithmetic. – Ed.

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checking for another two to three days. Then it was sent to the State bank in the nearest town. It happened quite frequently that there was no money in the bank and the list had to wait. Finally, the list came back with the money. So, it wasn’t before the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth day of each month that we were called in, in the evening after work, to get our wages. We stood in line and, of course, the office was in a hurry – we had to sign the list, take the money, and get out. We saw that there were deductions for the NKVD as commission, dues to the trade union (representing us abroad), and some others, but we never received a detailed accounting. Another thing was that our wages were never in round figures, they were in rubles but there were always some kopeks (pennies), for instance, 12 rubles 45 kopeks. Those 45 kopeks were never paid to us even if we signed for them. Who got them? They disappeared somewhere. I remember once during a rest period, recalling the old times, I told our desiatnik whom I was friendly with, how a worker was paid in the capitalist countries. There was an envelope, I told him, with all the figures written on the outside, with all the details of deductions, and inside the envelope, the full sum could be counted to the last penny. Should it happen that there was an error, or the worker didn’t understand the accounting, he could immediately walk into the office and ask for an explanation. I told him the truth. The desiatnik listened patiently to my story and his answer was, “I, as your friend, advise you not to tell this to anybody else, because you will be accused of counterrevolutionary propaganda.”57 How could we support our families or even live on such earnings which were not even enough to pay for our daily bread? Of course, we couldn’t. Some people had some money which they brought with them, some sold to the Russians whatever they could from their belongings (the most precious thing was of course a watch). Some others received packages or money from their relatives who were still under the Russian occupation; at that time, postal communication was still operating, with very long delays. And so, working hard, under the most difficult conditions, we practically lived on what we received outside our work and earnings. We complained on every occasion about those earnings which would have led us, under normal conditions, to a tragic end. Some were so bitter and so desperate that they ridiculed the officials during one meeting and asked them whether this was supposed to be the “worker’s paradise” – the meeting was abruptly ended. So, the Russians tried to boost our work by introducing the method of the Stakhanov movement. Some group would have to work the full norm, or even more than that, and then they were sure that the others would follow suit. In fact, one 57 Desiatnik Gavrylenko.

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group suddenly came up with a very huge output, and this was a challenge to the others. However, it came out later that this was by some conniving with the desiatnik, using a very simple trick. The same output was carried over to the desiatnik multiple times, and hence, the Stakhanov achievement. Some people thought that this dishonest device was used all over. The bullying eventually stopped, as it had no practical results, and our wages were as low as ever.

Life in the Posiolok

We left our families in the most deplorable conditions at the end of July 1940, in the wilderness, at a place called posiolok Njariz. My family, and many other families, shared the same fate. There might have been some 200 families, with two to three families living in one hut. How did they live there? What I am about to tell you I know from my own experience, living with them, when I returned after a ten-month separation – and from my wife’s letters, which I received once or twice a week in the labor camps. As previously described, the huts were completely unprotected log cabins, with no windows or doors. The water was some half a mile away and had to be carried from a nearby brook in pots or buckets. The store provided bread only. There was no soup kitchen or stolovka as in some other places, and every family had to organize their meals with their own means and ingenuity. There was an NKVD Deputy, with his wife, and there was the zavchov, the civil administrator of the settlement. The only thing on the credit side was the fact that contact with the outside world was already established, and the good old postman (whom we called diedushka) used to come once or twice a week to bring and pick up the mail. The morale of the whole population was low because of the uncertainty – not knowing whether and when we would ever be reunited. I also mentioned before that there was a dentist amongst our deportation group, Dr. Emil Fenichel, who had been retained at the posiolok and put in charge of the medical care of the whole population.58 This decent and fine gentleman had the best intentions, but he could do very little. In the first place, he had never practiced medicine before. Secondly, he had no instruments and no medicines. In fact, he didn’t even have dental instruments with him because he escaped from the Nazis with nothing, and he didn’t practice dentistry in the 58 The dentist from Tarnów was Dr. Emil Fenichel. He was deported with his wife (Mala Katz), their little boy, and his wife’s three brothers. His wife’s family, the Katz family, were textile manufacturers in Tarnów. Two of the brothers died in Russia. The remnants of the family live in Israel. Mala Katz’s proper name was Amalia, called also Małka or Mala. – Ed.

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place from which he was deported. It happened once that my wife, who suffered from a terrific toothache, had to have her tooth extracted. The dentist did it, using no anesthetic because there was none, with a pair of ordinary pliers, which he borrowed from a shoemaker. Incidentally, the dentist and his family became our good friends. The only medicines available were those which my wife brought along, and which she shared with everyone who needed them. There was later a case of very severe pellagra in the dentist’s family, which was cured with vitamin pills my wife had saved for grave conditions.59 The climate, with eight months of cold and four months of warm weather, meant that no serious epidemic sickness occurred at this time. Several deaths were due to natural causes and could have happened anywhere. The women suffered more than the men. A change in climate, mental depression, and malnutrition caused disturbances in their monthly menstruations which in turn badly affected their nervous system. The families in the posiolok tried very hard to adjust themselves to these abnormal conditions. In the first place, the huts had to be repaired to make them inhabitable, especially considering the approaching severe winter. The Russians from the nearby kolkhoz came over in their spare time and made doors and windows and covered the lower part of the cabin with mud to provide some sort of insulation. Among our people, a father and son turned out to be carpenters by profession, and they made some sort of bed, table, and bench from the discarded wooden planks for people. One man, a shoemaker in the past, organized with a few helpers, a shoe repair cooperative and patched up our worn-out shoes. Late in fall, a Russian girl arrived, she had also been deported and organized a one-room, one-class school for children, where Russian reading and writing were taught. It was very primitive, but it kept the children busy for part of the day. Another man arrived in the capacity of a fireman (pozarnik) but in fact he was a helper of the NKVD Deputy. Of course, the posiolok was under constant vigilance of the NKVD Deputy. In the beginning, this man was called Tovarysh Commandant. He was a tall young man in his late twenties with characteristic Slavic features, a broad face, with inquisitive eyes. He seldom smiled, was rather sarcastic, and very suspicious. As a devoted Communist, he looked with contempt at us, whom he considered as enemies of the Soviet system. He and his family inhabited a hut with windows on all four sides, at the base of our hill, and from there he could overlook the whole settlement. In a way, he was a guard at the prison gate. Nothing could be done without his knowledge, 59

Moniek Katz. The youngest of the above mentioned three brothers of the dentist’s wife. He died later in Russia. – Ed.

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and nobody could leave even for a short while without his written permission. He was busy running around the whole day, always looking for something. He could enter any room, at any time, with no reason whatsoever. Even late in the evening, at odd hours, pretending that it was for fire safety, checking the brick stoves heated with wood. He had informers in the posiolok, especially one woman, the wife of a former bank executive. Her husband, a quiet fellow, and their seventeen-year-old son were with me in the labor camp. She was left behind in the posiolok with a younger son. She quarreled constantly with her own family. She volunteered in reporting to the Tovarysh Commandant. Of course, it didn’t take long for this to become common knowledge, with her evening visits to the Commandant’s home. So, people avoided her as best they could. Not having enough stories to tell, she started to stop children on their way home, inquiring as to what was going on at home, what they had to eat, and who came to visit. Our children were warned and next time she started her usual inquiry, they kept their lips tightly sealed, like having a mouth full of water. Now, she wanted to know whether they were instructed not to answer, because this might have been interesting news for the Commandant too. But our children just said “mm.” The woman received her reward for informing. When once a single enamel wash basin arrived at the store – according to the five-year plan – she was given permission to buy it. The Commandant was apparently very interested in knowing who visited whom, and what the topics of conversation were. This was also the reason for his frequent visits. On some occasions, he even looked under the bed, in case somebody was hiding there. He tried to keep everybody busy, and he kept people under constant threat that he was going to send them into the woods. During the Jewish High Holidays, a kind of religious service was planned and organized in the hut of a very pious old man. The Commandant was informed about this event by his spies. He appeared with his helper at the meeting place, furious, and chased everybody away. The service nevertheless took place at a later hour at another place. He was not only in charge of our posiolok, but also of the Russians who lived around us, and of many labor camps in our vicinity. In this capacity, he often went away with his horse and buggy on two wheels or on a sled in the winter. It was always a sort of holiday whenever he left. Everybody breathed easier. He had his uniform, a shirt or two, and a pair of high boots – and that was all. He had more bread, maybe some meat to eat, and possibly some vodka to drink. But certainly, no luxuries. He had no friends because he was feared and hated by everybody; and had to carry a pistol day and night. Nobody in a free country would voluntarily accept this sort of position and such a life. This man

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was very eager not only to guard, but also to educate us. The Russians were very quick in criticizing everything that was not according to their standards as not “cultural.” On one of his unexpected and invasive inspections of our hut, he found my wife washing our children with water and soap, the only luxury she could afford. He rebuked her for it, saying, that it was not kulturno because this should be done in the banja (common baths), despite the fact they were only open occasionally. I mentioned before that in our posiolok, there was no stolovka. The store only sold bread, and on some rare occasions, one or two pounds per person of barley, coffee substitute, and a few ounces of hard candy. It was impossible to live on those rations. So, people had to look for other sources of food supply. A contact was established with a neighboring Russian settlement, and they used to bring some potatoes, milk, or even eggs, in exchange for some of our commodities like sheets, towels, shirts, cotton, woolen material, and so forth. Later on, some people were permitted to go themselves to the Russian settlement and to bring back products as a result of bartering. Another big help were the packages sent by families living in the Russian-occupied territory. Fat, sugar, canned meat, flour, cocoa, medicine, and some cloth. Items not available here at all came in those small, coveted packages. After several months, even packages from relatives in the US arrived. Those American packages caused a tremendous sensation after they arrived, and everybody came to look at them; including the Commandant himself, who ordered that those packages be opened in his presence. Those American goods, in their beautiful cans, which we now take for granted, were the object of general admiration and envy. They contained items in everyday use in the US, even by the poorest family, like ground coffee, cocoa, sugar, evaporated milk, biscuits – but in the posiolok they were the symbol of the highest luxury. A food package was a dream which might come true and was the topic of daily conversation. Love, family bonds, and friendship were measured by the amount and quality of the shipped package. Of course, not all were lucky enough to have relatives who could send packages. Those families suffered and some didn’t even have enough money to buy the bread rations. Fortunately, there was a fine gentleman amongst the families left behind who tried to solve this problem to some extent – Mr. Józef Ferster.60 He organized a clandestine charity 60

He was the same gentleman who traveled with us in the same cattle car with his wife and young son; and was reunited with his elder son and daughter-in-law during our journey (they were deported in the same train without knowing it). My family shared the same hut with him and his family at the posiolok.

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committee and personally collected little dues, monthly, from every family who could afford to pay. He then distributed this money amongst the needy in a discreet way, in order not to embarrass them. Amongst them were people who used to be benefactors themselves before the war. This charity action had to be kept secret because charity didn’t exist in Russia. The Commandant could accuse Mr. Ferster of some illegal counterrevolutionary activities and cause him troubles. Incidentally, Mr. Ferster was imprisoned two years later and spent one year in jail. What did the daily life of our families in the posiolok look life? With the cold season approaching, quite a lot of time was spent keeping the hut warm. Wood had to be collected, sawed, and chopped. Somebody had to watch the store to find out whether and when something would be sold, and eventually to line up in the queue. My boys were very helpful to my wife in those tasks. My wife had to always ration some bread from the day before because you could never tell if there would be bread the next day. This left-over bread was normally their breakfast. Then she had to think of preparing some meal for noon (it could hardly be called lunch) either from something that had been sent in a package or from what she could get locally. In the evening, there was the same problem. In the hours in between, people from families we became friendly with used to drop in for a talk. The topic of those conversations was always the same. Memories from the past and prophecies of our future. There was no radio and no newspapers but somehow there were always rumors that somebody picked up somewhere, which spread at lightning speed. Some rumors were really bad – that we weren’t going to stay here, but would be moved further north, where we would be cut off from outside contact altogether. From letters from our relatives, we read between the lines that the Nazi-Soviet friendship was not pure gold and something big was in the offing. Big army units were moved to the border. It was good in times like these to have Mr. Ferster around us, he was a very pious man, and Mrs. Zuzia Wasserberger, who was respected by everybody for her high intellect and good heart. Her radiating optimism was a source of spiritual strength and consolation during those days.61 My boys, when free from their daily chores, like chopping wood, fetching water, and standing in line for bread, used to play around the hut with Lutek, the Ferster’s son, and a little stray dog they befriended. Otherwise, they were sitting around listening to the problems, worries, and discussions of the older 61 Mrs. Zuzia Wasserberger was a leading Socialist before the war, in Kraków. She lived together in one hut with two other old ladies, Mrs. Sercarz and Mrs. Frommer (whom I already mentioned in relation to shoveling snow to clear the ice roads). After the war Mrs. Wasserberger lived in Brazil.

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folks. As a result, the look in their eyes became too serious for their age. They realized that they were part of a life which was not promised to them in their early years. Life was otherwise drab, with no relaxation whatsoever. The days became very short, and the nights seemed like an eternity – from four in the afternoon to eight in the morning. The only excitement was when mail arrived, then everybody who was lucky enough to receive some letter, was sitting for hours reading and rereading every word. Sometimes through the little hole of a window, you saw somebody rushing by, covered with all sorts of clothes, and hard to recognize. And the wind was blowing with strange melodies, and the snow was falling with no end. The old mailman – our diedushka – took a liking to our family and to the Ferster family. Late in the evening, he used to sometimes come by, he brought with him some milk or eggs which he didn’t want to sell to anybody else. Then he sat with our family, sipping tea, and recalling stories from his past better life. Once my wife offered him a cup of cocoa, which arrived in a package that he had delivered to us that same day. He couldn’t get over this heavenly drink and enjoyed every drop of it. His blue eyes were shining beneath his gray head of hair. I guess people who ate manna in the dessert in biblical times might have had the same feeling.

The Russian Way of Life

It might be interesting to describe the way of living and thinking of the Russians I have been working with. This description I am giving you is based on long observation and many conversations with them, working with them, visiting their homes, and living with them for a long time in practically one room. In the beginning, while working in the first uczastok, we were housed in separate barracks. Later, when I was moved from one lesopunkt to another, I lived with the Russians. The Russian authorities no longer bothered to keep us, or even the sexes, apart. In one place, some twenty people, we and the Russians, from both sexes, with some couples among us, lived for nearly three months in one little barrack, a bit bigger than a normal living room, with a smoking iron stove in the middle used for heating and cooking. First, their story. Most of them were deported as kulaks in the middle 1920s mostly from Kuban in the North Caucasus. However, they came over here under different, and I would venture to add, under more difficult conditions than ours. It is true that they were peasants and used to manual labor, but they were brought over here at wintertime and as they called it, “pod yolkoy,”

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which literally meant, “under the pine tree.” In other words, coming from a country with a very mild climate, they and their families were unloaded in the wintertime directly into the woods, with no huts, or protection from the severe cold whatsoever. They were provided with some bread and tools. They were told to build their homes here themselves. They died by the hundreds daily, from frost and starvation. The only thing they could do, in those conditions, was to dig holes and pits underground and some survived the first winter this way. They were told they were enemies of their regime, for resisting collectivization of their land; and they were sent here for ten years, for reeducation. And after serving the ten-year sentence, they were told they would go back to their homes. When we met them, they had already been here for fifteen years. They told me they didn’t care about going back, even if the NKVD finally allowed them to. They wouldn’t get their property back and the economic conditions were the same all over. So why go through all those troubles? Besides they would only find hostile strangers there, who moved into their places after they were deported. It took them many years to adjust, even though they themselves were peasants. For this reason, some of them, who were more reasonable, looked at us with some sort of pity. Of course, there was already a second generation growing up who never knew anything better, who were rather satisfied that people from great cities came to share their plight. Only a few of them, after very hard work, reached the position of desiatnik, supervising our work, or even the position of naczalnik (technical director). Most of them, even after so many years, had to perform the same kind of woodcutting work as we did, or they worked as horse-drivers, collecting the timber in the woods. Of course, after so many years, they learned all the tricks of their trade, and earned more money. But it took them many years, and even then, they never got used to it, and hated their jobs. Some of them, even after being deported, had some strange experiences. One of the desiatniks, who was a textile merchant in his village before his deportation, told me his story. When in the years 1924 to 1926, Lenin embarked on his new economical experiment called NEP,62 introducing again private initiative and enterprise, this textile merchant was talked into going into 62

New Economic Policy (Novaya ekonomicheskaya politika abbreviated as NEP) is a term for the economic policy in the Soviet Union and later in the USSR, from 1921 to 1929, defined as a mixed or capitalist economy. It introduced market-based economic mechanisms and allowed small private ventures (especially in agriculture and services), while leaving the state monopoly in the areas of large industries (mainly heavy industry), trade (especially foreign trade), banking and financial institutions, also allowing licensed business activities of multinational companies. – Ed.

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business again. He opened a store and was quite successful. After one year or so, suddenly his store was closed, everything he possessed was taken away from him, and he himself was put into jail and later sent to a hard labor camp, leaving his wife and his children behind. He showed me a souvenir from this time, a picture of his family, swollen from hunger to the point that hardly any faces could be recognized. Those men had a pitiful simile for us whenever we spoke to them about our hopes of getting out of here and back to our homes. They said they also had at the beginning, many years ago, the same hope and look what came out of it. They quoted some Russian saying to this effect, that for people in our region, the door coming in was very wide, but the exit was very small. In a way they ridiculed the whole system. Whenever something got mixed up, they used to say, it was, “po planu,” that it was “according to the five-year plan.” Whenever we finished loading a heavy truck with timber, after much, much effort, lifting and carrying everything with our hands and shoulders, they used to shout, “perestugnili Ameriku!” It meant “we surpassed America!” They expressed, by making fun, the same idea I noticed on different occasions – whenever they could, the Russians compared their achievements with those of the Americans and tried to impress on the people that they were equaling or surpassing them. There was a definite inferiority complex in their attitude towards the US. Once sitting during the rest period, we were talking about shoes. A decent pair of shoes was quite a treasure, and a pair of boots was a dream which only few could materialize. Normally, the Russians had to get by with very poor substitutes. Shoes were very seldom sold at stores and if so, only few could buy them. So, all the others had to get their shoes, or whatever you might call them, through some private channels and deals. So, speaking about shoes I described to my friend Kovalenko, the desiatnik, the way we used to buy shoes before the war. We went to a special shoe store, I told him, where an attendant asked for our size, preferred color, and style, and then we tried on several pairs, walking up and down in front of a mirror, until finally we made our selection. The desiatnik listened to my story (you are a witness that my story is true) and he shook his head. He said, “We are big liars, and everybody knows it – but you are an even greater liar than us.” I didn’t feel offended a bit for being called a liar after telling him this little true story. Those shoes were a precious commodity indeed. I saw once during my wandering, an elderly Russian who was employed as a watchman in a landing place at the river I had to pass. The Russian was wearing only one boot and his other leg was wrapped in rags. I thought that he was an invalid. Since he had started a conversation with me, I asked him what happened to his leg. He answered rather indignantly that there was nothing wrong with his leg. He said he had to

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work for two years to buy one boot, now he had to work for another two years to buy the other one. This sounded unbelievable to me at that time. But I later saw at the bazaars in Central Russia, people selling one shoe, the right or left one only. In one of my conversations with Kovalenko, I was complaining about the lack of a newspaper. After all, there was a war going on, in which we were personally so implicated, and we didn’t know what was happening. The desiatnik answered rather philosophically, “What is the difference? If you had the newspapers, you wouldn’t know too much either.” There were two newspapers in Russia, one was Pravda (meaning Truth) and the other was Izvestia (meaning News), but there was “no truth in the News and no news in the Truth.” The Russians around us lived in small places which couldn’t even be called villages, in small huts containing one room only. An all-in-one room which was a kitchen, a bedroom, and a living room. In winter, the whole family slept around, and on top of, the huge brick oven. The furniture was of the most primitive nature – a table, a bench, sometimes a few chairs – all self-made. There was nothing like a closet, a few belongings were kept in an old-fashioned chest. Around the kitchen, there were a few pots and pans, mostly from iron or earth ware. A few china plates and wooden spoons. Forks were seldom used. There were not too many clothes or laundry around, they possessed only what they wore on their bodies, with maybe an additional shirt or pair of underwear. Some sort of a winter outfit was a necessity. In every Russian home, in one corner of the room, I always saw icons, one or more. They couldn’t observe any religious holidays because those were normal working days. But the older generations prayed at home – the prayers they still remembered from old times. The new generation didn’t pray anymore. In places which used to be old villages before, a little Russian Orthodox church could always be seen. It stood out with its Byzantine architecture. However, the typical Russian Orthodox cross was taken down and the building was used as a so-called Club or as a storage room for the kolkhoz. The Club, where all the meetings took place, contained a lot of red flags, a big picture of Stalin and Lenin, of course, and smaller pictures of all the Politburo members. Some old provincial newspapers and propaganda literature lay around the place. There was no recreation or amusement whatsoever in these communities. There was no social life and they didn’t visit one another. They had no friends; they were afraid of their neighbors. Life was dull and all the days were alike. There was only work and harder work. Time was divided between the woods and the little huts. The Russians – known for being quick to dance to a song with a balalaika – during those years, I didn’t see one Russian sing or dance. Only once, during a cold winter night, I heard a sad song with a melancholic

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melody, coming from another barrack where Russian girls from an all-girl wood-cutting team were living. Maybe the Russian girl expressed in this way her loneliness and her longing for a better life. There were no radios. The only radios I saw were in little towns, and even those were not radio sets, but only loudspeakers, wired to a central receiver; over which, from some local transmitter, propaganda speeches could be heard most of the time. Nobody could just tune into any station, and it was completely out of the question to listen to a foreign station, unless it was rebroadcast by the Soviet transmitter. The Russians who spent time during the war in Europe, acquired some German or Austrian radio sets, and if they were not taken away from them, could possibly listen in secrecy to those broadcasts, but the masses definitely had no chance whatsoever. The diet of the Russians was very primitive. Their main food was bread and potatoes. They very seldom had meat, sometimes herring or dried fish. They cultivated potatoes and some vegetables themselves, on a small patch of land assigned to them for their own use. The potatoes were the most important and essential food item for the Russians here. Their survival, comfort, and prosperity depended on the number of potatoes they could grow during the year. They called the potatoes “sibiryjskyje-salo,” which meant, “the lard of Siberia” or “the fatback of Siberia.” During the summer, they collected blueberries, which were plentiful here in the woods, and in certain places, there were also strawberries. They would point at them and say “those are our fruits” (eto nashe fructy). Some of them managed to raise a goat or even a cow. The family which owned its own cow, was completely self-sustaining, even if it meant very hard work. During the short summer, hay had to be prepared for the long winter; the grass could sometimes only be found several miles away from the woods, and they frequently carried it on their own backs. Those Russians, being deportees and not free citizens, also came under the jurisdiction and guard of the NKVD Commandant. It was true that they were not under such steady control, but work was compulsory for them and they couldn’t move from one place to another without special permission. The fact that they lived here, didn’t mean that it was their permanent residence. One day, they could be ordered to move to another place, and there would be nothing else for them to do but to obey, and to leave everything behind, their hut and the patch of land including the potatoes, which were still growing. I witnessed such a scene which moved me deeply. We were transferred late in the summer to a new place. An established old settlement, where a zavkhov lived with his wife. They were an old couple; and were considered rich because they had their own cow. They were very friendly and helpful, and everybody liked them. One day, the NKVD Commandant told them that they had to move to another place. Somebody told us that the new place was very far away, some

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300 kilometers. Nobody knew the reason. There was no protest or lament. The zavkhov said, “ladno” (alright) and obeyed. He loaded his few belongings onto a horse cart, and several bundles of hay. He then seated himself there with his old wife. The cow followed hesitantly, bound with a rope to the rear of the wagon and they started their lonely trek into the woods late in the afternoon. Amongst the Russians, you frequently heard the slogan, “kto nje rabotajet, nje kushajet,” it meant “who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat,” but you could also hear the slogan in reverse, “kto rabotajet, nje kushajet,” meaning, “who works, doesn’t eat.” This joke, expressed in a wry humor, was directed at the many party officials who didn’t seem to work too hard and lived fairly well according to the Russian standard. Several times in the woods, I worked next to some Russian middle-aged women. They were there by themselves with no husbands, living in the barracks, and undertaking manual labor. Once  I asked one of them, who was working nearby, what her crime was and why she was here. Her answer was, “ja zdjesz za Kirova” (I’m here because of Kirov). In 1934, Kirov, who was Stalin’s closest co-worker, was assassinated in Leningrad. It is known now that this was the result of a love affair with his secretary, whose jealous husband shot him. At the time, his assassination started a tremendous purge which affected two million people, who were arrested and deported. In this woman’s case, her husband was a factory worker in Leningrad. He was arrested, and shortly after, she was deported. She never heard from her husband again. I asked her what she or her family had to do with Kirov. Nothing, was her answer, they had never met Kirov in their lives. There were some other Russians here. In the fall, while working in one of the lesopunkts, a large group of Russians were brought in to cut timber at our place. They moved into a separate barrack. Very primitive in their outlook and in their manner. We learned that those were not deported Russians, but natives who had lived in this part of the country for generations. They were free men in a sense, but they never left their place of origin because there was no place for them to go. They didn’t know anything about the outside world and nothing about the war going on. They lived in a kolkhoz some forty to fifty kilometers away and this was the reason why they were brought to work in our lesopunkt. Working the whole summer as peasants in the kolkhoz, they didn’t collect enough grain for bread for themselves. It was just enough to fulfill all the required quotas from the crop for the government, but nothing was left for them and their families. So, during the winter, when peasants all over the world rested after the hard summer work, they had to cut timber in order to get bread, just bread, to keep themselves and their families alive. They worked very hard all day long and, in the evening, they were busy drying the bread they could buy here. No bread

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was sold at the kolkhoz. The bread had to be sliced and dried on the stove to not get stale or moldy. They collected this dried bread called sukhary and stored it away in burlap bags. When the national holiday came, on November 7, they loaded those quite heavy bags on their shoulders and in the evening, started out happily, in a festive mood, on their way home for a short vacation. They told us that it would take them the whole night to get home with their most precious gift. It took them another night to march back. Apparently, we were a strange lot for them. They looked at us like they were looking at some sort of exotic animals. I remember how they used to come in large groups to our barracks after work for a visit. At first, I felt somehow obliged to talk or to entertain them, but I found out that they were not interested in any conversation at all. They just wanted to see what we were doing and how we behaved. I guess animals in a zoo might feel what we felt, being constantly observed. After an hour or so of watching us, one of the groups called out “pashli” (let’s go) and as if on a military command, all of them suddenly filed out. Those processions used to take place quite frequently and we got so used to them that they didn’t bother us at all. Once I noticed that the visitors sat at the bench along the wall and fixed their eyes on some object under my cot. Then  I discovered that my shoe stretchers, which I had brought along by pure accident, were the object of their special attention. It seemed that rumors were spread about them – the strange gadgets – and they came in swarms to find out what kind of a “machine” I was keeping under my bed. Seeing and living with those people, who besides the woods never saw or heard anything in their lives, I wondered what Marx and Engels and the new apostles meant to them. I found it rather ironic that these people should be considered at the “avant-garde” in the struggle for new human conceptions of relations between men, and for a new world of better social and economic conditions.

Reunited

Our people were working in the woods and shipped from one place to another. This sort of life dragged on until the end of May 1941. Suddenly, a new change came. It seemed that our constant complaints, about the separation of our families, finally resulted in some action. An order came that all the deported families in the posiolok had to be moved to a new place some hundred kilometers away and those working in the woods would be brought to the same place. In other words, the families would be reunited in the new place. The rumors to this effect had started already a month earlier and for this reason I wasn’t sent back to the woods after the four weeks of my recuperation were over. I stayed

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with my family until the whole posiolok was moved. As always, everything was done in a big hurry, and we were shipped by trucks and by boats to the new place. The people working in the woods arrived at the new posiolok at more or less the same time as us. It was a happy reunion indeed, for all the families who had been separated for nearly a year. The arrival of my family was not altogether a happy one. What happened was this. After we arrived with many others on the boat, the men from the families helped one another with the unloading. Because two men from a friendly family had helped me carry our belongings to the truck, I felt obliged to stay behind to help them. So, my wife and two boys went ahead of me, and I was to follow shortly with the next truck. Unfortunately, there was, as usual, a breakdown and a delay of several hours between the trucks. When I finally arrived, it was already dark. And I was confronted with the following scene. In the square of the new posiolok, my two boys were sitting on top of our belongings. My wife wasn’t there. What happened? The people who arrived earlier from the woods had already occupied some of the huts meant for two families, and the others who arrived in the trucks, rushed to the remaining ones. My wife with our boys, who were not used to grabbing, and were the last in line, were left out, and there was no place to move into. It was the first time that my wife, who bravely took everything in her stride, not being able to provide a roof for the boys for the night, suffered a nervous breakdown. The kind old lady, Mrs. Zuzia Wasserberger, who was a moral support in the previous posiolok (I mentioned her earlier) took my wife into her little room and put her to bed. I spent the night with our boys in the room of another friendly family, and the next day I moved in, with my family, by force to a room which I found still empty. It took a long time for my wife to recover.

Posiolok Topliovka

Life in the posiolok called Topliovka was easier and better than in the previous one. The huts had normally two rooms, one room for a family. They were built from wood, not from mud, and had doors and windows. The only trouble was they contained millions of bed bugs that bothered us immensely at night. My wife tried all that she could – there were no insecticides – scrubbing every day, pouring hot water, but to no avail. Every night they came in swarms and crawled all over us. Finally, we came to the solution of killing them just by pressing them with our thumb, this was our only means of revenge. The Russians said that the bugs were already in the wood. Our food situation improved too. There was a stolovka where twice daily some soup and kasha was sold. So, it was easier to feed the family. Some

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eight kilometers away was a little town with a hospital, ambulatory, and post office. Every Sunday a market was held there, where some vegetables could be bought, and what was more important, some of our belongings could be sold. Of course, not everybody could go there because permission from the NKVD Commandant was necessary, and not everybody could get it. But people who went there took along commissions for the others. Incidentally, the NKVD Commandant from the previous posiolok, who knew by now everybody by heart, came to our new place and took charge of us here too. We belonged to him, and we sort of got used to him, as prisoners get used to their wardens. A few of the older boys and girls were allowed to attend the school in the nearby little town. Because they could hardly walk back and forth the same day, the NKVD found a place for them, where they stayed during the week and ate in the common stolovka. Saturday afternoon, they used to walk back to the posiolok, and stayed here with their families until Sunday afternoon. We worked in the nearby woods as woodcutters just the same. However, it was a considerable improvement. Firstly, we didn’t have to walk so far, only two to four miles (four to six kilometers), and secondly, after work we came “home” to our families. In the woods, we were harassed by mosquitos and a certain type of small fly which we’d never seen before. Their bites felt like stitching with needles, and they had the habit of sneaking into our mouth, eyes, and ears. Despite the warm weather, I had to wear my quilted winter outfit and some sort of cover made from handkerchiefs around my neck for protection. We were told that we were settled here for good and should start thinking of our future, to secure some provisions for the winter, especially potatoes. To this end, every family was given a small patch in a common vegetable garden to cultivate. Potatoes were brought over and sold to us, to be used as seeds in our garden. In the evenings, and in our free time, we were tending to those little vegetable gardens. It gave us satisfaction to watch them grow and some sort of competition started to see whose garden looked better.

Informing, Reporting, and Denunciation

I was often asked, “What kept the Soviet system in power for so many years?” After all, there were some 220 million people in Russia and the Communist Party only had a membership of three to four million people, depending on whether the census was taken before or after a purge.63 How could such a small 63 Purges were a method of building up the apparatus of terror used in the Soviet Union, through widespread imprisonments and executions. Those who, with faith and zeal, introduced the new Communist order could at any time become its victims themselves.

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minority keep the dissatisfied millions in a dictatorial tight grip, without any sign of revolt? In fact, in those northern regions, such as in our place of deportation, one NKVD deputy, with one pistol only, ruled over several thousand people, and nobody ever thought of disarming him or expressing resistance in any way. According to my experience, there are three reasons for it. First, the red wagon with bread. Every day, in the morning, a covered red wagon brought bread to our post, enough to feed the people for one day only – with the exception of Saturday, when the bread was brought for two days. Where could you go with one day’s bread provision, in a country where nobody was able to share their bread with you, not even among their own family? Hospitality is a fine thing, but you need to have the material means to express such friendly feelings towards your fellow men. Besides, the bread store only had bread for people of a specific place so they couldn’t sell bread to an unknown person, especially when nobody knew where you worked. “Gdje y kim rabotajesh” (“where do your work and what do you do?”) were the first questions a Russian asked you, like a greeting. These questions had to be answered precisely and without hesitation. Second, people were kept busy all the time. Work was compulsory for everybody, and after work, there were always lines to stand in for something, meetings to attend, until everybody was physically exhausted. There was simply no time or energy to think of anything other than how to survive the next day. Third, the omnipotent and ubiquitous NKVD secret police knew everything about everybody at all times. This was done by an enormous spy and reporting system. Nobody was safe enough to express their mind. You weren’t even sure you could trust your own family, or co-workers in your place of work, and definitely not people you might casually meet in the street or standing in line somewhere. Everywhere was somebody who would get in touch with the NKVD headquarters and report you. Next thing you knew, there would be a knock on the door at night, and you might disappear for life. How come so many people turned out to be informers for the NKVD? The youth was organized in “Pioneer” or later “Komsomol” groups; and indoctrinated in the Communist dogma. The young people’s first duty was to expose (the Russian’s favorite expression was “to unmask”) every enemy of the Soviet system, including in their own families and their parents. Then, there were the men and women who were already members of the Communist Party, and they were eager to prove their worthiness. Some people were looking for small The most intense purges occurred in the second half of the 1930s, the period of the socalled Great Terror, including the Great Purge. It affected mainly the Soviet Red Army. This was the result of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s consistent policy of exterminating real and imagined political opponents on the road to absolute dictatorship. – Ed.

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privilege or material rewards. I observed three different types of people in this category of informers. The first were former Communists, for whom their party membership card hadn’t saved them from deportation, and they were amongst the thousands of deportees. They wanted to show that they were not disillusioned and were still faithful to the Communist Party and to the Soviet system. They proved it by reporting and denouncing others. The second group in this category comprised people who were looking for an easier job and were hoping for some better career. So, they volunteered to report, expecting a reward for it. Finally, the third group belonged to those who were just plain mean – where people more or less volunteered for their dirty reporting job. There were also cases where people turned involuntarily into informers. Where people committed some small transgressions, they were called before the NKVD and threatened with heavy punishments, but they were promised leniency if they were willing to denounce others. In most cases, those people had no alternative but to accept the offer. They could be recognized as they suddenly became silent and broke down completely. You could see they were suffering deeply; they were experiencing some terrible struggle within themselves. Sometimes it was too hard for them to carry this burden, and they confided in some of their friends. This is how we found out about this phenomenon. The most important thing was that once they started reporting, those people could never stop. They were under high pressure all the time to bring more news, to tell the NKVD what people were talking and thinking about. And if they didn’t have anything to report, they frequently had to make up some stories. This was an unhappy lot because sooner or later people found out about them, and they were looked at with both fear and contempt. So this was my answer to all the questions about uprising, revolt, or even revolution. It is interesting to note that the Russians, who were themselves harassed by spies within their own community, had more confidence in some of us than they had in their own people. On many occasions, those elderly more intelligent Russians confided in me, sharing their critical thoughts and feelings about the Soviet system – something they wouldn’t dare do in the presence of their fellow countrymen. To disguise our conversation, as soon as somebody approached us, the Russians switched the conversation, and started to preach how everybody should work for Soviet Russia and for the Great Leader, Stalin.

The Soviet Idea of Responsibility

We freely use the word “responsibility” in our daily lives. We say for instance, “he is responsible for that job,” or “somebody will be held responsible” for the result of a certain action. However, when things don’t work out as expected,

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excuses and explanations are genuinely accepted. Not so in Soviet Russia. I mentioned before the important position of the “glavbuch” (chief accountant) in any undertaking and his great responsibility. The glavbuch’s responsibility was a real one, it meant jail when something went wrong, for instance, if there was a lag in production or a deficiency in the inventory. Here are some instances of the Russian idea of responsibility. There was one incident at the posiolok which I think is worthwhile mentioning on this subject. I mentioned previously that a so-called zavchov (civil administrator) was in charge of the maintenance of the posiolok. He was a middle-aged Russian, a quiet man who arrived at the posiolok at more or less the same time as we arrived, with his wife and two children. He had at his disposal a couple of homes because, among other things, it was his duty to bring the supplies from the outside for us. Once it happened that one of the horses broke his leg, which could be expected considering that there were no real roads. At the time, we didn’t pay any special attention to this fact. One day, the zavchov and the NKVD Commandant left the posiolok together; and when they returned, the zavchov told the people casually that he had gone to court that day and was sentenced to two years’ jail. The Commandant, with whom he was quite friendly (some people even said they drank together), accused him of negligence and testified against him. A few days later, the zavchov, in a matter-of-fact manner, said goodbye, leaving his family behind. He started his march to some hard labor camp where he was to serve his sentence. Here we learned for the first time two things. First, a horse is more important to the Soviet economy than a human being. If some worker had broken his leg, certainly nobody would have cared, and there would have been no court trial and no sentence. Secondly, this incident illustrated for us the Soviet idea of personal responsibility. When something went wrong, no excuses were accepted. Somebody was always suspected and accused of intentional damage or sabotage and had to be severely punished for it. Later, I learned more about this idea of “responsibility,” which was taken literally and very strictly. No wonder everybody feared any responsibility, and you could scare every Russian, including the Commandant, when told they would be held responsible for something. For the same reason, nobody wanted to provide anything in writing, and it was very difficult to get anybody to sign any papers. Another case of responsibility I witnessed was in our first uczastok. We had as our technical administrator (naczalnik), a Russian who was quite reasonable. There were several hundred men working under his direction in brigades. He was a hardworking man: he organized our brigades, checked our work across widespread places in the woods, then worked until late at night, figuring and reporting. After several months, a strange thing happened. Suddenly we

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saw him working in a brigade, cutting trees as a plain manual worker. We were told that he was demoted to a lesorub (woodcutter), and he would be called into court for a trial in the near future. The reason: he didn’t fulfill the plan, concerning the number of cubic meters of wood to be cut for a certain period. The fact that he had to put up with workers of our kind, having no experience whatsoever, and no knowledge of how to even approach a tree, was not taken into consideration. The Russian saying “sevednya naczalnik zavtra lesorub” (“today a director, and tomorrow a woodcutter”) became true before our own eyes. This situation added to the feeling of constant fear. As the Russians said, everybody who had some sort of a supervising position, already had one leg in jail – at the very least, they were prepared to go to jail at some time. In fact, most of the people I met in Soviet Russia, free or deportees, had served a prison sentence at one time or another. There was even a sort of bon mot that a prison sentence of no more than two years was considered a “dietskyj srok,” which meant a sentence for children. A man with a higher prison sentence in his past record was looked upon with a certain degree of respect.

The Outbreak of the German-Soviet War

Now back to our posiolok Topliovka. The mail functioned better than before because of the post office in the nearby little town, which had a little port on the river. The mail came by boat, faster than by horse-drawn wagon. People received their packages, money, and letters from their relatives in the Russian-occupied territory, and sometimes even from abroad. However, there was something curious about the letters in those early June days. Normally, they were full of encouragement to cheer us up, and to make us hope for the best, but now the letters sung a different tune. In a hidden way – afraid of censorship – we were made to understand that the agreement between the Nazis and the Soviets hadn’t worked out after all. Our families reported nervousness amongst the Russians and noticed that some Russian families were even returning to Russia. Who knew, we were told in those letters from our families, maybe we were better off being far away, rather than near the Germans, as they were. This was very big news for us, considering we knew nothing about the outside world – as far as the Russians were concerned, the war was over, this was what they told us on every occasion. Now came June 22, 1941. The boys and girls, who had just left the posiolok for school, came back in a hurry. They were turned back by NKVD men from the higher echelons, who were on their way to see us. In their hurried excitement, the school kids told us what they had just heard. A war broke out between Germany and Soviet Russia, and the Nazis had already bombed many Russian

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cities, with their blitz tactics. The news spread like wildfire amongst the population. Everybody was excited, trying to grasp the meaning of this event and the gravity of the situation. The war was not over yet, as the Russians thought, it had just started. Soon, the NKVD higher officers from the nearby little town, accompanied by our local Commandant, appeared in our settlement, looking grave and somber. A meeting was called in the square and everybody had to be present. The highest-ranking officer of the NKVD informed us officially that a war had been started by the Nazis. He now called them “fascist-dogs” – and not just “Germans,” as had been the case only a few weeks earlier. He was sure, he added, that among us were “Nazis and Japanese spies” (his exact words), and therefore we would be treated as “enemies of the Soviet Union.” From now on, nobody could leave the posiolok and no permission could be granted. The school kids wouldn’t attend school anymore and had to stay here with us. Their belongings at school would be sent back to them. Further restrictions and directions would follow. Everybody left the meeting with a feeling of deep depression and anxiety. How could we, of all people, the first Nazi victims, be suspected and accused of spying for them and for the Japanese too? The next few days brought the last mail from our dear ones. We have not heard from them since.64 After a short period of improved living conditions, we were headed for a hard time again. At first our desiatniks seemed to have received orders to get tough with us, demand more work from us, and not to fraternize with us. So those men, who had previously talked to us freely and became good friends with some of us, shunned us and restricted themselves to communication of work orders and no more. Special guards were brought in, which we didn’t have before, who watched us work. What was most difficult was the fact that we no longer had permission to go to the nearby town, so we couldn’t sell anything from our belongings. Having no other resources because all the mail and packages stopped suddenly, and earning only a few rubles for our work, very soon we ran out of money and could hardly even buy the meals from the stolovka. However, after several weeks, the special guards were withdrawn, and the restrictions relieved. After all, they couldn’t find any people among us spying for the Nazis or Japanese and, I guess, they didn’t find any radio transmitters 64 We used to receive, at the posiolok, very sad letters from my parents, worrying about our fate. At the same time, their life was also very hard, soon they had nothing more to sell. Sister Adela was always at their side, helping and supporting them. When the Nazis invaded Russia, all our contacts ceased. My parents met their death at the hands of the Nazis, shortly after Lwów was occupied. I don’t even know where and when. Sister Adela, always very devoted and loyal, didn’t want to leave them and perished with them.

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either. But the real reason was, as I found out years later, that the Soviets accepted gratefully all the help they could get from the Allies. Naturally, they couldn’t antagonize them by treating us as enemies. So, they changed their hostile attitude towards us – though we still didn’t know what our status was. I mentioned already that our situation changed frequently, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, depending on the world situation and the pressure of public opinion. At the time, we were not aware of the reasons for the changes we experienced. Now the Soviets appealed to our desire to fight the common enemy and to our patriotic feelings, and they asked us to work harder than ever. They cancelled the rest day on Sundays, and we worked seven days a week for several weeks until we nearly collapsed. Day after day, week after week, marching long distances to the woods, working there with nothing to look forward to, with no rest whatsoever, and with the same meager monotonous food, was a hard experience indeed. Now we had a chance to talk to our Russian co-workers again. They were excited about these big new events. They inquired secretly from some of us as to who the Germans were and what they were like. In the beginning, they saw this as a big chance of being liberated at last. After our bitter experience with the Nazis, we couldn’t give them encouraging information, but they maintained hope in spite of what we said. The Soviets made promises to these deported Russians for their future; and tried to win over their sympathy and cooperation. They especially made overtures to the young generation, about to be drafted to the army, promising them they would become free and obtain passports as full-fledged citizens – something they couldn’t even dream of before. And then, of course, there was a new decree containing the tremendous temptation that the uniform and boots became every soldier’s property. Now the rumors started to the effect that we would be set free in the near future. The rumors never ceased to amaze me. We were in the wilderness, some 200 miles from the next railroad station, with no means of communication with the outside world, with no mail in months, with no radio or newspapers, and suddenly some rumor spread, and nobody knew where it started. It seemed like some people had the capacity of picking up news from thin air – like human radio receivers. Of course, all those rumors, whenever brought to the attention of the NKVD Deputy, were promptly denied. We were told, again and again, to forget our past and to give up hope of returning to our homes. We would live our whole lives here in the woods – it would be ours and our children’s future. Somehow, we were still not completely convinced of the veracity of such statements, and with great expectations, we looked forward to changes to come.

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And one day, they really came. In the first days of August 1941, somebody came from the nearby little town telling us that a message was broadcast over the radio to the effect that a Treaty of Friendship was signed between General Sikorski, on behalf of the exiled Polish government in London, and Stalin.65 We learned later that this had in fact happened on July 30, 1941. The impact of this news was tremendous. So, we became friends and not enemies of the Soviets. Our morale received an extraordinary boost, and we were riding high. What now for us? People started speculating as to what was going to happen to us next.

Liberation From Our Deportee Status

The next days brought more good news. A message came that according to the Polish-Soviet Friendship Treaty, a Polish Army would be organized in the USSR, and we would be declared free citizens. We were overwhelmed by the wonderful news. Despite the fact we couldn’t leave Soviet Russia yet, it was a great step forward, and a long way from our first days of deportation. The Russians took the news with mixed feelings. They had never witnessed before what they saw now with their own eyes – people actually being set free from this great prison – and so they themselves hoped to be free someday. On the other hand, there was naturally a feeling of envy that it happened to us and not to them. They still had to work in the woods as in previous years, day after day, with no change in sight. At the end of August 1941, the same NKVD officers who only a few months ago came to announce our restrictions, arrived smiling and friendly, and called a meeting of the whole posiolok. At this meeting, the highest NKVD Commandant read to us the resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, which proclaimed our amnesty, and added a speech of his own – how we had now become allies in the common struggle to defeat the Nazis. We were declared to be free citizens, free to move from our deportation place to other places in the USSR, however, with restrictions as to certain areas and big cities. Our prayers and hopes had finally come true. We were deeply moved, and no eye was dry in this moment. Somebody intonated the Polish national 65

The author is referring to the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement signed in London on 30 July 1941. The pact was signed by Polish Prime Minister in exile Władysław Sikorski and the Soviet ambassador in London, Ivan Mayski, shortly after the German attack on the USSR. The agreement resumed diplomatic relations between the two governments and soon led to the release of Polish citizens who had been deported earlier to join the armies fighting against Germany. – Ed.

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anthem, and everybody joined in – the few communists amongst us were singing the loudest. The Russians, who only a few days earlier would have jailed us for this, stood at attention and bowed their heads. Everybody had the feeling that this was a crucial moment in their and their families’ lives. It wasn’t so much a feeling of patriotism or national pride, it was rather a feeling of thanksgiving that we had lived to see this day. We were asked to come the next day to the office where we would receive our new document called udostoverenje, confirming our release. At the same time, we would have to register where we wanted to go because our future place of residence would have to be written on our release certificate. I think that only little children slept that night. Everybody else was discussing with their friends which place of domicile to choose. Of course, nobody knew where to go. Someone suggested some city, known only through hearsay, then there were as many arguments for it as against it. Besides, most of the well-known places were restricted to us. Some people decided to stick together, no matter which destination was chosen. Others joined another group, whenever they changed their plans. It was a general tendency to head south for two reasons. First, people figured that in the South, with its hot climate, there would be no problem of heating or keeping warm. People were also convinced that with the abundance of fruit, for which the South is famous, there couldn’t be any question of hunger or starvation. (It turned out later that both these assumptions were wrong, and the results of this reasoning were fatal to thousands.) The second reason was a general belief that Russia, despite her very long preparation for war, would collapse under the impact of the Nazis, and it would be of great advantage to be near some border at that critical moment – for instance, the Persian frontier – with a better chance to escape to some neutral or allied country. There was still a group of people who considered the possibility of remaining here for the winter. People reasoned this way: it was already late in the year (September) and the strong winter was coming very fast. We had here our little hut – not too good but still a roof over our heads, wood was no problem, and besides we would have some potatoes from our little garden patches. Spending the winter here, we would be spared from wandering into the unknown with children, with all the hardships to be expected. In the meantime, we would hear from our friends, who had put up residence somewhere, and in the coming spring, we would join them. I must admit that I belonged to this small group who was willing to stay here for the winter. It is true that staying was the path of least resistance, and definitely had some merits. However, before I reached my final decision, I thought it advisable to consult my Russian friend Kovalenko, the desiatnik I mentioned already

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before. His answer was logical and simple. He said, “nobody stays voluntarily in a prison after he is free.” Besides, he said, “when the Russians let you go, you go, losing no time because nobody knows whether or when the Soviet authorities might change their decision.” How wise was this man, and how true was his prophecy. Years later, I heard that people who reasoned similarly to me, had not been allowed to leave later. Some had to wait years until they could get out of those northern regions because they were completely cut off from all contact with the outside world, and no help could be extended to them. Hearing such selfless advice, I decided to leave with my family, and we joined a small group consisting of five families (including the Zussmans), who had selected a middle-sized town called Sarapul, on the Kama River, in the Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.66 We figured we might be able to spend some time there, finding shelter and work. The next day, we lined up in front of the office where we registered our place of destination and received our udostoverenje. Some people had to make a quick decision during the day when they found out that the place they had selected was restricted. Others changed their minds during the day and had a hard time getting the place already written in their document changed. I, personally, was very much surprised when I was handed over the release document for me and my family. I was given back a document which had been confiscated from me a long time ago, during my first registration, after we had arrived at our first place of deportation. I considered it lost forever. I was very much impressed by the efficiency of the NKVD administration.

On Our Way to Sarapul Along the Kama River

We spent the next days packing, and digging out potatoes from our garden patch, we harvested some eighty pounds of them and took them along in a sack. Finally, our turn came to be loaded onto a horse cart which brought us to our little town called Krasnovishersk. While leaving our posiolok and passing the woods so familiar to us, we enjoyed the feeling of leaving those places forever, which had witnessed our misery. This was a rather rare and strange feeling.67 Under normal conditions, when we said goodbye to a place, there 66 These types of republics were autonomous nominally, but not in reality. – Ed. 67 Note from George Landau, “I well remember the feeling of happiness when we left the posiolok – and I have it now as I write this. It manifested itself by a warm feeling of the sun hitting the back of my neck and my back, and a tingling feeling running through my body.” – Ed.

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was always a possibility, or even the wish, to come back and the departure did not imply any unusual emotion. But here was the feeling of looking back at a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience. I was thinking of the many more who would be brought here to take our places. Maybe they would be veterans from other labor camps or maybe novices as we were. However, their misery and suffering would be just the same. Would they ever leave the place as we did? Here in the little town, we had to wait for the river boat which brought us to the next city with a railroad station, Solikamsk. We took shelter in the home of my Russian friend Kovalenko, who had his little house there. We stayed with him and his family for three days, until word came that the boat had arrived. We expressed our gratitude to our Russian friends by leaving a pair of our boys’ shoes and this gift was joyfully accepted. With mixed feelings of good wishes and envy, our friendly Russian family bid us goodbye. When we embarked with several hundred other people on the little boat, we didn’t realize at the time that we had just started a very long and thorny journey. The passengers consisted of our group and of nearly a whole posiolok of peasants who had been deported by the Russians in the early months of 1940. At the time they were deported, they were accused of being the tool of the Polish government, to colonize the population of the eastern border of Poland, which consisted of national minorities.68 It was the first time that I had contact with these people, and it was difficult for me to understand how they could be used for such a task. These peasants could hardly speak Polish themselves, and their language was a medley of Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian (maybe the assimilation worked the other way around).69 From here I recall a strange incident. While waiting for the boat along the riverbank, each family was sitting with their bundles, suddenly I heard some little children screaming near the river. I ran down and this is what I saw. A woman was dragging her two children into the river and from her words I understood that she wanted to drown herself and the two frightened children. I called for help, and we finally brought her and the children back to the bank. She told us that somebody from her group stole her belongings and there was no use for her and her children to go on living. She was a widow, and it was all 68 These are the aforementioned osadnicy (settlers), a Polish population who settled after 1920 on lands inhabited mostly by the Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Jewish national minorities of the Second Polish Republic. – Ed. 69 By noting that “the assimilation worked the other way around,” the author is suggesting that the Polish farmers adapted many elements of eastern language and manners rather than converting the local population into Polish language and manners. On that topic, see: Kathryn Ciancia, On Civilization’s Edge: a Polish Borderland in the Interwar World, New York: Oxford University Press 2021. – Ed.

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she possessed. Somebody from her group promised to find the culprit, they suspected already someone among them, and she quieted down. This incident gave us a warning that thievery was a big problem. We were traveling as a close group of five families. We realized that from now on we had to get organized. At first, we decided that our belongings should be guarded constantly day and night. All the men in our group were put on guard duty. One man in the daytime and two men at night. The guard was changed every four hours. After two days’ traveling on the boat, we got our foretaste of train travel when we reached the first railroad station, Solikamsk. Based on this experience, we decided to travel by boat where possible, rather than by train. Waiting days for some train, Russians were sitting on all the benches and all over the floor, in dirt and filth. The lines for the ticket office were tremendous. Only a few tickets were sold and then the office closed again. Even for those with tickets, it was difficult to get into the train. It was easier for us because we didn’t have to buy tickets and besides the railroad officials, who had never seen documents like ours, were very much impressed by them and gave us some sort of priority. But still, to board a train in a group of five families was a major operation. Each one of us had an assignment and was responsible for a certain amount of luggage; and there were several children in our group, in addition to ours, who needed to be taken care of. Our food consisted of bread, which we could buy in some places after presenting our documents. It wasn’t an easy transaction. Sometimes our friend Bunio Zussman, who spoke very good Russian, had to get permission to buy bread from higher authorities, such as the NKVD or the city soviet. Fortunately, with his convincing fine manners, he was always successful. Sometimes we also succeeded in buying soup or kasha in one stolovka or another. Bunio, Ala, and their daughter Irenka, were the family who joined us in our truck on our way to the station during our deportation from Lwów. From that moment on, we kept a close friendship with the Zussmans, in the posioloks, in the labor camps, and now they were our companions on this exasperating journey – one of the five families. We arrived by train in the city of Molotov, which was the capital of the whole oblast, called Molotovskaya Oblast. Here we were confronted with the same picture as in the previous station, with more confusion and bigger masses of people waiting everywhere. Our group consisting of five families boarded a boat which was sailing southward along the Kama River. The boat was terribly overcrowded because of the masses of recruits who had been called into the army. They were mostly peasants of different ages, ranging from their twenties to their late forties. We succeeded in getting bread from them sometimes, because they were bartering it against makhorka, and we happened to have

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a few packages which we bought in the posiolok and hadn’t used until now. One of our ladies found grace in the eyes of the cook, and he gave her, from time to time, warm water which we put to good use with the Ersatz coffee. The sanitary conditions were despicable. It came to a point that the open common toilet was used by men and women at the same time, and the most primitive decency was gone again. There were no cabins. People slept wherever they could. We, for instance, slept on top of a heap of sheet metal which was stored in the middle of the boat. Our children slept on our bundles and suitcases. We had to keep constant vigilance and guard because thievery became an acute problem. Despite our vigilance, one night a suitcase belonging to our friends disappeared (one of the five families). In our circumstances, it was a rather major disaster. We looked all over the boat, but nothing could be found. Suddenly a sailor from the crew appeared and whispered something in the ear of my friend. He told him that we should check the cabin of another crew member. We asked the captain for help, entering the cabin of the suspected crew member, we found the whole contents of the suitcase and the crew member admitted that he threw the empty suitcase overboard during the dark night. Our friend was surely glad to get back his belongings because not even the smallest thing could be replaced anymore – he didn’t mind the sacrifice of the empty suitcase. What happened to the culprit, and what made the other sailor denounce his colleague, we never knew. The land along the river was flat, some villages and small towns could be seen on both riverbanks. During our stops, more and more recruits came aboard. Many of them were drunk. We had not seen drunk people in a long time and the encounter with them was a very unpleasant one. Russia and vodka had always been synonymous. But, it seemed that there were no vodka allocations in the five-year plan for those hard-working and miserable people in the far North. Late one night, a man in his forties, also drafted, came up to us and saw our boys sleeping. He looked at them for a while, then he started crying. He said that he had just left two of his boys at home, who knew whether he would see them again. Another night, we were awoken by terrific yelling and screaming. Never in my life had I heard human voices sound like that. We ran to the window to see what had happened. The scene was terrifying. Hundreds of women were standing outside our stationed boat, wailing. They came to see off their husbands and sons, leaving for war on our boat. The families and the recruits had the feeling they would never see one another again. After witnessing those scenes, I became less harsh in judging those drunken recruits coming aboard. Maybe it was the only way to overcome their deep emotions.

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Arrival in Sarapul

We finally arrived in the middle of September 1941 at our destination, the city of Sarapul, where we intended to take up temporary residence according to our document. We arrived at night and the debarkation of our group was a major operation considering that we had six small children in our group, with no outside help, and we had to reach the building of the little port, which was on top of a hill. We also had to be vigilant that nothing was stolen in the last moment, in our excitement and confusion. We spent the night in a room, which might be called a waiting room, already full of people. The next day in the morning, the men of our group left our families in the waiting room. We wanted to find some food and to see the city authorities to inquire how to find living quarters and work. The city itself, with a population of around 50,000, wasn’t too impressive. The rainy season had already started, the streets and pavements were full of mud. Only a few stores were open. We could buy some bread, and in one store, cigarettes were sold. We finally found the city soviet and were admitted to see the predsedatel, presiding officer (corresponding to a mayor). We presented him with our documents. He told us that we couldn’t take up residence here and that there would be no work for us either. We stressed the fact that the NKVD registered us for this place, but this was to no avail. He said the city had its own rules, and nobody could tell them otherwise. We went straight to the NKVD headquarters and asked them for help. After all, they were the ones who gave us our documents to settle here. But we made no headway there either. So here, we encountered for the first time what later became a common occurrence, one authority didn’t respect the orders of another. However, one thing the NKVD did was to change our place of residence to another, in Uzbekistan (Central Asia), which would enable us to travel south. We came back to our families with the bad news. Worn-out and tired, we had to start all over again. But how to get on a boat which seldom stopped here and was already crowded to full capacity when it arrived? The situation was short of a disaster. We spent days in the waiting room, full of filth and dirt, with some Russians practically living there. The sanitary conditions were beyond any descriptions. Here we acquired our first lice. During the night, we had to watch our belongings and to be on the lookout for an arriving boat which would take us. The boats arrived at night only. Every night, new recruits arrived, and settled for several hours in the same waiting room. Some were drunk and seeing us strangers, made fun of us, and annoyed us. Others were looking for a fight. They yelled all the time, smoking of course, and the air was so stale and heavy that we could hardly breathe. The worst thing was that they

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never failed to wake up our children, who looked at them with frightened eyes. My wife had a hard time protecting them with her arms, to quiet them down.

Sailing South Along the Volga

After spending some ten days in those horrible conditions, where the waiting room became our home, and we had no chance to undress or to wash, we finally succeeded one night in getting on a boat heading south. We sighed with relief when we were once again together sitting on our belongings. It was the end of September 1941. Our boat didn’t have any provisions to feed the passengers. Sometimes people would buy something from the kitchen. One of our ladies made the acquaintance of the chef, presenting him with some small gift, and he allowed her to cook there occasionally. So, we started using our potatoes, and our ladies managed to make some sort of potato soup which tasted delicious. At first, we continued sailing along the Kama River, which flowed into the Volga. We were then sailing south along the Volga River until the very end, where the Volga emptied into the Caspian Sea. Under normal conditions, we certainly would have enjoyed watching the beautiful countryside, the passing big river boats, the tremendous loads of logs, tied together and transported down the Volga River with only a few men haphazardly jumping around them to keep them under control. It would have been nice to gaze at the millions of glittering stars at night, but not under our conditions. Our minds were completely occupied with how to survive. How to get some food for our families and how to protect them from vermin and how to get some sleep. Along the Volga, stopping at cities like Kuybyshev, Syzran, and Saratov, our boat picked up more and more passengers. For the first time, Russian refugees boarded our boat, they were fleeing from the Ukraine and the rapidly advancing Nazis. Here, we heard the first reports of the Nazi terror and horror.70 At Saratov, we docked alongside another ship, filled with people sailing north. It was unusual because the whole human stream headed south. I became curious about these people headed north, especially when I heard them speaking a different language. I started a conversation with them and found out they were

70 The author lost both parents and two siblings and their respective families in the Holocaust. His only words about this are impersonal. The author’s granddaughter Jennifer Landau-Carter noted, “I believe that this trauma was never revisited in his lifetime.” – Ed.

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Germans from the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.71 They spoke a very old German, as it is known only from the Mittelhochdeutsch literature,72 it is no longer known in the German speaking countries in Europe. Germans had been settled here by Catherine the Great; they became very prosperous farmers from the richness of the Volga soil. They were organized under the Soviets as an autonomous German republic with their own administration, schools, and Communist party. Now the whole population (some half a million) including their Communist party leaders and members were deported to the North. They were accused of being the German Fifth Column and of hiding German parachuted spies. Not one soul was left. They were on their way to their place of deportation, heading north, and nobody knew where they were finally settled. Our people73, who boarded in Saratov, confirmed this story; and told us that they were very much encouraged by the NKVD authorities to settle down in those German cities in Russia, such as Engels, where they could find the most comfortable homes with old German-style furniture and even some food stock left. These were the homes of the people who had just been deported. But they preferred to head south, being afraid of the Germans, moving rapidly towards the Volga. We passed Stalingrad, which became later world famous as a battlefield, and as a symbol of the Nazi defeat. We now saw slogans everywhere. Instead of a call to arms for Stalin, and the great Bolshevik party, the people were urged to defend the Fatherland: “Spasajte rodinu.” Pointing to the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the Russian-occupied territories, the Russians were called upon to love and to save “Holy Mother Russia.” It was significant that at this moment the Soviets resorted to the same slogans and appealed to the same patriotic feeling as the Tsars did during previous wars. Now during our journey along the Volga, we added a new item to our meager food. All along the riverbanks were staples of red watermelons, which grew here in abundance. At every stop, we ran ashore and bought some. They were very reasonably priced and of very good quality. We developed, in the 71

The Volga Germans had been living in the Volga-River area since the 1760s, when Tsarina Catherine II the Great invited Europeans to settle the region of Volga, with the guarantee of retaining their own language, religion, and recognition of traditional customary laws. In 1924, the German Volga Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was established on the territory inhabited by the descendants of these German settlers. In 1941, the Republic (after the German attack on the USSR) was abolished, and the German population was deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia. – Ed. 72 Middle High German, the historical form of the German language. – Ed. 73 Polish Jews – Ed.

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beginning, some stomach ailments because we were not used to them and consumed rather big quantities but after some time, the watermelon became our main nourishment.74 Most of those watermelons were bought up by the crew themselves. They made a profitable business selling those melons in the North, where they didn’t grow, on their way back up. Here on this river boat, we spent Yom Kippur (the day of atonement) and fasted. The fasting was not a big sacrifice on our part because we were well trained for it. There were only a few of us to pray in the required quorum. With some sort of sentiment, I went back in my memories to the same holiday the previous year, spent working in the woods, with the unforgettable man leading our prayers. It was a far cry in distance, and in our outlook for the future, we couldn’t even have dreamt of such a change.

Inmates From Corrective Labor Camps

On our way along the Volga, we met at different places some very strange looking people. During the last two years, we hardly developed any discriminating taste for fashion. We saw people dressed so differently: some in regular suits, according to the Russian fashion; some in half uniforms; some in patched-up rags, sewn together. We ourselves were dressed in a way that the appearance of our garments in the street here could cause indignation and would be considered a public offence. But the appearance of those men surpassed even our imagination. Their apparel consisted of quilted pants, tied at their ankles with a string, a long-quilted jacket called bushlat, and some sort of a cap as head cover. Everything in a black color. Instead of shoes, they wore some sort of sandals made from old rubber tires and held together with a rope. Some had a shirt on, but most had none. As “luggage,” they carried, on a string over their shoulder, some sort of a metal cup or a discarded tin can. It was all they had. Some had a spoon sticking out from a pocket. There were also women among them, dressed similarly, with the exception that some still had skirts on. We found out that those were 74

Note from George Landau, “I remember these watermelons – I think it was in Baku [capital of Azerbaijan and largest city on the Caspian Sea] in particular that they were round and so huge that they were rolled up the gang plank of the boat since they were too heavy and difficult to handle otherwise. I also remember the huge quantity of watermelon rinds floating in the water as that was the place where people disposed of them; when damaged, the watermelons would get spoiled very quickly so there were big chunks of them floating around as well. The net result of that experience is that I hardly ever eat watermelons and I don’t buy them although I still know how to select them!” – Ed.

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the lagrovcy, inmates of corrective labor camps, who were set free at the same time as we were, in accordance with the Sikorski-Stalin pact.75 Those were the single men and women amongst the refugees who were arrested before our deportation and then disappeared. They came now in big masses from labor camps, from different places and directions, and all of them were heading south. We found amongst them people we knew from before, but they had changed to such an extent in such a short time, that we could hardly recognize them. Of course, we had changed in the meantime too. We had a chance to talk to hundreds of them. I don’t intend to report their experience in those hard labor camps for two reasons. First, there are already books written by inmates of those camps; and secondly, this would be second-hand information because I myself wasn’t there. Nevertheless, I would like to mention three facts which were the common experience of all of them, wherever they were. Those three facts were stressed by many reliable men and women I talked to during our journey and in later years. First, those men and women, after many months of being questioned in different prisons and futile attempts by the Russians to exert some confession of being a spy, reinforced by physical maltreatment, were finally sent to hard labor camps. After some time, everyone was handed a sentence ranging from three to eight years. Those sentences were given by a three-man court in Moscow, in absentia of the defendant. They never saw the judges and they were not even notified that their trial would take place. Nobody knew why one got three years and somebody else, for the same alleged transgression, got eight years. In most cases, the crime indicated in the sentence was illegal crossing of the Russian border. As the Russian border was considered the Molotov Line, which divided Poland in two parts. Those refugees were sentenced because they were found in the part of Poland which the Russians considered as their territory. The fact that some arrived there at a time when it was still Poland, and there was no border, didn’t matter. It was illegal according to the Soviets. Secondly, they all worked, some in lumbering, some on railroads, and some in mines, under the supervision of Russian criminals called urkas, sentenced to many years for ordinary crimes, even murder. Those urkas exercised a reign of terror, and nobody, not even the Russian NKVD guards, interfered. Those criminals took everything away from them. Nobody dared to resist. A friend told me how he lost his shoes there. Three of those urkas were playing cards and the stake for the winner was my friend’s shoes. Of course, he didn’t know anything about this crooked deal, until one of those criminals came down to 75 Sikorski-Mayski Agreement. – Ed.

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him (they were playing on their upper beds) and asked my friend for his shoes, which he had won – as he informed my friend – at a card game. My friend was desperate because there was no way to get other shoes. On the next day, he had to go to work in the mine. Nobody could help him. There was nothing for him to do but to give the urka the shoes from his own feet. There, the inmates of the camp were fed from different pots. Depending on whether they reached the norm in their assigned work, they were fed. If somebody couldn’t, for evident reasons, reach the norm then they received less food from the second pot. Once they dropped out from the first pot, they were doomed to death. Having less physical strength, they produced less and less, until they were fed from the third pot – which meant starvation and slowly dying. Then, one day, they were even too weak to move. The criminals knew their way around and had plenty of food and even sold it. On every stop along the Volga, more and more of these lagrovcy came aboard our river boat. They were a pitiful lot, always hungry (and so were we). With no exception, all of them carried lice, and being used to fight hard for their survival, they became tough and were not particular about the means of getting things done.

Arrival in Astrakhan

After some ten days on this boat, our Volga journey came to an end; we were approaching the city of Astrakhan, the biggest port on the Caspian Sea. Staring ahead with excitement, we were looking forward to entering this big city. Astrakhan was once a very big export center of fish, and its famous caviar. We hoped to find some shelter and food to still our constant hunger, and for the chance to clean thoroughly and to wash our laundry. We hadn’t undressed in weeks. We arrived in Astrakhan nearly four weeks after we first started our journey. Landing in a big city like this was not like arriving in a big city in the United States. There was no use in looking for a hotel – hotels were very few and special permission was necessary to stay there, which no plain mortals could obtain – those few hotels were only for high officials, dignitaries, and eventually foreigners traveling on foreign passports. We belonged to none of those categories. Nobody would let any stranger into their room. First, because they were not supposed to, and secondly, because nobody had any space to spare. One room was inhabited by one or more families, and a kitchen was common to all the tenants. So, we went to the harbor waiting room. There was a wellintentioned institution in the bigger harbors and stations, called “the resting

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room for mothers and children.” We were told about it and brought our wives and children there. However, it was nothing other than the typical waiting room, full of dirt, with a few benches, and the room was so crowded that we could hardly find a place for our families on the filthy floor. We ourselves settled in the general waiting room and watched our belongings in turns. During the night, the ladies from the other room came running, looking for us. It turned out that the place was infested with lice.76 Women were sitting there, catching and destroying them, with their fingers and nails. We experienced the same thing in our waiting room. So, we decided to move out to the open pier, in the middle of the night. Here in the open air, in the month of October, with a cold wind blowing from the Caspian Sea and with rain pouring down, we made our home for more than a week. Here, we spent our days and nights with our families and small children. We were not the only ones. There were several hundred families like ours. Those were people liberated as we were, and also many Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Polish refugees evacuated from the western areas of the USSR, which had been gradually occupied by the Wehrmacht since the outbreak of the German-Soviet War.77 In the morning after our first night, all we could think of was getting clean and washing. A bath was out of the question. However, we found some little pond, not far from the harbor. We could at last take our clothes off, and wash with soap and water. It was depressing to find that our clothes and underwear were all infested with lice. The first time you find lice on you and your children, you feel so helpless and humiliated, so terribly low. A feeling of guilt and remorse that it happened to you, and that because of you, your children had to suffer. After the first frightening discovery of these ghastly creatures on our bodies, we always found more of them. They were hidden in all our shirt and underwear seams, and around the collars of our suits. Women found them in their brassieres. And after we thought we had destroyed all of them, they were there again the next day. There was no way under those conditions to get rid of them. The most we could do was to wash our laundry in soap and water, but this was not enough. There were no means to iron our laundry. No spray, no chemicals, 76 The author is referring to body lice. – Ed. 77 Starting in the summer of 1941, a large-scale evacuation in fear of the approaching German army took place; it was partly organized and partly chaotic. Historians are inclined to estimate the number of Soviet evacuees and self-evacuees, the largest number of whom were Russians, at up to 16 million people. See, Rebecca Manley, To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in the Soviet Union at War, London-Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press 2009, p. 1. – Ed.

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or DDT available. Even when somebody completely rid himself of them, with his own fingers of course, it was unavoidable to rub shoulders with other people because every place was over-crowded, and so they were infested again. From the moment we first found lice on us, at the beginning of our ship journey, we had them for nearly two years, until we finally left Soviet Russia. There was absolutely no way to get rid of them. This problem became more serious later in the south, where the lice were carriers of typhus. Everybody developed the habit of checking their shirt every time it was taken off. This was soon done rather mechanically, even when a new clean shirt was put on. It took me a long time to give up this habit afterwards, which was an unpleasant reminder of those dreadful times. One incident I can’t forget happened while we were busy washing and cleaning. On our way back to the pier, we passed a little house with a water-pump in front of it, for drinking water. The handle was locked with an iron chain so nobody could use it. But a very small stream of water was dripping from the main outlet. I stood for a while with my palms open to collect some water, to drink it. Suddenly, a woman came running from the little house carrying a wrench and with a fury and a blast of swearing, she tightened the pump so that no more water could come out. I guess that only misery and bitterness could bring people down to such a low level. It was the second time in my life that I cursed a human being. Astrakhan was a big city, once a big port and shipping center, but somehow, I was not impressed at all. I noticed that all the cities I passed during our long journey, small or big, looked somehow alike. I wondered what caused this same appearance. It seemed that the lack of any stores, with no display or shop windows, made cities similar. Normally, a city got its character or individuality from some busy streets, from its shopping center, from the style of how certain goods were displayed. But here there were no stores and no displays. In only a few places, there were some stores, which were most of the time empty. Only from time to time, bread was sold there, and sometimes also cosmetics. Should it happen that some other useful commodities were sold, then this could be immediately recognized by a big line of people standing outside, and others stopping to ask the usual question, “shto dajut” (what is sold here?) Those lines developed sometimes into riots, when on rare occasions, some special food item was sold. The shop windows always contained Stalin’s picture, often also his statue, and a display of sausages or ham, made from plaster of Paris, painted with colors imitating those products which were not at all available. Another thing which made the cities look similar was the drabness of the street picture, most of the houses were wooden buildings, erected some fifty or sixty years

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ago. One or two stories high, never painted, and dilapidated. The new houses built in recent years gave the impression of barracks, and already badly needed repair and maintenance. The cities also had in common a certain monotony in their whole atmosphere. I came to realize that this was caused by a complete lack of laughter and gaiety, even on the part of the youth. There were no bells tolling the hour at certain intervals, as we were used to even in the smallest towns, no bells ringing from churches – which would have added color. Several people from our group went to town to sell something because we had no money left. The procedure on such occasions was as follows. You pick up a certain item which you think you can spare, for instance, your wife’s dress or blouse, your own shirt, pants, or shoes. You put these things on your forearm and walk into town, asking for the bazaar or tolczok. As I explained before, every town and city had a marketplace where everything could be bought or sold with no restrictions as to price, as long as it was your private property, and not obtained from a government store. There was no trouble finding the tolczok because everybody knew it. But what happened was that you were stopped in the street every few yards, by somebody who asked you, “prodayosh?” (are you selling it?) Sometimes you sold it right away, before even arriving at the bazaar, but this was mostly avoided because everybody who had something to sell thought they would get a better price at the tolczok, where more buyers were around. This was not necessarily so, and once I regretted it, because I couldn’t get the price which had been offered by somebody in the street. The tolczok in Astrakhan was quite a distance from the port, and we arrived there late. We sold just enough to buy some bread and some watermelons, which we purchased directly from boats of peasants who brought them from their collective farms (kolkhoz). We spent the night on the open pier. We and our children slept completely dressed. The men took turns watching our belongings because thefts, especially at night, became a serious problem. One of our boys became restless during the night and was feverish, we were terrified because sickness under those conditions, with no roof over our heads, could be a real disaster. It turned out to be a cold. Only natural, living exposed to the rough sea weather, on a pier. Next day, we went to the tolczok again. On our way, I met a distinguished looking man who stopped me and asked me who I was. I gladly gave him the information he wanted because I had the feeling that it was not plain curiosity. He told me that he himself was a mechanical engineer who studied in Western countries many years ago; and seeing us, he recognized that we were Westerners and wanted to be helpful. He asked me where we were living. When he heard that we were living with our families in the open air, he asked me to bring him there. Seeing our conditions, he couldn’t quiet down. From the

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expression on his face and from his horrified eyes, I realized the depths of our misery. Then these were his words, Don’t stay in this city. You see, once it was the center of the fish industry. Fish and fish products were shipped from here to the whole world. Now there is hunger here. We hardly see any fish. It seems that even fish stay away from us. If I could, I would leave myself.

This fine gentleman who under different conditions might have no worries, and would at least be able to feed his family, meant what he said. The next night, while guarding our bundles, I heard a woman screaming. She was running around the whole pier, out of her mind, looking for the thief who stole her suitcase while she was sleeping. She was desperate because her documents were also stolen. It is very hard to realize what it meant to have no documents in Soviet Russia. There was no other way to prove that you were a human being and alive, only by documents. To lose documents was worse than losing your own shadow.78 The same night a thief stole the shoes directly off the feet of a man, while he was asleep. So, we decided to leave after my wife sold her suit to a young Russian woman doctor, who had approached us to shop. We got some five hundred rubles for our further journey. In order to get to Uzbekistan in Central Asia, where we were heading, we had to first reach the city of Guryev, another port on the northeast coast of the Caspian Sea. This could only be done by ship, leaving from Astrakhan. This was a very daring adventure because literally thousands of our people and Russian refugees had the same plan and very few ships were available. It took us three attempts to successfully board one of those small ships. On the first attempt, we nearly lost one of our boys in the panic. On the second attempt, our suitcases were lost in the terrible turmoil; but my wife then saw a Russian woman sitting on top of them, considering them already hers, and we recuperated them. In both these attempts, only after a tremendous effort, being pushed back and forth, we found one another and ensured we were all back ashore. The third time, after strategic planning, we finally succeeded in embarking.79 We left the once famous city of Astrakhan, on one of 78

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Having documents was very important in the wartime in the USSR as it was a police state, controlling and repressing its inhabitants through the NKVD. Undocumented people risked being accused of espionage or illegal residence and being sent into the interior of the country to perform forced labor. – Ed. Note from George Landau, “I remember on the first attempt, Irenka, who was very little in size, was in a state of panic as she felt that she was being squashed by the mob of people piling into the boat, so we left (with difficulty). On the second attempt, I remember one of the children screaming “Katchiat, Katchiat,” the best translation I can give is “It’s rocking!

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those small ships, with no feelings of regret, after some seven days of living there in the open air.

On Our Way to Guryev and Uzbekistan (Central Asia)

This small vessel with a normal capacity of 200 to 250 people was overcrowded to the point of suffocation. There was hardly even place to sit on the floor. The situation became even worse because the Caspian Sea was stormy and nearly everybody got seasick. As a result, the sanitary conditions could hardly be imagined. Fortunately, being seasick, we didn’t think of food, which wasn’t available anyway. We sailed for two days and nights on this vessel which was thrown around by the waves like a nutshell. We were very glad when this ghastly trip was over. For some reason, the ship couldn’t enter the harbor and we were transferred in the open sea to small boats, which brought us to the shores of Guryev. It was the first time during our journey, which had now lasted already five weeks, that we were not completely on our own. Some sort of city agency directed us to an abandoned building and assigned us to a stolovka where we could eat some soup and buy some bread. Guryev was the terminal of the railway, connecting the Caspian Sea with the Central Asian Soviet Socialist Republics.80 From here, we could proceed by train. As experienced earlier in our journey, boarding a train in our large group with luggage was a difficult task. Soviet refugees, lagrovcy (corrective labor camp inmates), and liberated groups like ours were all over. Everybody was trying to reach the promised land of sunshine and fruit, Uzbekistan. The train consisted mostly of cattle boxcars and only a few wooden coaches, the latter were known in Europe as third class. We finally got into a train headed East and decided to stay on it until it reached its final station. The place of destination didn’t make any difference to us anymore. Nobody could tell us where the train was going, where it would stop, nor for how long. We met thousands of people, Russians, and people like us, from different parts of Europe. During our journey, people were very easily acquainted. There was no regular food supply of any sort. At any given stop,

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It’s rocking!” The ship was moving back and forth because of the sea and the number of people piling in. The third attempt, we made it. It was a very rough sailing trip as Papi describes.” – Ed. Atyrau, known until 1991 as Guryev. A port on the Ural River, near its confluence with the Caspian Sea. The city is located on the border of two continents: Europe and Asia. Today one of the two largest Kazakhstan urban centers on the Caspian Sea. – Ed.

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somebody ran out of the train to the station, and sometimes even dared to search the nearby streets for some food to buy. There was always a big risk involved, whenever somebody left the train for a short while. Sometimes the train started moving without a signal, and nobody knew where the next stop would be. This caused many tragedies. We witnessed the following one. A father with his son was aboard our train. I knew them both from before the war. One evening at one stop, the son ran to the station hoping to get some food for him and his father. The train suddenly started to move. The father seeing that his son was not coming back, jumped from the moving train to join his son, and not be separated. The son in the meantime, seeing the train moving, came running from a different direction, and jumped onto one of the train cars. The father couldn’t see this because it was dark, so the son came back, and the father was left at the station. They lost one another forever. The rainy season had already started. Two or three times, we had to get off the train and spend a day or two in the waiting rooms. The waiting rooms were crowded and the trains even more so. People slept wherever they could in the train: on the wooden benches, over them (normally a place for luggage), or under them. At one time, we couldn’t find any other place for our boys, than on the floor between the benches, practically on the feet of the people sitting there. Lice became a plague again. They could be seen crawling on everybody, we saw them on our boys too. One night, George, our youngest boy, became terribly sick. He got some sort of painful cramps. He was listless. At the next station I ran out, hoping to find a doctor. I hardly reached the station when the train started moving. I had to run back. There were no medicines nor help. I guess a miracle and the immense motherly love and the prayers of my wife, who took him in her arms, rocking him like a baby, with all her warmth, brought him back to life. We travelled through Kazakhstan and finally reached Tashkent, the capital of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. We couldn’t stay there because capitals were restricted to us. We spent a day and night near some fence, until we could get into another train. We didn’t undress for weeks again, and we were so immensely tired. We envied everybody we saw entering a house, because they had a roof over their heads, somewhere they could call home. I envied a dog when I saw that he was crawling into his doghouse. Every change of train was a calamity. The masses of people, the waiting, the anxiety of obtaining some bread for the family. In old times, there used to be a custom that at every Russian station, people could obtain hot water (kipyatok) for free. Since Russians used to consume immense quantities of tea, they were always travelling with their teapot and tea leaves; and at every station, they were able to brew tea using the kipyatok. The kettles were still at every station,

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but kipyatok wasn’t there under the Soviets. We were sometimes longing for just hot water. Once during a stop at some station, I saw a locomotive engine going back and forth on tracks, while assembling a freight train. And I saw hot condensate water, dripping from the outlet. I grabbed some pot, and running along next to the locomotive, I collected a potful of this precious liquid, it was condensed-steam really – from the brake lining of the locomotive. It was a refreshing drink for all of us. Our mouth tissues were already so dry and nearly sore. After several more days, we arrived in the city of Samarkand, in Uzbekistan. Once a residence of the legendary Tamerlane, who reigned there in the fourteenth century. We could have stayed but our group decided to go further east, as far east as possible. The closer to the Iranian border, the better. So, we stayed on the train, not knowing where we were going. After another three days, one morning, the train came to a complete halt at some sidetrack. The engine pulled out and left. In the far distance, we could see a town, nobody was around to ask where we were. Some of us left to look around, in search of food, as usual. The rest stayed, partly sleeping in the train car, partly waiting around. Suddenly, another engine came, coupled itself to the front car, which was occupied by us, and before we realized what had happened, the train started moving. In the confusion, people were throwing their suitcases and bundles through the windows and doors. We were only just able to jump out of the already moving train – to not be separated from the rest of the group. There were also children, including our own, who had to make this last moment jump. The whole thing happened in a matter of a few minutes. When the others finally returned to the place where the train had been, they found all of us very excited, sitting on our belongings, between two railway tracks. We were consoled by the fact that only one little suitcase was lost, and that in the meantime, the others who had left, found a stolovka nearby where we could get something to eat. They also learned that the town we could see in the distance was called Kogon.81 We put our children to sleep in the open space between the two tracks and we spent most of the night sitting on our bundles. The morning was very cold. At least, we could wash at a nearby hydrant, used for supplying the locomotives. After such a long time, our boys enjoyed this fresh shower very much, that they didn’t even mind the cold morning. Of course, we didn’t know what to do next. Sometime around noon, a uniformed man from the railroad NKVD 81 The author transliterated the pronunciation of the name of this city in Uzbekistan as Kagan. As the official notation since 1935 is Kogon (formerly known as New Bukhara), the text has been amended to read Kogon. – Ed.

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arrived, maybe on his inspection round, and found us camping practically on the tracks. He asked us for our documents and told us that we were not supposed to stay here and with the usual “davayte ukhodyte” (let’s go, in a hurry), he asked us to leave immediately. Needless to say, it wasn’t as simple as he saw it. We finally found out from him that some two miles away, there was a little park where several hundred people were living, and that it was the place for us to move to. We were also informed by him that around the park, we could hire some vehicle, which could bring our belongings to the park. As always, two men went ahead. On this occasion, it was Bunio and I. After some time, we came back with a so-called arba. This Uzbek means of transportation was a cart on two huge wheels, hitched to a camel, mule, or donkey; with the Uzbek owner as the driver, called rather informally “babay” (something like “pop”). We reported that hundreds of European families lived in the park, under the trees, and that we had already met many friends and acquaintances there. We loaded all our belongings onto the arba; and we and our families followed in a big procession, looking forward to our next “home” under the trees of a park in the town of Kogon in Uzbekistan. When we arrived there, we found amongst the hundreds of people, several families we were friendly with before the war, we didn’t know that they had also been deported.82 It was a strange reunion indeed. Some changed so completely in such a short time that we could hardly recognize them. The same could be said of me too. I met there a young man, whom I used to see every day for years, and he didn’t recognize me at all. There were no benches in this park and so we put up our quarters, with another family from our group, under one of the trees. Our long journey, which had lasted nearly two months, came to an end. From people living here, we learned that nobody could go any further east. However, there was good news too. Some ten miles from here, on a sideline from the main track, was the famous city of Bukhara, where many of our people had already taken up residence. People excelled one another in telling stories about this mysterious city and about the comfortable life there. Of course, we didn’t know anything about it, we only recalled that there used to be a Persian carpet called Bukhara, for its colors and quality. We spent the afternoon and the night under the tree, which was especially hard on our children, considering that it was already the 82

According to George Landau, Dr. Wohlfeiler as a physician was most probably accepted into the Anders Army, and his family was evacuated by the British to Polish refugee settlements in Kenya. Later they settled in Palestine/Israel. See also on this topic: Jochen Lingelbach, On the Edges of Whiteness: Polish Refugees in British Colonial Africa during and after the Second World War, New York: Berhgahn Books 2020. – Ed.

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end of October and very cold. The next day, Bunio and I, as the heads of our two families, decided to see for ourselves what the city of Bukhara looked like, and if it was possible to settle there.

Our Arrival in Bukhara

We took the morning train and after an hour or so, we reached the terminal, and there it was: Bukhara, the city of oriental romance and mystery. What we saw around the station were dirt roads and flat mud huts. In the far distance, some ancient towers and cupolas in oriental style could be seen. Plenty of people were in the small streets, Uzbeks in their native dress, Russians mostly uniformed, and people in European dress who had reached Bukhara a week or two before us. We heard from those Europeans that while a few days ago it had been possible to rent a room in the homes of Uzbeks, the city was now overcrowded – with refugees and our liberated people – and to rent some sort of housing had become a problem. We were also told that just today an order was issued from the city soviet that no newcomers would be registered, in other words, we wouldn’t be admitted to Bukhara. It was bad news for us, but we decided to take the risk and rent some shelter, come what may. We were already so exhausted, and with the winter approaching, we couldn’t think of travelling any further. We feverishly searched for a room, all day. It became dark and we still hadn’t found anything. Finally, through different recommendations and brokers, we found some hole of a place on top of a roof, in a little Uzbek mud house. It was on a very narrow winding passage, called a kutche, with a fancy name “istoriczyskij pereulok” (historical lane). The only thing we knew about the room was that we had to climb up a chicken ladder to get to it. We couldn’t see the room itself because it was late in the evening and there were no lights. The owner was an old, dignified Uzbek, with a gray beard, who couldn’t understand Russian. But with the help of his wife, who was some thirty years younger, and his young daughter, who acted as interpreter, we closed the deal, paid the rent a month in advance, and received from him the key to our “room.” We were the happiest people at this very moment, imagine after two months of wandering and travelling under those horrible conditions, we finally had a shelter of our own, where we could lay down our heads and protect our children from rain and wind, and from the misery of living in the streets. Bunio and I came back late at night to our “home” under the trees in the park and presented triumphantly the key. Everybody wanted to touch it, to see whether it was a real key.

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The next day, early in the morning, we were ready to move to Bukhara. We hired an arba and loaded our belongings onto it, and our two families followed again in procession to the station. Nobody was allowed to board the train until the last moment. Then the usual “davayte” was heard and everybody had to rush. Of course, we had to run back and forth to get all our belongings. Our boys, always helpful, were eager to carry as much as they could. I noticed that our youngest son George was pale and could walk only with much effort and still insisted on carrying some suitcases. I will never forget the expression on his face, with black rings around his feverish eyes. Nobody realized that he was seriously sick already. We arrived finally at noon in Bukhara, we took the usual arba again and gave the Uzbek babay the address. But it turned out that neither he, nor anybody else, knew where the small path was. I didn’t know either because we had been brought there in the evening, in the dark; and for the life of me, I couldn’t recall how to get there. We were driving around in circles, quite desperate, when finally, amongst the many people we asked for directions, a little Uzbek boy led us to our new home. Our two families moved into one room, which we now saw for the first time in daylight. Climbing the chicken ladder, we passed the flat roof which characterized every Uzbek home, and from there, we entered our room. It was some 9 x 12 feet, with a very low ceiling and a hole in one wall, which opened onto a little dark nich The floor was plain mud. The furniture consisted of a small iron stove with enough space to put a small pot on top of it, a table, and two large wooden benches. There was one window and a door opening to the roof. In this room, our two families moved in, consisting of four adults and three children. We agreed to setup a common household where all our possessions were pooled together to cover our common expenses. Our sleeping arrangements were as follows. Our two boys slept on one bench. Bunio’s wife, Ala, and their little girl, Irenka, slept on the other bench. My wife slept on three suitcases (each one had a different height). Bunio and I slept on the floor, in the dark niche. It became quite cold, so the stove had to be heated frequently, and our room was constantly filled with burning smoke. A small kerosene lamp provided light sparingly for the gloomy room. Under the ladder, was an open pit, which was used by all inhabitants of our house for their bodily necessities. We had to pass this pit every time we climbed up and down the ladder, to and from our room. This pit, full of excrements, was cleared only once or twice a year. The next day, in the morning, our youngest son, who was already very sick the day before, took seriously ill. George, who was always lively, became a

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listless child. My wife recalled that she met a European physician three days before, in the park in Kogon. In the meantime, he had moved to Bukhara. She went to look for him in this strange unknown city, filled with little streets, like a labyrinth. Stopping European people in the street to ask them for this doctor, after two hours, my wife finally found him and his family at the opposite end of Bukhara; and he was willing to visit our boy. Here is what happened. My wife, deep in her thoughts and anxious to bring help to George as quickly as possible, couldn’t find her way back to our house. Imagine what was going on in her troubled heart. Here she was bringing back a physician, and at the same time, she was losing precious time, circling around the place where our house stood, because she lost her way in those small winding dead-end streets. She finally had to go back to the main street, and after a fresh start, she eventually found our home. Unfortunately, the physician couldn’t recognize the sickness. It was one of those oriental diseases, which our European doctor wasn’t acquainted with, and there were no Uzbek doctors who might have known this local disease. His thought at first was that it was chickenpox, but it wasn’t, because George already had it some two years before. Our poor boy suffered terribly. He was so weak from the high temperature that he couldn’t even move the flies away with his hand, which were bothering and biting him constantly. After two weeks, he slowly recovered by himself. This disease was contagious because after a while the little girl, Irenka, came down with it and suffered similarly. We started here our life as “free citizens” and residents of Bukhara, with people consisting mostly of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Tatars, Russians, and some five thousand Europeans liberated from different places of deportation. The first thing to do was to visit the bazaar and get acquainted with where commodities and food could be bought and sold on the private market. What were the commodities? Everything from a rusted nail to a quilt or even an old much-abused Bukhara rug. Everything was second-hand and used. Shoes, suits, pants, and dresses were tried on the spot. Sometimes new cotton textiles were offered; but only when the militia was not around, because those commodities came illegally from government stores or factories, often stolen. Apart from the little square where these commodities were, there was a bigger bazaar for food only. The supply in the beginning was plentiful because part of the production surplus of the collective farms entered the open market, at prices which were not restricted, regulated only by supply and demand. According to the Soviet planned economy, every peasant could sell the products they received as compensation for their work during the year on their collective farm, after deducting the multiple payments in kind to the Soviet authorities.

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The bazaar was picturesque and new to our eyes. The Uzbeks with their families brought their products on arbas, with camels, mules, and donkeys, donned in their colorful native dress. They always came with their families for several reasons. Firstly, the older generation didn’t understand Russian, so the younger generation acted as interpreters. Secondly, they had to be on constant guard for thieves, who were around in big swarms and stole everything they could lay their hands on. Finally, after everything was sold, they moved to the other part of the bazaar where they did their shopping for essentials such as shoes and textiles. Of course, this merchandise was not offered by any stores or government enterprises, but by private citizens who sold in this way part of their belongings. The Uzbeks brought jiggah to the market: dark wheat flour, ground by hand on coarse stones, a sort of cross between corn and barley. For vegetables: potatoes, onions, and carrots. For fruit: very good grapes in different colors and qualities (some grapes were as big as walnuts), raisins called kishmish, and dried apricots, called uryuk.83 Also dairy products were offered: milk, a product called kaymak, and a semi-liquid product with a taste of fermented milk – this particular product was brought to the market in goat skins. The milk, very much watered down, was brought in cans and sold with a quart measure. There was some sort of control station at the bazaar, which was supposed to check the fat and water content of the milk, but the woman in charge of it was satisfied with the large samples she could take from every can, to keep. The kaymak was an excellent product.84 It consisted of the milk skin, which we used to obtain in old times when milk was heated near boiling point. The Uzbeks collected those skins and sold them, according to their size, in little fancy china cups without handles called pialas. The content had to be emptied into your own container. Butter was very seldom for sale. Bread was, in the beginning, freely sold in the government stores, sometimes even long white rolls. Bottled wine was sold from time to time, causing serious riots. Kerosene for our lamp was sold from time to time only, normally on the black market, with a limit of one or two quarts per person. Wood could be bought from the Uzbeks, who used to bring it in little bundles, loaded on both sides of their donkey. It was not sold by weight or cubic measurement, but according to the donkey load. A donkey was called ishak in 83 Note from George Landau, “We also ate the inside of the apricot pits which tasted like almonds. There were many kinds of melons. We and the Uzbeks used to dry the webbing as well as the seeds and eat them. The drying was done on the roofs of the huts.” – Ed. 84 Note from George Landau, “Henry and I frequently imagined what it would be like to have this at will! Heavy cream or crème fraiche do not come close to the taste as I remember it!” – Ed.

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Uzbek language. People referred to an ishak of wood, or ishak in short, meaning the whole of the donkey’s load of wood. The buying of wood was quite an intricate business. First, it was very expensive, and secondly, you had to know the different kinds of woods here (the country was rather poor in wood). Some was green, it contained a lot of moisture and didn’t burn; some was very hard and difficult to chop; and some was rotten, it burned like paper, giving no heat whatsoever. It was also important to know the way the bundles of wood were put together. Some Uzbeks were quite shrewd, they put rotten wood in the middle and covered up the front with good looking planks. George, who was at that time nine years old, became quite an expert in evaluating the wood and in buying it, which always required some bargaining. In a short time, he picked up enough of the Uzbek language to take up the conversation with the babay, which he enjoyed. The deal was usually finished after some bargaining back and forth and with a strong handshake. There was a local custom that if you bought an ishak of wood, you took one piece out of the bundle, and had to march in front of the donkey with the Uzbek following, all the way to your house, where the wood was unloaded from the donkey and payment given. If this was not done, then it happened frequently that somebody else stopped the Uzbek and bought away the bundle in your presence, offering him a higher price. The carrying of one piece of wood was some sort of a gentleman’s agreement between the babay and the prospective buyer. As a reward for my son, the Uzbek usually let him ride the donkey for a few yards. He had great fun from the deal and the whole ceremonial procedure. The prices of the food products were high. In the beginning, a kilo of dark flour was 35 rubles, a kilo of potatoes 12 rubles, grapes 15 rubles, carrots 3 rubles, milk 3 rubles a quart. A donkey of wood, which lasted in our household from three to five days, was 40 rubles. Nothing could be obtained in the government stores at official prices, with the exception of bread. The official exchange rate was, and still is, 5.20 rubles per dollar. The average earning of a skilled laborer or a white-collar worker was between 300 and 450 rubles a month. A plain worker received no more than 7 to 8 rubles a day. At the same time, shoes were sold on the private market for as much as 400 to 600 rubles, and a man’s suit between 300 to 1000 rubles. Women’s dresses for 200 to 300 rubles. Women’s shoes for 400 to 600 rubles. Women’s stockings, 60 to 80 rubles. Men’s shirts, 150 to 200 rubles. I am quoting these figures to allow you to evaluate the actual cost of living, in comparison with the income of the people. And this was only four months after the outbreak of the war in Soviet Russia, and in a place some 2000 miles away from

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the frontline. There was no work for us. So, I had to become a frequent visitor to the bazaar, selling every time something else from our belongings to feed our families. Our diet consisted in the morning of coffee ersatz and bread. For lunch, some vegetable soup and bread; and for dinner, the same thing. To even keep up this diet, thousands of rubles were necessary every month. I must admit that standing in the bazaar with some of my and my wife’s and our children’s wear became more and more of an ordeal for me. To say to yourself, here I am, standing with my shirt or my wife’s blouse, displaying it with my two hands as the only way to keep our family alive. So low had I arrived with all my higher education and years of study and work. This was what I had achieved in my life. And here were those strange people coming and touching those things which you or your wife or your children used to wear on their bodies, with their hands, to check whether the quality was good enough for them. I guess the slaves had the same feeling when their bodies were touched to determine whether they were worth buying. It was a mixed feeling of humiliation, guilt, of responsibility for events beyond our influence and control, and a feeling of complete failure. Our day was entirely filled with the daily chores. In the evening, friends we made here used to drop in. There were sometimes fifteen or more people in our smoke-filled room, sitting on suitcases or on the benches, discussing once more our obscure future and recalling old times. As I mentioned before, we were living in Bukhara without permission to do so. This was rather dangerous because the NKVD started round-ups on the street and in the bazaars. We had to obtain documents which would make our residence here legitimate. We were told that we could obtain some papers to this effect at the station in Kogon, by contacting the right people, and with the help of some money. Bunio and I decided to make a trip to get those papers. We left at noontime and arrived there in the afternoon. We were successful and received the necessary papers. However, the whole procedure took too long, so we missed the last evening train, and had to stay in Kogon all night. I wouldn’t write about this little trip if it wasn’t for this staying overnight experience. It is interesting to know what happened to somebody who was not an official and didn’t have a special permit to stay in a hotel, when compelled to spend the night in a place like Kogon, which was, after all, an important station on the main railroad line. At first, we intended to spend the night in the waiting room. However, after the last train left, everybody, including us, was thrown out of the waiting room. The waiting room was not for waiting overnight, we were told by the railroad NKVD. So, we took to the street. It was quite cold. After an hour of walking in

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the empty streets, back and forth, we met a man and asked him whether he knew where we could just sit during the night until the morning? This is what he said to us: If you promise to buy me three white rolls, I will show you a place where you can get them for me and you too, and you can stay there the whole night. Today is November 7, the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, and in this place, there is a dance on this occasion and also special food is sold there.

Of course, we promised the man the three white rolls and he led us to the place which was a former movie house. Everything was exactly as the man promised us. There was a dance, with mostly women dancing together, white rolls, and some pieroshki filled with meat, a delicacy which we hadn’t seen in years. The man got his three rolls and left immediately. We stayed, we bought some rolls for us too and put them in our pockets for our families. There was music provided by a little dance band, and what was the most important for us, it was warm here and we could stay overnight. However, around midnight, somebody got up and made a speech praising the greatest genius of mankind, Comrade Stalin, and asked everybody to go home. The celebration was finished, the hall darkened, and we found ourselves on the street again. Now we became tired of walking in the streets, back and forth, so we thought of going into a park, where we might find some bench to sit on. We came to a park (it was another one, not the one we stayed in with our families), but not one bench could we find. They had been stolen and sold as firewood. So, we had to walk again in the cold night, sometimes staying in some house entrances. The night seemed like an eternity. We were thinking of marching to Bukhara, but we had heard that people were robbed and attacked at night on that lonely road. Dawn arrived, finally. We saw in the far distance a man opening a wooden stand (kiosk) and making light inside. We relished the idea that somebody was going to sell hot tea in the cold early morning. So, we ran over quickly. How great was our disappointment when the man offered us cold carbonated water and colored icicles instead, just plain frozen water with no sugar and no flavor. Rather indignant, we asked the man, “What is the idea, selling such stuff at dawn on a cold early November morning?” He asked us, “Haven’t you heard of the five-year plan? According to this plan, I have to sell a certain amount of carbonated water and icicles a day, November or not, cold or warm weather.” We were surely glad when we finally arrived in Bukhara, at around ten o’clock in the morning. I mentioned before that there were some five thousand

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people from Western countries, who accidentally or intentionally had found themselves in Bukhara. Those were people from every walk of life. Physicians, lawyers, former manufacturers, businessmen, teachers, artisans, and people with no trade whatever. Some were with their families, and some were by themselves. The latter were the former lagrovcy who as inmates of the forced labor camps were the first to be deported and given prison sentences. In any other country, you would assume that under such abnormal conditions, single people would be better off. A single man had no responsibility, he could move faster with his little bundle and could easier take care of himself. But not here. Those men were the most miserable lot. In a household, even under the worst conditions, the wife always managed to get at least one hot meal, even just a soup, made. The wife somehow took care of the laundry, even in the most primitive way. But those singles had no room to live in, they slept in some doorways or holes, had no facilities to cook, and nobody washed their laundry for them. As a result of it, those single men were always hungry, filthy, and full of lice. This had very tragic consequences as I shall describe later. Many of the western families had plenty of their belongings to sell and the bazaar was overflooded with goods. Consequently, the supply was greater than the demand and the prices dropped considerably. At the same time, the food prices went up, as a result of a diminished supply of food – because of the cold winter days and the bad news from the frontline, the Uzbeks were hesitant to bring their products to the market. If some of them came to the bazaar, the demand was so terrific that the public literally tore the products from their hands and paid any price in order to bring something home. Prices were rocketing sky-high. One kilo of dark flour went up to 100 to 110 rubles, potatoes 50 to 55 rubles, carrots 8 to 10 rubles, watered-down milk 6 to 8 rubles for a quart. And an ishak of wood, 80 to 120 rubles. In addition, bread became a very scarce commodity. This made our sustenance even harder. Bread was not available on the free market anymore and bread ration cards were issued. Every person who was a resident here was entitled to a daily ration of 400 grams of bread. Every working person to 600 grams. But ration cards didn’t mean bread yet. A hard fight had to be put up every day, or rather night, to get a bread ration for the family. Life became more and more difficult, and so we had to organize our household accordingly. Our ladies had a hard time preparing our meager meal, washing the laundry, mending our clothing and underwear, and keeping our room clean. This was a full-time, seven days a week, job. The floor in our room was just plain soil and sand. On rainy days, the floor was muddy like the street. On warm days, it was full of dust. Our children helped where they could but had to

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be occupied with reading and writing, to not forget the little they had learned before. Bunio, who wasn’t physically strong,85 helped around the house. His job was to chop the wood in small pieces for our small stove, and to bring the water from a well a short distance from our home. He also helped the children with their arithmetic (the interest in mathematics of my elder son Henry goes back to Bunio’s pleasant and intelligent tutoring). It was my job to bring home the bread using the ration cards, to sell our belongings at the bazaar, and to buy our provisions there. How did I go about getting bread? Bukhara was spread out over a large area and bread used to be sold in different places. The stores started selling the bread between eight and nine in the morning, but nobody knew which store would have bread to sell. Sometimes it was one store at one end of the city, and the next day it was a store at the complete other end of the city altogether. On some days, bread was sold in a store connected with a big factory; this was by far the worst, because the workers there had priority and we had to wait for whatever was left. At any rate, I had to leave our home at ten o’clock in the evening the day before; and go to all possible places where bread was normally sold and reserve a place in the long line. Men and women stood in two different lines from both sides of the window. There was a ritual connected with it. You had to ask, “Kto poslednij,” it meant “Who is the last?” And when somebody answered my question and said, “He is,” then I had to take a good look at him and say the formula, “Ja za vami,” it meant, “I am behind you.” Then I had to wait until the next person came and asked the same question; I answered his call and afterwards he pronounced the sentence, “A ja za vami.” After I made sure that both men, the one in front and the one behind me, knew and would recognize me, I would leave and go to the next place – sometimes one mile or more away – and repeat the same procedure in front of another store. So, I had to run the whole night between several places to make sure that my place in the line was still safe and to find out where the bread would be sold. Sometimes there was trouble because some man, who was supposed to be behind me, pretended that he never saw me before. In cases where I was the stronger of the two of us, I could occupy my place in the line. If not, I had to give it up. Around six o’clock in the morning, we finally knew where the bread had been delivered, and here a strong queue was formed, petrified like a stone wall. People stood so tight and close, one behind the other, that it was even difficult to breathe. In this position, we used to stay until the small window, through which the bread was handled, was opened. Sometimes people started 85

As explained in the following paragraphs, physical strength played a key role in securing bread. – Ed.

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to fight, and somebody was squeezed out from the line and could never get back in. I remember how once a Russian woman with a little baby in her arms was so pressed by the others that being afraid that they might suffocate the child, stepped out from the line and stood there in tears. I tried to help her get back her place in the line, but the Russian and Uzbek women attacked me and nearly tore my shirt to pieces. It was an atmosphere of high nervous tension where a quarrel or a fight could break out at any minute. People were hungry and bitter. Nobody could let off steam by simply complaining or criticizing this system because they would be immediately accused of agitating and counterrevolution (“Agitacyu dielayesh?” was the question thrown at you). So, this enormous dissatisfaction and frustration expressed itself in this way. It was an atmosphere of sheer force, brutality, and disregard for our common humanity. The principle was not “to live and let live,” but “either you or I.” The selling of bread was a very slow procedure. It was normally handled by a woman who had to cut the ration cards, figure the amount in grams, slice the bread, weigh it out, and cash the money. Standing in the line for hours didn’t guarantee that everybody would receive their allotted bread portion. What happened was that the minute the bread sale started, suddenly different people appeared in front of the window and received bread without standing in the line at all. Those were men in uniforms who had no business here whatsoever because they received their bread in their army unit but came here with ration cards of their friends. Some officials and hoodlums, who simply didn’t care and were strong enough to pick a fight with anybody. All those people pushed ahead of the rest of us, and we just stood there watching them carry the bread away. It happened frequently that I stood for hours a few inches away from the window with the saleswoman in sight and I couldn’t get the bread. And so, I used to come back after I had left home at ten o’clock in the evening, around noontime the next day, and many times at even two o’clock in the afternoon, with the bread portion and even sometimes without it. Our families had already been waiting sometimes the whole morning for the bread and I had to return empty-handed. During all this time, of course I didn’t eat or drink anything, and what was worse, I couldn’t be found even if needed because nobody including myself knew in advance where I would have to spend the night to wait for the bread. I am describing this daily ordeal which lasted for nearly three months in detail to give you a glimpse of the way of life there for natives and strangers alike, only half a year after the outbreak of the war there. I feel justified, when somebody asks me what I did over there, to answer that I fought for my daily bread in the real sense of the word, with my own fists.

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Standing in the line for hours, pressed in between people, caused another problem. I didn’t always bring bread home, but always lice. The lice became not only an ugly nuisance, but also a horror as a carrier of the terrible plague here, typhus. As we heard, typhus was a serious disease in this part of Russia all year around even in normal times. But, under these crowded conditions, with filth and starvation everywhere, it spread terribly. The first cases among the Western people occurred in the winter months of 1941. The incubation period was seven to ten days from the bite of the infested louse. If somebody was susceptible to the infection, they came down with a very high fever and inhuman headaches. There were no inoculations or medicines available. The crisis occurred on about the fourteenth day, and survival depended completely on the strength of the heart. People were compelled to go to the hospital, but this was sure death, because of the lack of the most primitive sanitary conditions there. People were left without any attention for days, on the floor or even in the corridors of the hospital. It was even difficult for relatives or friends to recognize and to claim the bodies of the dead. A patient who was lucky enough to be taken care of by their family had a better chance of surviving this epidemic disease. Standing in line for bread in Bukhara together with Russians, I witnessed how Russian Jews were continuously offended being called different dirty names by the Russians. When  I asked the Russian Jews why they didn’t call the militsiya – because according to Russian law, to offend a Jew for being a Jew, called for a four-year sentence (as explained to us by the first Russians we met) – they said there was no use. Times had changed and the militsiya would have been kept too busy taking care of all those offences. Particularly Jews who were refugees from the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic told us how they suffered from the Ukrainians, who gave the Nazis their fullest cooperation in the atrocities against Jews. In fact, they said they intended never to go back to Ukraine, even after the war.

About Bukhara and Uzbekistan

Being already for some time in Bukhara, I had a chance to find out more about the city, the people and the past. Bukhara seen from some distance, gave the impression of a mass of gray flat-roofed huts with an endless labyrinth of narrow alleys, kutches. This rather monotonous picture was brightened by gleaming towers of mosques and a beautiful palace in oriental style, decorated with colorful mosaics and ornaments. Amongst the colors was predominantly a certain deep blue, sort of a cobalt blue. Incidentally, the secret of this blue was

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never recorded and so far cannot be reproduced. The several mosques and the palace were, during my time, used in small part for some government offices but mostly as warehouses. The highest building in Bukhara which could be seen all over was the Tower of Death, some 200 feet high. In old times, they threw criminals from the top of this tower. There were several old gates through which the camel caravans entered the city in old times. Arbas (carts on two wheels) hitched usually to a mule, or sometimes also to a donkey or camel, were the only means of transportation on the dirt roads here in the city. Sometimes a military truck could be seen, leaving a heavy black cloud of smoke. In summer, the dusty streets were sprinkled with water carried by men in bags made from sheep or goatskin. During the rainy period, the dust turned to thick clay and mud. The Uzbeks are indigenous Iranians with fine and graceful figures.86 I never saw any fat specimen amongst them. Their skin is a chocolate color. The Uzbeks are Muslims by religion. Due to the Soviet regime, they no longer practiced their religion openly, and I never saw anyone praying outside, as was so characteristic of the other oriental Muslim countries – where men prayed outside, wherever they happened to be, at certain hours during the day, washing first their feet, hands, and face, and spreading out a little rug in front of them. I must also say that while living with them under one roof, I never saw them praying indoors either, but they kept their fasting periods and stuck to their family traditions and customs. For instance, in their very elaborate form of greetings, their hospitality, their weddings, and funerals. They were dressed in a white linen garment, which looked like a long shirt, and white linen pants, nearly reaching their ankles. It was interesting to notice that they wore those white pants with the left leg shorter and the right leg longer. On top of these garments, they wore a very colorful cotton-padded gown (mostly in blue, which was their favorite color). It was held together around their waistline, by a colorful kerchief of Turkish design. For headwear, they wore silk skullcaps with beautiful artistic embroideries; at times, genuine gold threads were used. In wintertime, their kerchiefs, which were normally used as a sort of belt, were wrapped around this skullcap with a certain artistic flair. The women dressed more or less the same way. They were considered inferior, but the Soviets encouraged their emancipation. The unmarried girls put their hair up in numerous little braids. After their marriage, their hair had to be covered with the same skullcap as the men.

86 Uzbeks are considered to be the largest Turkic ethnic group in the area of Central Asia. – Ed.

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Bukhara was in old times an independent powerful emirate. It only became a satellite of Tsarist Russia in 1870. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Emirate of Bukhara maintained itself as an independent state for nearly three years. The last emir of Bukhara, Seid Mir Alim, escaped at the end of 1920 to Afghanistan (Kabul) with his harem and tremendous wealth. In March  1921, the emirate was declared as the “New Soviet Republic of Bukhara,”87 and joined the Soviet Union in 1924, and in 1925 was declared as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. As an autonomous republic, it had its own ministries, its own government, and its own Communist party, but the Uzbeks occupied the high government positions only nominally. It was the same fiction I had already observed in the recently created West Ukrainian Socialist Republic. The real power lay in the hands of Russians, who didn’t have high-sounding titles but were de facto running the county on orders from Moscow. The Uzbeks who presented themselves to the outside world as holders of high office – to prove that every nation had its independence and autonomy – were only figureheads. Some Uzbeks in the city worked in minor government jobs, however, most were occupied as workers, weavers, and dyers in the textile factories, manufacturing those colorful fabrics mentioned before. They also worked in a few stocking and underwear factories. Those factories had very fancy names, including “trust” or “combine,” but in fact were small primitive shops. The Uzbeks were very good farmers, and the soil was very fertile, giving two crops a year. Bukhara itself was the center of a big oasis. The Uzbeks still maintained their old irrigation system. Little water channels, called aryks, distributed water throughout their villages and farms. The system was primitive but proved to be very efficient. They cultivated mostly cotton, picked by hand, jiggah, the grain described before, vegetables, and wonderful fruit, like grapes, apricots, and peaches. The high quality of the produce was due to the soil, the climate, their skill, and their hard work. In some villages, called kishlaks, sheep were raised. These were the karakul sheep, from which the Persian lamb furs came from. The climate was better than in most Middle Eastern countries, the summer was hot and lasted from April until October. The heat was dry. The nights were cool and pleasant. The fall was short with heavy rains. The winter lasted until March, it was quite cold, with no snowfall. During the hot summer months,

87 After the Bolshevik Revolution, the name of the Soviet-controlled former Emirate of Bukhara was: the Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic. In 1924, its name was changed to the Bukharan Socialist Soviet Republic, later divided between the Uzbek SSR and the Turkmen SSR. – Ed.

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Uzbeks didn’t work in the fields in the afternoon, but started working again at sunset. Bukhara consisted of very old and ancient buildings. During the Soviet regime, only a few new buildings were erected. The nicest modern building was occupied by the NKVD. The population lived in clay huts, with quite spacious rooms. It seemed to me that those huts, made of clay mixed with straw, and fortified with a few wooden planks, were the best fitted to the prevailing climate. The roofs were flat, and habitually flooded during the rainy season. The Uzbeks still owned their little houses and in old times, they used to have winter and summer quarters. As the old babays used to tell us, the Uzbeks were in old times, big merchants engaged in trade throughout the whole Middle East. On camel caravans, they used to export rugs, cotton, dried fruits, spices, and trade them against other commodities. They were wealthy people. Caravansaries were still around, on main roads – they were sort of inns where the camels rested while the merchants talked business, or listened to storytellers who told folk stories, fairy tales, myths, and legends, while drinking tea with kishmish (raisins) – but there were no merchants anymore. Here and there small caravans passed by with a leading camel ringing its chimes, but those were deliveries of the products from the collective farms to the government warehouses. There was little wealth left in their homes from the old times. They too had to sell their belongings in the past years to keep alive. No furniture could be seen. A few trunks only and a few low stools. They sat with their legs folded under them and rested mostly on the floor covered now and then with old rugs. They liked quilts covered with their colorful textiles and the amount they had was a criterion of their wealth. During the day, they were piled up in a corner of the room. The quilts were used instead of beds. The Uzbeks didn’t believe in ovens and stoves. During the cold winter days and evenings, they kept warm by holding their bare feet in a small pit, usually in the middle of the room, with charcoal burning at the bottom of the pit (they always took off their shoes or rather sandals when entering their homes). The rest of their body, up to their waistline, was covered with those quilts mentioned before. During the day, they sat around the pit. At night, they lay around it to sleep. They drank tea, at any time of day. They called it czoj, instead of the Russian czaj. They preferred green tea. Being very hospitable, they offered it to visitors in a very gracious manner, giving the visitor the first cup. It was a great offence not to accept it. The tea was drunk from beautiful china cups with no handles, hand-painted in beautiful colors, and lined with the famous cobalt blue, as the base color. Those cups were called pialas. While drinking, they held the cup in both palms. Those cups were remnants of an ancient art which vanished. Some

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pieces could sometimes be bought from an old babay at the bazaar. It was the last thing an Uzbek sold. My eldest son, Henry, sold a part of his stamp collection, which he was very much attached to and bought his mommy such a piala (or pialka) for her birthday. We still keep it as a family souvenir.88 The Uzbek way of greeting was very graceful. An Uzbek placed his hand on his chest and bowed courteously. The Uzbeks had very nice eating manners and habits. They seldom ate by themselves, always in company. Under the prevailing conditions, they usually ate bread and drank tea. They preferred their own bread, baked in disk form (called lepioshky) and being Muslims, they didn’t cut bread with a knife, but broke it with their fingers in small pieces. For such a frugal meal, two Uzbeks sat down or rather rested on their folded legs, spread out a pretty kerchief between them, on the floor or on some street corner, broke the bread in pieces, and filled their cups with tea from a little teapot. The tea they bought from a tea house, called czaj khana, there was always one around somewhere. As a luxury, they ate a few kishmish, raisins, with the tea. One kilo of kishmish was at that time 50 to 60 rubles. While eating, they engaged in vivid conversation and were careful that one shouldn’t eat more than the other. The Uzbek tongue is closely related to Persian. In recent years, the Uzbeks adopted the Latin script, in place of the old difficult Arabic script. Many Tatars also lived in Uzbekistan. Their language was similar to Uzbek, and they understood one another while speaking in their own languages. The Tatars were also Muslims, but what a difference in culture, tradition, and manners between those two nations. The Tatars appeared coarse and very primitive in the presence of the Uzbeks. There were several thousand Jews in Uzbekistan, known in the Jewish world as Bukharan Jews, because most of them lived in Bukhara. Some of them emigrated to Palestine a long time ago and occupied a separate section in the old city of Jerusalem known as the Bukhara quarter. They pride themselves on being descendants of those Jewish prisoners who, after the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem, were brought to Bukhara by Babylonian Kings. Their residence in Bukhara was more than 2000 years old. Their cemetery, which is one of the oldest in the world, is of great historical value. They looked, dressed, and behaved exactly as the Uzbeks; and spoke of course the Uzbek language, as well as their own language. Some of them also 88 The pialka is still with the family, symbolising their life in Uzbekistan and as a product purchased for a gift – it marks the beginning of their process of returning to normality. – Ed.

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spoke Hebrew. Also, Persian was a very common language among them. They used to have their own synagogue and a rabbi, called khakham, who left when the religious and spiritual leaders were persecuted under the Soviet regime. By pure chance, I walked one day into a house inhabited now by private people, which happened to be the summer residence of the khakham. The main room was beautifully ornamented with Hebrew sentences laid out in colorful mosaics, with the original blue color, predominant. The Bukharan Jews assembled privately on Saturdays and on all Jewish Holidays, and prayed according to the Sephardic ritual. Their former synagogue was used later by us as a school, and being on the school committee, I was once led by the caretaker who lived in this building, to an attic and he showed me some seventy Torah scrolls hidden away from previous times. They observed all the rituals, including the dietary laws, and had laymen who were in charge and in control of the observance of the old traditions. Of course, the young generation was drifting away from religious practice, as with the Uzbeks. The Bukharan Jews were teachers, clerks in government offices, barbers, bootblacks, shoe repair and textile workers. They also indulged in some private trading in meat. In Bukhara, a city with a population of some 80,000 people, there was no movie theatre. No relaxation whatsoever. Only the radio loudspeakers, with their propaganda talks in Russian and Uzbek, blasted from the street corners day and night. Russian and some Uzbek newspapers were sold every second day or sometimes twice a week. I noticed a great interest in these newspapers, and any time the newspapers arrived, there was a line of people buying the papers. I wondered why everybody was buying so many papers, as many as one could get. Normally, one copy was sold to a person. And why some people, not knowing the language, bought even Uzbek papers. For an onlooker, it might have given the impression that people were very cultured and very much interested in current events. This however was not necessarily so. The reason for it was simply the need for paper as such. People didn’t read them and therefore the language didn’t matter. The smokers cut the paper into little pieces, just enough to roll them into a cigarette, whenever makhorka was available. The smokers even had a preference for some newspapers because, according to them, they tasted better. I know that some discriminating smokers preferred, for this reason, the Pravda to the Izvestia. The newspapers were also used as packing material in pharmacies for pulverized medicines; and the physicians used them to write their prescriptions on them. They were also used for makeshift envelopes. In schools, newspapers were used instead of notebooks and the exercises were written

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between the printed lines. In cases where newspapers were not available, books were bought – no matter what language and what content – torn apart, and the printed pages used for the same purpose. Speaking of cigarettes, there were no ready-made cigarettes available. Smokers were satisfied with makhorka, and even this sort of tobacco was difficult to get. It was only sold on the free market at the bazaar, from an open small linen pillowcase, and the standard measurement was by the glass. A glassful of makhorka was sold for 6 to 8 rubles. There were no paper bags to put it in. The purchase was done by paying the money first, then the customer opened his jacket or trouser pocket; the seller poured the contents of the glass in, and the buyer strolled away happily. To offer somebody makhorka for a cigarette was a tremendous sacrifice and was very seldom done. People didn’t even dare to ask for it. The most people asked for was a piece of newspaper (bumazka u vas yest?) To smoke a cigarette in public was a brave deed. Every few minutes somebody came up to ask for just one puff. Several people were always waiting for the butt, which naturally was very small because people smoked with such economy that they nearly burned their lips.89

Changes in Our Situation, June 1942

Beginning somewhere from June 1942, the situation changed considerably. At first, there was an improvement in the bread distribution. Holders of bread ration cards were assigned to certain stores, and it was not necessary to run around the whole night to find a store which would sell bread against the ration cards. It was not a perfect solution because bread was not always available at a certain time. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, even in the evenings, and sometimes not at all. In such cases, the bread was supposed to be given for two days the next day, but quite frequently a day’s ration got lost somewhere on its way. Parallel to this, bread was sold on the black market. The rations were insufficient, only 400 grams per person (less than one pound), and in addition the bread was full of chaff; being sold still warm, it contained a high percentage of water. Every bread seller had their own way of adding weight with their hands while placing the bread on the scales. A few decagrams from every customer resulted in a big surplus for the seller. 89 I am always impressed with the fact that in life today, people discard sometimes half a cigarette, and nobody rushes for it. A full cigarette laying on the street, as I can often see here in New York, would cause a major riot at that time in the Soviet Union.

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Nearly everybody had to resort to the black-market bread, which was sold at a price between 30 to 50 rubles per kilo, depending on supply and demand. On days when no bread was distributed at the government stores, the price was always higher. The official bread price was 90 kopeks or rather one ruble for a kilo (nobody cared about the small change, change had no value whatsoever). The black-market price for bread was at least thirty times higher. To be fair, I must also report that sugar ration cards were distributed, 200 grams per person, per month. However, during the nearly two years, only once was sugar distributed, and two or three times gingerbread cookies were distributed instead. Having not even the value of the paper they were printed on, the sugar ration cards were later not distributed at all. Sugar could be bought on the black market for 300 to 330 rubles per kilo. Some sixty dollars per kilo, with the official exchange rate. Some people established once again contact with their American relatives, who started sending packages immediately. The people here received letters and cables from America, referring to those packages, but unfortunately none of them arrived. It seemed that the public here was misinformed about the fact that the Russian custom duty had to be paid in American dollars in the USA to the Soviet institution called Intourist. Those duties were very high, and depending on the goods, exceeded frequently by several times the value of the package. Apparently, the Soviets had changed their policy, because the first American packages, which were sent in 1940 and in 1941, arrived without any trouble at all. Two years later, I found thousands of those American packages – amongst them some also meant for my family – in the warehouses of the Polish Red Cross in Teheran (Iran), mostly damaged and eaten by rats. Those packages, which were not let in by the Russians because of unpaid customs duties, were handed over by the Iranian and Allied authorities to the Polish Red Cross, just for storage. Another thing was also done by some Americans for their deported relatives. They were encouraged by the Soviet institutions to send American dollars through American banks with the understanding that we, in Soviet Russia, could purchase the necessary goods on a gold parity. There was once at a time when the Soviets needed gold badly. At that time, a Soviet institution, which exchanged gold (coins and valuables like rings, broaches, and other jewelry), weighed the gold in grams against food prices, using gold parity prices. The American dollars went to the Amtorg (a Soviet Russian procurement office) which could buy for a hundred dollars, for instance, several hundred pounds of sugar or a thousand pounds of white flour. We, instead, were paid by the Gosbank in Bukhara, 520 rubles for one hundred American dollars. And for those 520 rubles we could buy exactly one kilo

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of sugar and two kilos of dark flour on the private market. Or if you preferred, four kilos of dark flour and ten kilos of carrots. This was exactly what we bought for the one hundred good American dollars, which were sent to us several times in 1942. And even if we badly needed those four kilos of dark flour, we had to stop these transfers because we couldn’t stand the idea that our relatives, who had to work very hard for these hundred-dollar remittances, should be cheated this way. Other families who were in the same position stopped their remittances too. And some even refused to take the rubles and asked that the money should go back. Of course, nobody found out and nobody could check whether the American dollars were really paid back by the Soviet authorities to the benefactors in America.

Death by Typhus, Death by Hunger

In the meantime, the typhus fever epidemic was raging like a plague. Lice were all over and on everybody and nobody knew when they would be struck by it. There were no medicines or inoculations. Glucose and sugar were needed to strengthen the heart but there was none. The starved bodies couldn’t build up any resistance. More and more death cases occurred every day. The cemetery was filling up rapidly. The corpses were carried in wooden open boxes covered only with a blanket and then discarded at the cemetery, bringing back the box and the blanket. The first cases of death by hunger, as a result of long starvation, happened. Death by hunger didn’t occur because somebody hadn’t eaten for several days. After even several days of hunger, a man can recover by a slice of bread or some water. But if a body starves for a long time, it causes heavy dysentery, and the stomach simply cannot take in anything anymore, even if the best food is provided. And so, people were found dead in the streets or some other places with money or valuables in their pockets. Because, after the bloody dysentery started, the stomach couldn’t digest any food anymore. Death from typhus or from hunger was staring at us from every street comer. Some human hyenas profited from it. I remember a real macabre case, when a woman approached me and another man in the street and asked for our help because not far from here a man was dying and some young hoodlums started already undressing him and stealing his clothes from his body while he was still alive. We ran to the indicated place, the man was already dead, and the human beasts had disappeared with his clothes and shoes. Death and hunger were everybody’s companions. My family and I were always hungry. The feeling of hunger is terrible and very difficult to describe. It

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is different from the feeling of hunger which somebody has for a dinner, knowing that the table is set for them and in no time, they will be satisfied with all sorts of delicious dishes. Here was a constant feeling of hunger, and you knew that it would remain with you today, tomorrow, and the days after that. You get up and go to sleep, with the same feeling of hunger. The meager meals you had soothed this feeling for a short time and then it started nagging at you again. The stomach gives you a feeling of emptiness, the pulse in your head beats loud, causing a sort of headache, and it seems as if your whole blood stream is yelling for food. You have the feeling that you could eat stones only to have something to fill the emptiness of the stomach. In fact, I ate something like a stone. Sometimes, linseed meal cakes were available, which were what remained after the flaxseed was pressed, and were used as feed for cattle. They contained all the seed hulls, dirt, sand, little stones – all this was of course indigestible. The nourishing value was only the few percent of raw linseed oil, which couldn’t even be squeezed out from the cakes under high pressure. I used to eat them until I got sick. The bread ration for our two families was fairly and equally divided into seven parts, and it had to last for the whole day, and for a part of the next day, because we couldn’t depend on getting bread in the morning. Sometimes it was already evening, and there was nothing else to eat. My wife pretended very often that she was not hungry and gave away a part of her bread portion to me and to our two boys. The boys couldn’t sleep sometimes at night because they were too hungry. My wife always managed to spare sometimes a bowl of soup and to send it to a lonely young man, a former lagroviec, who became attached to us during our wandering and who was now recovering from typhus. It was a time of great death and great hunger. The sunny country of Uzbeki­ stan with all its products and fruits didn’t do us any good. I knew two men who were so hungry that they lured in a starved dog from the street and killed him. They ate him at night. The next day, both of them were found dead. I knew a woman who in one week lost her husband and three children – they all died of hunger (ironically enough, they owned a restaurant before the war). She survived with their three remaining children, two boys and a girl. The younger boy used to bring the bread from the store. One day, he was very hungry, so he ate up part of the bread ration on his way home. The elder brother beat him for it. The next time, being always hungry, he couldn’t resist or control himself and ate the bread again. After he realized what he had done, he was afraid to go home. He ran away somewhere, and never came home again. The desperate mother started looking for him and inquiring about him. After many months, the poor woman found out that the boy died in an orphanage several miles away.

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We became acquainted with her after this tragedy and got to know her as a wonderful person.90 She became so poor that she had to walk barefoot in the cold days because she had no shoes, but at the same time she always found somebody who was still poorer than she was and tried to help them. I remember how she once picked up from the street a girl she had never known, wrapped in rags and swollen from hunger, and brought her to her hole of a place. Nobody else would have done it because bringing in a person like this meant to bring in lice and jeopardize one’s own life. She washed and cleaned her, shared with her the little she herself had to eat, and with the help of my wife, got some clothing for her. She provided for the girl until she became a normal human being again, and kept an eye on her later, after the girl started a life on her own. People practically sold everything they had to buy something to eat. It was the only way to survive and to pay those fantastic black-market prices. And so, you would suddenly see an otherwise respectable man or woman, walking in the streets literally barefoot. They didn’t have anything left to sell, so they decided to do without shoes. After all, for a pair of shoes you could get at that time 800 to 1000 rubles, and for this money you could live for another week or so. People used to think in previous times that every decent person should have several shirts. But would it be utterly wrong to only have one shirt and to sell the rest? The Russians only had one shirt and somehow they went on living – this is how people were reasoning. Eventually people sold their last shirt and the same reasoning continued concerning the last shirt. And so, you could then see respectable people walking around without a shirt on their body and just covered with a jacket or whatever they had. This made them of course an easier prey for the typhus lice. Nobody was thinking about what next, and about the fact that under the “normal” conditions prevailing here, none of us would be able to buy back a pair of shoes or a shirt for ourselves. It was a day-to-day existence, or rather from hour to hour, and people became fatalistic. It was only logical to wonder: how did the others live and what did they do to survive? Of course, the Uzbeks and the Russians here were exposed to the same lice as we were, and there were many victims among them, but to a lesser degree than among our people. Many of them already had typhus in previous years, and they were therefore immune to the infection; and the rest built up a greater resistance with the years. The Uzbeks who lived here had their homes 90

This is Mrs. Kohn, from Bielsko. We became very friendly with her, especially my wife who helped her. She now lives in Israel, with her two children who survived, happy with the little she has.

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and shelter. They did some trading on the side; slaughtering sheep illegally and selling meat; or bringing in some products from relatives or friends in the collective farms and selling them for a profit. However, the wages from their work covered only a small percentage of their living expenses. The Uzbeks were also compelled to sell, from time to time, whatever was left from their heirlooms and previous wealth. Of course, not all Uzbeks had the same opportunities and the same resourcefulness and ingenuity. Those who didn’t, starved like many of us. The Russians who lived in Bukhara, either from before or as refugees, had a special ars vivendi, acquired after many years of experience under the Soviet regime. I found out about it when working for a Russian enterprise, which I will describe later. These were unusual times and unusual things happened. The following event could be considered as only short of a miracle. I must tell you about it in more detail than normally intended, because this event had a heavy impact on our lives and shaped to some degree our future lives. It also sheds some light on the Russian way of life.

Runek

As I mentioned before, Runek, my brother-in-law (my wife’s brother), an energetic young man, fled from the Nazis with us. We spent several months under the Soviet occupation in Lwów all together, but he couldn’t stand it anymore. As described earlier, he attempted to cross the Romanian border and was captured by the NKVD, with the aid of a trained bloodhound, and sent to prison. We had been told this by a man, who was in prison with Runek, who came to extort money from us. This happened before we were deported, while we were still in Lwów. Nearly a year after our deportation, we were informed by our family that a short message came from Runek from a hard labor camp in Siberia, in which he asked for dried bread (suhary) and makhorka. We were at that time still at the posiolok, we collected some dried bread and a few packages of makhorka; and sent the package and a letter to the indicated address. No answer came and the package wasn’t confirmed or returned. The German-Soviet war broke out in the meantime and that was the end of any exchange of messages. My wife was desperate and very worried about the fate of her brother. He was a very fine chap, always eager to be helpful to everybody. Another year passed by. We had already spent six months in Bukhara. The way our household was organized here, my wife spent most of the time at our

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home, taking care of the household duties and trying hard to prepare some meals. I did the running around town, looking for some food to buy or trying to sell something from our belongings. One day, my wife insisted that she wanted to go to the bazaar for a change. Not knowing the right direction, she got lost in the kutches, the small winding paths. At one kutche crossing, while hesitating whether to go right or left, she saw a small group of lagrovcy headed the other direction. Suddenly, one of them, took her in his arms. It was her brother. One second earlier or later, they would have missed each other completely, and they might have never met again. Of course, my wife brought him immediately to our home and when I saw him entering our room, I nearly fainted. This miraculous reunion was a tremendous shock for all of us. It turned out that he didn’t even know that we were deported and that we were in Soviet Russia. That a brother should find his sister in this vast mass of land, among millions of wandering people, on a street corner in Bukhara, at a place never visited by her before, where she practically got lost, was a miracle indeed. Here is his story as told by him. After he was caught by the dog at the border crossing, he was held prisoner in a cellar for several days together with another captured man, who never revealed his identity but from his attitude and remarks, Runek gathered that the man was a high-ranking Polish Army staff officer; he had also tried to escape across the border. After a few days, they were each sent to a different prison, but this short acquaintance was a fateful event for my brother-in-law, as it turned out some two years later. The Soviets tried very hard with different means, even with physical abuse, to extract a confession that he was a spy, but with no success. He was sentenced later to eight years in prison and sent to different hard labor camps until he finally wound up in Kolyma. The mere mention of Kolyma causes chills in everybody who knows anything about the Soviet prison camps there. The Kolyma area was located in the foremost northeastern corner of Soviet Russia, South of the East Siberian Sea. The inmates of Kolyma worked in gold mines and never came back. Nobody left Kolyma alive. The prisoners were held incommunicado (bez razpisku). No letters could be written. Since nobody knew about them being there, no letters arrived. They were practically dead for the family and the outside world. There was a central office of the labor camp administration in Moscow, called Gulag,91 but in the case of an inquiry, either 91 The Kolyma forced labor camps were the most lethal camps of the Gulag. However, there were individuals who survived their stay there. The word “Gulag” is an acronym for the Russian name of the institution that ran the system: the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps. The camp system was established in 1918, shortly after the

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no answer was given or the person was informed that the prisoner in question was unknown and not in their files. It was only due to the Sikorski-Stalin pact that the few inmates of Polish origin were set free and amongst them, my brother-in-law. The inmates in Kolyma were mostly men, who once held very high positions in the Soviet hierarchy, who were purged, as a result of ideological errors. They were former commissars and ministers. Amongst them was a former Uzbek minister with whom my brother-in-law became friendly there. This Uzbek minister gave Runek a message directed to the minister’s family, written with his own blood and a needle, on a piece of linen torn from his shirt. My brotherin-law was supposed to hand this message to the minister’s family, in person, in Uzbekistan. Unfortunately, through unhappy accidents, the message never reached the family. Here is what happened. It took Runek several weeks by ship to reach Vladivostok, through the Okhotsk Sea, with Kamchatka to the east. While on the ship, as a result of pellagra, he acquired a vicious infection on his hand, and he was in danger of losing his arm, so an immediate operation was necessary. Having no instruments and no anesthetics, the operation was carried out with a pen knife. Because he was not sure whether he would survive the infection and the operation, keeping in mind his promise given to his Uzbek friend, he handed over the “letter” to a colleague of the same Polish group – who went ahead of him while my brother-in-law stayed in some place, recovering from his sickness. This colleague, who reached Bukhara later, told us that during some roundup by the Russians (this was a frequent Russian institution called povierka) he got scared that they would find this discriminating letter and threw it away in a gutter. Runek was very sad when the man told him this. This was the unfortunate fate of this message, written in a strict sense with the blood of the poor man’s heart. It took my brother-in-law several months to reach Bukhara with a group of lagrovcy who had rallied around him during his long journey. They were attracted by his strong personality, physical stature (6’ 2” tall), and his natural leadership. The reason why they came to Bukhara was because there were rumors along the way that the new Polish Army, which they wanted to join, was putting up its headquarters here. After my brother-in-law arrived with the group here, he found out that the rumors weren’t true, that there was not a trace of the Polish Army at that time in Bukhara. He was on his way back to the October Revolution; in 1931, the system received a new name, which functioned in shorthand as Gulag. Labor camps or lagry/lagers were often established in remote, sparsely populated areas where important industrial or transportation facilities were being built. – Ed.

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train station, with only three rubles in his pocket, when he met on the corner of one of those little streets, his sister. Of course, we begged him to stay with us. He did so, after he brought his group, who had decided to look further for the Polish headquarters, to the station and bid them farewell. My brother-in-law described only briefly his life in the last two years, as repeated by me here. But he never wanted to talk about his experiences in Kolyma. Only during the night, while asleep, he used to sigh and to scream loudly, his face in pain. It seemed that his terrible experiences came back at night to him as a nightmare.

The Russian Army

During this time, I couldn’t fail to watch the Russian Army units who had their training center here. Young men, eighteen years old, and men in their forties arrived here in great masses for training. Their uniforms were poor and shabby. Some of them had no shoes. In a company unit, marching to the training fields, were only a few rifles. The rest were carrying long sticks simulating rifles for their exercises. The military discipline had improved from the time I saw the Russian Army in 1939, just after the occupation. At that time, as I previously described, you could see soldiers pushing high-ranking officers, lined up in queues, when they intended to get ahead of them. Now, since the shiny epaulettes similar to those used by the officers of the old Tsarist Army were introduced, saluting the higher ranks became obligatory. Also, a new system for feeding the army was introduced. While the Soviets prided themselves that in the Red Army, as a People’s Army, everybody was fed from the same pot, now three messes were established: one for soldiers and non-commissioned officers, one for officers up to captains, and one for major rank and up. Of course, there was a big difference in quality between those three mess halls. The military trucks were old and in very bad shape. The driver had to stop frequently for emergency repairs. Gasoline was in critical supply. Many of them ran on gas generated from ciurky, little wooden cubes which we used to make while working in the woods. There were no spare parts. The trucks were driven on worn-out tires, without any in reserve. Frequently, one could see a truck driving on three tires and one wooden wheel as substitute. But there was a lot of singing. Singing was compulsory while marching. It always amused me to hear the very popular military marching song “Moskva moja” (my Moscow), full of praise for the great wonderful city, which I am sure only a few of them would be able to see in their lifetime. Russia was supposedly

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a land of democracy but to enter Moscow was not as simple as buying a ticket and getting on a train, with the possibility of staying there for as long as they wished to. It was more complicated than that. The situation changed enormously when the first American Lend-Lease shipments arrived.92 The Soviet soldiers got their rifles and their GI shoes, never seen here before. Some soldiers sold them immediately at the bazaar. The newest American trucks arrived, still shiny, with their serial numbers still on them. Seeing them was like meeting an old friend in a strange foreign country. They brought with them a breath of fresh air. It seemed like every truck brought, for every one of us, a personal message, to be patient and not to give up hope. Speaking of the army, I find it worthwhile to mention an additional fact. I noticed, on certain days of the month, a tremendous crowd of women camping in and around the post office. They were just sitting there and waiting for something. I found out that those women were the dependents of their husbands or sons in the army. They were supposed to get an allowance of one hundred rubles, on the first of each month. They had to go to the post office and wait for the money which wasn’t there. The people here learned to be patient and not to complain or revolt. So, one day after the other passed by and the women were still waiting. Maybe on the tenth of the month, or even later, the money finally arrived from the Gosbank, and the women got their one hundred rubles, for which exactly one kilo of dark flour could be bought.

The Polish Army and Welfare Organization in the USSR

In the beginning of 1942, rumors started among us that the Polish government, now reconciled with the Soviets, would start relief and welfare organization all over Russia, with the help of the USA and England. This was meant to help us survive, those hundreds of thousands of people deported in 1940 and now set free. At the same time, rumors spread that the Polish government in London had already started to organize a Polish Army to fight on the Russian side. There was news that the Polish ambassador had put up his headquarters in Tashkent, 92 The Lend-Lease Act was the federal law of March 11, 1941, allowing the president of the United States to make preferential economic policies (which mainly meant the delivery of supplies) towards other governments. Lend-lease was an important factor in the Allied victory in World War II. Of the five major shipments of military equipment from the US to Europe and Asia, Britain received the largest share, but the USSR also benefited greatly from American aid. In addition to aircraft, locomotives, and weapons, clothing and food were also sent. – Ed.

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the capital of Uzbekistan. And, after some time, the name of General Anders was mentioned as the commander in chief of the would-be Polish Army, and Buzuluk as the location of the headquarters of the General and his staff. In February  1942, a man, a lawyer from Warsaw, already a resident in Bukhara, started registering our people on written authority from the Polish Embassy, to find out who and how many we were. Mr. Margolis was a very fine and honest gentleman. Being single, he had spent some two years in a corrective labor camp. He had no means from the embassy to set-up an office, so he worked in a tea house (chai-khanah), crowded day and night with people, mostly of the lagrovcy type and full of lice. Shortly after, he contracted typhus and the poor man died. He was one of the first victims of this epidemic disease, with more to follow. Among our people was a great percentage of the former intelligentsia. They used to meet every day in the little square in the center of the city, to discuss our rather desperate situation. We realized that the war had in fact only just started and that we had to be prepared for several more years. Here we were, selling our belongings, eating up our small means, and at the same time, confronted with the scarcity of food and prices soaring sky-high. There was no work for us of any kind, not even manual jobs. This wouldn’t have solved our problems anyway. Considering that with monthly wages, we would only have been able to buy maybe three or four kilos of dark flour. A few of us joined together (myself included) and established for ourselves a sort of citizen’s committee to discuss what to do. During those deliberations, we were approached by two men. One was a lawyer, before the war in Polish Silesia, and the other a former higher clerk in the Polish government bank. They suggested that if we delegated to them and provided them with enough money for the trip to Tashkent – having connections with high officials in the Polish government, the lawyer claimed that the Polish ambassador at that time was his schoolmate – they could do something for our people stranded here. Our idea was to get from the Polish Embassy the means to start some cooperative production units, to keep our people busy, by allowing them to do some constructive work, and for them to earn wages. These wages would be in some proportion to the high cost of living and at least partly cover their expenses. We accepted their offer as the only solution in this situation. They promised the moon. They got the money they needed for their trip, which we collected among a group of social-minded people, and they left with our blessing. After two months, one man, the lawyer, came back, after he had secured himself, at the embassy in Tashkent, a high position as head of the so-called “Delegatura” in Bukhara. The Delegatura was an outpost of the big relief and welfare organization, which was supposed to take care of all Polish citizens in

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Bukhara and the adjacent kolkhoz, where many families settled in the meantime. The Polish government in London and the Polish Embassy, on its behalf, established a network of these Delegaturas, covering the areas with the most important concentrations of freed Polish citizens, with big warehouses as supply centers. I shall describe later how this worked, after observing it for many months in action. Our new delegate in Bukhara didn’t even find it worthwhile to report to the citizen’s committee, which had sent him as its representative, and didn’t care to give an account of the money given to him for the trip. The other man didn’t even show up in Bukhara because he secured himself a similar position in some other place in the North. Around the end of March 1942, a sort of miracle happened to some people. Some families received cables, personal messages with very short notice to be completely packed the next day and to wait at the station in Kogon for military transport. And the transport actually arrived. This was the first detail of the Polish Anders’ Army, they left Russia and the members of the army were allowed to take along their families with them. Those who had no families, took their friends, claiming them as their relatives. This first transport left so fast that many were taken completely by surprise. It was very easy to join the transport; people who happened to be at the station at that time were even encouraged to jump in and some did. Unfortunately, not many people knew about this first transport because everything was done by the Polish Army in a great hurry. The transport was directed to Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea, in the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic. From there, they were put on ships and landed in the port of Pahlavi in Iran. From where they were sent in trucks to Mashhad and to Teheran. After several weeks, very happy letters came from them. The Soviet authorities and the NKVD were very lenient at that time. The second and last transport, or rather the evacuation of the Polish Anders’ Army, occurred many months later, in August 1942. It was not too much of a miracle; and became a rather bad and controversial matter. More about it later. As  I mentioned before, the Polish government-in-exile in London started to organize, with the support of the USA and Great Britain, a welfare and relief organization for the stranded Polish citizens, liberated from their places of detention, after their deportation. The first big supplies arrived in May or June  1942. Those were clothing for men, women, and children – mostly secondhand – shoes, warm underwear, socks, overcoats, blankets and so forth. The food items consisted of white flour, farina, rice, powdered milk, eggs, cocoa, soap, military biscuits, and matzos. There were also medicines and vaccinations in small quantities. Those supplies came mostly by ship from the USA to the Persian Gulf and unloaded there. The supplies were taken over by the American and English military authorities and transported partly by

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train and partly by trucks, through the Persian province of Khorasan to the Persian-Russian border, in the mountains near Ashgabat. From there, they were distributed by special convoy, by train and again by trucks, to the different warehouses which in turn supplied several Delegaturas located in cities with bigger concentrations of Polish citizens. Those warehouses and Delegaturas were operated by men who received their appointment directly from the Polish Embassy (residing at that time, like all other foreign missions, in Kuybyshev on the Volga).93 Those appointees who occupied positions of public trust, and on whose actions the life and death of thousands depended, were not always chosen according to their merits. The idea was that men known from before the war as social or political leaders should be in charge of branches of the big welfare organization. Alas, in too many places – like the one in Bukhara – through some pull and connections, smart operators got hold of those important positions. The activities of the Polish welfare organization cannot be described in detail without mentioning the Polish Army in the USSR. These two organizations started functioning at more or less the same time and their activities were so closely connected – interwoven and overlapping – that both have to be considered simultaneously. I watched both organizations very closely: the welfare organization, from the beginning until the Russians ordered its shutdown, and the Polish Army, from the moment the recruitment of the second transport started to its embarkation in Krasnovodsk in 1942. When  I report on the Polish Army, I am overlooking the first transport which left hastily in March  1942 in a rather unorganized way. I am considering only the second transport which, under the leadership of General Anders, evacuated nearly all Poles from Soviet Russia, who could be reached directly or indirectly, either by the army or by the Delagaturas. Unfortunately, not all Polish citizens in the USSR were considered by General Anders and his commanders as Poles. My observations, my personal experiences, and those of others concerning these two organizations were not always pleasant. However, they are impossible to overlook and to ignore because too many tragedies and human lives were connected with them. Maybe I am unwillingly touching a hornet’s nest, but I can’t help it if I do, I have to take this risk to do justice to those fateful events which took place. 93 After the resumption of diplomatic relations between the Polish government-in-exile in London and the USSR, the Polish Embassy was placed not in Moscow (for security reasons), but in Kuybyshev. The Polish Embassy maintained a network of delegations – Delegaturas – in the capitals of various republics and regions in the Soviet Union. There were ten of them in September 1941, and twenty in January 1942. The author writes earlier about the Polish ambassador in Tashkent, reporting on the changing information that reached the Polish refugees. – Ed.

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To understand the following events, we must understand the ideas and definitions of citizenship and nationality prevailing in pre-war Poland. Everybody who obtained a Polish passport was a Polish citizen, sometimes they were also considered a Polish national, but they were not considered a Pole, unless they were a Gentile. In other words, a Jew, even if they could trace back the residence of their ancestors in Poland through the Middle Ages, was not a Pole. But a German Gentile, for instance, who took up residence in Poland ten or twenty years ago, learned the Polish language, and didn’t claim his German nationality, became a Pole when they wanted to. As it turned out later, many of those Germans who became Poles were actually Nazi spies and were the first, after the Nazis occupied Poland, to betray it and to take over high Nazi positions. While the Jewish citizens, who suffered together with the Poles, were arrested, persecuted, and deported. But the Poles were so blinded and doped by their hatred that they didn’t understand this, neither then nor later. How to explain it? By a deep-rooted antisemitism with which every Pole was brought up with from childhood. This discrimination and attitude towards the Polish citizens of Jewish faith didn’t change in Soviet Russia – even when everybody had to face the same misery, when all Polish citizens (Jews and Gentiles) were on equal footing, confronted with hunger, typhus, and death. And so it happened that, with only a few exceptions, Poles were put in charge of those Delegaturas and Jews were sometimes deputies or in subaltern positions. The goods supplied from abroad were in the first place distributed among the Poles. This was done so openly and ostentatiously that in some places the Polish Jews didn’t even try to apply because they were under the impression that those supplies were not meant for them. It caused a lot of bitterness and resentment to see how some people were completely equipped and walked out from the warehouse with big bundles, while others had to walk around in rags, still waiting for some small allocation. I am not sure whether this was the intention of the benefactors from abroad and I don’t think that the Polish authorities in London or in Kuybyshev had this in mind, but it was the practice of the delegates. Those men who, not long ago, were themselves destitute and miserable, behaved now as potentates with arrogance, as they handed out charity from their own pockets, sure that nobody would reproach or rebuke them. Those authorities were very far away and eventual complaints wouldn’t even reach them. There were only a few exceptions as I mentioned, men who saw only suffering human beings in every man who applied for help. Needless to say that the delegates and their assistants, especially those in charge of the warehouse, made ample use of the goods, organizing parties for their intimate friends, wining and dining as in good old times.

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Later, after every Polish Gentile had received what they needed, eventually every Polish citizen received some clothes and some food. One more, the other less. The clothes were used first to replace those essentials which people didn’t have anymore, like shoes, pants, shirts, dresses, socks, and so on. The food allocations, which were only sporadic, were completely insufficient and people were as hungry as ever. People had to sell the clothes and whatever they had received from the Delegaturas after a certain interval, in addition to their own belongings, when they still had some. The Delegaturas received not only goods in kind for their distribution, but also money in rubles. Those were dollars from abroad, converted by the Russian bank into rubles at a preference exchange rate for diplomatic missions, twelve rubles to the dollar (instead of the official rate of five rubles). The money was used for salaries for people working there but also for medical dispensaries, manned by our own Polish physicians, for soup kitchens, laundries, shoe and tailor repair shops – all organized on a non-profit basis. The idea was a very good one. First, it provided work for a good many people, and secondly, people could partly get rid of the lice and didn’t have to walk around in rags. They had also at least one warm soup a day; sometimes, only every second day. However, all those institutions didn’t solve the problem of how to keep alive and how to survive. There was no planned or organized distribution of goods for everybody whom the Delegatura was supposed to take care of and provide for. Normally, you would think that the minimum number of calories necessary for survival would be figured out, and food would be distributed weekly or monthly accordingly. If there wasn’t enough food in stock, people could have received an equivalent in clothes and other goods, which could be sold and the necessary food bought on the black market. But it wasn’t done this way. The delegates distributed the goods at their whim and pleasure. Some people received their provisions regularly, every month. Some only once in three or four months. Parallel to the welfare and relief organization, the Polish Army known as the General Anders’ Army started its activities. The Anders Army had its headquarters in Jangijul,94 near near Tashkent. Two divisions were organized in Uzbekistan, one in Kermine and one in Guzary. The news about the Polish Army spread very fast and people from all directions started flocking to those three army centers. The advantages of joining the army were manifold. First, everybody was sure that the army would leave Russia, despite rumors to the contrary that the Polish Army was now being organized to fight on the Russian front. Secondly, the army would provide for the time being, food and shelter 94

In English, transliterated mostly as Yangiyul and Yangiyo’l. – Ed.

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for the men and women who joined it and also for their families – this was the first time in Poland’s history that women were taken into the army, they were called Pestkas. Some more cautious people went first by themselves, leaving their families for the time being behind. Others liquidated everything and arrived with their families at one of those centers. Soon some came back and brought rather bad news. Those were Polish citizens of Jewish faith who were rejected by the army despite the fact they were reserve officers, who had served in the pre-war Polish Army, and occupied leading professions and social positions in Poland. They reported about the antisemitic atmosphere at the army headquarters and the army camps. They told us, with deep bitterness and despair, that at the same time they were rejected (with different excuses) from the army, they were often insulted, and sometimes even beaten up. Poles, who had never served in the army before, who could hardly read or write, some physically unfit, were accepted and their families accommodated. They came to realize once again that no help and no protection could be expected from those authorities, power-drunk, blind from hatred, prejudice, and discrimination. They went even so far that they didn’t even allow those Polish Jewish men to spend the night in their camp. They didn’t provide them with any bread or money for their way back. Some were left penniless after they had spent all their money for the trip there. Many contracted typhus. A friend of mine, Dr. Immerglueck, an eminent Polish lawyer before the war, an artillery captain in the reserve, was accepted by the army and put in a uniform; but after a few days, under some excuse, rejected. On his way back, he contracted typhus. Frania, his devoted wife, who took care of him during his illness, got infected and died shortly after. This was the same lady I described before in the labor camps, how she worked cleaning the icy roads from snow, and how she, in her selfless devotion, was nursing her husband during his pellagra illness, chopping wood for weeks at the same time. A few physicians were accepted, not all of them, despite the fact that they were badly needed in the army. After a short time, recruiting commissions were sent out to places with a high concentration of Polish citizens. These commissions consisted of several Polish officers, in uniforms, with a senior officer in command, an army physician, and a Russian NKVD liaison officer. The procedure was always the same. As soon as they found out that the candidate was Jewish, they were rejected, mostly for physical unfitness. At the same time, every Pole, some brought in by assistance of others because they were too weak to walk, passed the physical examination with flying banners. Of course, there were exceptions too. One concerned a young man, an internationally known water polo player, wonderfully built, whose physical fitness

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even two years in a Soviet camp couldn’t destroy.95 It wasn’t difficult to find out that the young man was Jewish (due to circumcision), and he was rejected when one officer who heard his name recognized him as a well-known champion. Then, the commission huddled together and after some whispering, couldn’t help but accept the man. To reject the man on account of physical unfitness would be, even for them, too embarrassing. I would like to mention my own experience with this recruiting commission. A friend of mine, a chemist employed before the war by the Standard Oil Co. in Poland, and I decided to appear together before the commission. We undressed completely of course, left our clothes and underwear on the bench in the waiting room, and walked in. Both of us were immediately rejected. I was given the reason that my heart was in such a bad condition that I could hardly survive the basic training. Incidentally, I didn’t need to complete basic training because I had served for three years with the army before. I experienced in later years a far greater strain, and nothing had happened in the last ten years to my heart. The only result of this event was that I found on my clothes and underwear several lice after I came home, picked up while undressing on the bench. My friend found some lice on his body too. After a short time, he came down with typhus and died shortly after in the hospital, leaving behind a young widow. We had a hard time to find and to recognize his body in the hospital. We buried him in the Jewish cemetery in Bukhara.96 Those who were accepted went a few days later to one of those three army centers, after they and their families were well-equipped and provided for by the local Delegatura. Some people tried a different approach to get affiliated with the Polish Army. They received messages from their relatives or some political organizations from abroad to the effect that, as a result of their relatives’ intervention, the army command received orders from the embassies in Washington or London or directly from the Polish government in London to evacuate them. Those people went, of course, to the headquarters in Jangijul with those instructions. The Polish government was represented at the General Anders headquarters by a civilian liaison envoy. In some cases, they were successful. In others, they came back with nothing, after spending many weeks there waiting, ante-chambering. 95 Mr. Ritterman was an Olympic swimmer. There were two Ritterman brothers: Zygmunt and Juljusz, swimmers and waterpolists, athletes of the Kraków club Makkabi and Jutrzenka. Water sports enjoyed great popularity in pre-war Poland, measured by the frequency with which articles and commentaries appeared in the press. See e.g. the journal “Stadjon” (05.09.1923), where both brothers are mentioned. – Ed. 96 His name was Mr. Flecker. His twin brother survived and lives in Israel.

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There were some religious leaders (rabbis) and representatives of orthodox Jews who went there trying to appeal directly to General Anders or to the Polish Army Bishop Józef Gawlina, who had arrived on a mission directly from London to lift the morale and the religious spirit of the army. Also in these cases, only a few succeeded and the others came back disillusioned and bitterly disappointed. There were some racketeers who knew their way, even in Soviet Russia, and provided the high-ranking officials with everything their heart desired. Expecting repayment in kind, the so much coveted departure from Russia. Those people succeeded the most. There were some who tried to get converted at the army headquarters, or at one of the commands. Some chaplains, not convinced of their sincere intentions, rejected them. Some were helpful and baptized them. Those converted became eventually affiliated with the army. There were still others who tried their luck, counting on some lucky coincidence. One case, as an example, was my brother-in-law. You remember Runek’s story from my previous description, how we were so miraculously united in Bukhara. After I was rejected by the army, he was eager to join the army himself, hoping that in this way he would be able to take us along as his immediate family. He had a slight chance because he was physically in good condition and besides, he served with the Polish Army before the war and graduated from the officer’s school. Despite those qualifications, he was not too optimistic because similar cases were flatly rejected, but he left encouraged by us anyway. Surprisingly enough, he didn’t come back. From a letter, we later learned the reason. As soon as he arrived in Jangijul and entered the yard of the army headquarters, a man with a distinction of a high staff officer passed by, came back, had a good look at him, and embraced him with the most cordial greetings. You might remember from my brother-in-law’s story, how he was caught by a dog while crossing the Romanian border, how he had been arrested and spent the night in a cellar with another prisoner who he became friendly with, but who never revealed his name. This high Polish officer was the other prisoner. When he heard that my brother-in-law came to join the army, he took him under his arm, introduced him personally as his friend to the commission, and he was, without any trouble, accepted into the army. Our morale and our spirit got a tremendous uplift after we received his letter with the good news. There was hope that we, as his family, would be able to depart with the army. It turned out differently as we thought and planned, but more about that later. There was another case of a lucky accident, similar to Runek’s. Among us, in Bukhara, lived a physician, an eye specialist, who, being a Jew, was rejected by the army. It was useless to argue that an army might need an eye specialist. No, they could get along without one. After some time, it happened that a

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colonel was sent from the headquarters on official business to the Delegatura of Bukhara. After business comes pleasure and so the delegate invited the colonel and his adjutant for dinner to his home. After a good dinner, the gentlemen thought it might be a good idea to have a game of bridge but the trouble was there was no fourth hand for the game. The delegate had to think hard and fast and finally he recalled that the already mentioned eye specialist was, according to rumor, a good bridge player. A messenger was immediately sent out late in the evening to summon the physician, who arrived promptly, rather scared. He relaxed when he heard that he was only needed as a bridge hand. The physician played well indeed and the colonel was so impressed that before he left, he gave orders that the physician be evacuated with the army, and he left Russia later. The morale of this true story is that: it is sometimes better to be a good bridge player than to be a good physician. There were still others, and their number was great, who arrived with their families in the three army centers and tried to make friends and connections among the officers and non-commissioned officers in the army. The idea was to persuade these officers to register them and their families as uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, cousins, and so on. How was this done? At first, on a social basis, inviting the officers to their temporary quarters, wining and dining them. This was quite an expensive proposition, considering that everything had to be bought on the black market, including the wine. Later, more than that was necessary. People offered them valuables, like diamonds, foreign currency – American dollars were preferable, and in some cases, a deal was worked out that a certain sum of money would be paid abroad. Of course, this was only done with trustworthy people, having a reputation of being wealthy and honest, who didn’t have any cash or valuables with them. When the deal was closed in one of those ways, then the officer registered them as his family, explaining that he didn’t register them earlier because he just found out they were here and didn’t know until now that they were alive somewhere in Russia. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. Sooner or later, somebody denounced them, that they were not relatives, and not even Poles. When this happened, then an organization called Żandarmeria Polowa (field gendarmerie) became interested in the case and started investigating.97 A real source of activities for the “field police.” This organization had different ways to deal with such 97 Wojskowa Żandarmeria Polowa was a formation created by the Anders Army in September 1941. The gendarmerie was to become a symbol of security and order at the frontlines, and beyond these lines, to deter soldiers from committing crimes, misdemeanors, and offenses inconsistent with discipline and the laws of war. In its composition, apart from gendarmes, there were also former officers of the state police and the border guard. – Ed.

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people. They asked for references and inquired wherever they could. There were some tricks used too. Suppose some sergeant testified that some lady was his sister. They took the lady for a long interview and inquired, among other things, about their apartment, their room, where their alleged brother or parents were living before the war, on which street, which floor, where the table was, where the lamp was, the color of the furniture, how many rugs there were and what color, and so forth. At the same time, the man was asked the same questions. If those descriptions didn’t match, trouble started for both of them. I knew of a case where a mother with an eight-year-old girl were registered as a military family.98 The field police had some doubts about the family, as to whether they were Jewish or not. The girl was taken to a special room and was asked about the church and services there, and she was finally asked to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Jewish people had to go through all those investigations, or rather inquisitions, because as Polish citizens they wanted so badly to get out of Russia, exactly as the others did. Of course, the Poles, as Gentiles, had no troubles whatsoever joining the army or becoming part of the family of complete strangers, with no complications and no humiliation whatsoever. It happened quite frequently that some soldier was ordered by his superior officer to register some strange girl, who found herself around the camp, as his sister and everything was okay. It even happened that the prostitutes, who were in 1940 picked up from the streets in the big cities by the Russians and deported; now, after their liberation as Polish subjects, flocked to the army centers, very much attracted by them. Those women had no troubles whatsoever being registered as somebody’s dependent in the army; but prominent Jewish citizens, men who served the country with distinction as professionals, scholars, leaders in their industry, were left out. Of course, there were exceptions. Some Poles did everything possible to take along their friends and families, sacrificing a lot and even being ridiculed. They did this selflessly, expecting no compensation whatsoever. They fed those people, sharing their own rations. But those were only a few exceptions from the general rule. 98 This was Mrs. Tyda Boehm from Kraków, and her adopted daughter Basia (later in the USA: Bea, Beatrice Schriesheim). She was the wife of the co-owner of the cosmetic factory, Miraculum, in Kraków. Engineer Witold Boehm together with Leon Luster and Henryk Pakszwer founded the company in 1924. Witold Boehm was also the Honorary Consul of Estonia in Kraków. Basia was the child of an eye doctor from Kraków, Dr. Brand. Tyda came out with her from the USSR with the first Anders Army transport “after a remarkable journey from Poland through Siberia to the Middle East,” as per the New York Times obituary for Beatrice from 2003. She left behind memoirs, Bea’s Journey, which document “her Holocaust journey and her life in the United States.” – Ed.

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Typhus in My Family

A few weeks after my brother-in-law left for the army, my wife came down with a high fever. She instinctively knew what it was, set the house in order, and told us not to despair, but rather to be prepared for her long sickness. It was typhus. She laid down on her “bed” which consisted of three suitcases, every one of them different in dimension and shape. She cheered up every one of us because she couldn’t stand to see sad faces around. This is what had happened. A friend of hers had typhus, Mrs. Lusia Kolber. She had a husband and a little girl – they were lost and helpless. My wife went to her home, washed Lusia, made her bed, and attended to her the best she could. While doing this, she was bitten by a louse, and brought some more home. As a result, my wife contracted typhus too. One day later, our elder boy Henry, and two days later, our younger boy George, came down with the same disease. I was the only one in our family who was not affected. Our boys were laying on one large wooden bench which was used as their bed. There was no food at home, no sugar, which was necessary to strengthen the weakening heart, and the European doctor, who came by, had no medicines. Nature had to take care of herself. The wife of the chemical engineer, who had died only a short time ago, Mrs. Flecker, was attending to my family during the day, while I was working, and during the night, I took over. It was a heartbreaking sight to see my whole family laying listless and apathetic, and not being able to help them. The boys didn’t move and didn’t complain because they didn’t want to disturb and worry their Mami. My wife suffered from sleeplessness and an inhuman headache. She was normally very patient, but this was more than she could endure. Her pain was so terrific that her screams could be heard outside in the street. Our friends who lived nearby stopped in the street and shook their head in deep sympathy. I remember once somebody told me that there was in town one European family who had tablets for headache relief. I was walking for hours looking for them, being myself so weak, I had to stop now and then, not to breakdown before I found the family. Unfortunately, when I found them, they had used the last tablet themselves. And so I came back with nothing to alleviate her suffering. Our doctor called in another doctor for a consultation of my wife. They had, between the two of them, one injection but they decided to keep it until the critical day arrived. My wife, feeling that the situation was very serious, asked me to cable to her brother because she wanted to see him for the last time. Unfortunately, the cable didn’t reach him because he had been sent away by the army to the Far North—to bring to the army headquarters all those Poles who couldn’t, until then, be contacted otherwise.

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And then another miracle happened. My wife suffered immensely but after the injection, which was administered to her on the last day, she improved. Here I have to pay tribute to Dr. Henryk Kohn, a physician from Jasło, a small town in Galicia. He visited our sick family daily (charging no fee), but he was helpless, since he had no medicines. He had in his possession only one injection, which he kept for the most critical moment.99 And thank God, she survived. One day later, our younger son George decided that he wanted to get up. He dressed himself, and he was so weak that he could hardly walk, but being always very conscious of his duties, and as if nothing had happened, he took his little hatchet and started chopping wood which he thought we might need. Our older son, Henry, got up a day or two later, attending to his chores. The cable reached my brother-in-law sometime later with another cable informing him that the family was well again. He came as quickly as he could and brought his army provisions, including fat and sugar and even some fresh wonderful peaches growing around Tashkent. And all this made it possible for our patients to recover slowly from this terrible disease.

Polish Exodus From the USSR, August 1942

By now it was already known for sure that the second and last Polish Army transport would leave for Iran. The Poles were all in a very gay and festive mood because everybody was directly or indirectly connected with the army. The month of August 1942 came nearer. They tried to collect as many valuables as they could, and occupying high positions in the welfare organization, they had no trouble acquiring bigger quantities of valuable commodities and selling them. For the money they received, they bought diamonds and dollars which they figured rightly could be very well used abroad. The first trains with military and civilian personnel started rolling out from the headquarters in Jangijul, headed for the port of embarkation in Krasnovodsk on the Caspian Sea. The procedure was very simple. The Polish Army Command submitted lists with names in Polish and Russian to the NKVD liaison officer, General Zhukov, at General Anders’ headquarters; and he signed them with no further checking and the transport left Russia for good.

99 This may also refer to Dr. Henryk Kohn, who worked in Grybów before the war and is still very fondly remembered in this town (about 40 km from Jasło). After his return from Siberia, he lived in Wrocław for about 10 years before moving to Israel. Conf. Kamil Kmak’s entry in the website “Saga Grybowa” – Ed.

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What happened now to the others? All those Polish Jewish families who took up residence in the three army centers were tremendously excited because they still didn’t know whether all their efforts and expenses would be of any use, whether they would be allowed, in one way or another, to join the transport and to leave Russia. In the cities far away from the centers, like in Bukhara, something else happened. A list of all citizens was drawn up by the delegate, including most Jewish intellectuals, rabbis, men prominent in commerce and industry – and those lucky people were told to be packed and to appear at the station, ready for a transport to the nearest army center in Hisor.100 One transport of citizens left, and when the next group assembled two days later, the delegate appeared with a cable from the Polish Army headquarters, which stated that only Poles were to leave, and under his own responsibility, he had to personally see to it that no Polish Jew should be included. In a hurry, he bid goodbye to his Jewish deputy and his Jewish co-workers, boarded the train with a few Poles and their families, and left rather embarrassed. The people stood at the station with their families, stunned and confused, seeing the train leaving – and with him, all their dreams and hopes. There was nothing else for them to do but to go back. Unfortunately, some didn’t have anywhere to go because they liquidated everything in a great hurry, even their homes. As soon as the delegate reached Hisor, he made it his business, according to the cabled instructions, that everybody who reached the army center with the previous transport should be sent back to Bukhara. A few days later, those families who had experienced great happiness for a short few days, came back bitter and broken, like from a shipwreck. What actually happened and what was the reason for this last-minute order? The real truth is not known. I heard later different versions, which General Anders allegedly brought up in his defense. One version was that according to his agreement with the Soviets, he could evacuate together with the army, a certain number of people only, and he felt that it was his “patriotic duty” to exhaust the quota with as many Gentile Poles as possible. Another explanation was that the Soviets – who in the beginning, after the Sikorski-Stalin pact, freed every Polish citizen from the camps and places of detainment, with no distinction whatsoever between Gentiles and Jews – suddenly decided to differentiate between those groups and to let only the Poles go. I personally don’t agree with this second explanation. The following generally known incident speaks against it. In one place, where the whole Polish population was ready for evacuation, the same thing happened as described above. Somebody from the Polish authorities arrived and ordered that only the Poles could leave. Some 100 Hisor, a city in western Tajikistan, about 15 km west of Dushanbe. – Ed.

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of the Jewish population, more energetic and outraged, ran from the station to the NKVD complaining about it. The NKVD commander came and declared that either everybody with no exception would leave or nobody would leave. And the whole population, consisting of several hundred people, left this way. As a result of this discriminatory action, only a few hundred Polish Jewish families, including all the old and new converts, left with the second Polish Army transport for Iran. But not all of them reached this land of dreams. Some were thrown out in the last moment, being already in the train ready to leave. One girl was thrown out of the train halfway to Krasnovodsk, penniless, not even being allowed to take her luggage with her. She arrived, after two weeks, back in Bukhara, broken and destitute. I knew of a family who was thrown out of the ship while embarking with the army transport for the voyage over the Caspian Sea to the Persian port of Pahlavi. The reason: in the last moment, they were recognized by somebody as Jews. What happened during those exciting and hectic days for me and my family? During that time, when everybody was thinking and planning how to get connected with the Polish Army, I acquired typhus, with malaria as an additional complication. It was hard on me and my family to watch our friends coming to say goodbye before leaving, while we were left behind, without any means, completely helpless. We were eligible for evacuation as the family of our brother-in-law, who was accepted by the army, but we couldn’t make use of this privilege for three reasons. Firstly, the letter from the army command confirming our military family status couldn’t be presented to the delegate because he surrounded himself with a host of secretaries and simply didn’t let anybody into his office, with the exception of his cronies and henchmen. While I was sick, my wife left me alone for several hours every day, for two weeks, and tried to reach the big potentate to present him with the official letter; but she came back every day disappointed because she was not admitted to see him. He was so busy distributing food among his friends and making money before his departure. Secondly, according to the last order of General Anders, our status was changed. Only Poles could take along their direct or indirect families, even distant cousins. As far as Jews admitted to the army were concerned, a sister and her family were not considered as direct family. Thirdly, my sickness. It took me several weeks to recover because of lack of medicines and proper nourishment. When my brother-in-law heard about our plight, he postponed his departure to the last transport and came to see us. He was still in civilian clothes. He wanted to stay with us, and not leave us alone here. After all, he decided to join the army hoping to get us out this way and now the whole purpose became meaningless. But we pleaded with him to leave, convincing him that he might

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be able to help us more by being abroad and establishing contact with our families and friends there, than to stay with us and to share our misery. And so, he took leave from us. Our hearts were heavy. We didn’t know for how long. Maybe forever. I was just able to get up, for the first time, from bed (which was rather a wooden bench) when somebody came in repeating a rumor that from the army center in Kermine, an additional transport was being organized for all those who were left behind. Having nothing to lose, still very weak, I decided to go there, taking along the letter from the army command to find out about the last chance to get out. I had to first go to Kogon, and to find somebody who would help me get on the train to Kermine, of course with the aid of some money, because a special permission from the NKVD for travelling was necessary. While waiting for all this, I found at the station, under a few trees, a whole group of people – families with their children, sitting on top of their luggage – who had been waiting for days. I discovered amongst them people I knew, but they acted very strange. Somehow, I was under the impression that they didn’t want to be talked to and they were acting as though they didn’t know me. Finally, one man, who grasped the embarrassing situation, gestured me aside and while unobserved, explained to me what was going on. Those people pretended to be Gentile Poles all the time; but still didn’t succeed in getting into some transport. Here in Kogon, every train passed through the station. They had been sitting for days, waiting for some lucky break, that some transport commander might have pity on them. And so, they were acting their part, void of any self-respect and dignity until the last moment and didn’t want to be recognized by anybody who knew them as Jews and who himself was a Jew. The mere acquaintance with Jews could make them open to suspicion and jeopardize their position. But all this contemptible attitude was to no avail. The trains with the Polish transport passed by and nobody bothered with them. While waiting at the station in Kogon, I had another experience. I was watching many trains passing by, full of Poles, some in uniforms, many in civilian clothes with women and children, everybody very gay and in a good mood. After all, they were leaving Russia forever, going abroad. Food was distributed among those people by the Polish Army personnel the whole way. Suddenly, I noticed during this particular train stop in Kogon that the passengers were handed some very nicely printed cartons, with edible content of course. I looked nearer at them and what I saw were American cartons containing, Manischewitz matzos. I mentioned before that amongst the supplies provided by the USA for the Polish welfare organization were matzos, but I had never seen them before, until this moment. We had spent already two Passovers here,

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but we didn’t even know that the matzos existed and was here this whole time. Now  I knew what the American Jews sent the Manischewitz matzos all the way here for: to feed the Poles who rejected their Jewish co-citizens but didn’t reject their matzos. Standing there at the station in Kogon and watching those by-passing trains I felt like a motherless child.101 I pitied myself, but I had pity also for them, falling so low. After a five-hour train ride, I arrived in Kermine for the first time in my life. There was a little settlement around the station with a large cotton mill. Kermine itself was a small town, with a population of some two to three thousand people, located some four miles from the station and could be reached by walking or by hitch-hiking with some truck or Uzbek arba by pure chance. In those times, you could find somebody you knew everywhere, and so I found several families with whom we lived at the posiolok and was welcome to stay with them. Those families moved to Samarkand after their liberation, and then came to Kermine, which had a big army center, looking for contacts as described already above. The situation of those families was hopeless and desperate. Many families liquidated everything in their last place of residence and moved to Kermine hoping to be evacuated with the army. Hundreds of families were cramped into a few small houses, or rather mud huts, in the settlement near the station, paying a fortune for every square foot of space. At least two families shared every little room. People lived here in constant nervous tension, in an atmosphere of exciting rumors and full of expectation. Because they expected to leave at any minute, they practically lived packed, sitting on their belongings. But in the meantime, days, weeks, and months passed by – and in trying to make contact with the officers or non-commissioned officers of the Polish Army, they spent everything they possessed on entertainment, gifts, and bribes. They were hungry themselves but gave dinners for their Polish Army friends with wine, liquor, and meat dishes – everything bought for enormous prices at the black market. Every family had somebody who kept them in suspense, and who supposedly claimed them as their family. Those people had to buy every pound of bread on the black market because they had no bread ration cards. Bread cards were issued only for residents of the little town of Kermine, but those people couldn’t think of moving to Kermine – where they could get 101 Many years later, when I heard in the US for the first time the wonderful spiritual, “I feel like a motherless child,” the mood and the feeling of this moment standing at the station at Kogon came back to me. – author’s note. The author refers here to the traditional African-America song from the era of slavery. – Ed.

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easier and cheaper homes and bread – because they were afraid that the transport would leave at any moment from the station and they wouldn’t be nearby. They were afraid that it might be too late for them, that the train would depart before they could find an Uzbek with an arba to bring them and their belongings to the station. And so, they had been living at the station at Kermine for months, spending everything they possessed, and when I arrived there, all the transports were gone. A few lucky families went along but the vast majority was left behind. There were amongst them physicians, lawyers, big names in commerce and industry, social leaders, intellectuals – all experiencing a tremendous shock. “Why?” they asked themselves again and again, “were they less worthy than all the others who left, some of whom couldn’t even speak decent Polish?” Now about the rumor concerning the last transportation. The rumour was only partly based on the real facts and here is the shameful story. After the last army transport left, suddenly one officer and several noncommissioned officers arrived and told the people that they had been delegated to organize a transport consisting of a limited number of those who were left behind. The people were made to understand that payment was expected and valuables were of importance. Everybody tried to get in the line to register, and a part of the military group privately took care of the gifts. The registration took place during the night, and they left the next morning, promising to come back with their ready list confirmed by the high authorities and to send the people abroad. That military delegation never came back. The whole thing was a swindle, master-minded by those individuals who were indeed part of the army, and who thought it might be a good idea to have a day and night before their transport left to squeeze from those Jews the rest they still might possess, and they got it. They were no better than those jackals who were undressing and robbing a dying man in the street in Bukhara. I had another experience while being in Kermine. I was shown a new cemetery on the other side of the station. Here many of our people were buried, who died during those terrible months from typhus, as a result of those terrible living conditions. They died in expectation and humiliation. Many graves couldn’t be recognized anymore. The wind covered them with the sand from the nearby desert. Kermine, which meant in Uzbek “the valley of death,” obtained at that time its real meaning. After I heard the story from the actual victims of this swindle, I went home convinced that we hadn’t missed anything by not arriving there earlier. All this was true. It was also true that the Polish Army, including the Jews whom they took along, distinguished itself honorably later at Anzio and at Monte

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Casino for its courage and gallantry during the allied campaign in Italy and was admired by the whole world. As a side episode, it is interesting to know that the whole unloading from the trains and embarkation on ships of this second Polish Army evacuation in Krasnovodsk (port on the Caspian Sea) took place under the supervision of a Polish Colonel, under the direct orders of General Anders. When the last contingent was already on board the ship, everybody was waiting for the Colonel, but he didn’t show up. He sent instead a note saying that he decided to stay in Soviet Russia. This was Colonel Berling, a Polish career staff officer, who later organized another Polish Army, the “Polish People’s Army,” which entered Poland together with the Soviet Army. Incidentally, this Polish career staff officer, Colonel Zygmunt Berling, never came back to Poland, neither during the war or after. According to the rumors from last year, he is teaching at the Frunze Military Academy. Whether he is still there or alive, nobody knows.102

After the Polish Evacuation

What happened now to the Delegaturas of the welfare organization after the departure of the army? The delegates and their staff, in as far as they were Poles, left everything in a great hurry and confusion. In some cases, they just handed over the organization to anybody who was on hand. Generally, everything was left in chaos. In places where there was a Jewish deputy, the whole organization could continue to function without any serious interruption or radical changes. The warehouses were left loaded with goods. In some cases, for instance in Kermine, where the army had their depots, there was such an abundance of goods that it was impossible to keep them in stockrooms and they were kept in the open, exposed to weather and rain – and still, the Polish delegates who left hadn’t distributed them to all the Polish citizens here. Rather, they were left to perish or rot.

102 In fact, Zygmunt Berling (1896–1980) was a Polish Army officer, who was arrested with 15,000 Polish officers, who were later shot in Katyn. While in Soviet captivity, Berling agreed to cooperate with the NKVD, which saved him from death. As a Soviet agent, he was sent to the Anders Army, but he didn’t evacuate to Iran. The Anders Army left the USSR towards Iran and Palestine. Berling deserted and was entrusted with the mission of creating a Soviet-controlled Polish Army (the first Polish Army in the USSR). After he passed the battlefront to Poland, he was summoned to Moscow and indeed was not allowed to return to Poland until 1947. He died near Warsaw. – Ed.

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We expected that from now on the situation would improve. There were, after all, in most places, Jewish delegates and the people eligible as beneficiaries of the stocked food were mostly Jews too.103 Nevertheless, I regret to say that it wasn’t so. Many learned from their predecessors that it was a time for profiteering and aggrandizement. Many didn’t need to learn as they were of low morale and already corrupt. They surrounded themselves with a gang of henchmen and agents, who either robbed the warehouses or obtained the goods openly, sold them, and then divided the money. And so it happened that even during this period, many people died, directly or indirectly, of hunger. I want to mention two cases here because the men are unforgettable. One was Dr. Leib Hahn, a lawyer by profession and a great Hebrew scholar.104 He was arrested in Lwów, in the first days of the Soviet occupation as a cultural leader and was sent to a hard labor camp. After the liberation, he found himself, as so many others did, by some accident in Bukhara. We used to meet him occasionally. Once he came to us, his face radiant with happiness. One of those miracles occurred. He met on a street in Bukhara, a girl who was his little daughter’s nurse, at the time he was arrested. This young lady gave him his little daughter’s picture, which he didn’t have because the Russians arrested him at night, and everything was taken away from him. He was so happy! A short time later, he received 1200 rubles by cable from the Polish Embassy. It turned out that a Polish writer, his friend, working at the embassy as a press attaché, found out that he was in Bukhara. His friend sent him the money and directed him to Hisor, to the Polish Army center, being sure that he, as an outstanding man, would be accepted by the army. Everything seemed to be brighter for him. He left for Hisor, but after some time, he came back. The army refused to take him, or to otherwise evacuate him. The money was of course spent. He started working as a night watchman in a hospital. We invited him to share our meal during Rosh Hashanah and in this shared moment, he was so happy again. He told us how he dug out of the hospital basement a copy of the Koran and he was so pleased that he could read it in the original Arabic language. By night, he was a watchman in a hospital with epidemic typhus, and in the daytime, he was in the hospital attic, where he could peacefully study the Koran. 103 The big welfare organization in Samarkand was headed by a Pole, who volunteered for reasons of a private nature to stay, but this was an exceptional case. 104 The author is probably right that all memory of this scholar and his family disappeared with the Holocaust and the consequences of the Soviet exile. His name is buried in archives and address directories. Dr. Leib Hahn’s law office was located in Lwów at 11 Adam Asnyk (today: Bohomolca) Street. – Ed.

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Despite the fact that the delegate knew of him, and the delegation had a full warehouse, the man was starving. He contracted dysentery and he was sent to a convalescent home for invalids, organized by the Delegatura. Unfortunately, it was too late. He could not take in any food anymore. When I saw him the day before his death, the flies were nearly eating his body alive. He was too weak to chase them away. And he said to me, with his stoicism and with a smile that never left his face, “you know, those flies are also created for some purpose and, after all, they have to eat too.” A few friends buried him the next day in the cemetery in Bukhara. The picture of his little daughter that made him so happy was with him. We collected some money among friends and erected a little stone to mark his grave. Maybe it is still there and if so, who cares? The rest of his family was murdered by the Nazis and so a whole family of an outstanding man disappeared from the face of the Earth. There was another man, whom I’ll never forget. One day, a frail little man with a limp, supported by a cane, dressed in something which could be called a raincoat – it was already very cold – came to visit his friend, whom I was working with. He told him in his great excitement that he had just received 1200 rubles from the Jewish Labor Committee in the USA, through the Polish Embassy in Kuybyshev. It was the equivalent of one hundred US dollars, based on the preference exchange rate as granted to embassies only. He came to discuss with his friend how to distribute this money. I was very much impressed by the fact that somebody who received money didn’t keep it for himself but wanted to give it away. It was most unusual under these conditions. I asked his friend about the man after he left. He explained to me that this man was Mr. Batyst105, a former leader of the Jewish Labor Movement in the garment center of Tarnów. He came several times, always happy to report how he helped different people with a little sum. It wasn’t too much but it could buy a family a few pounds of bread, and this was already a great deed. Sometime later, while passing one of those small winding alleys, I saw a man carrying a wooden box, with a few men following. I knew what it meant; we were already used to this macabre sight. Another victim of the great death, who would never see his home again. I noticed some people I knew following this sinister cortege. I stopped and asked. It was Mr. Batyst, they told me. They were carrying him, to bury him in this strange soil. He himself was starving, 105 Dawid Batyst. One of the members of the prewar Polish Party Bund who died of typhus in the USSR, as did Dr. Zygmunt Gliksman (from Bielsko), Lejzer Szobfisz, and Schmuel Krauzman. YIVO Archive, RG 1400, ME 14B, folder 2, quoted by Martyna Rusiniak-Karwat, “Bundists in the Soviet Union during Second World War,” in Bundist Legacy after the Second World War, edited by Vincenzo Pinto, Boston: Brill 2018, p. 14. – Ed.

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while distributing the money which he received. His body was too weak to offer any resistance to the typhus fever, which he acquired a few days earlier. I bowed my head in sorrow and grief, paying homage to a great soul in a frail body. Many years later, I learned here in the USA that this humble and modest man was one of the most outstanding leaders in the Jewish Labor Movement in Poland and became a legend for his devotion and his selflessness. Incidentally, a few months later, his friend died of hunger too. Despite the fact that the delegate was his professional colleague, who practiced law in the same city before the war, and were supposedly schoolmates.106 And so, people died of hunger, while in the same city there was a Delegatura, headed by a scoundrel, in charge of a warehouse full of food and commodities. People were starving while the delegate and his family were living in luxury. The delegate had the audacity to get bread prepared, only for himself and his family, in the same kitchen where the others had to fight for soup. These were white rolls made from American flour because he couldn’t stand the dark bread anymore. When he walked in the streets, he was followed by a bodyguard because he didn’t want to be bothered by people who might approach him and ask for something. But there were also exceptions. One of the few was our friend, Bunio Zussman. We had been living with him and his family; sharing our household for a long time. It happened that a friend of the Zussmans, who was a press attaché at that time at the Polish Embassy at Kuybyshev,107 heard about him – on his friend’s recommendation, Bunio was appointed as a delegate. At first in a kolkhoz center and later, after the evacuation of the army, in Kermine, where he moved with his family. Taking over such an important role with hundreds of destitute families, Bunio didn’t think for a moment to use his position to his personal advantage. He considered it rather a privilege to be instrumental in extending help wherever he could. And so, he didn’t surround himself with a staff of secretaries or bodyguards. His modest home, consisting of two little rooms, was open from the early morning until late at night to everybody who needed material help or advice. His home was at any time of the day and night, full of people. Later, when the Soviets closed down the Polish warehouses (this will be explained), then Bunio gave away things which were his private property and was finally left without any means or resources. He enjoyed the praise and respect of the 106 The delegate Dr. Edmund Kühnberg was a lawyer in Bielsko. I mentioned earlier that he was one of the delegates sent by us to Tashkent (from the citizen’s committee) and this was how he had obtained his position. 107 Wiktor Weintraub (1908–1988) was a historian of Polish literature, diplomat of the Polish government-in-exile in the USSR, later professor of Polish literature at Harvard, specialized in the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz. – Ed.

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whole population and he really deserved it. He experienced his greatest satisfaction, when at a time he was in need himself, the leader of a racketeer gang came to him and offered him financial help, with no strings attached, which he of course refused to accept. After the army left, our future looked black. There was no immediate help in sight, and nobody knew for how many years we would have to live here. Life was not easy for us. We had to think in terms of a long residence under these precarious conditions. We were very much concerned for our children, who hadn’t attended any regular school in years. As a result, a group of citizens, I amongst them, decided to organize some sort of school. We found, amongst the thousands of our people, a few who had been teachers before the war, some in elementary and some in higher schools.108 We even found two English teachers. The delegation provided some money, we found an empty building, which served as a synagogue of the famous Bukharan Jews (a long time ago), and the school was on its way. Two problems had yet to be solved. There were no textbooks – the school was conducted in the Polish language – and there were no notebooks. It was very hard on the teachers; they had to teach from memory, but most of them remembered their subjects fairly well. The problem of notebooks was solved in this way. There were old Uzbek books available, which nobody was buying. Those books were torn apart, and the pupils wrote their homework on the empty pages or between the printed lines. The children and the parents were very happy, but the joy was also mixed with bitterness. It turned out that the Russian and Tatar schoolboys organized gangs and attacked our school children while they were going to or leaving school and were beating them mercilessly. It became a serious problem, and nobody knew the reason for it. Was it hatred or envy? After all, our children behaved and looked differently. We reported it to the militsiya and to the other authorities, but to no avail. One of the gang leaders lived in our neighborhood and I went to his mother and pleaded with her, but she told me that she was helpless herself. Later, they weren’t satisfied with attacking our children around the school, but they ambushed them on street corners at every hour of the day. Finally, the boys were afraid to leave our home, even in daytime, for instance to pick up water from the nearby well. Those were tough kids indeed. They were still of school age but didn’t care too much for school. I saw five- and six-year-old boys already smoking openly (whatever they could use for smoking), spitting and swearing that the older generation were only shaking their heads. They stole whatever they could lay their hands on. At the beginning of every school year for these Russian and Tatar kids, every pupil received a notebook from the school. The first thing they 108 Mr. Schochet, Runek’s friend from Kolyma, became the principal of the school.

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did was they went to the bazaar and sold the notebook. For the money, they bought makhorka. Besides the Russian public school, there were also Uzbek schools where Russian was obligatory. There were no higher institutions of learning, only these public schools. There were some technical courses, preparing them mostly for railroad work, to which Russian boys and girls were regularly drafted. They wore some sort of uniform and were under military discipline. After finishing a two-year training course, they were sent away to the most remote places for apprenticeships and had no contact with their families for years. There was nothing like a high school, a college, or a university. In fact, during our three and a half years in Soviet Russia, where I met thousands of Russians, from all walks of life – with the exception of one old engineer, who studied abroad, and the few deported Russian doctors – I never met any graduate from a higher learning institution. In the fall of the same year, our older son Henry, at that time eleven years old, became sick. It was typhus. For the third time, we were faced with the same situation: no medicines, no proper nourishment. The physician looked very serious each time he came to see Henry, and what he had to say wasn’t very encouraging. Henry was lying there, with a high fever, pale, and in pain; but he always managed to pull a smile through his pain, whenever he saw that we were looking at him. My wife collected all her strength and courage to act as normal as possible, to be calm and controlled in his presence. But she was full of despair because the physicians didn’t give us too much hope. A strange thing happened during his sickness. He had to be left alone for a while in our room, because I went to work, and my wife went out to try to buy something for him. A thief, a Russian woman, came into our room and she found nobody home but Henry, lying there sick. He thought that she was some visitor and turned to her, with his smile always on his face, and asked her to sit down and to wait for Mami. It seemed that this was even too much for the thief and she didn’t have the heart to steal something in his presence. So, she walked out. The same woman, on the same day, completely emptied the room of a poor Uzbek woman, who lived in extreme poverty with two children, across the yard in a similar Uzbek mud house. This is how we knew that the thief visited our home too, because Henry told us about her visit. After some four weeks, he felt better but then a relapse came with a complication of jaundice. A miracle happened again. The great love, sacrifice, and prayers – the immense devotion of my wife, during so many sleepless nights – helped him to survive and recover slowly.109 109 Both Henry and George Landau were later rejected as blood donors because of the diseases (especially jaundice for Henry) they acquired at that time. – Ed.

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Life became very tough for us in Bukhara. The prices for food became higher and higher. We sold everything we thought we could get along without, and there was nothing more to hope for. There was still the same crooked Delegatura in Bukhara, with the big warehouse – just a trifle of which was distributed. We could only watch, in anger, as the delegate and his henchmen racketeers had a good time. Kuybyshev, where all the foreign embassies were at that time, was very far away, and even if somebody complained, the embassy could do little about it. And so the delegate behaved like a pirate, dealing with the goods meant for everybody as if they were his private property, giving away morsels from his own rich and plentiful table. As I mentioned before, Bunio was assigned as the delegate for the Rayon of Kermine. He was very busy with the reorganization of this important outpost where so many families were stranded. In order to provide employment for as many people as possible, he organized a soup kitchen, a workshop for repairing clothes and shoes, an orphanage for children who had lost their families, with an adjoining school, and a medical dispensary with several physicians in attendance, who had been left here as Jews. All the warehouses inherited from the army (now under Bunio’s management) were around the station in Kermine. One night, a fire broke out in the nearby cotton mill, with its tremendous stockpiles of raw cotton. The Soviets suspected, as usual, a sabotage. They came running from all over and the next night Bunio was confronted with the highest NKVD official and representatives from all the government agencies, who tried to make him responsible for the outbreak of the fire. His life hung on a hair. Somehow, maybe impressed by his sincerity and honesty, they let him go this time; but they ordered the removal of all the warehouses in twenty-four hours. The term was later extended to one week. In addition to those troubles, Bunio was also plagued by gangs, who constantly robbed the warehouses. With all these problems on hand, he had little time to control the activities of all the enterprises, and he had no time to write the monthly reports with financial statements to the embassy. Consequently, he offered me the job to become the comptroller of his Delegatura and I was only too glad to accept it. I first moved by myself to Kermine, then my family followed me after some two weeks. Moving from one place to another is not a simple matter. At first, it was necessary to obtain permission to take up residence in the new place, which was not granted to me so easily. Secondly, a special permission from the NKVD was required to travel by train. To avoid this, a private deal was worked out with the truck driver of a government agency, transporting some goods from a factory to the baza (a place of distribution). For a certain fee, people could travel sitting most uncomfortably on top of some boxes, bags, or hides. It

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was already wintertime and such a trip in an open truck lasted the whole night. It was quite a strain, especially for children, to travel this way. A dirt road connected Bukhara and Kermine and the land in between was only partly inhabited. We passed what was once a very big settlement; now completely deserted and in ruins. It looked like a ghost town. The Uzbeks were speaking about it in a low voice, rather fearfully. According to their explanation, it was a center for the so-called Basmachi, desperate peasant brigands, who revolted against the Soviet rule from 1921 to 1922. According to their story, Budyonny, now Marshal of the Soviet Union, was sent here with his Cossack Cavalry to break their resistance. The whole settlement was destroyed and not a soul survived from their whole population. Now the settlement disintegrated into the nearby desert.

Kermine

Now we settled in Kermine, renting a room in another Uzbek mud hut. It was one of those primitively built huts where it was cold in winter and hot in summer. The rain poured into our room during the rainy season and the water had to be collected in buckets. Once our family even had to move out for three days due to the rain, but I had to stay behind; otherwise, everything would have been stolen overnight. So, I put up a tent in our room from canvas borrowed from our Delegatura, and in this way, I spent those nights. For nearly two months, our life was quite comfortable because Bunio, as delegate, believed that everybody was entitled to some sustenance and at least to the bare necessities of life. We received our allotments of food in-kind and at least we were not hungry for a while. In the meantime, I introduced a control system, and I brought the reports up to date, the last few months had been missing. Unfortunately, this lucky spell only lasted some three months. It ended suddenly and unexpectedly in April 1943. Here is what happened. The Nazis, during their occupation of Russian territory, informed the world in 1943 about their discovery of a mass grave of several thousand Polish officers, massacred in the forest near Katyn. As it is known, the Nazis accused the Russians and the Russians accused the Nazis of this bestial crime.110 An investigation was conducted on the spot by the International Red Cross, and the Polish government-in-exile accepted its findings that the Russians committed this unheard-of crime, unknown in modem warfare. As a result of it, the Soviet government broke off their diplomatic relations with Poland and 110 The crime was committed by the NKVD. – Ed.

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the Polish ambassador left Russia, with all his staff. The Russians immediately stopped the activities of the Polish welfare organization, closed down all its warehouses, and confiscated all the goods they found there. And so the activities of the Delegaturas came to a sudden end, and with it, my work there. We were informed that the Australian delegation in Moscow – at that time the embassies had moved back from Kuybyshev – took over the protection of the Polish citizens in Russia. This situation lasted only a few weeks. The Australian delegation, with its small staff consisting of only one or two officials, couldn’t possibly handle the problems of hundreds of thousands of people, who turned to the Australians with all their problems and overflooded them with letters and cables. The Russian authorities refused to grant the Australian delegation permission to increase their staff. After some time, a new institution took over the protection of the Polish citizens. It was the Komitet Związku Patriotów Polskich (The Federation of Polish Patriots) headed by a one-time famous Polish writer, Madame Wanda Wasilewska.111 Colonel Zygmunt Berling, mentioned before, belonged to her committee and was charged with the organization of another Polish Army, to be trained by the Russians and to fight on the Russian side against the Nazis in Europe. Komitet Związku Patriotów Polskich was the first step to the later Polish-Soviet satellite government called the Polish People’s Republic. Now we were left with no means and no work again. We had bread ration cards, 400 grams per person, but bread was not sold every day. As a monthly average, only on twelve or thirteen days each month, was bread available for sale against our ration cards. It was far worse than in Bukhara, where occasionally on one day in a month, the bread was missing; but as a rule, bread was sold to every resident every day. It seemed that in smaller places – distant from the bigger centers which had higher government authorities – the local leaders didn’t care too much about what the population thought and how they suffered. And so nearly every second day, there was no bread, but bread was available on the black market. The only difference was that instead of paying one ruble per kilo, you had to pay thirty to thirty-five rubles per kilo. In addition to this, an order was issued by the local authorities to the effect that only people working could obtain bread ration cards for themselves and their children only, not for their wives. So, I had to look for work whenever I could get it, not even inquiring about working conditions or pay, just for the bread ration cards. In the meantime, our Easter holidays came closer. This was how we celebrated the “holiday of freedom”, the Passover. Bunio, when he was still a 111 The movie “Rainbow,” based on her book, described the Nazi occupation and cruelties in Poland, and has been quite popular here in the USA in recent years.

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delegate, had in his warehouse a small amount of Manischewitz matzos in one-pound packages. The same as they were distributed amongst the Poles leaving Russia. He distributed those matzos, a one-pound package to every family. Those matzos were eagerly bought by the Russians at the bazaar, and for the equivalent, we could buy one and a half kilos of rye flour. With those one and a half kilos of flour, my wife went to a place where some pious Jews organized, in a primitive way, a matzos bakery, a few days before Passover. For those one and a half kilos of flour to be converted and baked into matzos, my wife had to help out there the whole day; late in the afternoon, she brought our matzos home. There were four matzos for each of us, altogether sixteen dark matzos for the whole holidays. When we sat down in the evening for the first Seder, the usually pronounced sentence according to the old ritual “this is the bread of the poor” never in our lives had such a significant meaning to us as then – when our little family was huddled together in an Uzbek mud hut, forlorn and forgotten by the whole world. I started looking for work in one of the government enterprises here. There were not too many. A bakery, which would have been an ideal place to work – at least we wouldn’t have been hungry – but only people with pull and good connections could get in there. A few little shops where Uzbeks sold merchandise from cotton textiles. One day the rumor was spread that the Soviet authorities were starting to manufacture some canned goods and hands would be needed. Some of our friends, who were in a similar situation, found out that there would be no food factory or cannery, but turtles would be slaughtered and the turtle meat somehow preserved and shipped somewhere. The whole thing sounded rather appalling and gruesome to me. After another few days, I heard that some people had already started working there and fantastic stories were told about the earnings in money and especially in-kind. I was wondering how a factory could start manufacturing in a matter of a few days but strangely enough it seemed to be the case. As far as earnings were concerned, I was told by some of the people I visited that there was a bread ration card and a few rubles a day, but the most important thing was that people brought home every evening some forty or fifty turtle eggs and several turtle livers, which tasted according to them like chicken eggs or livers. I couldn’t bring myself to even look at those edible livers, not to speak of tasting or eating them. But still, people brought them home every day and ate them with great relish. Our ladies even created some original recipes as to how to use those eggs, with a little flour, for making omelets, noodles, and other useful dishes. They regretted only that the turtle eggs were of such nature that only the yolks could be used, and the egg white had to be discarded, because it didn’t coagulate when boiled or cooked. All those things I knew from hearsay.

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My conscience bothered me. Why should I be so choosy and sensitive? While my family and I were going around hungry, the others had a grand time eating those turtle eggs and livers. So, I pulled myself together and decided to go to the “factory” and to apply for work. Here was what I found there. A big yard enclosed by a wall made from mud. In the middle were two dug out pits, with thousands of turtles crawling one on top of the other. The turtles were of different sizes and weight. Some were big, weighing six to eight pounds, some half a pound or even less. The “factory” consisted of several wooden tables. Men and women stood around those tables, each one with a knife in their hand, dissecting those poor creatures. Blood was all over. On the side, stood two drums filled with water. This was the place where the turtles were killed. It was done this way. The turtles were thrown into the water. Being submerged in water, the turtles put out their necks and tried to come to the surface. In this moment, the person standing in front of the drum grabbed the turtle by its neck with one hand, and with the other, cut off the little head with the knife. It took each person sometimes several minutes to do it, because the knives were not sharp and turtle skin is very tough. The man who did the butchering was a lawyer by profession. Seeing it, I felt sick. I saw black circles in front of my eyes and nearly fainted. But I had a strong will to overcome this faint feeling and softness. If not for myself, for my family’s sake. And so, I stayed and asked for work. I was accepted because they needed men. As it turned out later the Uzbeks and the Tatars, who were Muslims, wouldn’t accept any work there. I got a knife as a tool for my work and a place at one of the tables. As the first killed turtle reached me, I touched the still pulsing muscles and nearly collapsed again. Turtles are so tough that not only were their muscles still twitching afterwards for a long time, but also their hearts were still beating. For my whole life, up until now, I had never been able to touch or even see raw meat. I was always warned before meat was handled in our kitchen, so that I didn’t walk in. But I had to pull myself together again, and so I started working alongside many others, with my hands trembling, full of blood, and blood all over, everywhere. At the end of the day, I brought home my share of turtle eggs and livers, equally divided amongst those working at one of the many tables. Now about those turtles. How did they get there? Here is the story we learned while we were working. In the nearby mountains around Kermine were caves, and at a certain time of the year and at certain hours before dawn, the turtles left their hiding places. According to the local legends, the turtles lived for some 200 years or more. The Uzbeks living here knew about their habits, caught them alive, and brought them to the Russian government agencies in Kermine – where the Uzbeks received payment in-kind, according to the weight of the delivered turtles. During our time, they received cotton textiles,

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dark flour, salt, and tea. The interesting part of it was that the same Uzbeks, who caught and brought the turtles to our working place, were full of contempt and despised us, who touched and handled these turtles. For some reason, they considered the turtles as unclean, and we who killed and dissected them became unclean too. The Tatars, who were Muslims too, had the same attitude towards us. It went so far that they refused to stay with us in the same line in the store where we received our bread against our bread ration cards. They looked down at us, as some sort of outcasts, untouchables. They said that we were even lower than dogs because dogs didn’t eat turtle meat – which was true. Hungry dogs, who ate everything, sniffed at the turtle meat, and wouldn’t touch it. How were these turtles used? The turtle shells, which were normally used as material for decoration purposes, mostly for ladies’ combs and handbags, were first spread out for drying on top of the roofs of the nearby mud huts. Then, they were thrown from one place to another until they were completely burned by the Sun, became brittle and had to be discarded. The eggs and the livers were in the beginning distributed amongst the workers. The turtle legs were supposed to be preserved and shipped to the army or to some labor camps working at the dam in the vicinity of Tashkent. I am very doubtful as to whether this turtle meat could ever be consumed by human beings under normal conditions. We were working in an open yard at some 32 degrees or more (90 degrees Fahrenheit) with millions of flies around. As soon as we left the meat at the table for a few minutes, especially during our rest period, it was completely covered with a layer of white fly eggs. Those turtle eggs were thrown at the end of the day into barrels with salt. And after a day or two we could see and hear the millions of worms, which found here in the meat and in the barrels, an excellent breeding place. I mentioned before that the eggs and livers were in the beginning distributed amongst us. It seemed that the Russians thought that we had it too good and so they forbid us from taking them home despite the fact that those materials were so perishable under the prevailing conditions, that they could hardly last longer than a day. They preferred to throw them into the same barrels for the worms. So, we worked out different devices to steal them every day. We brought along with us, in our pockets, little tin cans and while working we put the eggs and livers in those cans. During our rest period, we smuggled those cans through holes in the surrounding walls to somebody from every family waiting at a certain agreed time outside. I beg forgiveness from my sons even now, for using them as accomplices in this plot – it was the only way to still our hunger and to survive. Some of us were caught but it didn’t discourage us from doing the same thing the next day again.

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My family and I got used to our new nourishment consisting of turtle yolks and livers and started even eating the meat itself. While working at this turtle butchery, my family was at least not hungry. The work at this “canning project” lasted only six weeks because no more turtles were caught and brought in by the Uzbeks. All my memories of those pits with thousands of turtles, butchered in barrels of water, gasping for air, with people working around tables soaked with blood are coming back to me whenever I see people relishing “turtle soup” in restaurants, ordered as an exotic luxury. No turtles for me! It became quite hot, and we couldn’t use our little iron stove indoors anymore. Henry, with the assistance of his younger brother George, built a little stove outdoors from some old bricks and clay.112 It was quite an ingenious structure because it was very economical as far as the consumption of wood was concerned. It had also an additional feature. The little chimney was built in such a way that it could be used as a warm plate at the same time. I had to now look for another job. I was told of another enterprise which was supposed to start in the near future. A wine factory was going to be built and the Russians were looking for men to make the bricks for the factory. We were promised that after helping with the construction work, we would be employed in the wine manufacturing. My friends and I were willing to work there, first because we would get the bread ration cards. Secondly, the prospect of working in a place where grapes would be processed was very promising. When we reported to work, we were led to the backyard of a small building, and the Russians pointed to the ground and informed us that this was the place where the bricks would be made by us. People who were looking for a brickyard or kiln were greatly disappointed. There was no such thing. We had to dig a big hole in the solid ground, then we poured in water, dug out more soil, and made heavy mud by treading in the hole with our bare feet. The mud was then thrown out of the pit with shovels. It was put into wooden molds for two bricks, which had two handles. These wooden frames were emptied, and the bricks laid out in rows in the same yard for drying. The next day, the sunbaked bricks were collected and put in piles ready to be used as building material. This way of manufacturing bricks was even more primitive than in biblical times. Egyptians added at least straw to the mud (see Exodus, Chapter 5). The trouble was that the soil dug out from 112 Note from George Landau, “Henry built our outdoor stove and it worked very well! Somehow, he figured out the right proportions so that it didn’t use too much wood and it didn’t smoke.” Many years later, George tried to use this technique in humanitarian work (the Rotary Club), sending a number of solar ovens to Liberia because there was a shortage of wood which they used in their outdoor ovens. – Ed.

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the backyard was full of pieces of glass, wood splinters, rusted cans and nails, and everybody working in this pit, while treading the mud, cut their feet and toes. There was always the danger of infection. After we accumulated some fifty thousand or more of those bricks, we were told that we had to construct a building for the machines. Neither the Russian foremen nor any of us knew how to go about it. Somehow, we managed to put up four walls, with a big opening in the front wall to move in the machine equipment later. Then an old man came who was a builder, carpenter, and we helped him with the roof construction. However, when we started to lay the logs and planks on top of the walls for the roof, the whole building collapsed. Fortunately, all of us were busy on top of the roof and so nobody got seriously hurt. Then we started all over again. This time, under the direction of another so-called spec113 – that is a specialist – the building was reinforced with genuine old bricks obtained from some other place, and the building stood. The working conditions were very strenuous. We were working through the hottest time of the year, which reached some 38 degrees (100 degrees Fahrenheit), all the time exposed to the burning sun. The Uzbeks, better adjusted to their climate, didn’t work in the afternoon but we of course did. I remember once, after coming home from work, I tried to get my shirt off but only shreds were left in my hands; the sun burned it to pieces. Of course, during the whole time I worked there, I didn’t earn as much as it would cost to replace this shirt, but it didn’t matter. The bread ration card for my family was more important. The new Russian foreman was a wine specialist, who was sent here to be in charge of the future production. He was a discharged war veteran, still wearing his uniform, and as an ardent communist, he didn’t show too much sympathy for us westerners. 113 Many neologisms were created in the Russian language for the needs of the Soviet system, among them a number of expressions preceded by the prefix “spec-”. They indicated that the things or persons they referred to were of special importance and attention for the authorities. These names were given to places (specposiolek), groups (specdeportees), as well as individuals. In the latter case, they signaled that a particular person was chosen by the authorities to be in charge of a particular area of industrial organization or the functioning of the social order (a kind of special state functionary). In “The Gulag Archipelago,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote that the prefix “spec-” was the beginning of “the most beloved and intimate words: spec-department, spec-treatment, speccommunication, spec-assignment, spec-sanatorium.” The author’s son, George Landau, rightly adds that although the word would indicate that these people were specialists in their fields, in reality they were very often nominated because of their committed and submissive political attitude – the so-called Protectsia. – Ed.

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Now the machines had to be installed. When we asked about them, the spec pointed to some pile of rusted junk laying there. Those were the presses to be installed for wine production. It turned out that the spec didn’t know himself how to go about putting them together. In my life, I already had some experience with machines. I visualized among the rusty parts laying around that there was a heavy vertical handpress and another snail-type horizontal press which should be driven by some sort of motor. I became quite helpful in putting those parts together. Of course, everything had to be done with our hands, with only a few tools around. We had to even lift the very heavy wheels and plates with our hands, shoulders, and whatever else we had. While moving the upperpart of the press, the whole burden fell on my side. In trying to prevent it from falling on people, I reached out my right hand to support it, and the heavy press crushed my finger. I went to the ambulatory, bleeding, and my family was quite shocked when I finally came home with my finger still bleeding through the heavy bandage. I was unable to work immediately after the accident, and I didn’t get paid either. After a few days, while still attending the dispensary every day for my finger to be treated, the Russian spec fired me, ridiculing me for wearing the bandage, and cancelled the bread ration card for me and my family, as I was no longer employed. This happened here thirty years after the Bolshevik Revolution in the “workers’ paradise,” in a country concerned, supposedly, with only the welfare of the working-class people. The “factory” started some weeks later with production, grapes were brought in on arbas by the Uzbeks from the neighboring kolkhoz vineyards. The men working there liked their job. At least, they were able to eat as many grapes as they could, and they also managed to bring some home. The factory needed more men and with the help of one of our men, who became some sort of foreman there, I was hired back. Never in my life have I seen such heaps of grapes. Those grapes were really marvelous. They came in different sizes, shapes, colors, and flavors. Some of them were as big as walnuts. The “lady fingers” were really finger-long. I don’t know what made those grapes so different and taste so good. Maybe it was the skills of the Uzbek farmers, as the result of a centuries-old tradition, or the soil, or the climate – possibly those three factors combined. I threw myself on those grapes, which I couldn’t afford to buy, and ate so many of them that I developed a terrific stomach disorder in the first few days and I couldn’t stand them anymore. The only advantage was that I could get grapes every day for my family. This wasn’t legal, of course. We had to steal and smuggle them out. Here again, I had to engage the help of my boys, and I

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begged them for their forgiveness again. It was the only thing they had to eat during this period.114 It was heavy work. All the grapes brought in during the day had to be pressed immediately and nothing could be left over for the next day. We worked twelve to fifteen hours a day, without being paid any overtime. Those grapes, delivered by the Uzbeks, were their yearly quotas in-kind, figured out in advance by the representatives of the state. The Russian spec checked the weight and quality of the grapes and gave everybody a receipt. For the delivered grapes, they received money at the official price of 35 kopeks per kilo. Whatever surplus they had, after those compulsory deliveries, they sold on the free market for 35 rubles per kilo. (Note the discrepancy between the official and black-market price.) Every Uzbek who brought in the grapes tried to please the spec. Some even brought gifts like chickens and eggs, lest he could reject the grapes. I witnessed a case where an old Uzbek woman, with the help of a young boy, brought in her quota of grapes. The spec refused to accept them because he didn’t like the quality. The old woman was standing around the whole day begging him, she explained that her son was taken to the army, she herself was a widow, and too old to work, and only the little boy was helping her. This was the reason why the grapes were not up to the standard. The old woman in tears and kissing his hands, and still he rejected the grapes, adding some Russian curses for good measure. Still sobbing, there was nothing left for her to do but to take them back. It was even too late to sell them because it was already nearly dark, and the bazaar was closed. She was desperate because she knew what to expect for not delivering her quota. As punishment, she had to deliver the same amount in raisins or go to jail. It was plain meanness on the part of the spec because her quota of grapes could have easily been added to the big mountain of grapes. A personal gift would have done the trick I am sure. But maybe the old woman didn’t know it or simply couldn’t afford it. The production itself was very simple and primitive. The grapes were pressed with those two presses, one by hand and the other driven by an oil motor. The grape juice was filtered and then pumped into big wooden barrels installed in the yard in open air. The motors for the presses were tended to by a friend who 114 Note from George Landau, “I want to say that Mami arranged our plates differently so that whatever we had to eat seemed somehow different – even though it may have been the same thing day after day – such as grapes mentioned here, the turtle eggs mentioned earlier, apricots etc. I find that I automatically do the same thing when I fix [put together] a fruit plate, a salad, or anything else for a guest or for my family. I always try to make it look different from the way that I fixed it the previous time.” – Ed.

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ran a small machine shop at home.115 He did his best but he couldn’t help that the machines broke down all the time. The presses were very old, kept for years in an open yard, and there were no spare parts. He had to lubricate the bearings and there was no grease, so he had to use the same oil as for the motor. The snail press, which needed frequent lubrication, had no cover; and so, it happened once that some of the oil from the bearings, being very light, splashed into the grape hash. It happened after we went home, having worked a fourteen-hour day. The same night, my friend was woken up and ordered to come immediately to the factory. When he arrived there, he was confronted with the representative of the NKVD and all the local civilian authorities who accused him of sabotaging the wine production. He was accused of deliberately spilling the machine oil into the grape juice to spoil the wine. The poor fellow, who told me the story the next day, had a very hard time explaining the situation to those officials, who looked at him with very grave and sinister faces, but they finally let him go.

The Soviet Ars Vivendi

I mentioned before that under the same difficult living conditions, the Russians knew better how to adjust themselves and to survive. Here is how. Working later as a “free” man in Russian enterprises, I had more of a chance to learn about the Soviet economy than I had in previous years working as a prisoner. I learned to understand why the Russians, when looking for work somewhere, didn’t inquire about wages or working conditions, but were only interested in the kind of merchandise produced or manufactured there. The most important thing was what they could take out – or to put it in plain language, what could be stolen? Take as an example the wine factory I worked at. There was a spec, the discharged veteran who possessed only the army clothes he wore on his back. Besides him, a manager came into the picture, who moved into the house belonging to the factory, with his family. After some time, when the wine matured a bit and became drinkable, the situation of those two men changed completely. The Russian spec bought himself civilian clothing and luxuries, including a watch, which was only available on the free market for big money. The manager’s family hired a cook, just for them, kept as a worker on the factory payroll. Meat and chicken were cooked every day. This was done on a stove setup for the summer in the open yard (it was too hot to cook indoors), in 115 My friend was Mr. Hershfinkel. He had been the owner of a machine shop in Warsaw.

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the presence of the workers, who sometimes had nothing to eat for two days because the bread wasn’t distributed, even with ration cards. I would never have believed that people could have such disregard for the feelings and opinions of their coworkers. It seemed that for once having a chance to, they wanted to grab as much as they could. How did they do it? Very simple. They sold the wine, or rather exchanged it, for other goods. There was a very popular and widely accepted system called blat. This is a Russian expression, very difficult to translate, but it must be explained. What was it? It was an illegal barter and it worked in the following way. Suppose the person in charge of the wine factory wanted to have meat, like in this case. He would get in touch with the manager of the meatprocessing plant and ask for it. When asked how he was going to pay for it, the answer was “po blatu” and both parties knew exactly what that meant. It meant that he would give him wine in exchange. The same went for flour, soap, sugar, leather, and whatever there was to get. Under the Russian economy, this was bribery for the profit of individuals who considered the products they managed as their private property. And so if two managers agreed to exchange their goods this way, it was called po blatu. Of course, there were several others who had to be cut into the deal because the manager couldn’t take a barrel of wine, half a calf, or a sack of flour, without assistance. The glavbuch who was responsible for everything also had to be a partner in the deal. Now, if this procedure went on for a long time, quite a serious discrepancy would accrue between the books and the actual inventory. In order to straighten out those figures, two different procedures were applied. One was to write a statement, signed by the responsible official, to the effect that the shortage was caused by some loss in production or some other plausible reason. This was called akt spisat, which meant, “to write up a document.” The second was to find some man, a worker usually, who happened to take out or to steal something, and then this culprit was accused and made responsible for all the accumulated shortages. The following two instances which took place in my time in Kermine demonstrated this. There was one bakery in town which took care of the bread supply for the whole population. As I said before, only on twelve or thirteen days in a month, was bread sold on ration cards and there was no bread during the rest of the month. However, bread was available on the black market all the time; and it was also known that the bakery manager’s wife bought whatever she could through her agents and helpers, such as slips, blouses, shoes, and furs, and that she paid for these with flour from the bakery. My wife’s blouse was sold this way, for two kilos of dark flour. This was going on for months. One day a worker

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was caught taking a loaf of bread and the poor fellow was sentenced to many years in prison because he was made responsible for all those thefts. In another case, a physician from Lithuania was blamed. He was in charge of the medical care of a large sovkhoz in the vicinity of Kermine, which was a big cotton growing center. A sovkhoz is a very big farm, completely stateowned, which didn’t even pretend to be owned by the farmers as was the case with a kolkhoz. The whole population there suffered tremendously from malaria because the swamps around this place were an ideal breeding place for the malaria-carrying mosquitos. At one time, nearly 80% of the population was sick and their absenteeism from work was abnormally high. The physician was helpless, so he insisted that petroleum should be sent here to be sprayed over the swamps. This was an old but effective method to combat malaria at its breeding place. The petroleum arrived but was sold on the black market by the sovkhoz officials. Because malaria was hitting the population harder than before, the physician was accused of counterrevolution and sabotage. He was made responsible for the poor health of the population and put in prison. He was charged with deliberately letting malaria spread to make the people unfit for work. I don’t know what happened to him. At the time I left Kermine, he was still in prison, incommunicado, with his family left in despair. From time to time, the Russian newspapers brought news that one or more officials of a kolkhoz or a factory were arrested for embezzlement of a large sum of money or for illegally selling some products. Those were the accumulated shortages from the blat and those particular men were chosen to be the victims of those deals which had probably been going on for years. This blat institution, in a way, regulated and alleviated the fallacy and inefficiency of the Soviet economy and became its integral part. Without the blat, and all its unethical implications, the Russians wouldn’t have survived. It reached into the highest quarters. It became an official way of keeping things going. Even at the level of heavy industry, the big bosses had to resort to the blat, to obtain the raw materials to which they were entitled in order to fulfill their commitments according to the five-year plan. To even get the money from the Gosbank in time, the blat had to be applied. Of course, not everybody was in a position to work out a deal po blatu. For instance, a teacher or a post office clerk who had nothing to offer couldn’t, but the majority could. Nobody bothered with the fact that some innocent people would suffer and that they themselves could become victims of the scheme. As a Russian explained to me, “everybody here has one foot in prison anyway, so let’s at least live today.” The Epicurean slogan carpe diem became their motto.

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Passportization

We were harassed not only by the uncertainties of work and the daily bread but also by some other actions which were decisive and fatal for our future or seemed to be at that time. As I mentioned before, we had the status of free men, liberated from prisons and camps as Polish citizens, according to the Stalin-Sikorski agreement and each one of us had a document, udostoverenie, to this effect. After the severance of the diplomatic relations between the Soviets and Poland, due to the disclosure of the Katyn massacre in April 1943, the Soviets decided to change our status. Rumors reached us that the Russians were eager to make us Soviet citizens. Here is the story of the sinister action undertaken by the Soviet militsiya, on high authority, in the fall of 1943, called “passportization.” Two militsiya officers arrived in Kermine, and an order was given that each one of us had to appear before them with documents proving our Polish citizenship before the outbreak of the Second World War. Some brave men went first, the others decided to wait and see. From the reports of those who presented themselves to the militsiya officers with their documents, we couldn’t deduce the rules and governing principles for their decisions. There were cases where people presented identical Polish pre-war documents – such as birth certificates, passports, identification cards which confirmed citizenship (we had to have plenty of these documents in Poland), marriage licenses – with the result that one man and his whole family were declared as foreigners and the other man and his family were urged to apply for citizenship. There were cases where people had very few documents (after all, people lost their documents during their escape or were deported without them) and they were declared as foreigners. And others, who had most of their documents, were deemed to be Soviet citizens. I remember distinctly two characteristic cases. One man had no documents whatsoever. In his ingenuity or rather despair, he brought with him to the meeting, a jacket from a suit in which there was still a label from his tailor, sewn in with his address and a date (some tailors used to mark their craftsmanship this way). This was proof that on some date in 1939, he was still in Poland. This man was declared as a foreigner. A day later, a young lady went to the militsiya, a teacher by profession, who presented all the documents a human being could have to prove their existence. She was told that she surely would become a very good Soviet citizen because she kept everything in such fine order, and besides, they needed good teachers. After a few days, those two officers left and another contingent arrived, with the same result. So, nobody knew in advance what was going to happen to him and his family and many spent sleepless nights

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before and after the interview. The general impression was that those officers made decisions, not according to some law or rules, but at their whim and only according to their mood. It was also evident that the tendency was to declare as many as possible as Soviet citizens. What happened to those few groups? The lucky ones, who were declared as foreigners, received a “vid na zytelstwo dla innostrancov,” a sort of permit to take up residence here as foreigners. It was a little blue card with a picture of the bearer, valid only for a certain time, after which the document had to be confirmed again. The second group had to apply for Soviet citizenship. Here we experienced something which we’d never known before. We were used to the idea that citizenship was a precious privilege given only to worthy people. Normally, in countries we knew, people who applied for citizenship had to prove their good character and their good standing in the community; they had to file different applications and wait several years until this privilege was granted. But not in Soviet Russia. People were ordered and compelled to fill out the applications. Everyone considered the Soviet citizenship as a catastrophe and a personal tragedy. We knew from the past what happened to Soviet citizens and were afraid of the same fate. People were scared to death by the mere thought that once they became Soviet citizens, they would never be allowed to leave Russia, even after the war. And so, in the beginning, some people refused to sign the application and went home. The next day, they were arrested and were kept in prison until they broke down and signed the application. One girl we knew – who was here for a longtime by herself, all her family was abroad – thought she had nothing to lose and decided to resist. She was arrested and put into a cell, with prostitutes and thieves; and was beaten up by them every day. Given nothing to eat for several days, and suffering from the lice she acquired there, she had to give up. She asked to be brought before the militsiya officers to sign the application for Soviet citizenship. During the time when these things were going on, we had our family meeting to discuss this grave matter and to decide what to do. We have always had our little family discussions when serious problems had to be decided. Our boys were at that time ten and twelve years old. Everybody knew, including our boys, the importance and the implications of the problem, which had been discussed in every family, day and night, for days. Both boys were of the opinion that we should rather go to prison than “apply” for Soviet citizenship. I was never more proud of them. I mention this unforgettable day, with this grave decision, as a tribute to their seriousness and maturity at this tender age. The people who applied, or were rather compelled by sheer force to apply, for Soviet citizenship received Soviet passports, some for six months, some

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for twelve months, and some for five years. Nobody knew why these differences occurred. However, in every case, it was considered a big tragedy and the homes of those people had the atmosphere of mourners. I knew of a case where a respectable lawyer, who received a five-year passport, took this so to heart – brooding about his prospective fate, that he would never be able to leave Russia – that he died of a heart attack a short time after.116 When my wife and I were finally interviewed, we were amongst the lucky ones who received their “vid na zytelstvo.” This was a miracle in itself; and a forerunner of a still greater miracle to follow. Altogether some 10 percent of all our people received those foreign documents. All the others were declared as Soviet citizens. Reports reached us at that time, from other towns and centers, about the passportization of our people – with the only difference that in some places nearly everyone was compelled to apply for Soviet citizenship, and in others more people received the document for foreigners. As it turned out, some two years later, all those documents lost their significance and all the worries were for nothing, as happened frequently in Russia. At that later time, according to the agreement between Russian and the new Polish People’s Republic, everyone who was a Polish citizen before the war was repatriated to Poland, Soviet passport or no Soviet passport.117

Selling Our Last Possessions

After all the grapes in the wine factory had been delivered and pressed, most of us lost our jobs and the bread ration cards. The spec in the factory left a small crew, consisting mostly of people who could be helpful in selling the wine po blatu. For a time, I was working as a floor sweeper and watchman in a public school. I earned very little money, just enough to buy the bread, with the bread ration cards I received for me and my family. Working in this school, I had a chance to watch the youngsters. Most of them behaved like urchins. We lived nearby and once they saw our son Henry, 116 As we learn from author’s notes this was Dr. Gumprich. Dr. Adolf (Abraham) Gumprich (1883–1944) was a highly respected lawyer and civic leader in Kraków (his office was located at Grodzka St. 13). He died in Bukhara. – Ed. 117 The so-called repatriation was an organized action carried out in several waves after the war. It included both Christian and Jewish pre-war Polish citizens. For the most part, however, they were not repatriated to their homes, which had either come under Soviet rule (eastern Poland) or had been destroyed by the war (e.g., in Warsaw) or, in the case of Jewish residents of Poland, had been repossessed by their neighbors. Repatriates were sent to the newly annexed western territories that had been abandoned by the Germans. – Ed.

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who was sitting in our yard, looking over some of his stamps, which he had collected. He still had some left, after he sold a big part of his collection in Bukhara to buy his Mami a birthday gift.118 Two of those schoolboys approached him and asked to have a look at them because they had stamps too and wanted to exchange them. Our son, good-natured as he is, and in good faith, showed the two Russian boys his collection. While one of them pretended to be interested in them and engaged our son in conversation, the other grabbed the whole collection and ran away. The first followed him immediately. You can imagine what it meant for our boy to lose his stamps, which he collected with so much love, as only a boy his age can do. He couldn’t look at stamps anymore and lost all interest in them. I always wondered why the orphanages in Russia were somewhere far away from the nearest town. The boys in those institutions were not always orphans. Most of them ran away from home and were later picked up somewhere in the streets. People who were working in those orphanages told us the most horrible stories, how they actually turned the boys into criminals there. In fact, they were always a menace to the nearest town, and in days when they were off or when they ran away without permission, they swarmed to the bazaar and stole everything they could lay their hands on. I myself was twice a victim of their pilferage. On one occasion, a boy grabbed ten rubles, which I had in my hand, ready to pay for milk at the bazaar. Our boys had no school here which they could attend. Some friends tutored them voluntarily and informally. I am still grateful to two of them. One was teaching them European history from memory,119 and the other, himself a young student Mr. Hecker from Kraków, taught mathematics with no textbook whatsoever. He was the oldest of the three sons and was teaching our Henry and his youngest brother Tadek120. Mr. Hecker owned a flour mill in Kraków. The deep knowledge and willingness of these friends gave our boys a good background and helped to fill in the gaps caused by the lack of any regular schooling. The job as sweeper and watchman in the school didn’t last too long and misery loomed again. It seemed as though we had arrived at the end of our 118 This was the piala (the Uzbek china cup) referred to earlier. – Ed. 119 Mr. Naphtali was from Łódź; he was a textile manufacturer before the war. He settled in Israel after the war, where he became a career officer in the Israeli Army. 120 Zvi Tadeusz Hecker (born Tadeusz Heker in 1931 in Kraków) is an Israeli architect of Polish origin. He lived in Samarkand during the war. He began his education in architecture at the Kraków University of Technology. In 1950, he emigrated to Israel. Currently he lives and works in Germany. His architecture is known for geometry and modularity, but with increasing asymmetry. – Ed.

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road. All our resources were exhausted, with nothing to look forward to. We had nothing more to sell. My wife had a winter sport coat, which she decided to sell a long time ago but there were no buyers for it. The color was maroon, and the Soviet ladies only liked black or blue as colors; the coat had a fine fur lining on the inside, and the Russian ladies preferred the fur on top. A man came along who traveled between Kermine and Samarkand; he did what the Russians called “speculating.” He used to bring Vodka and makhorka, which he sold to the Russians here, and took some other goods back to Samarkand. His dealings were of course illegal, according to Russian law, and even though he made a good living this way, he was always in danger and exposed to blackmail by the Russian militsiya. He was a likeable and helpful fellow, and he took my wife’s winter coat, which he was sure he could sell in Samarkand. Unfortunately, we didn’t hear from him again. We learned later that he sold the coat but got sick and had to use the money for himself. The winter coat was gone and the money too. Then we discovered that we still had something to sell. Our golden wedding rings, which my wife and I wore faithfully for fifteen years. I was particularly proud of the fact that I never took my wedding ring off since the day we were married. We decided to sell them. The man who bought them didn’t mind the inscriptions on the inside of the rings. It was a hard day when I came home without them, our fingers bare. The money obtained didn’t last too long considering that we had to buy the most essential items like bread, flour, and some milk on the black or private market. Potatoes were a luxury. From two pounds of potatoes, my wife made soup for four days. In a short time, we arrived at the same dead-end. Looking through our belongings, my wife found that our younger boy George had an extra shirt. So I took the tiny shirt and went to the bazaar. Every time somebody came up to look at the shirt and touched it, it hurt deeply. I don’t know why but I couldn’t help thinking of Joseph’s little shirt when the brothers sold him.121 Finally, some Uzbek bought my son’s little shirt. My boy was waiting for me at the door of our backyard and when he saw that I was returning emptyhanded, he ran back to his Mami, bringing with joy the good news, “Papi sold my shirt.” He was so glad because he knew that it meant bread for a few days. I sold my own child’s last shirt, knowing that I would never here in this land be able to buy another one to replace it, not now and not in the future. It was the bottom of our misery. I couldn’t look into my wife’s sad eyes for the whole day. When everything looked so helpless, unexpected help came. One day, a man came with a letter. The letter contained a large sum of money. It came from the 121 Reference to the story from the the Torah (the Old Testament). – Ed.

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young man in Bukhara for whom my wife spared some soup during the time he was recovering from typhus. The young man earned some money while making leather boots, in some sort of private enterprise, and wanted us to share his wealth. We were deeply moved. We never expected any reward. I think that it never happened before that a few plates of soup, given in time of great need to a poor sick boy, were repaid with such an abundance. After all, men are good.

Leaving Kermine and Uzbekistan

A year or so earlier, we had received a cable from one of our relatives in Palestine, on behalf of my sister Lusia in Australia, to send our Polish passports and our pictures to the Australian Embassy in Moscow. To procure photographs at that time and place was not an easy task. We found a Russian streetphotographer, operating with one of those primitive cameras, consisting of a large box in which the photographer also developed the taken picture by putting his right arm, covered with long black sleeves, into the box and manipulating the developing chemicals, like in a dark room.122 He took our pictures. With a rather pessimistic unbelief, I mailed the documents to the Australian Embassy in Moscow. Yes, “with unbelief,” and lack of enthusiasm, because at the time, there were among us people with visas for foreign countries, even visas for America. However, these were of no use, since the most important thing was the “exit visa” from Soviet Russia, which was not granted and couldn’t be obtained. I then completely forgot this event, which had excited us for a few days, leaving in us subconsciously a spark of hope. Now on December  5, 1943, while I was away in a nearby Uzbek village, grinding the three kilos of jigah cereal which I had bought the same day at the bazaar, a cable arrived from the Australian Embassy in Moscow. It was a long cable in Russian. Mami rushed to our friends, the Zussmans, who lived nearby to have it translated; since Bunio could read and write Russian perfectly and was our devoted and trusted friend. And so Mami and our boys learned the exciting and wonderful news before I came home in the evening.123 As soon I learned about the cable, all of us rushed late in the evening to the Zussmans again, to share our excitement and to discuss the problems connected with our imminent departure. At first, there was the problem of 122 We still have copies of these pictures, taken this way. 123 To the original manuscript, the author attached a copy of a bread card in Kermine and telegrams from the Australian embassy stating that two travel documents with Soviet exit visas and Iranian transit visas were valid until 31 December. – Ed.

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the announced registered letter, containing our passports. The question was whether the letter would arrive at all, considering the poor way mail in Soviet Russia was handled. Secondly, whether the letter would be censored first, since it came from an embassy of a foreign country and if so, whether it would be handed over to the NKVD, who could do two things. They could confiscate the letter altogether or they could keep it until the date we had to cross the border expired and then give us our passports, when they would be useless. Nevertheless, we hoped with great apprehension and expectation that the letter might still arrive in time and reach us directly. The other problem, which we discussed, was the problem of keeping this important event a closely guarded secret. There were good reasons for it. We lived among hundreds of families who were in the same situation, not knowing what their future would hold and waiting for some miracle to happen. Some lived better, some worse, but we were all in the same boat. The mentality and the sentiment were that either everybody should leave, or nobody should leave. There should be no exceptions. If the news leaked out that we might leave Russia, it would spread like a wildfire. Somebody, being jealous or simply mean, could easily denounce us to the NKVD as anti-communists, saying it would be dangerous for the Soviets to let us go abroad. It would be very simple for the NKVD to keep our passports, and to prevent us from leaving. And so, it was decided to keep this news as a secret. There were only two families, whom we took into our confidence, namely the Zussmans and the Fenichels. Mr Fenichel was the dentist from Tarnów I mentioned earlier, who served as a doctor at the posiolok, we were very friendly with him, his wife Mala, and her three brothers, Adolf, Moniek, and Chemya (Katz), who lived with them.124 Now we were waiting with great excitement for the registered letter from the Australian Embassy. In our yard, where we had our room in Kermine, also lived an elderly Tatar-woman, with her daughter who worked at the post office. We approached the daughter and told her about the registered letter that we were expecting and asked her to inform us immediately when the letter arrived at the post office. The letter came on December 14, and the daughter brought it to us personally. We opened the letter, containing our passports, the exit visas from Russia and entrance visas to Persia, not believing our own eyes. We thought for a moment that it might be necessary to go with our passports to the NKVD and to obtain from the feared secret police a permission to leave Kermine. But something dreadful could happen and I decided against it, we would leave in secret from the police and from the population. 124 Adolf died later in Russia, Moniek died after his repatriation in Poland and Chemya after the war in Israel.

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The next problem was to find out where the crossing point of the Russian border actually was. Nobody had a map of Soviet Russia. Anybody found in possession of such a map could easily be considered a spy. So, I went again to the daughter of the Tatar-woman, who worked at the post office, and with her help, I found out we had to reach the city of Ashkhabad (the capital of the Turkmenistan), in order to reach the crossing point in the mountains at the Iranian border. We packed secretly our belongings in a burlap bag and in suitcases, which we still had, and the plan was to somehow get to the station, which was some five miles away from Kermine, and to try to board a train to Ashkhabad. Now this was by no means a simple matter. We didn’t know when the train for Ashkhabad would be leaving and, even more important, what to do about getting tickets. One couldn’t simply go to the station and buy a railroad ticket. A special permission from the NKVD Railroad Division was necessary to travel.125 And so Bunio and I decided to go to the railroad station in Kermine on the fifteenth to try to convince the man at the ticket window to sell us the tickets to Ashkhabad, promising him a money reward for it. We talked to the man, but he couldn’t be persuaded. He said that he couldn’t sell us the tickets, without the OK of the railroad police at the station. We came home, having accomplished nothing and we decided to take a chance the next day, December 16. We hired an Uzbek with his arba to pick us up early in the afternoon. In the meantime, we spread the news that we were moving back to Bukhara, where we had come from more than a year ago, because I had no work in Kermine and I had a chance to be employed in Bukhara. We said goodbye to our neighbors and while we were loading the arba, our landlord, who was a half-crazy Bukharian Jew (quarrelling constantly with his wife) started to make a big fuss about our moving, for no reason whatsoever since we told his wife that we were moving and paid our rent. He was deaf and mute, and gave out inarticulate shrieks, louder and louder; we left in the middle of this uproar, in the arba, all of us sitting on top of our bundles, with Bunio accompanying us to the station. It was already dark and late in the afternoon when we arrived at the station in Kermine. We installed ourselves in the waiting room and tried again to ask the man at the ticket window to sell us tickets in advance, but to no avail. He told us again that he could only sell us tickets half an hour before the arrival of the train and only with the permission of the railroad NKVD. The train was supposed to arrive at midnight.

125 The author must be referring here to the Railroad Protection Division, Main Directorate for Railroad Protection, which was under the authority of the NKVD. – Ed.

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Bunio did, in the meantime, two things for us. First, he gave us some 2000 rubles in cash,126 which we would need for the tickets and other expenses. Secondly, he went to find his friend, Lolek Rosenblum, who now worked at the station in Kermine. He was a former delegate of the Polish Welfare Organization for the Kermine-Rayon, just as Bunio was for the city of Kermine. Bunio came back with him, and we told him our story. He brought us a big loaf of bread and promised to help us with our departure. He also tried to talk to the man at the ticket counter, who repeated to him what we knew already.127 There was nothing for the six of us to do, only to wait, until the ticket window opened. It is hard to imagine how tense we all were. We only knew one thing; no matter what happened, we couldn’t go back to Kermine. We gave up our room and the story about moving to Bukhara would come out as a lie, and the truth, with all of its implications, would come out. We were pacing back and forth. Luckily our boys were not aware of the seriousness of our situation. The two men and Mami were smoking constantly to calm down their nerves (unfortunately I was not a smoker). It was already very late at night. The train was, as usual, late. Suddenly the ticket window opened and there was the man we already knew. We asked for four tickets to Ashkhabad and he asked me for the permit to travel. Instead, I handed over our passports and showed him the exit visas from Moscow, explaining that this implied a permission to travel. He answered that he had never had a case like this and had to ask the NKVD office nearby. And so, he closed the window and disappeared. Our nervous tension nearly reached breaking point. Our boys, in the meantime, were sitting on top of our belongings, looking at us, sensing our excitement and nervousness. After some ten minutes, which seemed to us an eternity, the man came back, opened the window, and said to us, “Styaslyvye ludye” (you lucky people). He sold us the tickets. Could anybody possibly imagine our relief? I doubt it. Now came the second part of the battle. We had the tickets, and we could leave, but would we be able to board the train? The trains in Russia were always so full that hardly anybody could squeeze in and there were four of us, with bundles and suitcases. It was already very late, maybe past midnight. Suddenly we heard the train puffing in. Only the locomotive had some front lights, otherwise the train was 126 It could have been 200 rubles, possible mistake. – Ed. 127 Mr. Rosenblum is now married and lives in Tel Aviv, where he manufactures children’s dresses. I met him at the Zussman’s in Zurich, during my last visit there in 1967. Henry and Julie met Mr. Rosenblum by accident, while visiting the Zussman’s in September 1968 in Zurich. Mami also visited him recently in Tel Aviv.

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pitch black, because of the war regulations. All six of us grabbed something and started running. We approached the first coach entrance; the conductor didn’t let us in. We ran to the next; the same thing. We passed several coaches with the same result: “Miesta nyet” (no space). There was still one coach left, next to the locomotive, and here at the entrance door a woman conductor was standing. Asking no more questions, I grabbed her hand and pressed into her palm several hundred rubles (not even counting the amount). The locomotive was already whistling, giving the signal for departure. In the last second, she opened the door. We jumped in, Bunio and Lolek threw in our bundles and the train started moving. We couldn’t even say “thanks and goodbye.” It took us a few minutes to collect ourselves and to calm down. Once in the train, in the darkness, we eventually found some seats and place for our belongings.

Starting Our Journey to Ashkhabad

And so our journey to Ashkhabad began. The day was December 16, 1943. The train was overcrowded with Russians; we were the only foreigners. People slept in corridors and even overhead in luggage racks. We had to watch over our belongings constantly because they could easily disappear, if not guarded. I don’t think any of us slept during this night. In the morning, the loaf of bread, which Lolek Rosenblum gave to us, became very useful. In fact, it was the only food we had. Mami gave each of us a slice. Across from us, a Russian was sitting on the wooden bench, and we could see and feel his hungry look. Mami gave him a slice of our bread too. He was most grateful, as he told us later, he hadn’t eaten in two days. It was pitiful to watch him eat the bread; he was very careful not to lose one single crumb. We had one militsiya inspection during the trip. The officer asked for our documents and for our travel permits. It was a tense moment for us. I explained to him that we were foreigners and that we didn’t need any travel permits, since we had the exit visas from Moscow. At first, he wasn’t convinced. Then I brought up the argument that we were able to buy the train tickets, which otherwise wouldn’t have been sold to us. He finally let us go. This was quite a relief. We arrived late in the evening in Ashkhabad. We found a porter with a handcart, who loaded our belongings, and we asked him to bring us to the nearest hotel. I approached the hotel manager and asked him for a room, which of course wasn’t available. I explained to him that we were foreigners, who had permission to leave Russia at the crossing point near the Iranian border. He told me that in that case we had to go to a different hotel (I don’t remember the name anymore), which only took in foreigners. The porter, with his cart,

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brought us to this special hotel and there, after showing our passports, we were given a room. This was a wonderful moment, to enter a hotel room, properly furnished with normal beds and electricity. We slept quite well, and in the morning, we were given breakfast in the dining room downstairs. We were served bread, with no limitations, jam and coffee with milk and sugar; delicacies we hadn’t had in years. There were some other people sitting at different tables, who seemed to live in the hotel permanently, since they knew one another. We were conspicuous as newcomers, and of course, we aroused their curiosity. At first, we were approached by a middle-aged man in a military uniform, but I recognized that it was not a Russian uniform. It turned out that he belonged to the Czechoslovakian Army, which was formed in Soviet Russia, just as the Polish Anders Army was, under the leadership of General Svoboda.128 He was a liaison-officer of the Czechoslovakian Army, stationed in Ashkhabad, where he took military equipment coming over the Iranian border from the Western Allies and forwarded it to the Army headquarters in Russia. Being a foreigner, he was allowed to live in this special hotel. I think his name was Pollak. This acquaintance was a stroke of luck for us because he was most helpful. It turned out that he was Jewish, and that before the war, he was a lawyer in Prague. He was sent here from London by the Czechoslovakian governmentin-exile. He was very happy to learn that we were also Jewish and after a while, spoke in German to us. He did for us two important things. First, he warned us about the two Poles sitting at another table. Those two Poles belonged to a Polish Delegatura in Russia. After the break of diplomatic relations between Russia and Poland, as a result of the Katyn Affair, the Polish functionaries were expelled from Russia through Ashkhabad, from where they left overland for Teheran. For some reason, these two Poles were in the last moment detained by the Soviet secret police and weren’t allowed to leave Russia. They could live in this hotel and were engaged by the NKVD as informers, especially regarding foreigners passing through Ashkhabad. In order to justify their living comfortably in the hotel, they had to bring, as frequently as possible, new information and material to the secret police, otherwise they could lose their privilege and be sent to the interior of Russia, to some prison or labor camp. 128 As the President he is much in the headlines nowadays due to the Russian invasion into Czechoslovakia. – Author’s note. Ludvík Svoboda (1895–1979), president of Czechoslovakia from 1968 to 1975. Earlier he participated in both world wars. After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, he went to Poland, where he created a Czech military unit. He repeated the same in the USSR, where he became head of the Czechoslovak military units on the Eastern Front. He commanded in the Battle of the Dukla Pass, important for Czechs, in the fall of 1944. – Ed.

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He also helped us with another vital problem, how to reach the Iranian border, which we were supposed to cross from here. He informed us that in one of the rooms in the hotel (he gave us the number) lived a Russian lady, who was the representative of the Intourist and who would make arrangements for our further trip. As it happened, she was sick on this particular day and was confined to her room. He offered to visit her and talk to her first. This he did. After which, he advised us to visit her, with our documents, and to ask her for her help. In the short time after he left our table, it happened exactly as he told us it would. The two Poles, rather young, came over to our table with the excuse that they overheard that we were speaking Polish. They asked us many questions: who we were, where we came from, and where we were going. They pretended to be helpful. They also wanted to know about the conditions in Russia. Having been warned by this fine gentleman from Prague, we were very restraint and didn’t volunteer any information. Had we not been warned, we could easily have gotten ourselves into trouble. They finally left us alone. We went upstairs to pay a visit to the sick lady from the Intourist. We had in our possession a tin can, containing a mixture of dry milk and chocolate powder, from one of the rations given to us by Bunio, which Mami had saved for our boys in case of emergency. Mami had the wonderful idea to present it to the lady during our visit. It turned out that she was a cultured lady in her forties, and it seemed she had a very good background, since she spoke several languages. She was prepared for our visit by our acquaintance from Prague. She received us very kindly, and we handed our passports over to her. She explained to us that there was no regular traffic between Ashkhabad and the Iranian border and that we’d have to wait until a truck went in that direction, which might take a day or two. Mami gave her the tin can and she was very grateful. So, we were resigned to stay for another day or two, which wasn’t so bad, considering the comfortable living in the hotel – the food and treatment we received there, which we hadn’t experienced in many years. That day, we hardly left the hotel because we didn’t want to attract too much attention, being conspicuous as foreigners. Suddenly at around three in the afternoon, after having a delicious lunch in the dining room, we were called to the Russian lady’s room. She told us that unexpectedly a truck was leaving for the border and that we should get ready to leave in an hour. And so it was. An open half truck,129 with a woman driver, arrived. We loaded our belongings into the open section. The boys were placed in the closed cabin with the driver; Mami and I sat on top of our bundles in the 129 A pick-up truck. – Ed.

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open part of the truck. It was very cold, it was December 17, and we covered ourselves with the blanket we still possessed.

Leaving Ashkhabad for the Iranian Border

We were travelling south, climbing higher and higher in the mountains. Those were winding, narrow mountain roads, with steep slopes, which only an accomplished driver could negotiate. It became dark and very cold. There were no lights on the way and no trace of human dwellings, just mountains. Suddenly the woman driver stopped. The headlights didn’t work, and she said that it was too dangerous to drive in the dark. There was nothing else to do, but to wait until dawn. It was terrible to think that we had to spend the night in the open air, with sub-zero temperatures and the cold wind blowing around us. At this point, the wind blew away our blanket and we couldn’t find it anymore. Suddenly a military truck drove up alongside us and the men struck up a conversation with our woman driver. We understood that they wanted to persuade her to give them the gasoline from our truck, because they were running short. They said they’d give it back as soon as they reached their destination in the military barracks nearby. Those barracks housed the border military police, who were guarding the Russian-Iranian border. As soon I heard this, I protested vehemently, knowing that those soldiers, who were half-drunk, would never keep their promise and would never return the gasoline. I told the driver that she was responsible for us, as foreigners, to the Intourist. Russians were always afraid of the word “responsibility,” otviechat budiesh, as I explained earlier. And so the soldiers drove away and we stayed. Finally, we had the idea to drive carefully to the military barracks nearby and to spend the night there, instead of freezing in the open. This, she did. She was received cheerfully by the soldiers, and she disappeared into one of their rooms, where we could hear that all of them had a very good time. We decided to stay in the half truck, because we were afraid that they might steal our belongings and the gasoline. But after some time, we couldn’t stand the cold any longer, and we took the risk of leaving the truck, the four of us went into the barracks and spent the night sitting in one of the corridors. Early in the morning, at daylight, the woman driver appeared, and we continued our trip to the border, higher up in the mountains of Khorassan. We arrived at approximately ten in the morning at a small building, where those who crossed the Russian-Iranian border had to undergo a very strict control.

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Crossing the Russian-Iranian Border

While traveling we noticed no trace of human habitation. It seemed to us that even a bird couldn’t fly over the border area; so guarded was the frontier. It was the first thing the Soviets did. They removed all the inhabitants from the border area, to avoid smuggling, escaping, and spying. We were brought into a rather austere-looking room. There were two uniformed men from the NKVD border police. The border police could be recognized by their green caps, different from the blue caps worn by the NKVD in the interior of Russia. I also noticed a woman in attendance. The woman truck driver was ready to leave now that she had brought us to this place; but I begged her to stay and handed her all the Russian money we had. Firstly, we weren’t allowed to have any Russian rubles with us, we were warned by the Russians that if they found in our belongings even one ruble (which was practically worthless at that time, even in Russia), they would send us back. Secondly, I wasn’t sure what might happen to us. Maybe they wouldn’t let us pass for unknown reasons and we would have no means of transportation back to some place. And so, she stayed and waited. One of the two men took our passports and disappeared. It seemed that we were waiting for some two hours. We didn’t know the exact time, since we had no watches (our watches were sold a long time ago), but it felt like an eternity. We were tense and nervous and hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since noon the day before. We didn’t know the reason for our waiting, but we guessed rightly, the man had phoned Moscow to check our documents, whether they were in order or whether they were forged. Finally, the man came and asked us to open all our belongings. Here started our ordeal, which was particularly hard on Mami since she opened and unpacked everything. The man checked every little object. Certain things were wrapped in some old Russian and Uzbek newspapers. He read the Russian papers, to check we weren’t trying to smuggle out news which shouldn’t be known abroad; the Uzbek papers he took away. Mami had some thread wound around a piece of paper. She had to unwind it because something could be hidden inside. Henry had a small chess-set. The man unscrewed the heads of the figures to see whether something was hidden inside them. Henry also had a very nice edition of Pushkin’s poetry, which we bought for him for very little money in Bukhara. Henry loved Pushkin’s poetry. For unknown reasons, the man confiscated the books. In a burlap bag, we had our down-feather bedding, which was so useful to us. Mami had to take it out and the man squeezed

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everything, every pillow, to see whether we weren’t smuggling anything in there. Somebody might wonder why we simply didn’t leave everything behind and travel lightly. This couldn’t be done, so long as we were still in Russia. Not knowing what might happen to us. Without these most essential things, we couldn’t survive in Russia. This nerve-wrecking control lasted some two hours. After he was satisfied that we hadn’t hidden or smuggled anything, he said “davayte.” Everything had to be packed up in a hurry. This brought Mami’s nerves nearly to a breaking point. It was quite a job to pack all those things, which had been so neatly packed by Mami, now thrown all over the place, with the man standing over us and rushing us. Our belongings simply didn’t fit into our suitcases and into the burlap bag anymore. And we were eager to leave this place as quickly as possible. One never knew what might happen with the Russians; they might change their mind or receive some new instructions. Finally, Mami managed to somehow squeeze everything in. The NKVD officer ordered me to load our belongings into the waiting half truck and the four of us took our seats on top of them. He stood on the running board of the truck and directed the woman driver where to go. She drove along a very small pass, still higher in the mountains, and after some ten minutes, he told her to stop. We were at a horizontal crossbeam, which marked the Russian-Iranian border. He asked us to climb down and ordered me to transfer our belongings to the other side of the border. I did so, and instinctively placed them a few yards further then asked. Then he asked all of us to walk to the other side, the Iranian side. He and the woman driver stood on the Russian side the whole time. After we, and our belongings, were on the other side, the officer handed me our passports over the crossbeam, and without saying a word, boarded the truck and left with the woman driver. On December 18, at 30 degrees below zero, in the mountains of Khorassan, we crossed the border between Russia and Iran. On the snowcapped peak, at 8000 feet, ten yards away from the Russian border, we said our prayers of thanks to God for this greatest miracle of all.130

130 If it wasn’t for the persistence and devotion of sister Lusia, who used all her possible connections, we certainly wouldn’t have been among the few families who could leave Russia at that time. We owe our sister Lusia our eternal gratitude for her part in this miraculous event, which she helped become true.

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At the Iranian Border

So here we were. It was long past noon. We were standing on top of a mountain, with no sign of human habitation and not a living soul, as far as our eyes could see. It was December 18, as cold as could be expected high in the mountains at this time of the year. We had behind us a night and many hours of high tension and fear. This was a very emotional moment and a moment of deep relief, for all of us, despite the fact we didn’t know what to do next. We looked around and while standing there, an important thing happened. Henry suddenly noticed a very small picture, lying on the ground. He picked it up and handed it over to me. It was very colorful and had some imprint in letters, in a language we didn’t know. We then saw to our right an empty shack. It was probably used during the summer by shepherds as a shelter, while attending to their goats or sheep, as they grazed in the mountains. I decided to leave Mami and the boys there, and to walk down the mountain. Maybe there would be some inhabited village, where I could find some help and shelter for us. I walked down a few kilometers and there was indeed an Iranian village below. I talked to the people I met about our plight (some spoke Russian) and I was told that there was a British Transport Command outpost in the village. I visited them right away and I told them our story. I found out that the Transport Command, which was run by a few English civilians, was here for the purpose of directing the transport of the American Lend-Lease materials over the border to Russia. Those gentlemen were very sympathetic to us. They had several trucks at their disposal and directed one truck, with an Iranian driver, to go back with me to the border, to pick up my family. It naturally took some time before I arrived at the same spot, where I had left Mami and the boys. And I got the shock of my life. They were not there. For a moment, I had the frightening thought that maybe the Russians forced them back. But it dawned on me that they might be in the shack to protect themselves from the cold. And surely, there they were. Mami was nervously exhausted and at the end of her strength. They were sitting there on top of the bundles, waiting for me. With some relief, we boarded the truck, and we were brought to the same village, where I had just come from. There we discovered that the little picture, which Henry had found at the border, was money (two tumans, the equivalent of one dollar) and at a teahouse, we bought with it some tea and bread in the form of discs (lepyoshky). This was delicious and badly needed, we hadn’t eaten since the afternoon of the day before.

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We all went to the British Command post to find out how we could proceed to Teheran. The man in charge advised us to first get to Meshed, a city in the north of Iran, where – to his knowledge – the Polish government-in-exile (also called the “Londoner Polish government”) had some sort of a consulate. He was willing to let us ride in one of their trucks, which would shortly leave in that direction. The Englishman was very much concerned and considerate. Knowing that coming from Russia, we were penniless, he gave us some Iranian money. He explained that he had a special fund for foreign travelers who happened to cross the border here. Meshed was quite faraway from this frontier village, maybe a few hundred kilometers, and we had a long trip by truck in front of us. And so, we left. This was a real truck, fully covered, only the back wall was substituted with canvas. The Iranian driver was sitting in his cabin and his young Persian helper was traveling inside with us. Now the following happened. I hadn’t said my prayers that day because of all the things which happened to us during the day. After we settled in our truck, I took out my prayer book. At this moment, the young man asked me, in Hebrew, whether I was a Jew. Mami took over the conversation in Hebrew with this young man. It turned out that he was Jewish and that he was working for a trucking company, which belonged to a Persian Jewish family. This trucking company was contracted by the British Transport Command. The young man was very happy and excited about this lucky encounter (there were only very few Jews in the north of Iran). He offered to bring us to the family who owned the trucking company, where we could stay overnight, and we could proceed from there to Meshed the next morning. And so it was. We arrived late in the evening at the home of the Persian Jewish family, where we were received with the greatest hospitality. They gave us hot tea, fed us, and even sent for special delicious pastry for the boys, things we hadn’t seen in years. They made beds for us, on top of Persian carpets, the room was very warm, and we slept like kings. The next day, after exchanging thankful greetings, they provided us with another truck, with instructions to the driver to bring us to Meshed. This was a long journey again through the mountains. From time to time, Mami or the boys were sitting with the driver in his cabin. It turned out that the driver was using some dope, as many Persians did, and his driving was very dangerous and hazardous, particularly since there were no highways, only passes in the mountains, with precipices along the steep roads. Mami was very worried and fearful for us. But at last, we arrived late in the evening and after many inquiries with the local people, we arrived in front of the building, which looked like a villa, where the Poles had their headquarters.

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Arrival in Meshed

At first our reception was very friendly. An elderly man was in charge of this Polish outpost, I don’t know what his official title was, but everybody called him “Mr. President.”131 As soon they found out that our name was “Landau” and they realized that we were Jews (there were no Poles with this name), their smiles and politeness disappeared. After some preliminaries, we were brought to some barracks at the outskirt of the town and we were given a room, with cots and some furniture. Here we were provided with three meals a day. There was a young Polish lady in charge of those barracks, another Polish woman in charge of the kitchen, and some Iranian help. We were left alone here for several days, and nobody showed any interest in us. We were told that the entire staff was busy preparing for Christmas; there was an orphanage connected with this Polish outpost and they were preparing some religious play. A few hours before Christmas Eve, on December 24, 1943, somebody came from the Polish office, not to invite us to dinner, but to inquire as to whether I spoke English. When he found out that I did, he was very happy. It turned out that they had invited the British and the American consuls, with their wives, to the play and to the dinner but there was nobody within the Polish staff who spoke English. I was therefore invited to act as an interpreter for those English-speaking guests of honor. Sometime later, a truck came to pick me up. I was brought into some auditorium, with a makeshift stage, and I was seated between the wives of the English and American consuls. After the performance by the orphans in Polish started, I had to explain to them what was happening on stage. This was one of those very primitive nativity plays, with the manger, mother and child, the three kings, and all the angels, which belonged to the Christmas story. After this was over, we were led to the dining room, where again I was seated between those ladies and the ceremony of breaking the wafer (opłatek in Polish) began. The white wafers represent symbolically Christ’s body. One breaks a piece and shares it with his neighbor. I had to do this with my ladyneighbors on both sides. As soon as this was done and they started to serve a delicious dinner, with those pierożki, which came – I think – in seven varieties, somebody came to tell me that a truck was waiting for me, to bring me back to the barracks. (This was disgusting, but typically Polish.) I returned home

131 As we found out later, before the war, he was a mayor of one of the bigger cities in Poland and so they called him “President”.

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rather late, and my family and I had dinner together, which was a bit better than usual. The same man, who came to ask me about my knowledge of the English language, came to visit us again. He was a converted Jew and as such he was tolerated by the others. He explained to us the entire situation and the purpose of this Polish outpost in Meshed. The Poles were expecting big transports of Poles, who were still in Russia and couldn’t get out neither with the first nor the second transport of the Polish Anders Army. For this purpose, they kept the big staff with the “President;” they otherwise had nothing to do with those huge barracks at the outskirts of Meshed with all the necessary facilities. When we arrived, there was big joy, since they thought that this was the beginning of the expected mass transports. But when they found out that we came on individual passports and that in addition we were Jewish, they were terribly disappointed, their faces dropped, and their smiles faded away. The day before we left Meshed, the Greenstein family arrived. We had never met before, but we had heard of them, with certain envy. Mr. Greenstein, a lawyer before the war in Warsaw, had been in charge of the greatest warehouse in Samarkand – which supplied all the Delegaturas in Soviet Russia with food, clothing, and all other essential materials sent from America for the Polish deportees. He got this much coveted and important position through his friend and colleague from Warsaw, Mr. Zaydeman, who joined the diplomatic service of the Polish government-in-exile in London. After the Stalin-Sikorski agreement in 1941, when normal diplomatic relations between Russia and Poland were established, he was transferred to the Polish Embassy, at first in Tashkent and later in Kuybyshev. Through this connection, Mr. Greenstein got this important position. After the Greenstein family’s arrival in Meshed, they complained about the barracks, while we were happy and satisfied with the food and lodging; we didn’t mind the tin plates on which the food was served, to which the Greensteins highly objected.

Teheran

There was at that time no direct railroad connection between Meshed and Teheran. The Polish office in Meshed arranged our transport at first by truck to the railroad junction, and later from there by train to Teheran. We also received some pocket money. The journey took an entire day and we arrived at the station in Teheran late at night. It was already December 30, 1943. Here in Teheran, at the station, we were picked up by two uniformed men from the Polish military police, who seemed to know that we were arriving. They told us

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in fact that they had orders to bring us, as Polish citizens, to the camp, where all those Poles who came with the two General Anders Army transports in the previous year were housed. We, not knowing any better, complied and were loaded on a military truck. We traveled for a long time, it was late at night, but we didn’t fail to notice that we were heading to a place far removed from the city of Teheran. We finally arrived at our destination and saw long rows of barracks. Everything was clouded in darkness, and everybody was asleep, since it was long past midnight. The military policemen handed us over to some night watchman, who brought us, with a kerosene lamp in hand, to one of the barracks where they had a few empty cots. By the light of the kerosene lamp, I noticed with horror how bugs and vermin were crawling over those cots, covered with some dirty blankets. I was furious. Mami did as much as possible to protect us from vermin while in Russia and here, coming after so much effort to Teheran, we should be exposed to such terrible conditions. I told the watchman that we were not staying here, and that I had to see the Commander of the barracks right away. He didn’t expect such a reaction and told me that nothing could be done, because the Commander was asleep. I didn’t care and asked him to wake up the Commander. Seeing my adamant position, he had no choice but to wake up the Commander, which he did with great reluctance. The Commander came out half asleep and I told him in a rather loud voice that I didn’t intend to stay here with my family. He tried to convince me that so many people were living here under these conditions. I told him that we had nothing to do with all these people. We didn’t come here with any military transport, only on an individual basis, due to our own efforts and had to be treated as such. Therefore, I asked him to bring us back right away to the same place where we were picked up, namely to the railroad station in Teheran. He saw that I was determined not to give in and not to remain there and so he ordered a truck to bring us back to Teheran. It was already maybe three in the morning. I convinced the driver to bring us to some hotel and he did. He brought us to a hotel in Lalehzar Street, where we took a room. We unpacked and went to sleep after a rather tiresome and exciting day. George was always the first to get up. And so, he went and found a bakery nearby, and a place where milk could be bought. We still had some Iranian money, which we received in Meshed. There was a kerosene stove in the hotel room and Mami prepared for us our first breakfast in Teheran, which was delicious. From letters, which we and our friends received in Bukhara and Kermine, we knew of several Jewish families who came out of Russia with the two Anders Army transports and who were living in Teheran. And so, I left our hotel room

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after breakfast to visit the Polish Delegatura and to report there. It was a rather large office, which was also in charge of those refugee camps, where some 15,000 Poles lived. I had a cool reception for the same reasons as in Meshed, as they found out that we were Jewish and that we came on an individual basis. There were very few Jews working there, a few were converts. An exception was a Polish lady working there, who extended to me a very warm greeting. As it turned out, she roomed with Mrs. Tyda Boehm, who I mentioned earlier and who knew us from Kraków and who was also working in the Delegatura as a telephone operator. From Mrs. Boehm, I learned that only a few Jewish families were still in Teheran because a few weeks earlier a big transport of Polish Jewish families left for Palestine. I also found out from her that there was a branch of the Jewish Agency in Teheran. Naturally, I was very eager to visit their office and I did this right away. There, I met the man in charge of the Jewish Agency office, Dr. Ishay (formerly Dr. Ishaevits132 from Częstochowa in Poland), a lawyer from Palestine, who volunteered to direct for a certain time the activities of this organization. Among the office workers, I also met a young lady, Janka Neuman, who knew Runek from the Polish Army; she came out of Russia with the first transport, by joining the Polish Army as part of Pestka, the Polish Women’s Auxiliary Army Unit.133 She had a letter and some money for us from Runek, who was always very thoughtful and foresaw that we might sooner or later show up in Teheran. The first days after our arrival in Teheran were very hectic and exciting. The next day in the morning, as I was ready to leave our room at the hotel and to go into the city, I suddenly met in the corridor a man of small stature, whom I was sure I knew. I looked closer at him and he at me; and a second later, we embraced one another. It was Mr. Strauch, the salesman in our factory “Kopal” in Kraków, who covered the territory of Polish Upper-Silesia. Mr. Strauch escaped together with us, after the Nazi invasion, from Kraków to Lwów, where he stayed with our family. Later, he successfully crossed the Lithuanian border, near Wilno, and that was the last we heard of him. Now, he had been staying in the same hotel as us, and was just checking out of the hotel, to leave Teheran, on his way to India. How he happened to be there is another story, but it was a 132 Moshe Yishai (before Szajewicz also spellt Iszajewicz) was emissary of the Jewish Agency in Teheran. He wrote a memoir in Hebrew A Delegate without a Title, Jerusalem: N.  Teberski 1950. Originally from Częstochowa, the town he revisited postwar and described in another book published in Hebrew: Envoy to the Land of the Holocaust. Records of a Journey to Poland on behalf of the Jewish Agency in 1964 – Ed. 133 Women’s Auxiliary Service (PSK, Pestka) was a Polish auxiliary military formation operating during World War II. It was created at the end of 1941 on General Władysław Anders’ initiative, during the establishment of the Polish Armed Forces in the Soviet Union. – Ed.

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miracle that we met at this particular place and moment. One minute later, we certainly would have missed one another, maybe forever. Of course, I brought him to my family, still in the room I had just left, and there was great joy. How did Mr. Strauch happen to arrive in Teheran at that time? As mentioned, he had been staying with us in Lwów, and decided to attempt the border crossing to Lithuania. Mr. Strauch never came back to Lwów; we hadn’t heard whether or how he crossed the border. He now told us about it. We had in Wilno a distributor, under the name Rattner & Swerdlin, who owed us money. I gave Mr. Strauch the best recommendations to our distributor and asked them to give Mr. Strauch any assistance they possibly could. Mr. Rattner helped him in Wilno to make the proper contacts with the men who smuggled people over the Lithuanian border and helped him also with money. Mr. Strauch left Kaunas later, as many others did, by the Trans-Siberian Railway through Soviet Russia for Japan and from there he managed to get to Bombay in India, where many Jewish families from Poland settled and established themselves in various enterprises. Everybody was successful, since there was a shortage of everything in India, which was at that time an English colony, working for the English war effort. Mr. Strauch was somehow connected with the Polish Red Cross, and also started manufacturing some small electrical stoves, which were readily absorbed by the consumer’s market. He was quite successful and could save some money. On this particular occasion, he had come to Teheran from Bombay on a mission for the Red Cross.134 It turned out that Mr. Strauch was at that time quite well situated financially, and in a position to help us. With the money (the equivalent of some 100 dollars) he gave me, I was able to pay the hotel bill, which relived us from our worries, and it carried us over until we received some money from family. When we had arrived in Teheran, we sent a cable to Dave (my brother-in-law), who was at that time a physician in the American Army, stationed in Little Rock, Arkansas; and we also sent a cable to my sister Lusia in Australia, whom we owed our freedom to. We then received by cable a substantial sum from Dave, who was overjoyed to receive our message that we had left Russia; and later, monthly money orders arrived from sister Lusia in Sydney. Our financial situation improved considerably this way. The news that a Polish Jewish family arrived from Russia spread like wildfire in Teheran and many things happened to us as a result of it. At first, I was invited to the Polish Embassy and was received by some high official. I met the 134 Mr. Strauch went back to Bombay and I met him there, some two years later, on my way to Australia.

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ambassador sometime later. The ambassador was a converted Jew from Lwów, Dr. Bader135, who was a follower of the leader of the Polish Peasant Party, Witos.136 He asked me about the situation in Soviet Russia and I immediately told him about the tragedy of the Jewish intelligentsia left there by the Anders Army and I urged him to do something about it. It turned out that he was not interested in them at all. He was an intelligence officer for the Polish Embassy, and he was only interested in the general situation in Russia. One day, we were told that a notice was posted on the front door at the Polish Embassy to the effect that the men from those families who recently arrived from Soviet Russia were to appear before a military commission for a medical examination, to be drafted to the Polish Army. There were four men among us: me, Mr. Greenstein,137 Mr. Kohn (the son-in-law of the Stern family), and Mr. Chotschner.138 Mr. Greenstein didn’t tell me that he immediately became active, looking up some of the doctors from Warsaw living in Teheran. 135 Dr. Karol Bader (1887–1957) Polish lawyer, diplomat, publicist; chargé d’affaires in Czechoslovakia (1923), Turkey (1926) and Austria (1926–1931). On behalf of the Polish government in exile, from July 1942 to June 1945 he was extraordinary deputy and minister plenipotentiary of the Republic of Poland in Iran, with the territorial scope of the mission also covering Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan. – Ed. 136 The leader Witos died in the meantime but the party, which was in opposition to the ruling party of Marshal Piłsudski, came to power again, leading the Polish governmentin-exile in London; and therefore, Dr. Bader was nominated to this high political post. He expressed to me his sympathy for the plight of the Polish Jews in Russia, during our pleasant conversation sometime later. – Author’s note. Wincenty Witos (1874–1945) was a Polish politician, the creator of the peasant party, one of the founding fathers of independent Poland and three times Prime Minister of the Second Republic of Poland. – Ed. 137 Mr. Greenstein used to visit us, with his wife and daughter, in our hotel room in Teheran. At the beginning, we were staying in the same hotel. Mami liked their daughter, Joasia, and tried to be helpful to them, particularly since Mrs. Greenstein became seriously ill (she had TB). Later, Mr. Greenstein tried to enter the Polish diplomatic service and would walk around with the Polish patriotic emblem (the eagle) on his lapel, to the annoyance of both the Poles, who were antisemitic as always, and the Jews. After his ambition to get into the Polish diplomatic service failed, I helped Mr. Greenstein get employment for the Joint. 138 In addition to the Greenstein family, we later met these two other families, who were already in Teheran: the Stern family from Bielsko and the Chotschner family from Tarnów. This was one of those exceptional coincidences of events, short of a miracle, which made it possible for these few families to leave, in the same way we did. (I later heard in Australia that one other family was allowed to leave, but they were too far north in Russia and couldn’t reach the Iran border in the prescribed time.) When Russia broke off diplomatic relations with Poland because of the Katyn affair, the Polish ambassador had to leave Moscow, and the Australian Embassy in Moscow took over the protection of Polish citizens in Soviet Russia. The Australian Embassy, which the Russians only allowed to have a very small staff, couldn’t handle the thousands of requests they received daily from

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The medical examination found me and Mr. Kohn (who was a very young man) fit for the army, but rejected Mr. Greenstein and Mr. Chotschner, who developed TB in Russia. I was very bitter about this shameful business on the part of the Poles. A year and a half earlier, when I tried to get into the Polish Army, in order to get out of Russia, I appeared before a Polish military commission in Bukhara. I was told by the Polish Army doctors that I was so weak and ill that I wouldn’t survive even the basic training (which incidentally I didn’t need, since I was a veteran of the Austrian Army from the First World War) and I was rejected. Now, after the additional years of starvation, I was found perfectly fit for military duty and could be sent right away to the Polish fighting unit. This was actually an illegal action on the part of the Polish authorities, as Mr. Okoński139, the Consul of the Polish Embassy – who was in charge of the passport division and with whom I later became friendly – explained to me. They had no right to draft people on foreign territory. They simply did it by sheer force and by intimidation. If somebody didn’t heed their call, they denounced them as subversive to the British authorities in Teheran, who had jurisdiction in matters of intelligence in Teheran. As a result of it, a denounced person couldn’t obtain an exit visa from Iran. The Iranian foreign office granted exit visas, which were required for every foreigner leaving Iran, only after the British intelligence gave their OK. I knew of a case where a jazz band, stranded in Iran after the outbreak of the war, couldn’t leave Iran because the Poles wanted to draft them into the army, and they, being Jewish, refused to serve in the antisemitic Polish Army. So, the Poles denounced them to the British intelligence. When I left Iran two years later, they were still there.

The Jewish Agency and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

I remained in touch, after our arrival in Teheran, with Dr. Ishay, the head of the Jewish Agency and I learned more about their activities and the purpose of their office in Teheran. There were high-level negotiations between the Jewish Agency in London and the Russian leaders, through the Russian embassies in London and Washington, to allow the Polish Jewish deportees to leave Soviet Polish citizens stranded in Russia and simply had to give up their diplomatic protection of Polish citizens, as the Russians didn’t allow them to increase their staff. 139 Witold Okoński (1904–1979) – Polish diplomat, in the 1930s consul in Minsk. He served as First Secretary of the Polish diplomatic mission and consul in Teheran, and from July 1944 as Counsellor of the Polish diplomatic mission in Teheran. On 1 June 1945, he took up the post of Chargé d’affaires in Teheran. – Ed.

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Russia. The Teheran office was therefore very busy, preparing lists of the Polish Jews in Russia, from names supplied by relatives and various Jewish organizations. These lists were supposed to be presented to the Russian authorities for approval and evacuation. The Jewish Agency in Teheran was preparing for the arrival of those thousands of Jews in transit from Iran to Palestine. Nothing came out of those activities and great preparations, but the card index in Teheran became very valuable to the Joint a few months later. Families in America, who were very eager to help their relatives in Russia but hadn’t succeeded in doing so, turned to the Jewish Agency to arrange the dispatch of parcels. The Jewish Agency organized this through two private companies in Teheran, which shipped parcels to Russia on a commercial basis. (This problem was later radically improved through the activities of the Joint.) Some young Palestinians, who served in the British Army in Teheran, volunteered in their spare time to help the Jewish Agency. They were a very nice, idealistic group of young men.140 I remember distinctly one such young man, who was a sergeant in the British Army, Halpern was his name, from Stanisławów in Poland. I jokingly called him “the first Jewish military attaché,” since the Jewish Agency was the first semi-official Jewish government, before Israel was established in 1948. In the first days of January 1944, I was informed by Dr. Ishay that representatives of the American Joint Distribution Committee141 had arrived in Teheran and were eager to meet me.142 They were expecting me in their room at the Ferdowsi Hotel (one of the most elegant, old-fashioned hotels in Teheran). I gladly complied and arrived at the appointed hour in their room. With the outbreak of World War II and the deportation of so many Jewish families to Soviet Russia, desperate letters came from these families to their relatives in America. Relatives tried to help, as for instance Dave did in New York, by sending packages to Russia. Some of these packages arrived, but many didn’t, since the whole business of sending parcels was sometimes handled by unscrupulous people, who used this human misery as a means to enrich 140 The Jewish Agency in Teheran also had a department which prepared the young Jews in Iran to emigrate to Palestine as Chalutzim. For this department, the Hapoel Hatzair in Palestine used to delegate young men from their Kibutzim to help in this work. 141 The activities of this splendid Jewish organization, which was founded in New York during the First World War are well-known. I had an indirect contact with them after the First World War, when the stranded Jewish students, who came back from different war fronts to Vienna, organized the so called “Hochschulausschuss” with the help of the Joint. 142 I described the meeting between me and Mr. Passman and Mr. Segall, who came from Jerusalem with the intention to establish an office in Teheran and to organize help for the Jewish deportees in Russia, in my essay “Miracles in Our Lives.”

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themselves. The Jewish public opinion, particularly those who contributed to the actions of the Joint, exerted pressure and demanded that this great organization did something about the thousands of Jews, suffering from disease and starvation in Soviet Russia. The Joint originally planned to establish an office in Moscow but the Russian authorities didn’t approve it. The Joint was considered by the Soviets as a spyorganization for the western capitalistic world.143 Officially, another version was given for their refusal, namely that the Russians didn’t approve of private charity. If the Joint wanted to extend help, the Russians said the supplies had to be sent to them for distribution. The Joint naturally couldn’t agree to this, knowing the Russians. And so, the Joint decided to set up its activities in Iran, and to ship the required help from there, across the Caspian Sea to Russia. It was decided by the Joint headquarters in New York that the entire project would be handled by their Jerusalem office, headed by Mr. Charles Passman, who in turn engaged Mr. Segall to be in charge of the Teheran office. At this point, they both arrived in Teheran, where I was invited to meet them. We met at the Ferdowsi Hotel, the most fashionable hotel in Teheran at that time. They inquired about the living conditions of the Jewish deportees in Russia. I told them everything I knew from my own experience and from my observations, witnessing the suffering of all the people around me. When they mentioned the plan to extend help by sending packages, I explained that the receivers wouldn’t keep them but would sell their contents and that every package should contain essentials which could easily be sold. This was news to them. They thought the materials sent in the packages would be used by the receivers themselves. By explaining that an average family needed three thousand rubles monthly just to survive, and by giving them the black-market prices of items – such as shoes, shirts, underwear, and sugar – they could be guided by these figures to assemble a standard package. Each package should make it possible for the beneficiary to survive for at least another month. I was offered a job by those gentlemen, to help organize the new branch of the Joint in Teheran. Mr. Passman stayed in Teheran for a few more days, during which time he had high-level conferences in connection with the technical aspects of this new venture. My salary was fixed at 500 tumans per month, which was at that time equivalent of some 150 dollars. As it turned out later, this wasn’t enough to cover our living expenses, but I was exuberant, and my family was very happy with the big news of my employment. I brought up my personal problem of having been drafted to the Polish Army. Mr. Passman 143 Later, in 1953, Stalin connected the infamous alleged “Jewish doctors plot,” accused of a plan to poison the Soviet leaders, with the activities of the Joint.

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explained that with his connections in the Polish government in London, it would be very easy for me to obtain a deferment from the Polish Army, and he promised to take the appropriate measures right away.

The Joint

My first assignment was to visit the warehouse of the Polish Red Cross in Teheran and to make a list of all the American packages kept there – because no customs duty had been paid, the Russians hadn’t let them in. It was a horrible sight. Thousands of packages, which could have saved many lives, were simply dumped in the huge warehouse, with very little protection. There were signs of pilferage and most of them were eaten by rats, particularly those which contained chocolate or cocoa powder. Those packages, attacked by rats, weren’t suitable for human consumption and had to be discarded. I found among them eight packages sent by Dave to us, which couldn’t be used. It was a big sacrifice on Dave’s part to spend so much money and all this was wasted. It turned out that many agencies in America, which took orders for packages to be sent to Russia, either didn’t know or didn’t care about the high customs duties which had to be paid to the Soviets in advance, and so all those packages were returned to Teheran. The Polish Red Cross took them under their custody, but otherwise did nothing about it. It was my task to make a list of all the packages which were in fairly good condition and to approach the senders in America to enquire whether they would be willing to pay the required customs duty. This was quite a project; it took nearly two weeks. In the meantime, Mr. Segall rented the ground floor of a new apartment building to be used as an office, and a huge basement, for use as a warehouse and a packing room. I moved into the basement shortly afterwards and started working, using a wooden crate as my desk. Besides Mr. Segall, who was the official manager of the Teheran office of the JDC, I was the first employee. It was decided that help should be extended by sending packages to individuals. The Joint handled the entire administration, provided all the finances and all the contents of those packages. The technical part of this project was handled by a different organization, contracted by the Joint in Palestine, with the name Peltours,144 privately owned by a Palestinian Jew who came from Lithuania. Where did we obtain the names of the people, who were supposed to receive help in the form of packages? There were several sources. First, there 144 This organization later became a prominent traveling agency in Israel.

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was the card index I mentioned, the Jewish Agency in Teheran had accumulated a list of many families, spread over a large territory in Russia. Second, the Joint in NY had lists of addresses supplied to them by contributors in America. Then, there were also several Jewish relief organizations in South Africa and Australia, which sent addresses of families known to them, supplied by relatives in those countries. There were also political organizations, such as the Jewish Labor Committee, which had an office in Jerusalem and supplied us with lists. Once the packages reached families in Soviet Russia, people who didn’t receive any wrote to us directly, asking for help – and they were added to our lists. Some private people also approached us, but this wasn’t without complications. Last but not least, there was a religious orthodox organization, called Vaad Hatzalah (represented in Teheran by an orthodox rabbi, Yitzchak Meir Levi), which provided the Joint with lists of orthodox families, rabbis, and Talmudic scholars in Russia. This organization paid cash to the Joint for every package ordered by Rabbi Levi. Rabbi Levi was an extraordinary man; and a book could be written about him, his personality, and his activities.145 Now, having these lists was not the end of it. There were thousands and thousands of names. These had to be transferred to index cards, according to names and regions – the addresses with Russian place names were strange to us, often not clear and rather confusing. Not everybody could receive a package at the same time. So, a certain sequence had to be worked out. Depending on the materials at hand, several package-standards were established. Every package, with date and standard, had to be entered into the card index. In addition, several forms had to be filled out for every package: for the Persians, for the Russians, and for customs. Addresses for every package had to be written on linen, with both Latin and Russian letters. A new feature was added – unknown until then – namely, confirmation forms. These forms were returned after two to three months, with the original signature of the beneficiary. This again was entered on the index card; and if no confirmation was received, the address became doubtful. There was more and more red tape, which today is of no interest to anybody, but I wanted to give you an idea of the administration needed for such an operation. Mr. Segall had to deal with various government agencies, foreign embassies, Iranian ministries, and banks. He also traveled to India and Palestine for longer periods of time and so he left the entire day-to-day administration of our work to me.

145 The author writes extensively about Rabbi Itzchak Levi (Isaac Meir Levi) – those passages were not included in the book. – Ed.

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As mentioned already, I started working on a wooden crate, as the first employee. But in a short time, we had a staff of about 30 people, mostly women, from some ten different nationalities, and some eight languages were in daily use.146 People who visited us were highly impressed. Considering the hot climate in Iran, we worked from seven in the morning until two in the afternoon. No work could be done in the afternoon. We worked six days a week. Saturday was free of work, for all of us, including many non-Jews employed in our office. I tried to imbue in our coworkers a spirit of our work’s urgency, meaning that “what can be done today, shouldn’t be postponed for tomorrow,” because a human life might depend on it. I must say that I succeeded most of the time. We had a very close cooperation with Peltours, who handled the technical aspects of our work (the final packing and shipping).147 The fact that we were located on the same floor of the same building helped a lot, since telephones were not available in Teheran. Michael, a Peltours Iranian Jewish employee, did a terrific job. He was the man who had contacts in all the necessary government offices. The post office in Teheran had never handled more than a few hundred packages a month; and here we came, trying to send 10,000 packages a month. This would have over-flooded it. So, Michael arranged for the post office to move into our warehouse; and the packages went directly from here by truck to the port of Pahlavi, where they went by ship over the Caspian Sea to Russia. Our goods were mostly imported from abroad and were then shipped abroad again. The Persians hadn’t heard of the institution of “bonded” warehouses. And so, Mr. Segall and Michael worked out this problem with the respective ministries. The customs official now also worked in our warehouse and supervised the incoming and outgoing materials, so that they wouldn’t reach the private market in Iran. The packages were sent to Russia according to standards to ensure their equal value. They contained different items, depending on the supplies at hand. For instance: a blanket, some underwear, a shirt, a packet of tea, and 146 I still remember three of them, who were most outstanding; one was the executive secretary, Mrs. Kogan, from a Russian Jewish family, who lived in Turkey – she spoke six languages. The others were two Armenian sisters, Mara and Josephine, who both spoke eight languages. They were so talented that they even spoke Yiddish – since they had lived as children in a Jewish neighborhood in Odesa. They were devoted to our cause and worked very hard. 147 For some reason, the license to send packages to Russia was given by the Russian Intourist to Peltours and not to the Joint. The packages came under the jurisdiction of the Russian Intourist (the official travel agency) and the required customs duty (an average of two English pounds per package) was paid to them in Teheran. From then, the packages to Russia could only be sent through Peltours; which was not an ideal arrangement for the Joint.

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a can of fat (vegetable oil). Another package contained: a pair of shoes, soap, vitamins, and some underwear. Because of the war, essential materials needed for our packages were in short supply all over the world. Nothing could come from the United States anymore or England; and so, the Joint had to look for other sources of supply. One of those was India, still under the British. Mr. Passman and Mr. Segall traveled to Bombay to buy materials and contracted local manufacturers – European Jews, who had arrived there from Poland via Wilno, Russia, and Japan, and had started garment manufacture. They made shirts and underwear for the Joint, from cotton and linen bought in India.148 Vitamins and tea were also bought in India. Jewish relief organizations in Johannesburg (South Africa) and in Melbourne and Sydney (Australia) made a great effort to ship to Teheran, not only goods, but already assembled packages, even containing shoes.149 Materials such as vegetable fat, linen for packages, cartons, and cans were bought locally in Teheran.150

Our Private Life in Teheran

In our first few weeks in Teheran, we lived at the small hotel on Lalehzar Street. In addition to Mrs. Tyda Boehm (mentioned before), we became very friendly with Marian and Wanda Kornhauser151, also from Kraków, who came here with the first Anders Army transport. We also became friendly with some families who came to Persia before the war, from Czechoslovakia and some Jews from Germany.152 We moved from the hotel to a private furnished room and kitchen.153 My military deferment came from London to the Polish Army Command 148 After obtaining export licenses, these materials arrived in bulk at our warehouses. 149 I visited those organizations in Australia two years later and have written about them in the chapter covering my visit there. 150 I had a technical problem when it was decided to ship vegetable fat in certain packages. This was bought locally in drums and in order to can it, it was necessary to melt the fat and to find a device to fill it into kilo cans and to close it tight. This otherwise simple matter was quite complicated under the local conditions in Teheran. 151 Marian Kornhauser, an industrialist from Kraków, and his wife Wanda, née Kamster, are listed in “Poles residing in Tehran” of the periodical published by the Polish Army “Polska Walcząca. Żołnierz polski na obczyźnie” (Fighing Poland. Weekly for the Polish Forces), October 10, 1942, 4/41, p. 7. – Ed. 152 We became particularly friendly with a very pious German Jew, Joshua Pollak, who resided in Teheran since before the war and was engaged in an import-export business. Our friendship continues to this day. Mr. Pollak married and moved with his family to New York in 1955, where we always visited them for Purim, then he moved to Israel. 153 After that, we moved to a modern building, where furnished apartments were available, and where the Chinese consul was our neighbor; but it turned out that this was actually a place where prostitutes from Teheran brought their clients, mostly American GIs, and

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in Teheran and was limited to six months. I was in the Polish Army and leased to the Joint for a limited time only. My deferment (every six months) from the Polish Army was a constant issue. My second deferment didn’t come from London in time. So, one day, while I was working in my office, two Polish MPs154 from the Polish Army arrived and served me with a notice to report in three days to the commanding Polish officer, to be inducted into the Polish Army.155 As I was told later, I was supposed to be sent to some penal military camp in Egypt. I turned to the Polish consul, Mr. Okoński – he was a liberal and always very friendly with me. He told me that neither the Polish MPs, nor the commanding officer, had the right to do this, since I was on foreign territory. They did this by sheer force, denouncing their victims to the British Intelligence, which in turn controlled all the exit visas of the Iranian Foreign Ministry. We were very sad about this turn of events and Mami was very worried. The prospect of enduring all this, after all our sufferings, weighed heavily on me. But luckily, in the last moment, my deferment came from London, and we were very relieved. Henry was approaching his thirteenth birthday and it was time to think of his Bar Mitzvah. In the meantime, I became acquainted with Rabbi Levi, representing the Vaad Hatzalah, as mentioned before; and he was more than willing to prepare Henry. Henry visited him several times before the Bar Mitzvah and Rabbi Levi gave him the necessary instructions, particularly about the tefillin156 and taught him the blessings required for the Torah. On the Sabbath of Henry’s Bar Mitzvah, the four of us went to the little Ashkenazi synagogue, where Henry was called to the Torah. It was a very modest affair. Mami prepared some homemade cookies, and we brought along a bottle of some liquor. This was all we could afford. The community was very sympathetic, knowing where we had come from and what our immediate past was. Henry received his first wristwatch from us, as the only gift.157 We were happy to celebrate this important day in Henry’s and our lives in freedom, but we were also sad at the same time, since this was normally an occasion when

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so we decided to move out. We finally rented, through Mrs. Munk’s recommendation, the upper floor of a villa, from the Vrnak family (also from Czechoslovakia), on a very quiet street and here we stayed to the very end. The apartment was not actually completely furnished; and so Mami bought additional furniture. Having nice kitchen facilities and a balcony, we were very comfortable here. Military Provost Staff, officers responsible for custody and detention. – Ed. A copy of this notice was included in the original manuscript. – Ed. Henry Landau left his tefillin to his brother George and asked to be buried with his tallis. – Ed. I am always very emotional, when I recall this simple Bar Mitzvah, comparing it with all the luxuries, which are heaped on boys of his age here in the US.

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family was united. We were dispersed all over the world, not even knowing the fate of our dear ones. I should mention at this point that Henry, who used to visit Rabbi Levi after his Bar Mitzvah every Saturday afternoon to study at his home, was very much under his influence and became consequently very religious. He went to synagogue very often, even for the daily evening prayers. Henry was already at the age to be attending a gimnazjum in Europe, while George was still elementary-school age. There were two Polish schools in Teheran: an elementary school in town and a gimnazjum operating in the Polish camp. George was enrolled in town, and placed in the third grade with no difficulties, since he had some schooling in Bukhara. With Henry, it was different. I went with him to the Polish camp and after an interview with the principal of the Polish gimnazjum,158 he was accepted to the third grade. The next day, I accompanied Henry to school. Since many boys lived in Teheran (not in the camp), where their parents were working or living, a truck collected them in the morning and brought them at the appointed time to school. This was the first day of a new semester. The Poles started everything with going to church first. The boys were put into a military formation (this was also the Polish way). After a few orders were barked, they marched off in pairs to church, which was specially built by the Poles in the camp. Naturally, Henry stayed behind, and I stayed with him, waiting. After some time, the boys came back with their teachers from church and marched into the appropriate classrooms. We found Henry’s classroom and I left him there; knowing that he was the only Jew in his class. Henry came home after school rather sad. The same on the next day. He somehow lost his sunny disposition and smile. On his third day of school, Mrs. Wanda Kornhauser came to us very upset and told us with indignation what she had witnessed, by pure coincidence, while visiting the camp. There was a recess period at school. And she saw Henry standing aside from the rest of the boys, and how they were making fun of him, with antisemitic remarks. The Poles were great heroes of such remarks, and they started very early, even in their infancy. Naturally, they found out that Henry was Jewish, as he didn’t go to church with them. Wanda advised us not to leave him there and to take him away from this horrible school. We did just that. Henry didn’t go to school the next day, nor any other day. This was the end of his education at a Polish school once and forever. What next? At first, we decided that Henry should learn English, knowing this would be the language he would need in the future. This could only be done 158 Henry’s original certificate and the English translation were included in his copy of the original manuscript. – Ed.

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by private tutoring. A man was recommended to us as an English teacher. As it turned out, he was a Ukrainian, who for some unknown reasons settled in Iran many years before the Second World War. He knew English very well and had very good pronunciation. So, Henry started private lessons and made rapid progress. The teacher liked him, and even asked Henry to sit in while he was teaching other pupils. In the meantime, we learned about an excellent English high school, actually an American missionary school, which had been in Teheran for many years. An American lady was the principal of the high school. This was an ideal school for Henry, but the problem was that they were overcrowded and weren’t taking new students. I wrote to Dave, who was at that time a captain at a military base in Little Rock, Arkansas, and asked for his help. Dave was always ready to assist us in every possible way; so, he wrote to the American Red Cross, attached to the military base in Teheran. The man in charge visited us and offered his help. I also approached a very nice lady, who was a trustee of the American school. She was a chemist in charge of the medical laboratory in Teheran.159 Knowing my background, she was sympathetic to our problem. After a few months, Henry’s English teacher declared that Henry knew all the English he was able to teach him and that he could easily attend the American school. With the intervention of these people, and after passing the entrance exam, Henry was accepted to the American high school. It was a very happy day for us. This was an extraordinary school and Henry was very happy there. The school building was an old mansion, located in a beautiful park. There were students from some twenty nationalities – what they had in common was the English language and the school curriculum. The faculty was outstanding. Since they couldn’t get teachers from America due to the war, they hired British teachers, who happened to be stationed as British officers in Teheran. Henry acquired a lovely British accent. He did very well there, and after a short time, he was moved to a higher grade.160 Being an American school, the American Army, which had a very luxurious camp outside of Teheran, took interest in these youngsters. They got them interested in baseball and frequently brought them to the camp in their military trucks, to show them American movies. Those were happy times for Henry indeed.

159 I don’t remember her name anymore, but she came from Germany a few years before the War, escaping from the Nazis. 160 Henry had a favorite American teacher there and some two years later, while in Little Rock, he wrote about him for a Pepsi Cola competition in high school about “a favorite teacher” and he won a cash-prize and a pin.

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Henry was quite popular in school and had many friends. I still remember some among them: the twins of Dr. Karl Meyer, a Jewish physician from Germany, and particularly Lova Levin, who was older than Henry. Henry and Lova also used to meet in the Ashkenazi synagogue, where Lova was quite frequently called to the Torah and chanted the Haftorah beautifully, according to the Russian Jewish tradition. Lova’s family came to Teheran after the Bolshevik revolution. Lova and Henry conversed in English, and I was always very glad, watching their friendship.161 Mami arranged for Henry to have private French lessons with an Armenian lady, who had studied in France; and she took French lessons too. Mami also made sure the boys could go swimming from time to time. A young man, who worked at the Joint, Bubi Lichtenstein, used to take them with him. As far as George’s school was concerned, there were no complications. He attended the Polish elementary school in town, where he had several Jewish colleagues. George didn’t take any nonsense from anybody. Once a Polish boy made some antisemitic remarks in school and George simply punched him in the nose. From that time, he was respected and made many friends there. When he left school, before going to America, some of his classmates wrote little poems for him, in his “diary” – pamiętnik in Polish. In old times and particularly in Polish schools, boys and girls kept these little souvenir books (pamiętniki), where they wrote poems for each other, even with some sketches, expressing their everlasting friendship.162 While the boys were at school, Mami was very busy keeping our household, which was a lot of work in those primitive conditions. The water had to be bought, and all the food (vegetables, fruit) had to be thoroughly cleaned before using. The water was distributed at certain hours in the morning by enterprising Persians, in a big wooden barrel, drawn by a donkey, and sold by the gallon. The water came from the British Embassy, which had a direct pipeline and water supply from the mountains. The British gave it away freely to those Persians who picked it up at the embassy and sold it to whoever wanted to buy it. The rest of the population collected their water from the open sewers, which ran along the streets, into which the city pumped clear water during certain hours of the day. Those were the same channels where one could see women washing their dishes or their laundry – and further down the channel, people taking their water supply for household consumption. 161 We don’t know what happened to this charming young man, Lova Levin. 162 It is not quite the same, but similar to a yearbook in certain schools in the US. I still have George’s souvenir book, with some inscriptions in Polish and even in Czech, from the son of our Czechoslovakian landlord, Mr. Vrnak.

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George was, as always, very helpful at home. He did the shopping (he always liked to do it) and learned some Persian, so that he could converse with the shopkeepers. He used to provide the ice for us, from a brewery, which was nearby. He was always curious about people and very observant. Once he observed that two men were always waiting at the gate of the brewery for the workers to come out with their pay. These two men tried to engage the workers in some card game, where they let them win first, to encourage them to play; and later cheated them by some tricks and kept their money. George made it his business to watch all this and when they did the same trick next time, he warned the workers not to trust them. George had to run because those two gamblers wanted to beat him up. During this period, George lost his appetite for some reason and wasn’t eating. And so, our friends, the Kornhausers, who ate their main meal at the restaurant organized by the Polish Red Cross, suggested they take George with them. After school, George went directly to this restaurant and ate with them. This was a big success. He liked it there and from then on, George had his main meal with the Kornhausers. They jokingly referred to him as “our son.”163 I worked from seven in the morning to two in the afternoon. We had our main meal at that time. This was considered a normal day’s work, since it was too hot in the afternoon, when everything was closed, even stores. The streets came to life again after five or six in the evening. Everybody rested in the afternoon at home, covered with wet sheets, while a fan was running, in order to cool down a bit. Air conditioning was unknown at that time. This wasn’t too good a system because it was the best way to acquire rheumatism. I still had malaria-spells, which I acquired in Kermine. Many times, I started shivering during the hottest day. In the evening, we used to go to the café Continental, located in a huge park, where it was cool and where everybody could meet their friends. Henry and George used to join us there, but they left earlier, going home to bed. We stayed longer and when we came home, there was always a little note from the boys, telling us what they ate and what they did before going to bed. My salary at the Joint for the first year was the equivalent of 150 dollars per month, as mentioned.164 This wasn’t sufficient since Teheran was very 163 To this very day, Wanda Kornhauser, who now lives in Jerusalem (Marian, her husband, died several years ago in Israel) always inquires about “our son” George. While working for the Joint in Teheran, I helped Marian Kornhauser, the husband of Wanda, get employment as the supervisor of our warehouse; he was a very devoted worker and also a very loyal personal friend. 164 I learned later that the Joint paid higher salaries than the one I was receiving. This was Mr. Passman’s doing, who wanted to show the central office in NY how eager he was to save money. However, he wasn’t too frugal with himself.

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expensive. And so, we used to receive additional money from Aunt Lusia in Australia and from Dave in the American Army. Incidentally, whenever I went to the Bank of Iran with a check from Aunt Lusia (in pounds) or a check from Dave (in dollars), the cashier offered me a higher exchange rate if I sold it to him privately, instead of to the bank, which I did. This was common practice. At the Bank of Iran, which was a state bank, a lot of agents and merchants waited for people with foreign checks, offering higher exchange rates. They needed foreign currencies for their imported goods. A big event in our life in Teheran was Runek’s visit. He was stationed at that time with the Polish Anders Army in Egypt, with the rank of a Polish officer. This was quite exceptional, considering the antisemitic attitude of the Polish Army towards its Jewish members. On the first occasion he could get his furlough, he came to visit us in Teheran. This was an emotional reunion after all those years and experiences in Soviet Russia, meeting again under such different conditions. It took him several days to get here, since he could only travel by army transport. He stayed with us for two weeks and we were all very happy. He told us of his great efforts to get us out with the second Anders Army transport. How he tried in the last moment to go back to Kermine, to pick us up, but it was impossible. He engaged even the help of a military courier, who went back on a short mission, but this man never reached us. He was very worried about us and was in constant touch with Dave on this matter. Of course, Dave and Runek were both very happy when our first message from Teheran reached them. Another visitor, who came to see us in Teheran, was Aron Hausman. He is a second cousin of mine, the son of Gitele Hausman, who was mother’s cousin. I wrote about Gitele Hausman earlier and the part she played at sister Lusia’s wedding. Aron lived in Berlin before the war. Luckily, he left Germany in time and settled in Palestine. There, he joined the British Army. When he heard about our arrival in Teheran, he did everything possible to visit us from Iraq, where he was stationed. He brought us many things to wear and to eat, not knowing our living conditions in Teheran. He spent several days with us, and we all enjoyed his visit, which was an act of real friendship and goodwill.165 Both those visits took place in the summer of 1944. During this period, without wanting it, I was caught up in the intrigues of politics and military intelligence. There was an English civilian, living on our street, who was very eager to meet us. He spoke some German. I invited him to our home, and he accepted my invitation gladly; he came once or twice again. 165 Aron Hausman, with whom I stayed in touch through all these years, now lives in Haifa, already retired, in rather poor health, but he is always cheerful and in a happy frame of mind.

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Later, I learned that he was from the British intelligence, and that he had heard from the Poles about us. He remained very friendly; and was always the first to greet me, whenever we met in the street. There were some others I had to contend with. One woman forced herself, through some pressure on Mr. Segall, into the office of the Peltours organization as an accountant. Her name was Mrs. Banas, the wife of a physician from Łódź, who left Russia with the first Anders Army transport. She and her husband were both communists before the war. Since the Peltours office was on the same floor as ours, only divided by a corridor, I found her many times in the room where the girls were typing the lists of those who were to receive packages. Mrs. Banas used every such “social” visit to look over those lists. It later turned out that she was working for the Russian intelligence and was reporting to the Russians about our activities. She also reported to the Russians about me, that I hated them and that my entire body was “shaking” whenever I spoke of them. This I heard from Mr. Passman, to whom the Russians complained about me during his courtesy visits to the Russian Embassy, whenever he came to Teheran. And so, I was caught between “the devil and the blue sea.” On one side I was denounced as an enemy of the Poles and on the other as an enemy of the Russians. This became later even more complicated. At this point I would like to mention that Mrs. Banas’ husband, Dr. Banas, hearing that a new Polish government, the so-called Lublin government was established, as opposed to the government-in-exile in London, appeared at the Polish Embassy in Teheran and demanded that the embassy be turned over to him. He was shown the door. Many months later, an official representation of the new Polish democratic government arrived from Lublin, and for a certain time, the Poles had two representatives in Teheran.

Life in Teheran During Our Stay in Occupied Iran

The Allies (namely America, England, and Russia) had marched into Iran in 1941. The Iranian Army put up a token resistance, which lasted for only one day. The Shah was compelled to abdicate and was exiled to South Africa, where he died. His son, who was still studying in Switzerland, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was called back home and became the new Shah. It was considered a friendly occupation. The Russians took over the North, which bordered with their territories. The British occupied the middle. The Americans took over the South of Iran, with its oil fields and refineries. Teheran, as the capital, was occupied by all three powers and all three maintained a token force here. What happened to the Germans in Iran? The large staff of the huge embassy left, leaving an

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empty building behind, which was under the protection of the Swedish government. All the Germans, who had lived there in great style, were shipped to India, where they were interned for the duration of the war. Teheran gave the impression of a cosmopolitan city. There were uniformed representatives of the three Allied powers, but Teheran was also filled with civilians from many nationalities. I mentioned before that most of them came from Europe on contracts, as experts in many fields. As a result of the war, many of the projects planned by the now-exiled Shah came to a halt and people were out of work.166 Many had to look for jobs, which weren’t easy to find.167 The men from Czechoslovakia were better off than the others because Škoda Works had money in Iran, which was blocked by the Germans and later freed by the Allies – and from this money, the Czechoslovakian technicians received some subsidies. One engineer from Austria found work in the Jewish Agency; and in the case of other families from Austria, some of their children found work, since they had been here from before the war and knew several languages. Some were given jobs at the British censorship office. The Poles, who came with the two armies from Russia, were the best off. I was told that at one time there were some 30,000 of them in Teheran. During my time, some 15,000 were housed in a camp outside of Teheran, where everything was provided for them. With all this going on, the Persian population had only to be admired. Normally every native population resents an invasion of foreign elements, with a different language and different ways of life. Foreigners even took the attitude of being superior to the Persians. But the Persians were neither bitter nor resentful. The Persians are a very old nation, with a great tradition of poets and artists, and a very old culture. Even the illiterate among them could recite from memory the poetry of Ferdowsi168 and others. In fact, the Persians were not only not hostile, but actually very hospitable. I was always moved, when the poor porters (Hamals), who used to carry the heaviest loads on their backs or heads, sat down at some street corner for their “lunch.” They spread out their colorful large handkerchief, which served 166 They tried to get some compensation from the Iranian government, based on their contracts, but the government found a loophole in the contracts, which was overlooked by the people involved. According to the wording of the contracts, the same should have been ratified by the Majlis (Parliament), which of course was not done. And so, the government couldn’t be held responsible for those contracts, which became worthless. 167 I was later in a position to help two Jewish mining engineers; Mr. Kurt from Germany and Mr. Munk from Prague, giving them work in the Joint. 168 Ferdowsi, Firdausi in Persian, lived in the year 1000 and he is famous to this day among the Persians for his poetry work “Book of Kings,” Shahnameh.

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many purposes (to protect their head against the sun, or to wrap around their waist to hold their garment together), and sat down, drinking tea, and eating a few morsels of their disc-bread, with some goat cheese. Whenever some of us passed by, they gestured towards us, inviting us to sit down with them and to share their meager meal. The same hospitality was shown by the people of the upper classes. They were deeply honored if some European accepted an invitation to their homes. It is true that there was a lot of corruption, but this was a result of the feudal system. The land belonged to absentee-landowners; and the farmers were mostly tenant farmers, who received only one fifth of the crop for all their labor. The people working for the government, police, and in the army didn’t receive salaries for months on end. The army officers came from wealthy feudal families, and they served not for their salaries, but for the beautiful uniforms (always gold-braided), which they used to wear parading on the main streets of Teheran and in the cafés during the day. The wealthy landowners didn’t pay any taxes, nor did the wealthy businesspeople. The treasury was therefore always empty; no wonder government officials expected bribes for everything they did.169 The young Shah, who was brought up in western culture, had the best intentions to change all this. He gave land titles to thousands of tenant farmers, giving up hundreds of villages, which were the property of his father; but to this day, he hasn’t succeeded in breaking the resistance of wealthy families to pay taxes. The middle class, the backbone of every society, had just started to emerge, but had a very hard time, since they were poorly paid. And so, the Persians were treated as second-grade citizens in their own country. Some pressure was exerted on the Poles, who were living here better than they ever did in their own country, to leave Persia. During my time, two transports were organized by the British for the Poles, one to Mexico and another to Africa (Kenya), to relieve pressure on Teheran. People assigned to those transports had to go, unless they could prove their presence in Persia was essential. On one such occasion, I helped Mrs. Tyda Boehm, and her daughter Basia, to stay in Teheran and not be shipped to Africa, by getting Tyda a job as a typist in the Joint office, on the evening before the transport was ready to leave.170 A 169 I myself had very few dealings with the government offices. This was done by Michael, a Persian Jew, who worked for us. However, on one occasion, when I needed – before leaving Persia – my exit visa, I was advised to bring along some money in an envelope, for the small formality not to be unnecessary delayed. 170 She had lost her job as a receptionist in the Polish Delegatura. Tyda came to us (with her daughter Basia) in despair since she was assigned to be shipped away the next day to some new Polish camp in Africa. I went the same evening to Mr. Segall and arranged for

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friend of ours, Dr. Wohlfeiler, who was a military physician at the Delegatura, was assigned to the African transport with his wife and son (Sever was a playmate of George). He was supposed to organize a hospital there, which he never had a chance to do, as he told us later. After those two transports, there were only a few families of the Polish Jewish intelligentsia left in Teheran. Some of them were converted. We became friendly with Dr. Talerman171, a physician from Warsaw, and with Dr. Tilles172, a lawyer from Kraków, and his family. Dr. Tilles was the only Jew then employed at the Delegatura; he was its legal counsel.173 Coming from Russia and after our experiences there, we were very sensitive to the presence of Russians, in uniform or in mufti, in Teheran. A Russian could always be recognized even in civilian clothing. On the main street, every day, we had to pass a building known as the headquarters of NKVD – typical in its appearance, distinguished by its complete enclosure, special fences, windowgrating, and by the lights during the night. There were constant rumors, about people disappearing from Teheran and about the intentions of the Russians to occupy Iran. As a matter of fact, a movement started in the north of Iran, to establish an independent republic, which would become part of Russia. I remember one incident, when Mami was walking in Dr. Talerman’s company on the main street (Istanbul Street) and suddenly a Russian officer approached them. Dr. Talerman lost his speech, he couldn’t utter a sound, and Mami was shaking. The whole story turned out to be very harmless; the Russian officer simply asked for a light for his cigarette. But, based on past experience, this casual encounter could have been disastrous. No wonder I was thinking all the time of how to get our family out of Teheran. I was even thinking of sending our family with the Polish transport to Mexico. I thought from there, Dave could get them to America. A good thing that we decided in the last moment against it. It would have been a catastrophe for all of us. The real occasion for our family to leave Teheran came later, in February 1945. her to start work in the Joint office the next morning, and in this way, she could stay in Teheran and didn’t have to go with the transport. 171 Dr. Naftali Talerman was an obstetrician (his wife Stanislawa was also a doctor, but died before the war; they both studied medicine in Prague). Dr. Talerman escaped from Warsaw to the east with his several-year-old son Aleksander (born 1932). In 1940 they were deported to Asino, after the “amnesty” in Uzbekistan, then in the Polish Army in Iran. After the war, Aleksander Talerman also became a renown doctor of medicine in the UK. – Ed. 172 Dr. Adolf (Abraham) Tilles. – Ed. 173 We are friendly with Dr. Talerman to this day (the family lives in London), even if we meet only very rarely.

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My Family’s Departure for America

As I mentioned before, we didn’t feel secure in Teheran, because of the constant rumors of a Russian occupation. I was eager for my family to leave Iran. Our visas to Australia were of no practical value. It was impossible to travel to Australia at that time and we weren’t sure whether we wanted to immigrate there. Dave was very eager to obtain immigration papers to the States for us. At the synagogue, we met a sergeant in the American Army, through Henry. His name was Willy Goldblatt; he worked in the paymaster’s office at the American military camp. He was very religious, coming from Hungary, and sometimes led the Ashkenazi congregation in the prayers during the services. With his help, we could get our mail to Dave; and receive Dave’s mail very fast, going through military channels. There was a special letter form, called a V-letter, which only military personnel could use. Applying for immigration papers wasn’t easy; we needed a lot of affidavits and recommendations. However, Dave finally succeeded. In February 1945, we were informed by our friend Willy Goldblatt that the American military authorities in Teheran had decided to charter a ship to move some civilians to America. The actual reason for this decision was the fact that the GIs had married so many Polish women (some were pregnant, others had children) and it had become quite a burden for the Americans to take care of all the family problems of the GIs in a foreign country. The best thing for them to do was to ship them to their respective families in America. According to Mr. Goldblatt, there was a chance that our family would be allowed to travel on this ship to America, using our connections through Dave. Another thing happened. A few weeks earlier, two Jewish orphans arrived from Russia in Teheran. The Carter family lived before the war in Cieszyn in Poland. The father of the family managed to get to America; the mother and the children were caught by the war and deported to Russia. The mother died of hunger and the two girls were left alone. The father, who settled in the meantime in Akron (Ohio), made all possible efforts to get the children out of Russia and he succeeded. After they arrived in Teheran, the Joint was informed, and a Polish woman cared for them until they were able to leave for America. Mami visited those girls frequently at their foster home. And so, the American Embassy approached Mami to take those two girls along to the States. It was necessary to leave by train for Khorramshahr, in the south of Iran, to board the American ship (at the headquarters of the American Persian Gulf Command). It was a last moment mad rush. On February 18, 1945, I and many of our friends brought Mami with the four children to the station in Teheran. Mami left not knowing what the future

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would bring for us in America, and worried about the fact she was leaving me behind. I couldn’t leave since Polish army wouldn’t release me. Their trip lasted six weeks by ship, traveling with a convoy,174 with blackouts at night, under constant danger of German submarines. On April 10, 1945, they arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Dave was stationed as a physician at the military base. In Teheran, the Joint was now engaged in another kind of activity, namely trying to find and locate the survivors of the Holocaust. We were flooded with inquiries from abroad, but we could only give information about the people who survived in Russia. The inquiries about people under the Germans, we had to refer to Dr. Emil Sommerstein in Lublin. It was a rather sad comment on our times that the only address, which the prewar three and half million Polish Jews had, was: Dr. Sommerstein in Lublin. Dr. Sommerstein was at that time the most popular and best-known name in world Jewry, since all the survivors of the German concentration camps in Poland came first to Lublin to establish contact with the outside world. Our main challenge was now to send clothes, shoes, and underwear from our warehouses to Lublin for the survivors of the concentration camps, who were basically clothed in rags.

My Departure From Teheran

In September 1945, World War II ended and I began thinking of leaving Persia. In order to accomplish this, it was necessary for me to obtain my release from the Polish Army, which drafted me after our arrival in Teheran. I had received in the meantime three deferments from the Polish authorities, because of my work for the Joint. There was a lot of red tape involved in my final release, despite the fact that the war was over. I asked Runek, who had connections with the Polish high command in the Middle East, for help; and through his efforts, I finally received my discharge papers from the Polish Army. I decided to first go to Australia, since my sister Lusia, who was in touch with me all the time and helped us frequently, urged me to visit them first, before I decided to emigrate to America. She thought that we would have a good chance of establishing ourselves in this fast-growing country. I would like to mention “fortune telling,” as it was practiced there, and how I was involved in it prior to my departure being confirmed. There was a special art of “reading” from coffee grounds, practiced particularly among Armenian ladies. It was done this way. The guest was served a cup of heavy Turkish coffee. After the sweet thick coffee had been sipped from the demitasse, the saucer 174 Armed escort. – Ed.

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was placed facedown, on top of the cup. Then the saucer and the cup were turned over so that the saucer was again in its place and the sludge or grounds were distributed in the cup. From the various patterns of the sludge in the cup, they read the future. We had in our office two bright Armenian girls – sisters, Mara and Josephine. When Mara noticed in the fall of 1945 how impatient I became to leave Teheran, she suggested that I come to their house, where her mother would be glad to “read” to me. Being curious about the procedure, I gladly accepted the invitation. I was served coffee and after examining the grounds, her mother said that she didn’t see any journey for me in the nearest future. Mara suggested that I visit another friend of their family, who had a completely different technique of “reading.” She arranged my visit to this other Armenian lady, who had ninety-nine gold miniatures in different shapes and forms, which she threw on her table, and from the figures which came to the top, she “read” the future. She couldn’t tell me anything about my departure, which I was so eager to know, but she told me that I had two sons (nobody mentioned this to her) and while both of them would be successful in life, the younger one particularly would be a great financial success. A few weeks later, I suggested that Mara organize another visit to her home. This time, after sipping my cup of coffee and examining the grounds, her mother announced to me that I would be leaving in three days. And that is exactly what happened. I was suddenly released from the Polish Army; I received my Australian visa and the recommendation for traveling from the American Embassy in Teheran. No matter how skeptical one might be about such things, at that time, I was certainly impressed by the coincidence of these events. When I got to Australia, Sister Lusia was, as always, very helpful and sincerely wanted us to settle in Sydney and live close to them. Since I didn’t have any resources there nor in America, I figured that it would be cheaper for one person to travel to America, instead of three persons travelling to Australia. Mami was very happy about my decision to join them in the States and so were the boys, who were very happy in Little Rock and had adjusted themselves very nicely to the American way of life. My American immigration visa finally arrived, and I received a letter from the Matson Oceanic Steamship Company, assigning me accommodation on the SS Marine Lynx. I left Sydney on May 14, 1946. My sojourn in Australia came to an end, it had lasted some six months. It was a drab military ship, converted for civilian use in a hurry. There were no staterooms.175 We were housed in a 175 Cabins. – Ed.

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dormitory, three-bunks high, and it was quite a job to get to one’s berth if you had the misfortune of being placed on the top bunk. We arrived late at night on May 31, 1946, in the harbor of San Francisco. It was too late to disembark; the immigration officers weren’t working at that late hour. And so, we were ordered to stay overnight on the ship. From our ship, we could see San Francisco, in all its splendor of lights and the automobiles moving in both directions on the faraway highways. Thousands of cars were headed somewhere. I envied in a way the people in those cars, without even seeing or knowing them. Every one of them already had some place in the country of my future. They had purpose. I didn’t know where to go as they did, how to become a part of these moving masses and know where to run, as they do. Here, in the harbor at night, I realized the seriousness of my situation. I had somehow been driven during all these years by forces beyond my control, like a leaf in the wind. Now, whatever I did would be of my own choosing and I would be the master of my destiny. Doing what? I had no money; my only assets were my background and my reputation. The only thing I knew for sure was that my little family was waiting impatiently, with so much longing and expectation in Little Rock, just as I had been waiting during all these months of separation. On June 2, 1946, I arrived in Little Rock, greeted with great joy by Mami and the boys to begin our lives again.

Afterword

This book is rather late. There were several reasons why time and again I had to postpone writing down my experiences and impressions of Soviet Russia. Initially, after arriving in the United States in 1946, I did not find the atmosphere here conducive to such a book. Talking to people and telling them about my experiences, I found out quite quickly that people preferred to stay with their already established views of Soviet Russia as an ally, a liberator of oppressed peoples, as a nation with new and progressive ideas. This was a kind of comfort, and people did not like the idea that they would be thrown off balance and forced to revise their image of that country, which they had in their imagination as a result of books, articles and wartime propaganda. I am not one to blame anyone for this psychological atmosphere. After all, we in the past were used to believing the printed and loudly spoken word. My story was quite a strain on their minds, because it forced them to revise their views. Many labelled anyone who might have a different opinion, even based on first-hand experience, as a fascist or, worse, as a paid agent. Something of

376

Meier Landau – A Lost World

an attempt at escapism. It seems that only now are people ready to look at the other side of the picture. Then there were some other reasons. As mentioned earlier, I wanted to improve my English skills and had to adjust to the prevailing economic conditions in the United States. There wasn’t much time left for going back to recent past, reliving it again and writing down these memories. I wrote on trains, buses, and subways, on weekends and vacations, during sleepless nights when the three and a half ghastly years came freshly back to memory. Eventually, my notes dashed down on so many occasions have developed into some sort of a book. I don’t know whether this is a book according to the literary yardstick. But I do know that it contains real life, mine, and the lives of thousands of others who felt pain when they suffered and smiled when there was a ray of hope and a spark of goodness around them. Maybe it is a book after all. I am often asked what I think of our deportation by the Soviets from Lwów to Siberia in June 1940. Looking back on this tragic event in our family, we can say that it helped us to survive the war and to be among the living today. But when it happened, while we were living and working under the most difficult climatic and physical conditions, it did not look that way. We were repeatedly told by Soviet officials, our overseers and guards that it was our destiny to live, work and die in these godforsaken places. There will be no other future for us and our children but to cut wood in these forests. The very vision of such a future can make a person sick and break them spiritually (it happened to many of us). However difficult all these privations were, they cannot be compared with the fate of our fellow men who lived under the Nazi occupation in the shadow of the crematoria and gas chambers. It is true that thousands died in the Russian labour camps, and many families were completely wiped out, but life in the Soviet labour camps can hardly be compared with the suffering and death in the Nazi extermination camps. Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Bergen Belsen are just different names for hell on earth. It seems to me that for a witness, a certain distance in space and time works well for evaluating such difficult experiences. With time, the approach is cooler and more objective, and the judgment is less clouded by personal emotions and bitterness. It ages and matures through the refining process of time. I must confess that I was tempted to give up on the whole idea of writing this book. After all, who cares what your experiences and sufferings were during the war. But the point here is that it wasn’t just the experience of one individual, but millions that are going through the same experience up to this moment. Not people of a different kind, but people like you and I. It’s well known that every war has its casualties (currently higher among civilians than military), and you

Part II

377

wouldn’t need to write books about it, but these experiences here are not only a consequence of war, but even more are a direct result of the political system. Wouldn’t it be necessary for people to know what to expect from the communist system and its ideas about life and social justice? Maybe some of the sympathizers would have thought it through before they reached out in some direct or indirect way for their solutions and activities. In 1944 I received a postcard while working for an American Relief and Welfare Agency in Teheran: “The 19th of April was the first anniversary of my father’s death. I am a little boy, nine-years old. I do not go to school because I have no shoes. My little sister died on the 10th of this month. On the grave of my little sister there is snow, very very high. Yesterday we couldn’t find the little grave, and my mother cried bitterly.” Nobody can bring a flower to their unmarked graves, covered by snow in the North and quicksand in the South. This book shall be a monument for the thousands of graves of people who went to the Soviet Union not of their own will and died there before their time, far away from their homes and their families. May this book be a prayer that those times shall never come to pass anymore.

Image Section

Fig. 1

Rózia Landau’s (author’s youngest sister) wedding, early 1930s.

Fig. 2

Henry, Edda and George in Zakopane, 1938.

380

Image Section

Fig. 3

Meier Landau (wearing a tie) with his staff of JDC Teheran, 1944.

Fig. 4

Edda and Meier Landau in New York Central Park (1950s).

Index Adler, Eliyana R. XXII Ambes (Diamand), Gustawa (Gucia) 24 Ambes, Maurycy 24 Anders, Władysław XI, XII, XIII, XXIV, 82, 269, 296, 297, 298, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305, 307, 308, 309, 313, 342, 350, 351, 352, 354, 361, 367, 368 Andreyev, Andrei 132 Anski, Shloyme 91 Asnyk, Adam 314 Bader, Karol 354 Balfour, Arthur 107 Banas, Dr.  368 Banas, Mrs.  368 Bardach, Janusz 210 Bartov, Omar XIX Batyst, Dawid 315 Bauer, Otto 113 Bauer, Yehuda XIX Beer-Hofmann, Richard 5, 35 Beethoven, Ludwig 164 Belarsky, Sidor 49 Benedikt, Ernst 34 Benedikt, Moriz 34 Berling, Zygmunt 313, 321 Bern (Landau), Adela 7, 37, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 104, 111, 142, 175, 248 Bern, Joseph 97, 98, 99, 100, 111 Bern, Lea  98 Bern, Leib 98 Bern, Max Heinz 99, 100, 109, 111 Bialik, Hayim Nahman 75 Boehm, Tyda 305, 352, 361, 370 Boehm, Witold 305 Brand, Dr. 305 Bromberg (paternal grandmother family)  27, 28 Budyonny, Semyon 132, 320 Carter Family 372 Catherine II the Great 258 Chanale (Liss’s niece) 206, 207 Chazan, Mojshele 51, 62

Chotschner (family from Tarnów) 354, 355 Churchill, Winston 126, 164 Ciancia, Kathryn 253 Daszyński, Ignacy 112 Dekel, Mikhal XXII Diamand (Lazarus), Hermina 25 Diamand, Alexander 23, 24 Diamand, Bernard  23 Diamand, Herman 23, 24, 25 Dreyfus, Alfred 74 Edele, Mark XXII Efraim and Menasseh (Genesis) 33 Einstein, Albert 114 Eisner, Dr. 24 Eisner, Milena 24 Estraikh, Gennady XXI Feigin 203 Fenichel (Katz), Amalia  230 Fenichel, Emil 230, 338 Ferster, Bernard (Beno) 182, 187, 234, 235 Ferster, Felicja 182, 187 Ferster, Józef Meir 182, 187, 233, 234 Ferster, Rodia (Lotka) 182 Ferster, Stan (Lutek)  182, 234 Feuchtbaum, Hersch 87, 110, 131 Fitzpatrick, Sheila XXII Flecker, Mrs. and Mr. 302, 306 Foltyn, Bolesław 28 Fraenkel, Abram 72, 85, 86 Fraenkel, Benjamin  72, 107 Fraenkel, Joseph 85 Fraenkel, Mariem Rifke 72, 107 Fraenkel, Yoma (Jeremias) 72, 73, 74, 75, 82, 86, 107, 114 Franz Ferdinand 99 Franz Joseph 11, 12, 23, 34, 45, 100 Freud, Sigmund XI, 101 Friedla, Katharina XXII Friedman, Ellen G. XXII Frommer, Mrs. 222

382 Garland, Laura IV, V, XXVII, XVIII, XXX, 99 Gavrylenko (diesatnik) 229 Gawlina, Bishop Józef 303 Gesundheit, Mr. 205 Gleeson, Kathleen 210 Gliksman, Zygmunt 315 Głowacki, Albin XXI Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 34 Goldblatt, Willy 372 Gottfried (religion teacher) 84 Greenstein (lawyer) 350, 354, 355 Grossmann, Atina XII, XXIV Gruess (Landau), Lea (Leika, Lajcia) 72, 76, 99, 114, 155 Gruess, Henryk (Henio) 76 Gruess, Philip 76, 99, 114, 115 Gruszka, Sylwester XII Gumprich, Dr. Adolf (Abraham) 334 Gutmann, Lilka 225

Index Hollaender, Malcia 38 Hollaender, Meier 9, 12, 21, 39 Hollaender, Mendel (Menio, Emanuel)  38, 39, 105 Hollaender, Wolf (Wole) 39 Howald, Daniel XXIII Ilnicki (priest, Latin teacher) 82 Immerglueck (Goldberg), Franciszka 187, 222, 224 Immerglueck, Wiktoria 187 Immerglueck, Wilhelm Leon 187, 301 Ivanovitch, Ivan 208, 209 James, William XII, 4, 103 Jerusalem, Wilhelm 103 Josephine (Joint) 360, 373

Kaganovich, Lazar 132 Kalinin, Mikhail 132 Kant, Immanuel 102 Karmel, Henryk XXI Hagen, William W. 112 Karmel, Ilona XXI Hahn, Dr. Leib 314 Katz, Adolf 338 Halberstam, Chaim Nuchem 71 Katz, Amalia (Mala) 230, 338 Halpern (Joint) 356 Katz, Chemya  338 Halpern, George 128 Katz, Moniek 231, 338 Hania (Landau’s maid) 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 62, Katz, Steven T. XVIII 87, 100, 110 Keller, Helen 103 Hausman, Aron 87, 100, 367 Kempf, Abush 43 Hausman, Gitele 87, 88, 100, 367 Khrushchev, Nikita 132 Hausman, Josio 75, 76 Kijak, Moises XXI Hecker, Zvi (Tadeusz) 335 Kirov, Sergei 240 Hecker, Mietek 335 Kiryk, Feliks 110 Heller, Abraham Mayer XXVIII Kogan, Mrs. 360 Hershfinkel (shop owner from Warsaw) 329 Kohn, Dr. Henryk 307 Herzl, Dr. Theodor  35, 56, 74, 75 Kohn, Mr. 290, 354, 355 Hitler, Adolf 119, 157, 169 Kolber, Lusia 306 Hoffman, Eva XIX Korn (Landau), Rózia  7, 37, 41, 43, 87, 100, Hoffmansthal, Hugo 35 110, 121, 175, 377 Salten, Felix 35 Korn, Mundek 121, 175 Hollaender, Alter 13, 20, 22, 38, 39, 87, 104 Kornhauser, Marian 361, 366 Hollaender, Breyndel (Bronia) 38, 39 Hollaender, Gitele (Rosenfeld) (Bubeh Gitele)  Kornhauser, Wanda  361, 363, 366 Kovalenko (diesatnik) 203, 237, 238, 252, 9, 12, 21, 22, 23, 39, 40, 41, 42, 64, 81, 99 253 Hollaender, Helene (Chule) / Mother V, 7, Krauzman, Schmuel 316 9, 12, 13, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 36, 37, 38, 39, Krutikov, Mikhail XXI 42, 57, 58, 61, 62, 70, 75, 86, 87, 88, 95, Kuhn, Bela 116 102, 104, 110, 367

383

Index Kühnberg, Edmund 316 Kuklin (NKVD Deputy) 226 Kurt, Mr. (Joint) 369 Landau (Bromberg), Esther Rivke  27, 28 Landau (Thaler), Edda /Mami XII, XIII, XIX, XXIV, 4, 116, 120, 121, 173, 174, 306, 307, 309, 318, 319, 322, 328, 331, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 340, 341, 343, 345, 346, 347, 348, 351, 354, 362, 365, 371, 372, 374, 375, 377, 378 Landau, Baruch (Bernard, Bulek) 7, 37, 83, 104, 109, 111 Landau, Ezekiel 25, 26 Landau, Franka 110, 121 Landau, George  XI, XVII, XX, XXIII, XXVII, XXXI, 4, 82, 102, 145, 191, 214, 253, 259, 266, 267, 269, 271, 272, 273, 274, 306, 307, 319, 325, 326, 328, 336, 351, 363, 365, 366, 371, 375, 377 Landau, Henry XII, XVII, XX, XXVII, 4, 20, 24, 27, 82, 102, 274, 278, 284, 306, 307, 318, 319, 325, 334, 335, 340, 345, 347, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 372, 375, 377 Landau, Herschele/Hirsch (Zvi) 27 Landau, Jacob Baruch 25 Landau, Julie 340 Landau, Majer (author’s uncle)  28 Landau, Moshe/ Father 7, 8, 16, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 36, 37, 38, 42, 48, 50, 51, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 88, 98, 101, 102, 104, 105, 109, 110, 111, 114, 116, 121, 131, 175 Landau, Reb Baruchel  26, 27 Landau-Carter, Jennifer XXVII, 257 Landsberger, Dawid 223 Lazarus, Maurycy 25 Lee, Malka XVIII Lenin, Vladimir 107, 130, 151, 160, 236, 238 Levi, Primo XVIII Levi, Yitzchak Meir 359 Levin, Lova 365 Lewin, Aaron 81 Lewin, Isaac 81 Lichtenstein, Bubi 365 Lieberman, Dr. 24

Lingelbach, Jochen 269 Lisiecka, Katarzyna XVIII Liss, Itche Meir 205 Loewenstein, Stanisław 24 Łubieński, Bernard XVIII Luster, Leon 305 Mader (math teacher) 103 Maloney, James XII Manley, Rebecca 262 Mara (Joint) 360, 373 Margolin, Julius XXII Margolis, Mr. 296 Margulies, Nancy XXIII, 119 Materski, Wojciech XXII Mayski, Ivan 250, 260 Mendelsohn, Daniel XVIII Mendelsohn, Ezra 120 Meyer, Dr. Karl 365 Michael (Joint) 360, 370 Mickiewicz, Adam 316 Mikoyan, Anastas 132 Miller, Alice XXIII Młynek 209 Mohammed Reza Pahlavi 368 Molotov, Vyacheslav 132, 260 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 51, 204 Mroczka, Ludwik 110 Munk, Mrs. (Joint) 361, 369 Naphtali (manufacturer from Łódź) 335 Nesselrodt, Markus XXII Neuman, Janka 352 Nordau, Dr. Max 35 Okoński, Witold 355, 362 Pakszwer, Henryk 305 Passman, Charles 356, 357, 361, 367, 368 Patt, Avinoam XXIV Pehr, Otto 24, 25 Petrovsky-Shtern, Yohanan XVIII Piłsudski, Józef 24, 119, 223, 354 Pinto, Vincenzo 315 Podbielski (Schneider), Gisèle (Gisa) 62, 99, 102, 109, 110, 111, 113, 128 Podbielski, Pierre-André  99 Podbielski, René 99

384 Pollak, Joshua 342, 361 Pushkin, Alexander 345 Rattner (Vilnius) 158, 353 Reches (money lender) 67, 68, 110 Redlich, Shimon XVIII Renner, Carl 113 Richmond, Theo XVIII Rignier, Anatol XVIII Ritterman, Juljusz 302 Ritterman, Zygmunt 302 Roosevelt, Theodore 126, 164 Rosenblum, Lolek 340, 341 Rosenfeld, Hersch 20, 87 Rosenfeld, Joynele (Jona) 23 Rottenstreich, Fischel 83 Rusiniak-Karwat, Martyna 315 Sawicki, Diethard XXXI Schiller, Friedrich 34 Schnabel, Artur 221 Schneider (Landau), Cila (Lusia) V, XII, 7, 36, 37, 39, 62, 74, 85, 86, 87, 88, 94, 97, 98, 99, 102, 128, 337, 346, 353, 367, 373, 374 Schneider, Arnold 86, 87, 88, 98, 99, 104, 109, 110, 111, 114, 115, 116, 128 Schnitzler, Arthur 35 Schochet (Runek’s friend) 317 Schriesheim (Brand), Beatrice (Basia, Bea)  305, 370 Segall, Genia 83, 115 Segall, Mr. (Joint) 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 368, 370 Seid Mir Alim 282 Sercarz, Mrs. 225, 234 Sieczynski, Rudolf 99 Sierakowski, Bishop Wacław Hieronim  XVIII Sikorski, Władysław 167, 250, 260, 293, 308, 332, 350 Skoropadsky, Pavlo 107 Sławoj Składkowski, Felicjan 120 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander 326 Sommerstein, Emil 373 Sonne, Shaye 74 Sonnestrahl, Genia 81

Index Sophie, wife of Franz Ferdinand 100 Stakhanov, Alexey 134 Stalin, Joseph XI, XXIV, 119, 123, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 141, 157, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 168, 169, 238, 240, 244, 245, 250, 258, 260, 263, 276, 293, 308, 332, 350, 358 Sternbach, Herman 83 Strauch, Bernard 120, 121, 158, 352, 353 Svoboda, Ludvík 342 Swerdlin (Vilnius) 158, 353 Szarota, Tomasz XXII Szobfisz, Lejzer 315 Szymaniak, Karolina XVIII Talerman, Aleksander 371 Talerman, Dr. Naftali 371 Taurek (Zussman), Irenka XXIII, 175, 254, 266, 271, 272 Taurek, John XXIII Tchaikovsky, Pyotr 151 Thaler, Aron (Runek) XII, 116, 120, 121, 145, 146, 155, 158, 174, 291, 292, 293, 303, 318, 352, 367, 373 Thaler, David (Dave) XII, 353, 356, 358, 364, 367, 371, 372, 373 Thaler, Józef  XXI, 121, 145, 146, 174 Thaler, Lucyna 174 Tilles, Adolf (Abraham) 371 Tolpin, Sioma 174 Trotsky, Lev 107 Veidlinger, Jeffrey 112 Voroshilov, Kliment 132 Vrnak family 362, 365 Wagner, Samuel 129 Wasilewska, Wanda 321 Wasserberger, Zuzia 234, 242 Wasserstein, Bernard 120 Waydenfeld, Stefan 221 Weintraub, Wiktor 316 Weizmann, Chaim 129 Wietschner, Leon recte Mechel 220 Winnikow, Sascha 120 Witos, Wincenty 24, 354 Wohlfeiler, Dr. 371 Wohlfeiler, Sever  371

Index Yevtushenko, Yevgeny XXI, 183 Yishai, Moshe 352 Zajgemacher, Nuchem 52 Zessin-Jurek, Lidia XVII, XXII, XXIII, XXVII, XXXI Zhdanov, Andrei 132 Zhukov, General Georgy 307

385 Zussman, Aba (Bunio) XXVII, 174, 175, 193, 195, 196, 226, 252, 254, 269, 270, 271, 275, 278, 316, 319, 320, 321, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 343 Zussman, Alta (Englard) XXVII, 174, 175, 193, 252, 254, 271, 338, 340 Zweig, Franz 35