[2]
SUBHEAD: Intro to W-L
MAX: We were living in a small town; there were about five or six main streets, and there were two lakes surrounding the town, but inside there were six, seven, eight streets, avenues, something like that. There was a main street where the young boys and the young girls used to go out on dates. These streets took us out of the middle of the town, out in the big world! To the bigger cities. There was the road to the railroad station and also the road for the boys and girls to go romancing. Yeah! In those days was the same thing as nowadays.
NARRATOR: Today the town of Wysokie Litewskie /1/ is just due east of the Russian border near a main artery connecting the cities of Brześć and Bialystok. In 1895 Wysokie Litewskie had 4,105 inhabitants, most of whom were Jews. /2/ Geographically and economically, Wysokie Litewskie was like thousands of other towns throughout the world. It was a nucleus of commerce, around which produce was grown in small farming villages. There was a noticeable ethnographic division between Jews and gentiles: the Jews clustered together within the town; the gentiles lived on the farms.
NARRATOR: The Jews have had a long history of political and religious oppression which had inexorably determined the way in which they lived their daily lives. The concept of Diaspora, which is both a state of being and a state of mind, is illustrative of the Jewish formula for survival, begun six hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ. It exemplifies the wanderings of a people who live in perpetual exile, hoping always to return to Palestine. Although the Jews have lived in exile, they have always adapted to their host culture without losing their own identity. The very teachings of the Talmud, the Jewish book of learning, stress the importance of the Jews always retaining their ability to live peaceably within another civilization, so that they would be able to maintain their own identity.
NARRATOR: A permanent component of that unity was, however, the knowledge that at any moment the Jews might be banished from the place in which they lived, as the result of any number of religious, economic and political factors. They therefore pursued occupations that consisted of temporary transactions with clients or employers: those that could be left quickly and easily. They became proficient in specific skills and trades, excelling as craftsmen, artisans, financiers, salesmen, and professionals.
MAX: So, according to my memory, [there were] front streets, with front stores, with better houses, and then there were lesser streets, with lesser houses. Yeah, there were streets that the houses there were more money, they were closer to the main market streets... We had stores, and there were openings from two or three sides where we could go in; in the inside [they] built stores around where the underground peasants, men and women used to come from the villages, sit down on the ground, and put their stuff around them and sell! And there were also stores inside and outside. This was the center, the center of the town.
From the villages, they [peasants] used to come twice a week. On a Thursday, there was the market day, officially. And Sunday also was a selling day, a day of selling and buying. It was a row of stores, about a half mile in length, outside the stores. And we used to go inside, and it was also stores, on the inside!... And in addition to that, the merchants, the goyim, used to come down and sit down on the ground, spread their legs, keep their merchandise [there], until they used to sell it!
NARRATOR: There was a permanent structure in the town square of Wysokie Litewskie which housed the market. There were synagogues and churches, some apartment buildings, and two hospitals, one for the Jews and one for Christians. There was also an apothecary with a nursery in which herbs for medicines were grown, and even a distillery of pure grain alcohol, a brewery, water mills, and a tax bureau and courthouse.
NARRATOR: In order to maintain their cohesiveness as a cultural and economic group, the Jews had to essentially isolate themselves. Because of economics, however, they also had to peaceably coexist with their gentile neighbors. In Tsarist Russia, this harmonious relationship did indeed exist, until the changing political situation caused the forced ghettoization of Jews. Wysokie Litewskie was within the Pale of Settlement, a 362,000 square mile area of western Russia in which Jews were forced to live. /3/ During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, a series of edicts were proclaimed which had the effect of gradually decreasing and ultimately eliminating the few rights the Jews had previously held. For instance, while Wysokie Litewskie had its own Kahal, or Jewish governing body, Jewish boys had to enter military service as if they were Russians, and were expected to be loyal as such.
NARRATOR: Yet until things became intolerable, the Jews lived within the Pale, continuing the tradition of Diaspora in adapting themselves to the gentile world around them. While Tsarist oppression denied them opportunities, it also served to strengthen the unity of the Jewish people.
MAX: Many times in the years I prayed to come there and see the little town... In the summertime it used to be that all the individuals, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, in addition to their... trade, [SUBSUBHEAD: cows in W-L] everybody had a cow. The cow used to give us milk, and cheese and butter, and there used to be pastach, I don't know what to say. Pastach is the one who feeds the cow. But when the spring came, and the grass started to come up, so we had a combination group of cows... And [they would] bring
IMAGE: Market day in Krzemieniec Volhynia, 1925
/1/ Pronounced Veesoka Litovsk
/2/ Drolestwa Polskiego Slownik Geograficzny (Warsaw, 1895) (Translated by Luba Burrows)
IMAGE: Jewish water-carrier
/3/ H. M. Sachar The Course of Modern Jewish History (New York: Dell Pub., Delta Books, 1958) p. 185
[3]
them back at dusk, the sun used to set down, and you hear from here, there, everywhere, moooooo!!! Everybody knew that their cows are coming home. Every night! Sleep over in the house!
And the cows were so trained, that they used to come in from the street, and stop off at the window, and why the window? You know why the window?
MAX: My father used to prepare some old bread, rolls, other things... The cows they were so trained, that when they came to the house, they didn't go any further, this was their house. And the cows used to come to the house, and my father, he should rest in peace, opened the door, and he used to handle over a piece of bread, a piece of food to the cow. The cow used to stay, she wouldn't move away until she got something, a sandwich! After that, the cow went her way, in the barn, and my mother used to milk the cow, and get out the milk, put it in cans, and use it! We used to make cream cheese, and cheese, and all this, and butter and everything. Sure! Life was organized, to a certain extent... with nothing around, with their own hands to sew, make men's suits and lady's suits and all this…
NARRATOR: Each little shtetl in the Pale was a world unto itself. Occupations ranged from standard services to the gentiles – tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths– to the particularly Jewish professions – matchmakers, Sabbath candle-lighters, synagogue beadles. The Jews tried to be as self-sufficient as possible, and while few were farmers, most had a cow and some chickens, and a small barn in which to house them. Expanding outward from the center of the town were unpaved streets. The houses, one after the other, were situated on small plots of land but were close enough so that one always knew his neighbor's business.
NARRATOR: Although owning farm animals was a natural part of Jewish existence, the Jews were basically estranged from the earth. They could not tie themselves to a land from which they almost surely would be forced to leave. It was not until the declaration of the state of Israel that Jews began to reestablish their affinity for the earth. It is true that the cow provided Max's family with sustenance and was, indeed, a part of the family – yet his comic treatment of the cow's role underscores a basic unfamiliarity with nature.
LISA: Did you have any other animals, any chickens?
MAX: Yeah, chickens. [SUBSUBHEAD: chickens in W-L]Always chickens. Chickens used to be in the back, squawk... Everybody had chickens.
LISA: Did you slaughter the chickens?
MAX: Yeah, we used to from time to time.
LISA: Who had that job?
MAX: There was a shochet, you know what a shochet is?
LISA: A butcher?
MAX: No, a shochet is a slaughterer.
LISA: Did he come around and do it for you?
MAX: No, we used to go to him.
LISA: You would bring a live chicken... who plucked the feathers?
MAX: Mama did it! Mama did it, [my] grandma did it.
LISA: Wow. In the house?
MAX: Yeah, in the house, [SUBSUBHEAD: our house in W-L] there was a little... pantry.
LISA: How large was the house?
MAX: Large enough, it was large enough.
LISA: One story?
MAX: One story. And a boydem. Attic. Because with us lived my [SUBSUBHEAD: my mother's mother-in-law] father's mother. Steady... So my mother had a mother-in-law.
LISA: Was it hard on her?
MAX: What do you think? Her mother-in-law can be different... mama was
LISA: Right! She lives her life one way...
MAX: Well, there are some women that they are a blessing for the house, and some women the other way around! I can't, at my age, be the proper judge to say which of the two women were the good ones, and which were the bad ones! You took it for granted, that's the way it has to be, and that's all! You gotta live together.
NARRATOR: The less Max revealed about the particulars of shtetl life, the more I wanted to know. It is difficult to say whether he simply didn't remember details, or if he
IMAGE: Two old Jews
felt that my inquiries were of no importance to the matter at hand, his life. At first, with his short, reticent answers and blasé attitudes, it seemed as if he was just clowning with me. But in his last statement he revealed a prevailing sentiment of his character; that all of these facts that I found so fascinating were quite lacking in novelty. Avoiding a value judgment on how well the women in the household got along, he disclosed his perpetual acceptance of reality.
LISA: Could the Jewish kids go to the [SUBSUBHEAD: Schooling in W-L; Max's experiences] secular schools?
MAX: No. Not in a small town like this. In the big cities [there] used to be gymnasias, a high school [or] something. But in the small towns, they didn't have a choice of schools. There was one scholar in school. So they teach you Russian! Jewish people, they had to give their children an education. They had to send them to a Jewish melamed with a long beard and with a conchick in his hand. You know what a conchick is? A leather whip... with a cat of nine tails...
LISA: Oh, my god! You got hit with that?
MAX: Me? I was a good boy.
LISA: You mean you never got into any trouble?
MAX: I got trouble with my eyes. I [was] used to lamps, there was no electricity. We used to have lamps with kerosene in it. And this was supposed to light up the room. And I [assure] you it wasn't enough. And my bad eyes... I was suffering more than the others. The lamps would not have a very big light. Nevertheless on Friday, we'd have some sort of examinations of what we learned all week. It wasn't a picnic, because I had to remember everything. I read it, but I remembered every word of it.
LISA: Was this the kind of school you went to until you left Russia?
MAX: No – then my mother, my father and mother sent me away [SUBSUBHEAD: Max sent to Bielsk; treatment by melamed; more about scholing] to Bilsk. It was another town larger than ours. There were more schools. I stayed with my mother's mother for one year. She was already a widow. So I stayed there and went to the cheder.
MAX: Many times I used to sneak away... and the melamed used to come up to my grandmother... Boys will be boys! So what do you think the melamed did with me? You wouldn't guess. Heh, heh... [he'd put me] on a chair, and he had a whip, with six or seven tails, and he'd snap at one end... So what happened? Start going to school!
[4]
NARRATOR: A Jewish boy in Russia started his education at the age of four, when he entered the cheder, which was usually conducted by a melamed /5/ of his father's choice. By the middle of the nineteenth century there were six thousand such schools in the Pale, with fifteen thousand melamdim. The cheder curriculum was traditionally a non-secular one, with its emphasis placed on the learning of the alphabet, Hebrew, Torah, and the basis of the Talmud. Unfortunately, the quality of the cheder education was very poor, as the result of the decrepit physical conditions of the schools, the backwards teaching methods, and the harried instructors themselves.
MAX: I wouldn't say it was a secondary school, to me it was the contrary. To me it was a higher school, because I went there after I went in the small town, to cheder what you call, and all year I would call it – gymnasia, gymansium– because the teachers were higher class, and the subjects were higher class…
NARRATOR: While the term "secondary school" refers to the next step in education after elementary school for most Americans, to Max the term implies a lower scholastic standard. Although there was a Talmud Torah, or upper level school, in Wysokie Litewskie dating from 1853 /6/, Max's parents decided to send him to a larger town anyway. These studies usually lasted until the boy went to work, or was lucky enough to go on to Yeshiva, the Talmudic Academy.
LISA: Did they teach you secular things as well as religious things at your grandmother's?
MAX: Yeah, secular things, sure. The religious part it used to be automatically. A boy, he knew one thing. He's gotta daven every day. And every morning. And he gotta [make] tefillin every morning. But my grandmother, she was a modern woman! I started to cheat, you know. I didn't want to go... in the morning with the tefillin, you know what I mean? So she told me, she warned me that she's gonna tell my rebbe, snitch on me. And she did! "Secular" in Max's education meant learning the mechanisms of survival within a Judaic context. Through parable and analogy the Talmud set down the moral and social rules by which Jews ran their lives. Considering the caliber of the education it's amazing that anything was learned at all. Because Max clearly recalls the discipline actions of the melamed much more than what he learned, the implication is that this is what actually occurred. It is probably also true that it was simply more pleasurable for him to recite stories about himself as a naughty boy rather than about his studies. For Max to make light of such traditional religious practices as morning prayers is an indication of the changes Judaism was undergoing at the time. There was a breakdown of Jewish authority with the increasing intrusion of the secular world.
LISA: When you went to your grandmother's and got a higher education, were you still only with Jews?
MAX: Yeah, only with Jews. We were sixteen years old... And after I got married to Jennie, and after the kids came, we went to the mountains every summer, and once I came to Woodridge [Hotel], a big place. And after dinner we sat down to talk, to chew the rag what you call. He got a hold of me, we start talking about where he comes from; so he told me he comes from Bilsk. So I say I was once upon in Bilsk, so I told him I went to Label the Melamed. You see, in the old country they didn't call him like Mr. Mrs., you know. They called him by his father's name, by his mother's name...
MAX: I said to him
"So I was in Wysokie, and I came over here, [to Bilsk], and I went to Label the Melamed."
MAX: And he said:
MAX: "So, Label the Melamed? My rebbe?"
MAX: He was such a son of a bitch, that one! For every little thing, what he said you [had to do], what you didn't have to do, what you shouldn't do, there was a punishment!... So everything, what you did, high or low, his pleasure was to whip the children. [And we got hit] with the same melamed! With the same whip! And this was maybe... twenty years later, and I met him there in the mountains, and came across a conversation, that he comes from the same town, and he went to the same rebbe! And melamed! So the results were the same!
LISA: [SUBSUBHEAD: Religious sects in the old country] Was your father religious?
MAX: No, he wasn't very religious like you see the Lubavitcher /7/, no, no he wasn't at all. As a matter of fact, this is a moment that it's worthwhile noticing... So my father used to be Jewish, of course, and we used to go to the smedrish... the smedrish is a synagogue. In the town there were four or five houses of God, some of them were like here, like even in the United States, Orthodox, Reform...but they had different names. They had Hadism, they used to go with... long coats, and they had their shul separately.
MAX: And the everday Jews, like my father, and like others, they used to go to different kind of shul. But I want you to know that the shul, in those days, in my years, were more than a shul. The shul was more than a shul in the sense that we all figure out the shul as a praying place, but it was more than a praying place. We used to spend our time [there], and having a good time!
LISA: It was a community house…
IMAGE: Boy's cheder, Lublin, 1924
/4/ Elementary school
/5/ Teacher
/6/ Ivan Batnik Jewish Encyclopedia Katzenelson, Dr. L Ginsburg, Baron D., eds. (ca. 1904-05) p. 862
(Translated by Leonard Dudka)
/7/ A Brooklyn-based sect of the Hasidim, so named for the section of Russia from which they emigrated
IMAGE: Father leading son to cheder
IMAGE: Synagogue in Orla
/7/ A Brooklyn-based sect of the Hasidim, so named for the section of Russia from which they emigrated.
[5] [SUBSUBHEAD: synagogue organization, function as social center]
MAX: Yeah, a gathering place. So each to his own, there were business people with long beards, they had a place a little high up... high up in the place like you go east side, west side, the seats near the door were cheaper, the seats in the center was more, and the seats over on the [wall] were more expensive, because [they were near the] ark. Over there they used to sit with the Rabbi, next to the Rabbi, and then there were a stage, a bimah in the center, where they called you up to the Torah. And below that were tables surrounding the center... And around this here bimah, what we call, there were tables. Those tables were made for the people from the street, like my father, he was a tailor.
NARRATOR: Five synagogues in one small shtetl town seems to be an inordinate amount in the face of the extreme intolerance of the Tsarist regime. One wonders that they were even allowed to exist, as their role in Jewish life was continually expanding. After 1844, when Tsar Nicholas I tightened his control over the Kahals, making them purely instruments of the state, the boards of the synagogues assumed fiscal and administrative functions. /8/ It was typical of how Jews tried to take care of their own within the restrictive Pale.
NARRATOR: "The synagogue remained the religious, cultural, educational and social center. [It]... was rarely imposing. A slate-gray house, almost invariably dilapidated and leaking, it was quite ugly by an aesthetic standard. Nevertheless, a seat in the shul was highly prized. It was either purchased for life or rented annually; for without such a seat a man was not eligible for the exalted honor of introducing the weekly Scriptural reading." /9/
NARRATOR: The different types of synagogues were not divided according to denomination, as American Judaism is today, with Orthodox, Conservative and Reform. Except for the Hasidim, all the Eastern European Jews considered themselves to be Orthodox. In the larger communities there were many private synagogues, maintained by the wealthy; there were also shuls maintained by various occupational groups. Even within these there was a ranking system for seats closest to the Rabbi.
MAX: It was natural! I told you that my father, he was a plain man, plain man. He enjoyed to go to shul because he had his pals, and soon as the heat went off from the praying, he found place for comic, making fun of it. It was part of life. It wasn't a ritual that you have now, it was part of life!
Everybody wants a little fun, so where do you get fun? In the synagogue, you get fun. In the synagogue, you used to sit around the table, and my father was sitting; and across the street, the tailor where he lived across the street, Chaim Moshe his name was, he was sitting there... the other guy, he didn't understand no jokes. He was simply [a] one-track mind. But my father liked fun, so he used to answer him, you know, get him to look like what you call... trap him…
IMAGE: Max's father, Eli Lien
NARRATOR: The importance of the synagogue as a source of psychological release, camaraderie and a restoration of a sense of self is paramount. It was an information center, organizing the collection and distribution of charity, acting as a courthouse, providing shelter to travelers. It was a neighborhood bar, where all would gather at night to discuss the world and their families, celebrate weddings, bar mitzvahs and circumcisions, and to forget about their struggles for awhile. We are given a sense of the chaotic disorder of the shul in the following account by Isaac Baer Levinsohn:
QUOTE: Each chapel or house of prayer or synagogue abides by its own rules; there is no uniformity of service, only general disorder general disorder. This one demolishes what another has built; this one jumps while the other shouts; this one moans his loss while the other one complacently smokes; this man eats while that man drinks. One has just begun his prayer as another has finished it, one converses while the next one chants. Here one deliberates on the events of the day and there another indulges in ridicule; this one jokes and that one pulls by the ear. Quarrels and fisticuffs often ensue about private as well as public matters ... Absence of decorum was the rule, the gossiping in the women's gallery above calmly ignoring the strenuous entreaties of the beadle to quiet down. /10/
MAX: [We were] going to synagogue not only to pray, but to have fun! It was like a clubhouse! There are certain moments in the Jewish life where you pray, like Yom Kippur with the candles, but there are also moments in the Jewish life that there is a lot of fun! ... Like Simchas Torah, for instance ... Sukkoth, there are other times where the Jews enjoy themselves! It's not only [to] pray to God, it's to pray to people, from people to people! That's why the Jew had in history, he was not only always worried and pray[ing] ... his life was not bad, he had moments of joy, moments of gaity, and moments of everything.
Max: [SUBSUBHEAD: My father was a kibbitzer ] So my father used to be a kibbitzer. What was a kibbitzer? For instance I'll tell you another instance. Our house was one side, and Chaim Moshe's house was across the street. My father used to make ladies' garments, for the goys, and Chaim Moshe used to be a men's tailor, for the goyim. My father was a kibbitzer and in the middle of [being] busy, if he felt good, [and] he made a good day's work, [or my mother used to give him a good time sometimes ... so he was freilach /1/! So he opened the window, [and called]:
Max: "Chaim Moshe!"
Max: He called his neighbor across the street. Chaim Moshe was a Yid, you know a Jew, that he was always ready for a little fun, a little fun. And when my father used to call him he knew it's not for nothing. He wants to have a little fun. Heh! So he used to call hiMAX:
Max: "Chaim Moshe! Come 'ere!"
Max: Chaim Moshe used to [go] around, my fat her used to open the window – we're talking about summertime.
Max: "Chaim Moshe!"
Max: "Wha ... ?"
NARRATOR: Max begins to tell the story in Yiddish, then catches himself and continues in English
/8/ Sachar, p. 192
/9/ Ibid
[6]
MAX: He put an idea. Now Chaim Moshe was ready already with the questions and he starts:
"...Sweet potatoes, ripe potatoes..."
It was for the sake of conversing or having fun…:
"...And vi fel matzoh balls did you eat today?"
And he had to give him a figure about all this.
LISA: What did your father say when Chaim Moshe gave him a figure?
MAX: Well, whatever! According to the figures! The purpose was accomplished, you know. It took him away from his misery of work, from the goys, from his customers, and to have a little fun! Always fun. That's why when we grow up in a poorhouse... but we had the blessing of a little fun, too. Life wasn't the altogether, like they sing in the songs, misery, misery, misery.
NARRATOR: The sarcastic, self-deprecating humor of 20th century Jewish American comedians is the result of the problems of transition from old world ways to the new. Here, too, the dry wit of Eli Lien, Max's father, is rooted in centuries of continual persecution with little hope of total or permanent acceptance by the gentile world. The mind that devoutly discussed the Talmud also exploited the follies of daily life, choosing rather mundane items with which to do so. As a product of mass media and thus recipient of various forms of comedy, I was waiting for a non-existent punchline as I listened to the above story. Having experienced all I have and more, Max knew that he had to clarify the point about the joke for my sake. Yiddish was the ideal language for conveying this wit.
MAX: So, now we have big committees, but those days [SUBSUBHEAD: Fun in the old days, dancing on the table] a little item like that used to bring you out of the misery of the daily life, with a little fun among themselves. So, for instance you see my brother Joe. An old man, a big man... Would you believe that my father, when he was in a good mood... after evening, and good weather, and after a good supper, and business was good, he used to take Yossel, Joe, and take all his things from the table... and would put Yossel on the table.
MAX: "Tontz, tontz!"
MAX: He should dance! He should dance! There were no movies that time! There was nothing. So he wanted to make himself freilach... There was no phone, there was no movies, there was no phonograph, there was nothing! So... dance!
LISA: How old was Joe?
MAX: He wasn't old enough. And I remember even the melody!
Tontz, tontz Yoselleh,
Tontz, tontz Yoselleh, l
a la la la loh la la…
And Yoselleh would [do it!]
NARRATOR: Max demonstrates how Joe looked dancing on the table.
MAX: It's the truth! I remember it like now, like now.
NARRATOR: Experts claim that as we get older, our memories often become sharper, and we can recall events that occurred fifty years earlier in great detail. However, the specific circumstances of our lives also play a part in determining our recollections. One result of emigration was the dismissal of life before, especially for children. The memories of what was left behind were filed away in the minds of those who anticipated a new life in the land of freedom. Although some clung to the old ways out of fear, many cast them off, bit by bit, in the attempt to assimilate into American society.
Max was only a small boy when his father entertained himself by making his little brother dance. But the clarity and phenomenal detail of his recollection reveal a special treasure that perhaps is only retained as an effect of a traumatic occurrence. Although he had never recalled his childhood before –much of this material is, in fact, new to his children– he certainly never forgot it.
IMAGE: Praying, Germany, 1947
IMAGE: Joe (Yossele), approx. twenty years old
LISA: [SUBSUBHEAD: Pogroms?] Were you aware at all of the 1903 pogrom? Did it affect you at all?
MAX: No, it didn't affect me.
LISA: Do you remember hearing about it?
MAX: Yeah, the pogroms... You want me to tell you that now? That's why you came for?
LISA: Yeah, to be with you and to talk to you about it.
MAX: Yeah, yeah, yeah... Because the pogroms usually occurred in the big cities, where the [population] was mostly Jews. The majority of gentiles were organized – they didn't know why they were organized, but everybody understood that they are organizing not for the benefit of the Jews, but for the evils, to make more trouble for the Jews. 'Cause they were in the majority, the Jews were the minority.
And always, when things, they became bad for the population, the population as a result of this, tried to look, whose fault is it? And when they tried to look, it was easy for them to blame the Jews for everything. So when things started to go bad for the general population, they tried to organize pogroms, so that was the era of the pogroms for Jews, and also the era for all the organizations that formed against the Tsar.
NARRATOR: The pogroms were the violent expression of a disintegrating society. They were a last-resort attempt by a desperate government to quell mounting political tensions which would eventually culminate in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. Undercutting Western influence arrived in the form of the industrial revolution and Marxian theory; internal fuel was added in the forms of famine and the cholera epidemic of the 1890's. The autocratic Tsarist regime was fracturing under these pressures; dissatisfaction among the people was widespread. Terrorism increased substantially, and the government responded with a resurgence of Slavophilism.
NARRATOR: This was a specific type of nativism which had been formulated in the 1840's in an attempt to stop the encroachment of Western values, reaching its most extreme expression in the chaotic thirty years before the revolution.
[7]
NARRATOR: After a wave of terrorism in the 1890's, which resulted in the assassination of 3,000 Russian bureaucrats, Tsar Nicholas II stepped up his nationalist propaganda campaign. The Jews were a convenient and useful vehicle for the Tsar, as all Nicholas had to do was continue Alexander III's fourteen-year war against the Jews:
NARRATOR: "He and his advisors were determined methodically and systematically to debase the Jew in Russian eyes as the source of Russian poverty and weakness." /12/ It was scapegoating on a large, although subtle scale. Rather than directly murdering the Jews through ritual slaughter, they germinated hatred of the Jews among the gentile population with false accusations, then encouraged the majority to "get revenge," effectively licensing the occurrence of riots, pillage, and murder.
MAX: [SUBSUBHEAD: Jewish organizations; the Bund] The Bund was the name of one of the Jewish organizations. There were other organizations that were revolutionary, gentiles, but they had a different name. But the Bund was the name of the Jewish population, working population, that formed at that time... and then came out the socialists, the anarchists, the Bundists... all names of various organizations.
LISA: So you weren't involved with that, because you weren't in the city?
MAX: No, I was too small anyway.
LISA: Yes, I think that was Kishinev?
MAX: Kishinev! Yes, that was the outburst, the result of the various propaganda that went on among the gentiles. So they knew one thing, to get revenge. So the Jews were their first target to get pogromed.
The Bund was established in 1897 as the first Jewish socialist organization, and was so designed to apply Marxian theory to specific Jewish labor interests. It developed simultaneously with other revolutionary movements against the Tsar, such as the Social Democratic Party.
NARRATOR: Kishinev, which was part of the province of Bessarabia, was the first test of the effectiveness of the propaganda campaign against the Jews. In 1903 government officials used the one newspaper of the city to accuse the Jews of a murder they did not commit. Within a few days a community where 50,000 Jews had been living peaceably with 60,000 Christians was torn apart by authorized rioting, looting and murdering. Forty-five were killed, 586 wounded, and 1500 residences were burned or sacked. /13/
/12/ Op cit., p. 247
LISA: On a smaller scale, did you feel that the peasants in your town were against you?
MAX: (immediately) [SUBSUBHEAD: No pogroms here!] No. Because in our town... we didn't have no pogroms – pogroms occurred in the bigger cities, where the population was... larger, and both populations; the gentile population was larger, and therefore there are bases for an organized revolution, and organized pogroms! But in the smallest town, it was insignificant. It was a few hundred Jews, a few hundred gentiles, and it didn't amount to anything. In the vicious [sic], or otherwise, you know. In other words, [not] enough to undertake something of a character like that.
LISA: Yet the reverberations, the repurcussions of the pogrom, you had to feel! That had to be one of the reasons... well, wouldn't you say that was one of the things that pushed yourself and so many others out of Russia... to go to America?
MAX: Say it again, say it again.
LISA: [SUBSUBHEAD: Why you and others emigrated] That the discriminations against the Jews was a large reason why you and so many others decided to leave.
MAX: Sure. Because we realized, that is the parents, the parents realized, even those years, were different kind of a sections that they have different interests, one from the other. You couldn't take, let's say a hundred thousand Jews just because they are Jewish names of significance and single out, that these are the enemy; and others, these are not the enemy, friendly, because you couldn't measure things like that, on a scale like that, just because from their names. They were Jews, and they were pretty rich. They didn't need to go away from the small town. [Your grandfather] started off his life in America, and being a tailor in a cleaning store. They had their America right there and then. But there were only a few of them.
NARRATOR: One of the fundamental difficulties in documentary is achieving and maintaining a consistent level of understanding between interviewer and subject. Although a tendency to make assumptions on the part of the interviewer is not uncommon, this in itself is not necessarily detrimental to the purpose at hand. It is the level of awareness of one's assumptions that plays a determining role in the success of the documentary. The above dialogue illustrates these difficulties. In my desire to romanticize Max's early life, I wanted him to reveal that rampant anti-Semitism forced him to flee to America. I wanted him to prove the cause-and-effect relationship
/13/ Salo W. Baron The Russian Jew Under Tsars and Soviets (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1964) p. 57
of events that seems so clear-cut in the history texts, i.e. PERSECUTION+POGROMS =
SUBHEAD: FLIGHT TO AMERICA.
NARRATOR: But Max described his knowledge of the pogroms in an easy, unaffected way. His choice of words came across in a deceptively simplistic manner, forcing me to read them over and over again to make certain that he was in fact in Tsarist Russia. Rather than describing the situation in beautiful prose à la Isaac Bashevis Singer, Max related his knowledge of the pogroms as he understood it to be: unadorned, clear, and informal.
NARRATOR: Insofar as Max's denial of pogrom activity in Wysokie Litewskie is concerned, personal involvement is a determining factor. Max chose to remember subjects of a large, general nature with much more clarity than he did situations that directly involved him. It makes sense that there would be reverberations of the major pogroms even in the small towns. In fact, in the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1905 the writer implies that there was some anti-Semitic activity in Wysokie Litewskie, such as arson and vandalism. Max never mentioned any such disruptions in his town; it is possible that he had blocked out any memory of personal confrontations with official anti-Semitism.
LISA: Why was it decided that you should go?
MAX: There was no future for young boys, and then you know that the military service... People went away not to go to the army. I was sixteen and if I would wait another three years I would have to go in the army. Everybody did. Run away from the Tsarist army. And then we had relatives. Mr. Shack was
IMAGE: H.I.A.S. Warsaw, 1921
[8]
my mother's brother, we used to write letters to each other. So we decided there's no future for boys in our country, so we... Everybody sent away their kids to America... It was the only thing to do.
My father and my mother took me over to the railroad station, Wysokie Litewskie. And I went up on the train, was in the twilight, in the evening. And I went up on the train and I looked out from the window and I saw a man standing on the platform and the train started moving, and the man became further and further and further and further till I didn't see him any more.
LISA: Who was he?
MAX: [SUBSUBHEAD: My parents emigrate] My father! This incident I'll never forget until I die. First, nobody knew what's gonna be. He didn't know that in a few years I'll send a ticket so he should come also there. And he came to the United States, where after a few months he sent for his love, my mother. They came to New York, they lived in New York, my father and my mother.
NARRATOR: Emigration was indeed most attractive to the Jews of the Pale. Although few had any idea of what awaited them in America, it was certainly a better alternative to staying in Russia. The army required three months of service each year for twenty-five years in addition to the ordinary period of consignment. It was difficult enough being a Jew in one's own town without the further danger of isolation within an anti-Semitic regiment. The movement to America was also facilitated by revolutionary activities and the encroachment of the industrial age. Even small towns like Wysokie Litewskie were exposed to the social and technological fervent brewing in the cities. Seeing that the ways of their fathers had not resulted in better lives for their families, young people really had nothing to lose by emigrating.
NARRATOR: The decision that Max should join the thousands of emigres was of course a practical and logical one, and sufficiently powerful enough to override the devastating uprooting of Max from his family. Although there were relatives already settled in America, Max was the first, as the oldest, of his immediate family to go. He had no reason to expect that he would ever see his parents and siblings again. He held no illusions of his becoming wealthy and bringing them all over; he was sent out in the world so that perhaps a better existence could be found for him. Max was armed with his skill and his youth; these were enough attributes to enable his parents to let him go.
MAX: [SUBSUBHEAD: Mechanics of emigration] Don't forget, we had to Gonvenen dem grenetz. /14/
LISA: You had to what?
MAX: See, I knew I'd get you there! Gonvenen dem grenetz. You know now, we all know that when we go somewheres, a small distance, or a big distance, we make out passports. We go in to the travel bureau, you pay so much and you get a ticket, and this brings you where [you want to go]. In those days wasn't no such thing. Gonvenen dem grenetz. You know from gonvenen dem grenetz? In order to go in the neighborhoods, there were no boats, were no oceans. You had to go to Germany. And Hamburg. So how did you get to Germany? You gotta cross the border from Russia to Germany. So this part, of gonvenen dem grenetz, that was the biggest part, the hardest part to get over with. Once you gonvenen dem grenetz, you went over the border, you were no longer in Russia, you were in Germany already. Germany was a different problem, to get to the port, to the city that has the port. It was Bremen, or was Hamburg, there were a few other cities that had ocean ports. So what we had to do was first of all to gonvenen dem grenetz.
IMAGE: (Standing) Joe, Jennie, Max (Sitting) Eli with grandchildreNARRATOR: twins Herb and Ben, and Saul
/14/ "Stealing the border"
[9]
MAX: Wagons! Horsedrawn wagons. I don't think they had automobiles, no I don't think they were using automobiles. Sure, it was in the twilight, early in the morning, when the sun didn't go up, they used to take a group, and put them together and bring them to a certain point, and this was the border. And it was agents, the agent took a group, took them over the border, and then told us: "Alright, you're safe! You're safe, sound and safe, safe and sound." So, all this you can take it when you're young, when you're fifteen years, sixteen years old. When you're getting older, there are other problems, maybe it's easier, maybe nowadays it's different.
LISA: Would you call the group of people who went over the border together landsmen?
MAX: Landsman. Well, they used to bring down to the border from my town, and from the town next to mine...
LISA: So they were from all different towns.
MAX: Sure, but they were certainly neighbors! They used to take it together, bring together, and then ship them off!
LISA: Did you know anybody in your group?
MAX: No, never knew.
LISA: So you were really alone... were you scared?
MAX: I suppose so.
LISA: When weighed against all of the other "normal" events of Eastern European Jewish life, this process of getting to the German port of departure can be seen as being only slightly out of the ordinary. There is really little difference in Max's attitude towards "stealing the border" than towards anything else in his life. His blasé reaction to the suggestion that he might have been frightened reaffirms the probability that fear was an ever-present emotion; subtly situated in the back of his
brain perhaps, but always there nevertheless.
MAX: [The ship was called] Kaiserin Augusta Victoria. It left Bremen, or maybe Hamburg, I'm not sure... It was in summertime. The regional train I boarded in Wysokie Litewskie! And then they brought me to a local point in a big city, where they sent me over to the boat!
LISA: Did you have to wait long before you boarded?
MAX: I don't remember. It couldn't be long, maybe three, four days, six days.
LISA: Where did you stay when you were waiting?
MAX: There was room for everybody.
LISA: Do you have any memories of the trip itself?
MAX: Well, it's hard to remember. Don't forget, it's how many years?
LISA: Yeah, but it's wonderful that you have such clear memories of Wysokie Litewskie – when had you ever been on a boat before? You know what I'm saying? I just thought you might remember that clearly.
MAX: I remember one thing that we went on board with a lot of people, we went third class... And we didn't have meals a la carte, heh. We ate! Whatever we got, we ate! Mostly frankfurters. Which was real good. I liked frankfurters, I like them now.
LISA: Did your mother send you with any food?
MAX: No. She gave me a little bag... for the train, for the time being what you call until we were assigned to our wards.
NARRATOR: Until the industry of immigration was regulated by the various governments involved, there was a good deal of exploitation of the immigrants during every part of the process. In addition the overcrowded conditions on the ships and in the ports were often intolerable and were the cause of diseases and malnutrition. Most of the immigrants spent their life savings to get passage, but this did not guarentee a safe or comfortable voyage.
NARRATOR: By 1910, however, regulatory laws had done much to protect the immigrants from con-men. But thousands of immigrants were still pouring out of Eastern Europe –1907 was the peak year– and the ships were still overcrowded. As far as Max was concerned, however, the entire process was not a trauma of upheaval; it doesn't even seem to have been a great adventure to him.
MAX: Do you got already enough stuff to put in the book? What do you want to know?
LISA: I want to know what it was like on the boat. Was it clean, was it crowded?
MAX: It was crowded, it was crowded.
LISA: How did you go, third class?
MAX: Yes, third class, steerage. Do you know what steerage is?
LISA: Yes, it's in the bottom. And you slept in one room with bunks?
MAX: Bunks, yeah.
LISA: Did they separate the men and the women?
MAX: Of course!
LISA: How long was the trip, about three weeks?
MAX: Yeah.
LISA: Did you get seasick?
MAX: I don't remember this. What does it amount to?
LISA: Just curious. Do you remember entering New York harbor?
MAX: I remember that, yeah.
IMAGE: Immigrants at Ellis Island
IMAGE: Photo taken in 1976 of ferry boat that took immigrants
from their ships to Ellis Island
[10]
LISA: The Statue of Liberty?
MAX: The Statue of Liberty, and there was a committee from the H.I.A.S. /15/ waiting for me. Because my destination wasn't New York, my destination was Massachusetts. Whitman, Mass. So the committee from H.I.A.S. came, and they gave me a bundle with food. What do you think was the food?... Salami!
Much literature and quite a few films have depicted the infamous trip to America – from the slave ships on down to post-war refugees. In particular, the arrival at Ellis Island in New York has been romanticized and glorified; we are familiar with the imposing sight of the Statue of Liberty welcoming the immigrants to an uncertain future.
NARRATOR: But all Max can remember is frankfurters and salami. Not only is every other detail about the trip expressed in a matter-of-fact way, Max doesn't believe that this information has any relevance. Far more important to him is the memories he retained that provided his sustenance – the image of his father at the railroad station-and the food that he ate.
IMAGE: Steerage
IMAGE: untitled (Statue of Liberty from base)
/15/ H.I.A.S.: Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
IMAGE: untitled (tailor with jacket)