Tag #120764 - Interview #100343 (Meer Kuyavskis)

Jewish youth of the 1930s in Lodz was extremely political-minded. There were all kinds of Zionistic organizations- Maccabi [6], Betar [7], Hashomer Hatzair [8]. There were some Jewish people who were attracted by communistic ideas. They were underground communist and komsomol [9] members. There were none of them in our school. My elder brothers Moishe and Isaac became members of underground organizations. Brothers disseminated communistic fliers, literatures, attended underground meetings. Of course, our parents did not know anything about it, but my brother Benjamin suspected that and sympathized with them. Father was in shock when in 1936 there was a search at home because of my elder brother. I was on my way from school, when our neighboring kid cried out that there was police in our place. Moishe was detained in couple of hours. There was a real mess at home. They found underground literature during the search. Parents took son’s arrest real hard. Moishe was imprisoned for two years. Luckily, Isaac was not arrested. It was a little bit comforting for parents. He assured parents, that he stopped all underground activities and he kept his word. Moishe also forgot about his interests upon his return from prison ( he was pardoned in 10 months for exceptionally good behavior). Elder brothers worked really hard and even managed to save a certain amount of money to open their own store.