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I was soon transferred to Warsaw as head of the defense ministry's publishing house, which was related to a trend to polonize the military - there were too many Jewish soldiers in the army at that time, they thought. It was January 1952. Adolf Bromberg, head of that publishing house, had been promoted to deputy minister and someone had to take over his job. For me, it was a demotion in some ways.
I became director of the Board of publishing houses. That was my job for ten or eleven years, until 60. Next, I was suddenly sent on a so-called academic course at the Academy of General Staff, where during one year I went through basically the entire curriculum of the Academy of General Staff. I completed the course, but they didn't have a job for me. I would pick up my salary at the personnel department and go home. Later I got an assignment as deputy director of the Military Institute for Aviation Medicine. I spent four years there. The year 1967 came [the year of the anti-Semitic purges] and all the Jews, myself included, were discharged from the military with great brouhaha. Not that there had been many of us, perhaps 200. I was expelled from the Party and sent home. At first, I nursed a sense of personal grievance, next I felt that an injustice was being done to the entire nation that had survived, but in the end I realized that I had made a wrong-headed choice. And then I found myself, as they say, on the street and in a void; it was only in that void that I found proper meaning for myself. As translator and teacher of Jewish languages!
I became director of the Board of publishing houses. That was my job for ten or eleven years, until 60. Next, I was suddenly sent on a so-called academic course at the Academy of General Staff, where during one year I went through basically the entire curriculum of the Academy of General Staff. I completed the course, but they didn't have a job for me. I would pick up my salary at the personnel department and go home. Later I got an assignment as deputy director of the Military Institute for Aviation Medicine. I spent four years there. The year 1967 came [the year of the anti-Semitic purges] and all the Jews, myself included, were discharged from the military with great brouhaha. Not that there had been many of us, perhaps 200. I was expelled from the Party and sent home. At first, I nursed a sense of personal grievance, next I felt that an injustice was being done to the entire nation that had survived, but in the end I realized that I had made a wrong-headed choice. And then I found myself, as they say, on the street and in a void; it was only in that void that I found proper meaning for myself. As translator and teacher of Jewish languages!
Period
Location
Poland
Interview
Michal Friedman