I started to study journalism in 1934, and finished it in 1938, as I took some breaks in the course. The program consisted of three summer semesters, but it didn't give a master's degree. I got my master's just after the war, at the Journalism Department of Warsaw University.
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Displaying 10321 - 10350 of 50826 results
Michal Friedman
Each year after the beginning of the academic year, some anti-Semitic row took place. I remember that in the Higher School of Journalism somebody once wrote on a huge board: Professor of Polish Studies Bolewski - Baumfeld, Professor of Political Economy Zelazowski - Eisenbaum, Professor Wasowski - Waserzug. That's when the shoving of Jews to the left side [of the lecture hall] started. The Jews wouldn't take seats on the left side; instead they listened to the lectures standing in protest. Brawls broke out frequently. It happened year after year, and with each year it got worse. In the student dormitory in Praga meetings with lecturers were held: Professor Michalowski 55 from the Democratic Club came after anti-Semitic brawls broke out on the university campus, Dubois 56 of the PPS 57 came to show his solidarity with Jewish students.
On 1st September 1939 I was still in the student dormitory. Afterwards I moved to Nalewki Street, I think. I left Warsaw before the year's end. Then I went back to Kovel. My older sister Regina was working for the Jewish community as typist. My younger sister was attending a Russian-language ten- year school. Mom was working as usual. I went back to giving private lessons. For a short time, I was a teacher of Polish and History; next I became a coach and one of the bosses in the Lokomotif sports club. I earned quite good money for that time.
I didn't serve in the Polish Army because they had stopped admitting Jews to officer training schools in perhaps 1934 in order not to train Jews as officers. Poles with high-school diplomas did a year of military service in officer training schools, but not the Jews.
I was in the Red Army from 1941. I was called up for three months' training right after the outbreak of the war [the so-called Great Patriotic War] 58. On the Monday I was to be given the rank of sergeant and go home, but the war started on the Sunday, 22nd June. And I was doing my military service 12 kilometers from Kovel. It was five in the morning when German planes appeared in the sky and began to mow everything down.
Stalin issued an order that all 'kresowiacy' [Poles living in Soviet- occupied Eastern Poland, today the Western part of the Ukraine and Belarus, as well as some parts of Lithuania] were to be transferred to labor battalions. They were to be stripped of their arms since they were unreliable. The Commissar of my battalion, a construction battalion, was an old Bolshevik, Izaac Yakovlevitch Limanov. He claimed to be a Ukrainian, but whenever he uttered a word, I knew that it had come from the depths of the Talmud. He was an intelligent, well-educated man.
What did we build, then? Well, anti-tank ditches, 'maskirovki', or embankments designed to camouflage airplanes. We didn't have any arms. We were given 800 grams of bread per day, when other battalions, labor battalions, got 400 grams of bread. From Kiev we began to retreat in order to carry out projects in the hinterland. The road got muddy before Kharkov; our automobiles couldn't get through. We got bogged down in one place called Bogodukhov. The Germans had already come as far as Kharkov and we could have fallen into their hands any day. A miracle happened overnight: the temperature fell below freezing and the ground froze; we were able to drive on.
What did we build, then? Well, anti-tank ditches, 'maskirovki', or embankments designed to camouflage airplanes. We didn't have any arms. We were given 800 grams of bread per day, when other battalions, labor battalions, got 400 grams of bread. From Kiev we began to retreat in order to carry out projects in the hinterland. The road got muddy before Kharkov; our automobiles couldn't get through. We got bogged down in one place called Bogodukhov. The Germans had already come as far as Kharkov and we could have fallen into their hands any day. A miracle happened overnight: the temperature fell below freezing and the ground froze; we were able to drive on.
I told them in Goriev that I wanted to be sent to the Polish army. It was early in 1944; I got the referral order and set off for the liberated part of Ukraine, to the town of Sumy.
At Sumy station, a Polish officer met us; I hadn't seen a Polish military uniform for many years then. It was February 1944. People were arriving from various directions, also from Poland; among them officers from the headquarters of the army that was being organized. Selection was being made for different military formations. Someone who was a carpenter or a joiner would be sent to the sappers. Those who had a smattering of education would go on a sort of short officer training course, which lasted a few months. People with, let's say, a business background would be assigned to the quartermaster's staff. It was a kind of market for soldiers. General Swierczewski, the chief commander, came; his deputy at that time was Major Grosz. Grosz, later on a well-known essayist, had translated Lejzorek Rojtszwanc before the war. I was offered the position of instructor with the First Regiment. I gave lectures on the political situation, history, Polish literature, etc. At the time people were being brought from all over to join the Polish army, including Jews who had volunteered for Anders' army 61 and had been rejected. My own commanding officer was a Soviet Pole, or a Pole born in the Soviet Union and Russified. Since I had university-level education, I was sent as instructor to the political officers' school in Sumy.
Nine people survived from the entire town; out of 18,000 Jews. I came across a girlfriend of my sister's, a Pole; she gave me several photographs. She told me in detail how it had been done. I learnt about the torments the Jews had gone through, how they had been put behind barbed wire. During all that time, Marysia, that Polish girl, had been meeting with my sister in secret.
My elder sister, Regina, married a 'byezhenets', a laryngologist from Warsaw, his name was Fryde. She was pregnant, about to give birth. My younger sister was in hiding outside the ghetto; she was at a very good place, somewhere with a Polish family in Kovel. But when she heard that the Germans had surrounded the ghetto and taken away everyone to be shot, she left her hiding place and went to join her mother and sister. Mom and both my sisters were killed.
My elder sister, Regina, married a 'byezhenets', a laryngologist from Warsaw, his name was Fryde. She was pregnant, about to give birth. My younger sister was in hiding outside the ghetto; she was at a very good place, somewhere with a Polish family in Kovel. But when she heard that the Germans had surrounded the ghetto and taken away everyone to be shot, she left her hiding place and went to join her mother and sister. Mom and both my sisters were killed.
I reached Lublin after 22nd July 1944 and remained there until the liberation of Warsaw. I taught at the Political and Educational Officers' School. The day after Warsaw was liberated, I went there to see if I could find anyone. I saw ruins and a great emptiness; there was no way to figure out which street you were on. The Jewish district had been wiped out; other streets, too. I came back very quickly. Afterwards, the officers' school was transferred to Lodz. It was there that all the important institutions were based. At the time, much publicity was being given to a proposal to make Lodz the capital of Poland, instead of Warsaw. I remained in Lodz until 1946.
In 1946 they sent me to the Infantry Officers School in Inowroclaw as deputy commander. I became a major. From there they sent me to Krakow, to the Infantry Officers' School. From 1947 on I was in Wroclaw. I organized an evening high school for cadets, since they didn't have high school diplomas.
In Lublin a Jewish club was established for all the survivors who registered there. It was named after Peretz and located on Lubartowska Street. The Sukkot holiday came around. I was on duty and I thought to myself: 'Let's go and see. Perhaps I'll run into someone.' Dinner was served; I was sitting there in my uniform - I don't recall now whether I was a lieutenant or second lieutenant then - and right across the table from me a man was sitting, and it seemed to me that I knew his face. All of a sudden, he speaks to me: 'Friedman?' And I say: 'Feldszu!' It was my last teacher from Kovel! We embraced each other over the table; he delivered a toast, then I did. He had obviously realized that it wouldn't be smart for him to remain in Poland since they would get at him for being a Zionist and a right-winger. And he left for Israel.
In Lublin and in Lodz I kept in touch with Jews.
In Lublin and in Lodz I kept in touch with Jews.
And later, in 1947 in Lodz, a Jewish historical committee was established to document the history of the Holocaust. Its members included a Bund activist, Szuldenfrei, Adolf Berman, Rachela Auerbach, and Kermisz. I kept in contact with them. I trusted them and they trusted me; besides, for me the committee was a source of all kinds of information. In Wroclaw I attended all the theater productions of the Jewish Theater in civilian clothes. Now and then I would read Jewish newspapers. At the time, several newspapers, including some in Polish language, were published.
I remember that once in Wroclaw, it was in May, perhaps on the 15th, in 1948, I met an officer, a Jew, who started to congratulate me. I said to him: 'What are you congratulating me on?' 'We've got Palestine. Israel has been established.' I was flabbergasted. I hadn't thought of leaving. Well, there was a measure of opportunism, some vanity behind it. I held an important post, the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was unswervingly loyal. I believed that some time in the future there would come a day when I would go.
I met a female medical student. That was in Wroclaw in 1949. I was walking her home when she started an interrogation: 'Do you have family here? Are you married?' I said: 'No, I am not married, but I am going to get married soon.' 'To whom, if I may ask?' 'To you.' Teresa is from Przemysl; her maiden name was Lichota. She comes from quite a wealthy Jewish family. She had spent the war years in Hungary. Her father was a physician, and had been mobilized for the war. And his entire regiment crossed the border and got interned. The Hungarians were unbelievably well disposed toward Poles. My wife's family had remained there the entire time as a Polish family. Teresa returned to Poland in 1945. So we got married, and finally settled in Warsaw. Andrzej was born in Lodz in 1951. At present Andrzej, our only child, is a professor of neurology in Warsaw.
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!
I visited Sutzkever in Tel Aviv in the middle of the 1990s. He spoke excellent Polish. Sutzkever's house in Tel Aviv is really an art gallery. Chagall 66 and he were friends, and Chagall gave him a number of beautiful items. So we talked about my translations of his short stories. I have preserved a letter Sutzkever wrote to me, about how delighted he was with the transposition of the meaning that is hidden behind the words of Yiddish into Polish. Those short stories sold out very quickly and received very good reviews.
I taught Hebrew at the University for several years, in parallel with taking the Yiddish language class. I have taught Hebrew and Yiddish at TSKZ 71 for many years - about 700 students of both languages have passed through my classes. I still teach Yiddish in the Jewish Theater, twice a week.
In my own life, there was a period when Hebrew gained the upper hand over Yiddish. It was an ideology, Zionism. I have never mastered Hebrew completely, however. I absorbed Yiddish in a natural way. For me, Yiddish is more emotional. You curse in it, you bless in it, and your first feelings are expressed in it. Myself, I count in Yiddish, not in Polish, to this very day. I have developed a close relationship with Polish. There was a time when I knew 'Bieniowski', Kochanowski, Asnyk [famous pieces of Polish literature] by heart. And today? I speak occasionally in Yiddish with those who come to visit this country. Here in Warsaw there is in fact nobody I could speak Yiddish with. Only with Kac [Daniel Kac, one of the last living Yiddishists, a writer], who calls me very often to ask the question: 'What is it in Polish?' and with whom I then speak not in Polish but in Yiddish.
Before 1968, I used to go regularly to the Jewish Theater, naturally in civilian clothes. In Wroclaw, where I taught at the Infantry School, I also went to all the plays. The theater in Warsaw used to be located in a barrack on Krolewska Street, in the place where the Victoria hotel stands today. It had been the building of the Polish Army Theater, later handed over to the Jewish Theater. After the war there were two Jewish theaters in Poland: Ida Kaminska's 72 theater in Lodz - that theater used to be housed in the building of the current Teatr Nowy - and the one in Wroclaw. Then in the 1950s the two theaters were merged into a single, state-owned theater with its home in Warsaw; it was a traveling theater. I remember a production of 'Meir Ezofovich', in which Ida Kaminska had a beautiful silent role and Juliusz Berger made his mark as the young Ezofovich.
My personal relationship with the Jewish Theater in postwar Poland really began in 1969. I had already been pensioned-off; it happened after the 'de- jewification' of the Polish army. One day someone from the post-Kaminska Jewish Theater came to see me. Ida Kaminska had emigrated in 1968, and the theater was taken over by Juliusz Berger, I think, who was its first director, before Szurmiej. Szurmiej [Szymon, the current director of the Jewish Theater] is a native of Luck and was aware that I knew Yiddish and Hebrew. And my visitor wanted to know if I would agree to teach Yiddish to a new generation of actors. After Ida Kaminska's departure there were only seven actors left. Well, you couldn't stage a play with seven actors. I readily agreed because I suddenly discovered here a purpose, a task I could accomplish. There was a recruitment drive among young Jews who hadn't left in 1968 or 1969, and I began to teach them Yiddish. After the first two years, more groups, young people from mixed marriages, came, and then still more groups - those included hardly any Jews. And all this time I have served the theater as consultant, and translated the lines into the headphones [simultaneous interpretation into Polish].
I also acted in two plays. Szurmiej came up with this idea in order to save money.
My personal relationship with the Jewish Theater in postwar Poland really began in 1969. I had already been pensioned-off; it happened after the 'de- jewification' of the Polish army. One day someone from the post-Kaminska Jewish Theater came to see me. Ida Kaminska had emigrated in 1968, and the theater was taken over by Juliusz Berger, I think, who was its first director, before Szurmiej. Szurmiej [Szymon, the current director of the Jewish Theater] is a native of Luck and was aware that I knew Yiddish and Hebrew. And my visitor wanted to know if I would agree to teach Yiddish to a new generation of actors. After Ida Kaminska's departure there were only seven actors left. Well, you couldn't stage a play with seven actors. I readily agreed because I suddenly discovered here a purpose, a task I could accomplish. There was a recruitment drive among young Jews who hadn't left in 1968 or 1969, and I began to teach them Yiddish. After the first two years, more groups, young people from mixed marriages, came, and then still more groups - those included hardly any Jews. And all this time I have served the theater as consultant, and translated the lines into the headphones [simultaneous interpretation into Polish].
I also acted in two plays. Szurmiej came up with this idea in order to save money.
In Israel I had to appear in a play, which I had translated, from Russian into Yiddish. It was Babel's 73 'Dusk'. I remember that after the performance in Israel some Jews came backstage to express their indignation that we had staged that play; the action takes place on Moldawianka, inside the Jewish underworld, where Antek is a thief and Manka is a whore - and how can a Jewish theater show such things? I translated 'The Dybbuk' into Polish and I played the shammash in the production. That was in the 1980s, already after our guest tour in Israel.
The creation of the state of Israel represented the fulfillment of a dream that had grown more intensive with the course of history. The state of Israel is one of the main guarantors of the continuing existence of the Jewish nation. In the past, religion provided the link that united all the dispersed Jews. I think that all the centers of the Diaspora should be guarantors of the existence of the state of Israel. The Diaspora has enormous significance for Israel. I am not sure that Israel realizes this.
I went to Israel for the first time in 1980. I hadn't had any contact with my cousin's family. One day I went to Yad Vashem 74 on the business of the Ringelblum Archive 75 - they wanted us to give them the archive, but we opposed that idea, since without the archive our entire Institute [the Jewish Historical Institute] 76 serves no purpose. However, given that the most valuable documents in the Ringelblum Archive were typed or handwritten with carbon copies, as many as five in some cases, and the first copy is almost as legible as the original, I could discuss with them the handing over of the copies. And a deal was reached. On that occasion I met a man there who invited me to dinner. So we are sitting in his home and it turns out that he is a Chelm native, and I used to tutor girls from Chelm, for in Chelm there was a Jewish gymnasium without accreditation, so its students did the eighth grade in town, in Kovel. I taught one young girl whose last name was Duniec. She was from the richest family in Chelm.
My host begins to brag about his close relations with Begin, keeps dropping names of generals, and so on. So I say to him: 'Listen, did you know Jundow?' 'But of course I did. And how come you know him?' 'He is,' I say, 'my closest cousin.' He responds: 'OK, but Jundow is dead.' 'I know that,' I say, 'but his wife is still alive and I don't have her address; she isn't listed in any telephone book, I haven't been able to find her.' 'Wait a minute,' he says, 'she works for the General Staff.' He calls the secretariat on the spot and a moment later he gives me her phone number and address. When I called, Janusz's widow answered the phone. Naturally, he drove me there immediately. When we arrived at her place, everybody was already there, the entire family. I was very moved.
When we came with the Jewish Theater in the 80s, it was a huge event for Israel, for the gates of captivity had suddenly been flung open. We couldn't go directly to Israel since there were no diplomatic relations, so we traveled first to Belgrade - where our actors took part in an American series called 'The Winds of War' - and from there we went to Israel. At the airport we were met by a swarm of journalists. They didn't speak Yiddish. And the director of the theater says at a certain point: 'You are having such a hard time, but we have Friedman here; he speaks Hebrew.' So they descended on me like the proverbial bees. And the dialogue began. I hadn't used the language for sixty years but during that conversation I felt as if I had just left my classroom. My schoolmates, who had left in the 1930s, saw our arrival on television and began to call the hotel. That reception at the airport cost me a sleepless night because everybody called. My most recent visit to Israel was for a meeting of the World Council for Yiddish, some eight years ago.
My host begins to brag about his close relations with Begin, keeps dropping names of generals, and so on. So I say to him: 'Listen, did you know Jundow?' 'But of course I did. And how come you know him?' 'He is,' I say, 'my closest cousin.' He responds: 'OK, but Jundow is dead.' 'I know that,' I say, 'but his wife is still alive and I don't have her address; she isn't listed in any telephone book, I haven't been able to find her.' 'Wait a minute,' he says, 'she works for the General Staff.' He calls the secretariat on the spot and a moment later he gives me her phone number and address. When I called, Janusz's widow answered the phone. Naturally, he drove me there immediately. When we arrived at her place, everybody was already there, the entire family. I was very moved.
When we came with the Jewish Theater in the 80s, it was a huge event for Israel, for the gates of captivity had suddenly been flung open. We couldn't go directly to Israel since there were no diplomatic relations, so we traveled first to Belgrade - where our actors took part in an American series called 'The Winds of War' - and from there we went to Israel. At the airport we were met by a swarm of journalists. They didn't speak Yiddish. And the director of the theater says at a certain point: 'You are having such a hard time, but we have Friedman here; he speaks Hebrew.' So they descended on me like the proverbial bees. And the dialogue began. I hadn't used the language for sixty years but during that conversation I felt as if I had just left my classroom. My schoolmates, who had left in the 1930s, saw our arrival on television and began to call the hotel. That reception at the airport cost me a sleepless night because everybody called. My most recent visit to Israel was for a meeting of the World Council for Yiddish, some eight years ago.
I come from the town of Kovel, while my father was a native of Brest. He went to a Russian vocational school and became a master metalworker; he built, among other things, one of the largest and most beautiful railway stations in the Eastern borderlands [Polish name for the prewar Eastern provinces lost by Poland in 1945 for the sake of the Soviet Union].
In Kovel he met my mother, who was a very pretty woman. The fruits of their marriage were two girls and myself, the only boy.
Mother was a milliner. She made dresses, especially sophisticated and elegant dresses; her work was Warsaw [top] quality and fashionable. Wealthier ladies used to come to her, among them the wife of a flourmill owner, the wife of an oil mill owner, and so on. Occasionally, she employed up to three assistants, while two were kept on a regular basis. Her workshop was in our apartment - we had three Singer machines. Mother had a more regular income than Father.
Father was an educated man for that time, since he had graduated from the local vocational school. He had worked on the construction of the railway station, and after the station was opened he started a metalwork shop in partnership with another Jew. They employed two apprentices. But they were getting fewer orders, and at the end of the 1920s Father went to work for Red Star Line, an English company. There was also another firm called White Star Line.
Father came back from World War I with a medal for valor. He had fought against the Germans, on the Russian side.
In his political views he was at first a supporter of the so-called Territorialist party; this was a Jewish party that adopted in part the ideology of the Bund 1, but believed that the only option for the Jews was a territory of their own, not necessarily Palestine. Afterwards, I think that party ceased to exist and my father became a supporter of the Bund. My parents subscribed to Folkszeitung 2 and Moment 3, because my mother had Zionist views. I started to read Moment when I was seven.
Regina and Rywka were killed in August 1942 in the Kovel ghetto. Mom too.