LYBER KATZ ORAL HISTORY

LESLEY YALEN:This is Lesley Yalen, and today is November 29th, 2010. I'm here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, with Lyber Katz, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Lyber, do I have your permission to record this interview?

LYBER KATZ: Yes, you do.

LY:Thank you. So, you were born in New York --

LK:Yes.

LY:-- but I understand you moved to Moscow when you were about five?

LK:When I was about four and a half years.

LY:Four and a half? So, tell me about that, about what it was like to live and grow up in Moscow.

LK:You want to know what I think of living? Well, I had a very happy childhood. I received an excellent education. I lived there from age four and a half to 1:00about fifteen. So, I finished the required seven years' school, and I was in the eighth grade. Their school -- after the seventh grade, they divide into technical direction or -- you know, those that want to go to work and those that want to go to college -- academic direction. So, I was in the academic school, in the eighth class, when we left back for the States. And when I came here I -- my age, they put me into junior high school, which was disaster, because when I came in they were teaching us long division, and when I left Russia I was already taking elements of calculus. So, it was kind of silly. So, I spent my 2:00days cutting classes and going to movies. (laughs) Then I got into Stuyvesant High School, which is one of the prestige schools in New York. And I -- except for things that were not taught in Russia, like American history and civics and things like that -- or, for that matter, the English language. But any of the technical stuff was just a review or preview of what I had. I mean, I attribute a lot of later success to the fact that I did have an excellent education. Now, I'm not sure whether it was throughout that school I went to, was called "Pervoya Obrachozaya Shkola," experimental school. And this was a period when 3:00they were experimenting with education. And some of it was disastrous. Some of it was very interesting. One of the things I remember that really influenced me was a physics teacher, a young woman who was new in school. She came in and introduced herself in our class. This must have been either the third or fourth grade. I would guess about the third grade. And she called a kid up from the back row. They had books about what we call here the "Delaney book." So, she knew who was sitting where. She called him up to the front. He came up. Says, "Go back." So, he goes back. She calls another kid from the back row. So, he 4:00starts sauntering up. So, she says, "Come on; hurry up." So, he starts running. He runs up. "Go back." So, then she asks the class, "Who got here first -- who got here fastest?" Well, we all knew. "How do you know?" Well, he was running. "Oh." So, she calls a kid from the front row. Now we get into an argument. So, our homework assignment was to write a formula for speed. And we went through the whole course of physics without once cracking a book. Everything was based on experience. And the result was that afterwards, almost any course I took, if I understood the beginning of it, I didn't have to go through the books. So, it was very interesting. There was no Yiddish education in Russia, but I think 5:00language at home was Yiddish, primarily, or Russian. I know I forgot all of my English when I (laughs) was there. But I'm not even sure that I knew enough, because my dad was a Yiddish writer and journalist, and my mother was a Yiddish poetess. And so, Yiddish was -- the home was -- I mean, that was it. And then, Russia it became -- I was the translator for my sister because I picked it up very quick. And she was about seven years older. So, she had trouble picking up (laughs) Russian.

LY:So, tell me about what motivated your family to move to Russia.

LK:Well, my father was active in tsarist Russia, in organizing the self-defense. 6:00The Jews would get arms, and when the pogrom was threatening -- the pogroms were not spontaneous. They were organized by the tsarist police. People knew in advance that it was coming. The rich ones were able to pay off, you know, that not too much damage was done. And the police would bring in the peasants and tell them, You got two days, and then you gotta leave. So, the self-defense was organized. And they would threaten that if anyone participated in the pogrom, they would be shot. And it did prevent a lot of pogroms. Not all of them, of course, but a lot of them. He was very active in organizing in his home city of Nikolayev. That's in the southern Ukraine. And then, he became an organizer in 7:00the southern Ukraine, in Uman and in Odessa. And the people he worked closest with were the Russian Social Democratic Party, which eventually split into the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, so that he had many friends there. And he certainly was left-wing in politics. He himself was a member of the Socialist Zionist Party, which was not as -- they were Zionists in the sense that they thought that Jews should have a home somewhere, not necessarily Palestine, but in the places where they lived. After the revolution, he went back in 1918, and 8:00he was in Kiev, where he edited the newspaper. But my mother and sister remained here. And in 1920 he returned back to the States. And at that time, he was active in founding the "Morning Freiheit," which was a Yiddish Communist newspaper. In 1926, he finally decided he wants to go back to Russia, and we went back. And in 1933, there was a split in the Communist movement, and the paper was in danger. So, he returned for presumably a short time. But turned out 9:00that he would stay longer. And so, we came -- my mother and I came -- in 1936. And then, originally, he thought he was here temporarily, but with the breakout of the war, and after the war, friends of his who knew what was going on in Russia discouraged him by all means from going back. 'Cause he was dying to go back.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

LK:So, yeah, you probably might be interested in some of the Jewish life that we had in Russia.

LY:Yeah. I am.

LK:Okay. I mean, the place we lived in -- we lived in the project which had ninety-six apartments. Since most apartments were shared by two or three families, that meant about two hundred families. And there were three Jewish 10:00families in the project: ourselves and two others. That was a period of extreme anti-anti-Semitic propaganda, where anti-Semitism was a crime, and it was really punished. It was not just on the books. And I remember one incident in our courtyard or in our project where the local drunkard called a woman a "zhydovka," which is the Russian for "kyke." Obviously you know what that means. And she wasn't Jewish, but she brought charges against him for anti-Semitism. Now, in Russia they had what they called "tavarishki sood [Russian: neighborhood court]," which was the (UNCLEAR) court, which was the court within the project, 11:00which settled family disputes or between the families, any local things, to keep it from the real justice system. So, there was a trial. And he was found guilty. And the judge, who was one of the local residents, fined him five rubles. And he was very incensed about it, and he called the judge a kyke-lover, a Jew-lover. And now it was already an offense against authority, and he was sentenced for three months in jail by a higher court. And most of the people in the house -- I don't know whether it was because they got rid of the local drunk or whether it's -- (laughs) but I never experienced any anti-Semitism, or at least not 12:00visible. My best friends were not Jewish. I mean, I can't say that it was difficult. Some of the real Jewish connections I had was when we went to visit my aunts in Tolochin, which is a shtetl [small Eastern European village with a Jewish community] in Belarus.

LY:And when was this that you --

LK:Hm?

LY:When did you go visit?

LK:The first time I was -- when we first came -- so I was about five or six years old. And then, later on when I was about eleven or twelve. And then, just before we left, and I was fourteen and a half. I remember the house was a square building with a big stove in the middle, wood-fired stove. The square was 13:00partitioned into four rooms, with the walls crossing across the stove so that a piece of the stove was in each room. That was to heat it. The beds were on top of the stove, so one room was for the girls, one for the boys, one for the parents, and one was a kitchen. And we would sleep on top of the stove! (laughs) The chickens were underneath the stove. Outside was the cow and the pigs and the -- yeah, they had two pigs, even though they were a Jewish family -- (laughs) and the chickens and the whatnot. And I remember when I was five years old, when we came they slaughtered the chicken, and -- of course, as a five years old, I was very much interested. And my uncle cut its throat and threw it on the 14:00ground, and the chicken started chasing me. And I was frightened out of my wits. I ran up a little -- they had, like, a cover over the -- there were no coolers, but there were holes dug in the ground where they would put ice in the winter, and it would last for quite a bit. So, I went on top of this, and then for about, oh, maybe ten years afterwards, I wouldn't come anywhere near a chicken. (laughs) I remember one year, when I was older, we were there, and there were many -- I mean, in the small shtetl, the recreation was having children. So, I had cousins by the dozens. And most of them were about our age, within ten years 15:00of it. And we were at my aunt Reyze's house, and the three aunts that lived in the Tolochin were out there making latkes on the big stove in the -- and as fast as they could make it, all of the kids were there eating them up. (laughs) That was some of the memories of the time.

LY:So, you said that most of your closest friends in Moscow weren't Jewish.

LK:No.

LY:But did you have --

LK:We had Jewish friends.

LY:-- a Jewish community there, or --

LK:We weren't part of a Jewish co-- well, many of the writers, many of the people -- as a matter of fact, many of the writers who eventually were killed -- and by the way, that's the one objection I have. They were not really writers that were killed. What they killed off was Jewish culture, because there were -- 16:00of the thirteen that died, only four were writers. The rest were cultural -- there were actors; there were people that were active in Jewish causes, but not as writers. But in any case, many of them were personal friends of the family, like the Talmys and the others. And we were friends. Many of the Jewish writers were personal friends of the family. Like the Kushnirovs and the Godiners and Litvakov -- he was the editor of the "Emes." And they had kids. I met them, but they were not everyday friends. They were not school friends. I mean, if we went 17:00there, we knew them, but it wasn't that we were buddy-buddy.

LY:So, when you came back to the States when you were fifteen or so --

LK:I was fifteen. In 1936.

LY:-- how was that transition for you?

LK:Well, Yiddish came in very handy. Because I forgot all of my English. I could count up to six. And most of it I forgot. But I was sent to a Jewish children's camp, to Camp Kinderland, where I spent -- at that time it was a ten-week camp when I was there. And I guess I picked up my English there. Some of it was hilarious. (laughs) I mean, like -- Itche Goldberg, who was a well-known 18:00journalist and all, he was director of the camp. And he used to bring regards from my father. My father, by the way, is Moishe Katz. And I was probably introduced to him, but I didn't catch his name. And he used to send regards. And I asked my tentmate, you know, what his name was, and he gave me a name that sounded right, "Son of a bitchie." (laughs) I called him that. I'm not quite sure whether I didn't know what it meant or whether I knew, but I was game. (laughs) But we had a great time. And I don't remember any particular effort in learning English. Because by the time I was finished with the first term of high 19:00school, I was already fluent.

LY:And socially were -- how was it being in America all of a sudden?

LK:Well, as I say, school was a bit disappointing because it was not really a review; it was very elementary compared to what we had. Also, we came here while the aftermath of the Depression was still going on, and in Russia, of course, things were pointed at how terrible things were in America and in the capitalist world. And so that you didn't know that something like when you walk down the street, I did see people go to garbage cans and go through food -- I mean, 20:00garbage -- to pick out food if any was thrown out. So, you remember those things. But all in all, it was not -- I adjusted quite easily. Since I didn't have to do much study, I was busy in school and various extracurricular activities, in the chess club and the math club and the physics club and the newspaper and whatnot. So, I was kept pretty busy. And also, when I was here, I started in the Yiddish -- in the shule [secular Yiddish school], the Ordn shules, where at that time our class was about forty or fifty -- well, there 21:00were two classes on the same level. So, each class was maybe about twenty people. And we studied Yiddish, Yiddish history, and other than -- I had four years of that, and this was at least four days a week, not -- and intensive studies.

LY:After school?

LK:After school. And on a weekend, on a Saturday and a Sunday. We were strictly secular, so I had no connection whatsoever with any synagogue or any religious aspect of it. And then, after this, there was the university, where we went through literature and also more of the history. And then, we had quite a number of years in the -- of course, afterwards, I worked as a counselor and then on 22:00the staff in Kinderland. So, most of my life was connected in some way with Jewish. Not necessarily Yiddish, but Jewish.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

LY:Tell me a little bit more about your neighborhood in New York, where you were going to high school and --

LK:Well, when we got married, apartments were not to be had. And our first, quote, apartment was in Brighton Beach, which was a two-family house that was converted into fourteen living units. And to give you an idea of the size of the apartment, when we bought a vacuum cleaner -- one of those, what do you call it, 23:00canister types, and that was -- I assembled the tube -- I was able to reach every corner of the apartment by sitting in the middle. (laughs) But it was right near the Coney Island Jewish Center, and we were active there. When we moved to the area, we talked to IWO, to the -- they had the youth organization. And they asked us to go up there because there's a very weak youth organization on the Coney Island. So, we came to the first meeting. At the end of the meeting, I was president of the lodge, (laughs) and Elaine, my wife, who will be interviewed later, was the secretary. And we did reorganize, and it became an 24:00active group, a number of active people. Later on, it developed into JYF, Jewish Young Fraternalists, and we were active in that. And in New York, that was a very active Jewish group. I mean, they had choruses -- in the Bronx, the chorus was over a hundred young people. There was another hundred young people chorus in Brooklyn. There was drama groups, dance groups, classes, and whatnot. And then when -- during the McCarthy period, when the IWO was -- or the JPFO -- was seized by the government, that fell apart. And for a number of years, I wasn't active. But somehow or other -- I mean, that's my mazl [luck], I guess. One time a friend of my neighbor invited me to a B'nai B'rith meeting. And it seems the 25:00B'nai B'rith meetings were basically a meeting for about ten minutes, and then you play pinochle. And I didn't mind playing (laughs) pinochle. So, I went to the meeting. And it seems there was a problem. The vice president moved and resigned. And he is from the Conservative shul. And the president was from the Orthodox shul. And he appointed a committee that nominated the vice president from the Orthodox shul. And the Conservative shul objected because it should have been one from theirs. And there was -- since many of them were lawyers, there were a real to-do, with points of orders and points of personal privilege and points of whatnot, and they got so involved with "Robert's Rules of Orders" 26:00for -- all they wanted to do was play pinochle, but to get out of it, they couldn't. In the meantime, I'm looking at the bylaws, and I'm a newcomer, and what it said is that when a vacancy occurs, that the president should appoint a nominating committee at the next meeting, and they should bring in a nomination. I raised my hand. Well, a newcomer was here; they listened. I said, "Your bylaws say this. So, your whole discussion is out of order." President says, "Why didn't we think of that?" (laughs) And then, we went and we played pinochle. I get home about twelve o'clock at night. The phone rings. He needs clear-thinking people, and he needs a chairman for the ADL committee. Would I take it? I said, 27:00"Okay, I'll take it." So, we got the ADL committee going. Since their term was two years, and he was due for retirement, so in the -- about a year or so -- the two groups decide that if either one of theirs becomes president, the lodge is gonna fall apart. So, next thing I knew, I was president (laughs) of the lodge. And it grew. So, I was quite active. But I didn't tell you why we -- this was in the Gun Hill area of the Bronx. We lived in Brighton, but we didn't like the climate out there. It was very damp. In the wintertime, when it was forty degrees, your teeth were chattering because it was very damp. So, we managed to find an apartment in the Bronx, and we moved.

LY:So, you moved from Brighton Beach to the Bronx --

LK:Brighton Beach --

LY:-- for a change --

LK:-- to the Bronx.

LY:-- of climate. (laughs)

LK:And it is a change of climate.

LY:That's amazing. Yeah.

LK:Bronx is a very continental climate. And we've been Bronxites ever since.

LY:So, go back, if you wouldn't mind, to the McCarthy era a little bit, and you said the IWO fell apart, and -- how did that affect you and the people you knew?

LK:Well, it was very tragic in a way. I mean, it was a very scary period. I know I personally was approached by two gentlemen in trench coats, FBI agents, and they stopped me on the street, and they wanted to know about my father. So, I said, "Well, you know, I haven't lived with him for several years, and why don't 29:00you ask him?" Well, you may know something. So, we volleyed for about twenty minutes, and I wouldn't give them any information. Next day, I'm at the office -- I was an engineer in a fabricating plant -- and two gentlemen in trench coats show up, and they go to the president's office, and they're locked there, and I figured, That's the end of my job, and what am I gonna do? And we just had two little children. I mean, the baby was just born, and our daughter was two years old. And I was scared. And sure enough, when they left, the boss comes out, and he asks me whether I know about one of the guys in the shop. And it turned out 30:00that they came about him. Apparently, he was a young communist who went to organize steelworkers and wasn't very successful and came back to New York and started working at our place as a helper. And at that time, we needed trained people, and they were hard to get. And he was a student at City College in engineering. So apparently, they told him that he was a student in engineering, and that's the main thing he got out of them. And as an engineer, he probably could read a blueprint, and therefore he could probably become a fitter. So, he asked me whether I know Dave, and I said yes, and do you think we can make a fitter out of him? Yes. (laughs) So, the outcome was that he was promoted (laughs) as a result of it. I personally never was -- my neighbors told me that 31:00people came and questioned, but I was never influenced. Whether the boss valued what I did more than he valued the suggestions, I don't know. But I managed to survive that. But it was a trying period. I personally never wanted to join the Party, because -- I mean, I found them very doctrinaire.

LY:So you never did.

LK:I never joined the -- I mean, many of the things I agreed with, but many of the things that I found unacceptable. They would go whole-hog against something.

LY:Your parents were part of the Party?

LK:They were, but after the -- it was up to 1954, they really didn't know -- nobody knew what was happening. And it's only when the Khrushchev's speech and the things appeared, and at that time my dad did resign. And my mother, I don't know whether she resigned or not, but, I mean, her attitude was that they believed in socialism all their life, and now what are they gonna believe in? And the truth is, it affected many people, because for many, socialism was almost like the religion of a better future, better thing. And for many of the younger people, when there was not a better future in this world, they started 33:00looking for a better future in the next world. And I think that had a lot to do with the increase in the religious influence. But even to this date, I don't -- I mean, less than fifty percent of the Jews are affiliated with any religion. So -- okay?

LY:So, going back again a little further, tell me more about your parents. I know a bit about your father, that he was a writer and editor --

LK:Yes.

LY:-- and your mom was a poet. But what were they like as people, as parents?

LK:Well, very modern. (laughs) I mean, just to give you an idea, when Elaine and 34:00I decide we'll get married, so we told my father, and we were sitting on the porch and talking, and I mentioned it to him. And then, he walked in -- and this was in 1947 -- and my mother was cooking or something, and he tells her, "Meet our future daughter-in-law." And my mother's reaction was, "Future?" (laughs) She thought we were married already. (laughs) They were very devoted to each other. And she respected him quite a bit. She wrote quite a bit of poetry. Much 35:00of it was not published. I still have the manuscripts. I read --

LY:Has it been translated?

LK:Not her poetry. But I've translated my dad's book. I still have a couple of chapters to go. And my kids and grandchildren, they want to be able -- so I started it a few years ago, and it's an easy book to translate, but I hate translation. (laughs)

LY:Why?

LK:I don't know. It's not creative. Although it is creative in the sense -- I mean, you learn to translate the -- in the beginning I was trying to do it word 36:00for word. And that's really impossi-- I mean, knowing how my father spoke and his attitude -- in Yiddish, sentences can be a paragraph long. In English, they become run-on, and after a while you develop more the tone that they had, rather than the exact words. And so, there's a big difference between the beginning -- but he wrote a book, "A dor vos hot farloyrn di moyre [A generation that lost its fear]," about the generation of 1904, 1905, 1906, and how they organized the self-defense of the problems they had, of the allies they had. It also involved both the dealings with the various other Jewish parties, like the Bund and the 37:00-- which one of the others was the Po'ale Tsi-- Poli-Zionists, is it? And also the Zionists, which were forming at the time. About how they obtained weapons, about the dealings with both peasants and -- some are hilarious items, some are moving, and some are -- I mean, like, there was a pogrom threatened, and some of the workers participated. And this was in 1905, right after the 1905 revolution, where they had quite a bit of freedom. And they had a trial of one of the pogrom 38:00participants. And he was sentenced to death, and he was shot. And this was not a Russian-Jewish thing, but the Social Democratic Party, that did it. He deals with some of the people that were allied, some of the people that became turncoats. He became a journalist in the "Naye velt," which was published in the Lithuanian Vilnius, and then later in Warsaw. So, he met some of the -- Peretz and Sholem Aleichem and Mendele. So, he describes the meetings with them in the 39:00book. As a matter of fact, a very interesting description I mentioned yesterday -- I forgot her name, the -- your Norwegian colleague?

LY:Oh, Anita, yeah.

LK:What?

LY:Anita.

LK:Anita? She was talking about Peretz, you know, and he writes about Peretz meeting with him. And the time my dad -- his primary language was Russian, but he felt that he was working with the Jewish people, and he has to learn Yiddish. So, he was practicing Yiddish all he could. And when he met Peretz, he tried to speak Yiddish to him. And Peretz kept switching to Russian. And my dad would speak Yiddish, and Peretz would answer in Russian. And he couldn't understand 40:00why Peretz wouldn't talk Yiddish with him. And years later, when he was working with him in Warsaw, in the newspaper, where they became already friendly, he asked him about it, and Peretz denied that he ever -- (laughs) but my dad suspects that Peretz was trying to transmit to the Russian youth, which was the equivalent of the American youth, the importance of Yiddish, and he didn't want anything to be missed and was afraid that if he spoke to them in Yiddish that they wouldn't understand. So, he spoke in Russian. (laughs)

LY:Interesting. So, tell me about how you met Elaine.

LK:Well, it's also a long story. (laughter) How much time do we have?

LY:We have time.

LK:Uh, my father was arrested. He was turned in to the police by the rabbis, no less -- by a rabbi who didn't think that a Jewish boy should be armed.

LY:And where was this?

LK:This was in 1906 and 1907, in Russia.

LY:In Russia.

LK:And of course, for a Jew to possess weapons was a capital offense. And the only saving thing in Russia was that bribes were readily accepted. So, he was released on the condition that he leave town and the country that same day. And this was in Nikolayev, which is a port city in the Black Sea. So, my dad got the 42:00first boat out of Nikolayev, which happened to go to Egypt. So, he went to Egypt, in Alexandria. His father was suffering from asthma, and his father was already one of the more advanced Jews. I mean, he was interested in literature; while he did go to synagogue, he was also -- he had collections of writers, and he subscribed to various newspapers and all that. So, when my dad was in Egypt, and my grandfather -- it was recommended that for his asthma, he should be in a warm climate. So, the family moved to Egypt. My father left Egypt and went back to Russia and became active in western Russia, in Belarus and Lithuania and 43:00Poland. But the family remained. And of course there were other Jewish families in Alexandria. My grandfather organized a drama group, which was -- a lot of the people from the drama group, when they went to Israel, became part of the Habimah. But he remained in Alexandria. He did not move to Israel, or to Palestine. One of the people in that group was Elaine's mother, Vera Benowitz -- or Vera Zimmerman, at the time. And I had no idea that they existed or whatnot. She came to the United States and she married someone and settled in Hartford, 44:00Connecticut. My dad was a lecturer, and he often went to Hartford, and he lectured in Hartford, and he stayed with the Benowitzes. Okay? Now, I was in the army, and since I was a graduate engineer, they put me into reserves where they needed engineers, which was up at Ohio State. And we were there, like, an assembly point. Theoretically, we could -- took courses, but the main thing I learned was how to play bridge and -- (laughs) and we found that the girls' hall was the best place to hang around to get out of duty. So, one day -- I think it was some holiday, maybe George Washington's birthday -- everybody from the 45:00Locals was away. And there were three of us; we went to the Hillel. And they had records there, and I found some Red Army songs. So, I put them on, and a girl comes in, and she recognized the songs. And we started talking, and I'm from New York; she's from Hartford. "From Hartford? My father travels to Hartford occasionally to lecture." And -- "What's his name?" "Moishe Katz." And of course she (laughs) knew, and she was friends with my aunt -- I mean, the family who lived in Springfield. And she knew my cousin Carmie, so -- (laughs) so she knew the family I didn't. So, the rest was natural.

LY:Now how long have you been married?

LK:Well, since '47, so that's sixty-three years. Happily married.

LY:So, tell me about -- you raised your kids in New York, right?

LK:The what?

LY:You raised your children in New York City, in --

LK:Yeah, they were raised in New York. And the first chance they had they left. One went to Boston, which is Mike, and he's very much into Jewish life. The other one went to St. Louis, eventually, but she's not really involved in any of this. But Mike is very active in the Workmen's Circle or -- I, by the way, as I told you -- I mean, I can't help it; I get involved in activities. So, I got onto an editorial board of the "Jewish Currents," and I've been active. And 47:00then, when the Workmen's Circle was looking for a magazine to publish, "Jewish Currents" became part of the Workmen's Circle. And next thing I knew, I was on the executive board of the Workmen's Circle. And I'm active in the Workmen's Circle now. Mike is active in Boston. They have a very active Workmen's Circle group going there. Our kids were -- we ran shules for them. They were secular shules, of course. And in Boston they organized, so Pauline and -- who's working here -- and Ben, who's living in (laughs) Amherst, they went through the shules.

LY:So, did you want your children to be involved in the same kinds of things you were involved --

LK:Why not? It was fun. I figure it contributes something. I mean, it's a culture. It is not going -- the future-future, but on the other hand, much of history is not the future either. And yet, it's an important aspect of life. I keep getting reminded that when the black liberation movement was starting, they were very much interested in Swahili and in the culture of the black, and so much so that many of the whites were interested in it. And many of our progressive young friends who would not think of Yiddish went and studied 49:00Swahili because that was the thing to do. Now, many of them are regretting -- not that they studied Swahili, but that they didn't learn their own background. And we're meeting them as parents of kids in Kinderland -- and I'm very active on the board of Kinderland, by the way, also. Just as an aside.

LY:Yeah, so tell me about -- you've mentioned Kinderland and the "Currents" and Workmen's Circle. Tell me about some of the work you're doing today in --

LK:Well, on the Kinderland I'm on the board -- we were located in Sylvan Lake, and it was joint camp with adults. But when the JPFO went, it was destroyed. 50:00There was no financial base, and camp -- I mean, it was clear that they couldn't survive. So, the decision was to save the children's camp. And at that time we were in the forties, and we became sort of the ones that took over, and I was in charge of the committee that found a new location in Tolland, Massachusetts, which is a beautiful area -- far from the city, but it's halfway between Boston and New York. So, we're attracting both the Boston community and the New York community. And it was very active. And then, our kids went there, and my wife was a group leader. Well, that was still while we were in Sylvan Lake, but when 51:00we moved to Tolland, I became manager for a while, and she was directing the dining room. And we feel it's important to provide some means of transmitting the Jewish culture to let them know that they're not nomads, that there was a Jewish culture. The camp itself, it's very difficult to have the culture in Yiddish, as such, but where possible we introduce some of it. Many of the bunks are named for Jewish poets and for Jewish writers. And as a matter of fact, we had -- when we brought the president of the Workmen's Circle down -- and of 52:00course their camp was Kinder Ring -- and walked around, he was very impressed with the fact that we had bunks named for [Zhitlovsky], for Sholem Aleichem, for various others -- Bar Kokhba. And their bunks are named Number One, Two, Three, Four -- (laughs) eyn, tsvey, dray, fir. So, for whatever rubs off -- and if out of a hundred, five or ten become interested, I think we've accomplished something. And we've made it a point to assure continuity too, that our board consists of not only old-timers but current parents and current staff and current -- not current campers, but current alumni, fresh alumni, so that 53:00there's continuity. And by now, the board is mostly young people, and I see the camp continuing for many more years. It was founded in 1923, so it's almost a hundred years old.

LY:How does it feel to see the young Yiddish enthusiasts today?

LK:Well, I'm not jumping with joy. I mean, to me it should be a natural thing. On the other hand, it's nice to see that there is an interest. I think there's an increased interest now in it. I don't know. I think part of it, part of the loss of interest, I think, had to do with Israel where, for a number of years, 54:00they tried to discourage -- not just discourage, but actively discourage Yiddish. And since Israel has a great influence on young people -- and not necessarily Zionists, but influence -- I think that influenced a lot. But I see especially the influx of Russian Jewry, where Yiddish is still the language. And Yiddish has been getting back on its feet in Israel, and I think many of the younger people around the world are beginning to recognize that this is their language. And as I say, it's not the language of communication, but on the other hand, it's a language. If all we needed was communication, then one language, 55:00like the one spoken by the most people is Chinese -- we all ought to learn Chinese. Or English. (laughs)

LY:Are there any other stories that you want to share?

LK:Hm, I'm trying to think. What other -- oh, yeah, I -- I have a few incidents about meeting Jews around the world, which might be interesting.

LY:Yeah.

LK:I was stationed in Korea, right after World War II, outside of Seoul. And it was before the Korean War yet. And everything was off-limits, and then finally they permitted us to go into Seoul. And I was tech sergeant at the time, and we 56:00had a colonel who was an excellent human being. It was an engineering group, but a civil engineering. And he treated us as professionals, not as soldiers. And he had a rule that if any officer went in and drove into town, he had to announce it on the PA, and if any of the enlisted men were free and they wanted to go in, they could go with him. So, this officer was going in; we went in, the four of us, with him. We had a hand-drawn map of Seoul. And he told us he'll meet us at four o'clock, at the railroad station. And we could see the tower of it, because all the buildings were very low. But way in the distance. And the map showed us walking around in a big circle. So, we decide that, Why don't we walk straight towards that tower. And we go into these little side streets which -- like 57:00worms. I mean, there wasn't twenty feet of straight. The streets were lined with little shops, each one open up in the front; they displayed whatever they were selling, which could have been old newspapers, rusty nails, you name it. Nothing useful for an American, but -- then, in the back, was a woman with a kitchen cooking; out in front were kids, Korean kids, playing. And the proprietor would be sitting on his haunches next to it and hoping that somebody would stop and buy. And as we were walking by one of these stalls, this Korean sitting there looks at me and says, "Sprechen sie Deutsch [German: Do you speak German]?" I did a double take, and I said, "Ein bisschen [German: A little]," because I had fourteen years of -- no, not fourteen -- ten years of German in school. And he 58:00looks at me, and the next thing out of his mouth, "You got Yiddish?" And I did a double take. Unfortunately, my buddies were walking ahead, and so all I had is about a minute or so with him. It turned out that it's an Austrian Jew who was fleeing from Austria on the way to Australia, and he was in Shanghai when the Japanese invaded. And about the only thing he could tell me was that, "And, you know, you're stuck, and I ended up here, in Korea." 'Cause at that time, Korea was a Japanese colony. I told him that I don't have time because my friends are leaving, but I'll find him again. But I tried to, but I was never able to find 59:00that little street because, of course, all the signs were in Korean, and they looked alike to me. And the only thing I can surmise is that he must have gotten to Korea, and he probably married a Korean widow with children. And the food there was basically rice and -- knobl, what is it, garlic, and he had that sallow complexion. The clothing was the padded Korean clothes. The glasses were oversize glasses. To me, he looked like a Korean. But, "You got Yiddish?" (laughs) And we had a Yiddish conversation. Another time with meeting Jews was in Machu Picchu. (laughs) We went to Peru, and we stopped -- Cusco was a big 60:00town near Machu Picchu. But we decide that we took the train and we stayed the night in a B&B in a monastery that is about halfway to Machu Picchu. And out there they had the -- I mean, like, every place out there for tourists, you sell things. So, they had the display. So, Elaine and I were walking, and we were looking at what they had for sale. There were two couples standing a distance away that apparently stayed the night at that B&B also. And somehow, we got into a conversation, and it turned out that they were Jewish also. And I'm talking to one of them while the other couple is about, oh, I would say, twenty feet away. 61:00And he mentioned that his father is from Bialystok. I said, "Well, my father is from Dokshytsy -- was born in Dokshytsy but moved to Nikolayev." And the other man says, "Did I hear you say Dokshytsy?" I said, "Yes." He says, "My parents are from Dokshytsy." (laughs) And we met Jews in --

LY:Not just Jews, but neighbors.

LK:Hm?

LY:Not just Jews, but neighbors of your parents.

LK:Right. So, we met in Machu Picchu. (laughs)

LY:Wow.

LK:As they say, "farkrokhn [all over the place, lit. "crawling"]." We've visited the Jewish community in Melbourne, Australia, where they were surprised that I spoke Yiddish because I come from America, and they spoke Yiddish. (laughs)

LY:So, you've done a lot of traveling.

LK:Yeah, I enjoy travel. A lot of it was courtesy of Uncle Sam, and then the job I had, I had opportunity to travel, so I would arrange my vacations so that if I had to go to Japan, I could also spend time. And once we retired, wonderful time to travel. As a matter of fact, two weeks ago we got back from Egypt.

LY:How was that?

LK:Hot. It was a difficult trip. It was interesting, fascinating. As a matter of fact, I got into trouble with my Egyptologist. He was telling us, you know, that it's not true, he says, that the pyramids were built by slave labor, that 63:00(UNCLEAR) they were built by volunteer labor because the people adored their pharaohs and they wanted them to have a happy afterlife, and they built this. And looking at the size of the pyramids, I sort of commented to him that, you know, Are you sure that they didn't build them so big that they wouldn't be able to get out of there? (laughs) He didn't think that was funny. And then, we went into the Valley of the Kings, where there were sixty-three of the pharaohs buried. And each one is in a tunnel. And it was amazing how, with stone tools, they were able to dig out those tunnels. If they would have brought those Egyptian sla-- uh, volunteers -- (laughs) to New York, they would have long ago 64:00built a Second Avenue subway. But he was explaining to us the -- this thing -- he called it the "Book of the Dead." And he was saying that it's a four-chapter book. The first chapter deals with the gods; the second chapter with the pharaoh, how great he is. The third chapter is with the death of the pharaoh, and how he has to answer five hundred-some-odd questions. Each answer has to be a no. And then, he's weighed against a feather. And then, he goes into the afterlife, admitted to the afterlife, and lives happily afterlife. And then, he commented that this particular pharaoh must have died before they finished that fourth book. So, he says, "The fourth book wasn't finished here." And I commented on the fact that is it perhaps possible that the pharaoh wasn't able to answer all the questions with a no? (laughs) Did I steal; did I kill; did I 65:00do this? (laughs) But they let me out of Egypt. (laughter)

LY:I'm glad. So, any final words you want to share, maybe thinking to your grandchildren and future generations?

LK:Well, I'm very happy what Pauline is doing. And she certainly took an interest in it. But in general, I feel that there is an interest in Jewish history, and -- I mean, we are a people -- I consider myself an American. I -- that's where my primary allegiance is. I don't think the solution is for everybody to be in -- I think the solution is to live as human beings in the 66:00country that you live in. Most of the Jews live in America. But there has to be a knowledge and -- not only of the religious history, but also there's a very interesting secular history of the Jews, and that's one of the reasons I'm active in the "Jewish Currents," which is growing. I mean, since we became independent of the Workmen's Circle now, on our own, we've increased our circulation by almost a thousand. And I hope that it is a future. But, I mean, 67:00I've always been an optimist. I was never a pessimist. Well, the truth is, I'm an engineer. I have a t-shirt that says, "The optimist: The glass is half full. Pessimist: The glass is half empty. The engineer: The glass is twice as big as it needs to be." (laughs) So --

LY:You're a pragmatist.

LK:-- that's my attitude. But we take things as it is, and -- but I'm certainly against killing Jewish culture. That reminds me of an incident when -- I mentioned we had the JYF choruses. And it was a very active chorus. And we were meeting on the Southern Boulevard, which is close to an area that had a black 68:00population. And there was a chorus of young black people, and they joined the chorus, and they sang with us. And they were learning the Yiddish songs, and our chorus was singing some of the songs -- their songs of liberation. And finally, some of the super-active people in our chorus said that, Well, since this is a mixed chorus, we shouldn't call ourselves the Jewish Young Fraternalists Chorus. It should be -- and they started arguing about changing the name. And one of the young black women who was part of it, she raised her hand and she says, "Look, we joined you because it's a Jewish chorus, not because it's a mixed chorus. And 69:00there's absolutely no reason for you to change the name." And that was the end of that. And the point is they were interested in our culture. And we do have a rich culture. I mean, much of it is a tragic culture, culture of persecution, but on the other hand, I think the fact that we grew up as a people without wealth -- while there was some people that gathered wealth, by and large it was not wealth that counted but knowledge, so that knowledge was wealth. I think we were much more interested in culture -- this, by the way, is an interesting point that may have to do with the persecution of the Jews in the '40s. But in 70:00the 1920s, when they opened up the universities -- reopened the universities -- in Russia, they were open to the persecuted minorities and to the children of workers and peasants. Children of workers and peasants weren't exactly college-minded. Minorities were Jews, who were certainly interested. And I wish I could find the figures, but I remember somebody mentioning that over seventy-five percent of the Moscow State University enrollment in the '20s was Jewish. So, that means that the first technocrats that came out -- first engineers, the first businesspeople -- were Jews. And they occupied the 71:00positions of the middle-level leadership. And with the society -- I mean, once you entrench yourself, you're entrenched. The only way that somebody new or somebody could get into that position is if the older person left. So, the new generation that came out after World War II and during World War II did everything possible to encourage the Jews to leave. In the place where I worked one time, a laborer came in looking for a job. And they called me, and since I speak Russian they called me to the office, and they said that he doesn't speak a good English; can I help? It turned out that he was a manager of a factory, of 72:00a steelworking factory in the Ukraine. And he says he was listening to "Voice of America," and they said that Jews should leave, and his wife said that, you know, maybe they know something. And I says, "I never had any real problems, but we decided maybe we better apply." And within two weeks they got a permit to leave, and they left. And when he was leaving he was told, "Don't go to Israel, but when you come to Vienna, go to the States." So, he did. But in the States, I mean, even though he's a graduate engineer, he didn't have any knowledge of English, so he was useless. So, after a while the only thing he could be was a 73:00laborer. And he was cursing the day he left. He says, "I don't know why I left. Nobody bothered me. But I left." So, but I think to some extent that may have had to do with the fact that, you know, people in the middle-upper levels were Jewish and then entrenched, and there was pressure from below to get them out.

LY:Well --

LK:Nokh vos [What next]?

LY:-- on that note -- yeah. Thank you very much.

[END OF INTERVIEW]