LEO SUMMERGRAD ORAL HISTORY

JORDAN KUTZIK: This is Jordan Kutzik and today is October 3rd? I am here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts with Leo Summergrad and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Mr. Summergrad, do I have permission to record this interview?

LEO SUMMERGRAD: Absolutely.

JK: Okay. So, first, can you tell me briefly about your family background and how your family came to the United States?

LS: Okay, that's fine. My parents arrived here exactly a hundred years ago, 1:001911. They came from White Russia. My mother came from a city called Babruysk and my father came from a little town called Puchovitch. And they met on a ship. And they came here and I guess my mother must have been about eighteen years old at the time. Went to work in the garment industry. Earning -- my mother earned about seven dollars a week at that time. And by 1914, she had saved up enough money to bring her mother and younger brother over. They were married in 1917. My brother was born in 1918 and I was born in 1923. Yiddish was my first language and it has been part of me ever since. I don't know what else you would 2:00like to know.

JK: What was Jewish life in your home growing up like?

LS: Well, we were a secular family. There was no religious part whatsoever. An interesting fact, there was very little in the form of entertainment in those years. We didn't own a radio until I was about ten years old. So, the earliest memory of my mother is her singing Yiddish songs. And that left a very deep impression on me. I even know the first song I ever heard her sing. My father also sang. When there were people in the house, one of the things they would do would be singing. So, singing of songs was always a big part of our family life. 3:00We, of course, my brother and I, went off to school. And when I was about eight years old, I picked myself up without my parents knowing and went and registered myself in a Yiddish secular shule [school]. At that time, the city -- not only New York but even Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Philadelphia -- had secular shules all over the lot. They basically were set up according to political orientation of the people who -- just as the Jewish newspapers in New York, for example, 4:00were -- the far right was the "Morgen-zhurnal" and the far left was the "Morgen Freiheit." And in between was the “Tog" and the "Forverts." So, the shules were also set up in that basis. The Workmen's Circle, the Arbeter Ring, formed the first fraternal organizations, mostly based upon where people came from, landsmanshaftn [associations of immigrants originally from the same region]. So, people of the same town could get together and talk about their memories. They also provided healthcare and then decided that there was a need, in order for the culture to be maintained, there was a need for them to set up children's shules, schools where children could learn Yiddish, could learn to read, could 5:00learn to write, could learn literature, music, et cetera, et cetera. And so, New York, especially, and the Bronx, where I lived, was dotted with little shules. Storefronts, some rented room someplace. Normally, there was one teacher for each of the shules and that teacher taught the first grade the first hour, the second grade the second hour, and so forth. And we went to shule five days a week. I can remember my first day when I went there and ran home excitedly with a sheet of paper where I had written the word “mama” in Yiddish. And that was my beginning of my (laughs) my Yiddish education.

JK: What made you --

LS: That decision to register myself in the shule was by far the most important 6:00decision I ever made in my life. Now, that sounds very strange because obviously a lot (laughs) of other things happened in my life. And I say that because after I graduated from the elementary school after four years, I went on to what they call the “mitlshul [high school],” which is equivalent to junior high school or high school. And I married one of my classmates. So, therefore, that decision led me to that point. (laughs) So, it's very important. Interesting aside: I belong to a Yiddish reading circle. And over the years, of course, many of the people have died since we first formed it. But over the years, about twenty people who belonged to that reading circle met their spouses in either the 7:00shules or in Camp Kinderland.

JK: Well, do you remember what made you decide to enroll in a Yiddish school when you were only --

LS: When I was that young?

JK: Yeah.

LS: I had an aunt who was involved as, I guess, like a farvalter [director] in one of the Yiddish shules. And she kept talking about it. And I knew there was one about three blocks from my home and one afternoon after school, I just hiked over those three blocks to 1400 Boston Road in the Bronx and registered in Shule #10 of the IWO.

JK: And were your parents happy with it?

LS: They certainly were. They certainly were. They could never get my brother to go to shule, but I went.

JK: And what was Jewish life in the Bronx like when you grew up?

LS: Well, when you say Jewish life, most of the people spoke Yiddish. My grandmother lived with us. She lived in this country for twenty-four years and learned four words in English. She knew how to say “up” when the dumbwaiter was too low and “down” when it was too high. Hello and goodbye. That was her extent of her English. So, Yiddish was spoken in the home. Yiddish was spoken in the stores in the neighborhood. Yiddish was spoken among the neighbors. And, as I said, Yiddish was my first language. Obviously, English was learned very, very rapidly by being out in the street and playing with friends and so forth. And then, of course, going to school led to that.

JK: What were the relationships between the different ethnic groups in the neighborhood like?

LS: Well, we had a number of German families living -- I lived on a very small block, was only one street long, of all private houses and two apartment 9:00buildings. We lived in one of the apartment buildings. In fact, I was born on that street. We had Irish families, German families, and we all got along extremely well. There never was a problem ethnically between any of the neighbors.

JK: Did your family subscribe to any newspapers or magazines?

LS: My family read the "Freiheit," which was the left-wing newspaper. They also read the "Tog," which was slightly to the right of the "Freiheit." They didn’t read any English newspapers but we, of course, did as kids.

JK: What was Camp Kinderland like in those years?

LS: Camp Kinderland was and, as far as I understand, it remains to be a haven, a place for the summer that was just absolutely wonderful. I spent eleven years there as a camper and as a counselor. We had Yiddish classes twice a week. I learned how to swim. I swam around Sylvan Lake, which is a big lake, which was a big accomplishment at that time. We had choruses. We sang songs. I acted in plays. I brought along some CD-ROMs of pictures of Camp Kinderland that show some of the plays that I was in, which were done completely in Yiddish. And it 11:00was a joy to me. As I said, I became a counselor there and worked there up until almost the time I went into the army.

JK: Did the campers mostly speak English to each other?

LS: Oh, they all spoke English. It was English-speaking but all of the counselors, almost all of the counselors were shule teachers during the winter. And so, they spoke Yiddish to us primarily. But we mostly answered in English. But, as I say, Yiddish was spoken officially there but it wasn't -- of course, yeah, everything was done in English.

JK: But at the same time, everyone, all the campers knew enough English to perform plays -- knew enough Yiddish to perform plays in Yiddish?

LS: I don't know that all of them did but a good number of us certainly did.

JK: So, you mentioned your family was secular. Did you ever go to synagogue?

LS: Only to visit my grandmother on Yom Kippur; otherwise no.

JK: Looking back on your childhood what values or traditions do you think your parents were trying to pass on to you?

LS: That's a difficult one to put into words. They were anxious for us to succeed here in the United States. They wanted us to get a good education. They wanted us to be good, honest, upright people, to care for other people who had lesser things than us, to care about people who were oppressed. We collected money for the Scottsboro Boys. We did those types of things. And I think that paid off. I think it really left a mark on us.

JK: What do you remember from the Great Depression era?

LS: Well, it was an extremely difficult time for the country as a whole. People working in the garment industry, that was really my only connection to the Depression, worked in busy seasons and what they called slack season. Slack season was when there was no work. You just didn't go into work. And when they needed you, they called you and you came back and you worked. Both my parents worked in the garment industry. My father was active in the ILGWU until he was ousted because of left-wing activities. And he was blacklisted by the union so 14:00that he couldn't -- it was difficult for him to get a job. So, when I was about three years old, my mother went back to work and my grandmother took care of me. And she continued to work. In fact, she worked until she was about eighty-five years old.

JK: Do you have any particular memories of the labor movement growing up?

LS: Well, I was aware of what was going on in the garment workers' union. I was aware of things that I read in the newspapers, when the CIO was organized. John L. Lewis, the coal miners, the steelworkers and those things, the auto worker strikes, all of those things. We as left-wing children always were sort of aware 15:00of what was going on as far as the labor movement was concerned.

JK: What was your non-Jewish education like? Did you have any mentors or people who were particularly influential on your education?

LS: Well, I went to public school, of course, and I had some wonderful teachers. Every teacher has an influence on their students one way or another. I wouldn't call them mentors, exactly. They were good teachers. I got a good education. I went on to college, got a degree in chemistry, worked for a while as a chemist and decided I wanted to be a teacher. So, I went back and got a master's degree in education and then spent forty years in the New York City school system as a 16:00teacher and administrator.

JK: Is there anything from your time as a teacher that stands out that you'd like to relate?

LS: I loved those forty years. I loved my students. I worked in the ghetto of the South Bronx. I still keep up with former students of mine who graduated more than fifty years ago. Some were extremely successful. One of my students is now a college president. I'm talking about schools in the ghetto, primarily African American and Hispanic kids. At the same time, some of my students ended up in 17:00jail. So, did I have an influence on some of them? Yes. Those I keep up with still remember some of the things that we did in school. Did I have an influence on those who went to jail? I don't know. (laughs) I hope not.

JK: Going back to your childhood and always -- hearing songs growing up, do you think that led to your lifelong passion of collecting Yiddish songs? And can you tell me more about that?

LS: Yeah, I think I'll tell you quite a bit about that. As I said, very early in life, Yiddish songs sort of rang in my ears. I had an uncle who was the lead tenor in the Jewish Art Quartet, the Oscar Julius Quartet. Had a beautiful voice 18:00and for a while had his own radio program. I can remember my grandmother putting her ear against the speaker of the radio to hear him sing on the radio. Being part of the shule movement, singing was an important part of that, as well. So, we had choruses. When I was a teenager, I suddenly decided I was going to copy out Yiddish songs into a notebook. And I would travel down on the subway to the Forty-Second Street library and copy out songs. There's a Yiddish section of the Forty-Second Street library. And I still have that notebook, which has approximately eighty songs with yellow pages that are crumbling. But in there 19:00are some songs that I have never found on any recording. I love to sing, so I have sung in the family, at gatherings, things of that nature. When I was -- in 1959, to be exact, I decided that I wanted to record the songs that I loved. And I got myself a decent reel-to-reel recorder and with comments that I made at the beginning of each section of the songs, I then recorded about two hours of Yiddish songs. I still have them. In fact, I brought some here for you to keep. 20:00There are about two hours worth of songs on those recordings. At about the same time, I started to nose around record stores to find old recordings -- I'm not talking about 78s but old LPs -- and slowly started to collect them. I then decided I ought to keep some sort of record of what I have in this collection. So, on index cards, I would write out which songs I had, who was singing it, various information about each of the songs on the recordings. And little by little, this interest of collecting grew and grew. So, after a while, we traveled to Europe on some trips. I picked up recordings in the Soviet Union. I 21:00picked up recordings in Italy and France and England. I then started to take -- when they started coming out with tapes, I started buying tapes of recordings. And at some point along the way, I also bought my first computer. And it had something in there where I could set up a database. So, I organized databases and got rid of my index cards and started to put information about the records into the computer, into these databases. So, I have one database of recordings and one database of songs. There are -- I currently have close to seven hundred recordings of LPs, tapes, and CDs. I find that in the recordings, there are 22:00almost twenty-three hundred different songs. And I have all of that information on these databases. And not only did I record (laughs) -- buy these -- but I then made a duplicate of each of the recordings that I have on tape so that when I drive in the car, I can play those tapes. So (laughs), I have a double collection of these things. And I can't tell you why the interest is there. I just am turned on by Yiddish songs and I love them.

JK: Would you like to sing anything for us?

LS: Would I like to sing something for you? Well, by the time you reach the age 23:00of eighty-eight, your voice isn't what it once was. Should I take a crack at it?

JK: If you'd like.

LS: Let's see. Okay, let me try one song that happens to be one of my favorites. Interesting I say one of my favorites. When I made that first recording, as I introduced it, I says, "These are some of my favorites" and it turned out to be two hours of songs. This is a song that's called "Zol nokh zayn shabes," "Hold back the Sabbath." The song is written by a poet, Hay Royzenblat, and the music is by Sholom Secunda. Sholom Secunda's a well-known Yiddish composer, wrote "Bay 24:00mir bistu sheyn [To me you are beautiful]" plus a number of very other interesting folk songs. A little boy is pleading with his grandmother to hold back the Sabbath. After all, the Sabbath is a day of rest, a day of calmness, and he doesn't want to go into the week -- which separates the Sabbath from the rest of the week with all of the problems they have with having to go back to kheyder [traditional religious school] and so forth. It's a very pretty song. I hope I remember all the words and can do it. Let's try it. (sings) "Bobenyu, zog nokh nit a ‘Got fun avrom.’ Vos iz haynt oyf dir gor der ayl? In mayrev zayt iz 25:00nokh di zun nit fargangen. Bobenyu, vart nokh a vayl. In mayrev zayt iz nokh di zun nit fargangen. Bobenyu, vart nokh a vayl. Tseshter nit dem fridn, dem heylikn shabes. Tseshter nit dem shabes, di ru. Men zet nokh in himl kayn shtern nit shaynen, vart nokh a regele tsu. Men zet nokh in himl kayn shtern nit 26:00shaynen, vart nokh a regele tsu. Der got fun avrom, er shpant undz tsurik ayn, in shvern tog-teglekhn yokh, tsu trogn dem goles, dem kheyder, dem rebens, dem bal un di dayges fun vokh. Do blaybt di farshteynert, di bobe baym fenster. Zi iz tsu mayn betn vi toyb [Grandma, don’t pray the “Got fun Avrom” yet. What is the big rush? In the West, the sun hasn’t set quite yet. Grandma, wait a little while. In the West, the sun hasn’t set quite yet. Grandma, wait a little while. Don’t disturb the joy, the holy Shabbos. Don’t disturb the calm of Shabbos. You can’t see any stars in the sky yet, wait just a moment longer. You can’t see any stars in the sky yet, wait just a moment longer. God of Abraham drives us back to our everyday yoke, to drag the weight of the Diaspora, the Rebbe’s heder, the responsibilities and worries of the week. My stone-still grandma stands by the window. She is deaf to by entreaties]" -- forgot.

JK: Wow.

LS: I forgot the last few words.

JK: That's okay. Let's see. So, what aspects of Jewish culture have you tried to pass on to the generations that will come after you?

LS: It was a very, very difficult kind of thing to do. For a period of time, I was a principal of a Yiddish Sunday school run by the Sholem Aleichem shules in Mount Vernon, New York. And my children were students there. The amount that was turned on in one Sunday is very, very minimal. So, it wasn't possible to really pass that on to them. The interest that I have doesn't carry on to the next generation.

JK: Do you have anyone that you speak Yiddish with today?

LS: Well, as I said, we belong to a Yiddish circle and we meet once a month and 28:00we read Yiddish books. We don't speak too much Yiddish, but from time-to-time a little bit. There really is nobody that there's a need to speak Yiddish, though my wife speaks Yiddish as fluently -- probably even better than I do. It's interesting about speaking Yiddish, I find I think in Yiddish very often. Very deep, complex thoughts, completely in Yiddish. But there's some sort of a disconnect between the mind and the tongue, so that if I have to speak it, it doesn't come out as fluently as it did.

JK: What do you think the future of Yiddish will be?

LS: I don't see any upgrade in Yiddish. It's a shame that Israel downgraded Yiddish when they were first formed, that Hebrew became so dominant, that they 29:00had the concept that Yiddish had to be lost. There's a Yiddish culture that goes back a thousand years, a literature that is rich and vibrant, music that is rich and vibrant. So, I think it's a tremendous loss that they did that. I really don't see any really big thing. I think that the Yiddish Book Center and the thing that Aaron Lansky did with trying to save so many books, the fact that the books are digitalized, I download them and I read them, is great. But as far as the future's concerned, I don't know. I have doubts.

JK: Are there any particular memories that stand out from the IWO shules or Camp Kinderland that you'd like to share?

LS: Well, let me say I can remember the name of every shule teacher that I ever had. I can picture them in front of my face. Every single one of them. And I had a good number. Since I went to the mitlshul, it was a departmentalized program and so there, we had many teachers. During elementary shule, each year I had a different teacher and I remember every one of those. They had a tremendous influence, not only on our learning the language and learning Yiddish history 31:00and learning Yiddish culture, literature, but I think they had a tremendous influence on our whole thinking process. We were important to them and we knew we were important to them. And it was a tremendous experience. And the same thing goes for Camp Kinderland. Camp Kinderland had these wonderful teachers. And I said, I brought along some pictures that you can look at later on of Camp Kinderland. Many of the counselors, as I said, were shule teachers. I have one picture of the bunk I was in as a child. That teacher, that counselor, taught shule in Cuba during the winter and came up to be a counselor in Kinderland in the summertime. And if you look at the front of the picture, you will see 32:00bulletin boards where we wrote compositions in Yiddish. You will see pictures on there of plays that we did. Sholem Aleichem wrote a famous story called "Dos meserl [The pocket knife]" and one of the counselors, in fact he was one of my counselors when I first came to camp, changed that into a play and we performed that play. I was in it, playing the role of the little boy's father. So, there are pictures of that on that CD-ROM. The following year, I played Robin Hood, no less, in Yiddish. So, (laughs) go figure that one out. The people who came to direct us were actors in the Yiddish theater, the Artef, which was a left-wing Yiddish theater group. One of the actors was Dudl Opatoshu, who later on became 33:00an actor in Hollywood and played one of the major roles in the film “The Exodus." He was the one who directed me in "Robin Hood." So, these were all really marvelous people.

JK: And going back, you mentioned you were in the Army. Was that in the World War II era?

LS: Um-hm. Well, in 1941, I went in to City College and I enlisted in something called the Enlisted Reserve Corps. The concept at that time was that we would be able to complete college and then be taken into the Army. I enlisted in December of 1942 and I was still a sophomore in college at the time. And, of course, the 34:00Army abrogated their pledge to let us complete college. And in June of 1943, I was called to active duty. I served in an amphibian tank battalion. I was a medic on one of the -- I forget what it was called. And anyways, I was a medic and served or went, was involved in two of the biggest invasions in the Pacific, the invasion of Leyte in the Philippine islands -- by the time General MacArthur returned -- they show beautiful pictures of him wading through the surf to come 35:00ashore, I was already ashore. Course, the amphibian tanks went in something called a tear wave. We went in before the first wave of infantry in order to secure the beachhead. I also was in the invasion of Okinawa. Fortunately, we lost no people in our outfit at all. And served that, two-and-a-half or three years in the army. Came back, went back to school and, as I said, decided to become a teacher along the way.

JK: What was it like being Jewish in the Army at that time?

LS: No different than being anything else. There was no difference. Not for me, anyway. I had never had any experience of anyone -- no anti-Semitism or anything 36:00like that, though I served with a lot of people from the South, none whatsoever.

JK: What advice do you have for future generations?

LS: I don't know what you mean by that question.

JK: Something we ask everyone, I guess, so --

LS: My hope is that they can build a better world than the world we have now, a world that has more peace, less discrimination, less antagonism between groups. It's essential. It's essential for life to go on because if not, someday there might be an explosion that just destroys everything.

JK: Is there anything else you'd like to talk about or tell us about?

LS: No, I can't think of anything unless you have some specific questions about anything.

JK: I guess the last thing I wanted to ask is were you involved with shule or Camp Kinderland towards the Holocaust era and do you have any memories of what people knew or what was being discussed?

LS: We really knew very little at that time. By that time I was -- you have to remember, I was in the Army from 1943 on. We knew very little about what was going on in Europe during the Holocaust. All of those things came later. We lost 38:00some family members, not I, my wife's family, a grandmother and an aunt and others in -- small town they came from. Otherwise, no.

JK: Okay. Well, thanks for your time and -- yeah.

LS: Okay.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

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