HENRY SLUCKI ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:So, this is Christa Whitney, and today is January 15th, 2013. I'm here in Los Angeles, California, with Henry Slucki, and we're going to record -- Dr. Henry Slucki -- and we're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record this?

HENRY SLUCKI:Yes.

CW:Thank you. So, to start, could you tell me briefly, what you know about where your family roots are in Europe?

HS:Yes, they -- both my mother and my father were born in Warsaw, Poland, my father in 1906, my mother in 1907. They came, both of them, from very 1:00traditional religious homes. My grandfather on my mother's side was a soyfer [scribe], so that he wrote books and transcribed books. And in addition to that, he was a smith. On my father's side, my grandfather was a cantor, and to earn a living, he was a shoemaker -- had a shoe-repair place in Old Warsaw. My father was a -- became a total orphan at the age of -- by the age of twelve, and went out on his own, from that point on. My mother was one of five sisters -- five 2:00girls -- and my grandparents on my mother's side lived into the Second World War, and perished in the Holocaust, in Treblinka. My mother's other sisters traveled the world over, leaving Warsaw. My mother's eldest sister was a Bundist, and she and her husband figured that Warsaw, Poland is not the place for Bundists to be -- it's going to go nowhere -- but socialism in France was developing, so they left in the early '20s --'20 or '21 -- to live in Paris, and 3:00my mother, who had a very strong, independent spirit and had gone off to the Vilna Gymnasium for one year -- because that's all they could afford -- went and joined her older sister in Paris in 1926. My father, who had already established a relationship with my mother when they were in Warsaw, went, the following year, in 1927, and joined her in Paris. And they lived together, not married, for several years, had a son who lived to the age of fourteen months, and died -- not sure whether it was strep throat, or some respiratory ailment -- in Warsaw, when my mother took him to visit her parents, her family. They -- I was 4:00born in 1934 after they had decided to get married. So I have all the documents. And nineteen thirty-n-- so, I was born in 1934. In 1939, both my folks had been very active, up to that point, in anti-fascist organizations supporting the republican government in Spain, and, in fact, being responsible for sending packages of clothing -- things that they gathered from their friends. And in 1939, when Léon Blum -- after Léon Blum had called for volunteers to join the army -- especially foreigners who otherwise could not become citizens, now would 5:00be able to become citizens after they had served for six months or whatever -- and it turned out to be whatever -- the duration of the war. So, my father was fighting in the Second World War, from the Maginot Line down to southern France, where he was demobilized in June of 1940. And my mother and I joined him down there. Up to this point, my parents had been very involved and very active in Yiddish organization -- the Kultur-lige in Paris, supporters of "Di naye prese," the newspaper, involved in the YASK, Yunge -- what was it? Yunge Arbeter Sports 6:00Klub. So that they -- although they were not athletes as such, but they did enjoy the hikes and the picnics that the organization sponsored. During the Second World War, we lived, from '40 to '42, in southern France, and we just had a really, during those two years, a marvelous life. It was -- we were away from the war, away from the occupiers, and my father was doing very well as a tailor. We -- on August 26, 1942, there was a knock at the door, at six o'clock in the morning. My parents had been forewarned that there would be roundups, and it was 7:00on that day that Jews were rounded up throughout southern France. We didn't answer the door -- I remember it as though it were yesterday -- and we sat in my dark bedroom till they finally went away, which was over an hour, an hour and a half later. Being that they were gendarmes [French: police officers], they didn't knock the door down. And my father, who had been very involved in befriending the various officials around town -- being a tailor, making custom clothing, and so on -- was able to, through intermediaries, get the word to the city hall, to the veterans' bureau, that we didn't like what was going on, and could they help us out? As it turns out, the couple who hid us, the Kadens, 8:00became, after the war, Righteous among Nations, in Yad Vashem -- not because of us, but they helped a lot of people -- and after we had been hidden for a couple of weeks, we were able to get back to the house. My father had arranged for us to have safe papers, so that we could continue to function. In November -- in fact, on November 11, 1942 -- is when the Germans came and occupied all of France. At that point, my dad said, "We're getting out of here." And the same relatives -- my mother's sister and brother-in-law -- who had gone from Warsaw to Paris had, in 1936, gone from Paris to Mexico, where socialism, they thought, 9:00was really taking hold. So when the war broke out, they arranged and made papers for us, so, anytime we were ready to go to Mexico, the papers were there. Well, that caused my father to make a very -- well, both of my parents -- make a very definite conclusion, that they didn't want to go to Switzerland, the only other safe place, but that we had to go to Spain because there were open ports, to get out. So on November 26th of 1942, we began a five-day trek across the Pyrenees, with the help of Spanish refugees in exile, as guides. And we ended up in Barcelona, where we lived for -- well, I was there for ten months. What happened 10:00is that, in the meantime, Eleanor Roosevelt had managed to get some visas for children only, without their parents, to escape Europe and come to the United States. So it was kind of a Kindertransport kind of program. And my parents immediately registered me, and took my name off the roster with each of the convoys -- the first one being in May, I believe, the second one in June -- late June. I was on the list, and taken off the list, because they couldn't see parting with me. And finally, in -- end of August, I left Barcelona on the third convoy. There were ten of us, and we went by train to Lisbon, and from Lisbon we 11:00took a Portuguese ship -- the Serpa Pinto -- to Philadelphia. We landed, and, about a week later, I get visitors, whom I expected, and that was my great-uncle and great-aunt, whom I did not know -- this was my grandfather's brother, on my mother's side, who had come to the United States before the First World War. And my mother had written to them, asking if he would be willing to take me in, and he said, "Of course." So I lived with them from October of 1943, through to the time when my folks finally came to the United States in April of 1946. In the 12:00meantime, my folks left Spain in 1944, for Cuba, because the -- while the Mexican visa -- entry-visa -- was valid, the -- Spain had broken off relations with Mexico, because Mexico was on the republican side during the civil war, so Franco broke off relations with them. So we did not have -- my folks didn't have exit visas, so the Joint Distribution, and the HIAS worked to get transit visa to Cuba, so my folks were to get an exit visa from Spain, to go to Cuba. And they were stranded in Cuba, but at least, from 1944 -- about, I think, April or so of '44 -- they were on the safe side of the ocean. And, in fact, they wanted 13:00me to come down and live with them in Cuba, and I said, "No, you come up here." The United States government did not give them entry visas, because they needed proof that my father had, in fact, been demobilized from the French army, and that he had not been a deserter. Well, I went down to Washington, testified -- I mean, here I am, this little kid -- I was very small for my age -- I'm still small -- and they just refused it. So, we had to wait till 1946, when they came. We then lived in New York for another two years, two and a half years. And then, in 1949, we moved to Los Angeles, where I've been residing since. My mother died at the age of 100, my father at the age of ninety-six, here in Santa Monica, 14:00California. Okay.

CW:(laughs) Well, that's a great story, and an overview. I know you were a child, and you've told this story before, but are there any moments that stand out, when you look back at that time, as having especially vivid emotional memories, or visual memories of places or times?

HS:Oh yes, every one of those instances that I mentioned, I remember as though they had happened yesterday -- in fact, better than yesterday, 'cause I've forgotten things that happened yesterday. Yeah, I remember them all. With respect to being Jewish, it's very interesting that my folks -- that we did not speak -- that is, they spoke Yiddish at home, not to me. They thought that -- 15:00well, they were internationalists, and I would become a French boy. So I didn't really understand -- I knew that we were Jews, and I knew that they spoke this funny language. I was not aware of what it meant, and I had no -- being that they were secularists, I had no religious connection to being Jewish -- still don't. And -- yet, at the same time, I know that they've, in subsequent years, have talked to me about -- had talked to me about the notion that anti-Semitism 16:00was rampant, and one should be cautious. So one of the things that happened, for example, in -- when we lived in southern France, in Montauban, Marshal Pétain came to visit the town. At that time, he was a hero of mine -- of all the school children. And the children's delegation that was welcoming him was made up of students from the school. And in France, they don't grade you by a note -- by some kind of a letter, or so on -- but they rank you. And so the first and second students of the classes made up the delegation. I was usually first or second in my class, and so, on that appointed Saturday morning, I remember 17:00getting all dressed up, and showing up at the place where we were supposed to show up. And the teacher saw me and said, "What are you doing here?" And I said, "Well, I'm here to welcome le maréchal [French: the marshal]." And she said, "Oh, no, you can't. You're Jewish. You'd better go home." I was terribly disappointed, and went home. And when I got home, I told my parents what happened, and they said, "Well, yes, that's true. We are Jewish." I said, "Well, what am I first? French or Jewish?" For me, it just meant, you put a label on it -- just like being French, it didn't have any other importance. My other introduction to my Jewish background was, one day, in southern France again -- I 18:00must have been, oh, about eight years old -- must have been in spring of 1942 -- a young man shows up at the door, and is talking to -- I open the door, but he wanted to speak to my father. And he's exclaiming -- or explaining, rather -- that, "We're canvassing the neighborhood -- we understand you're a Jewish family -- and I'm organizing Jewish Boy Scouts. I see you have a son. Would you be interested in having him become a member of our Jewish Boy Scout organization?" And my father said yes. And, so, we had an outing, a couple of weeks later. And 19:00so we packed our lunches, and took a hike in the forest. And he explained to us what was going to be the agenda for the day. We were going to build some kind of a structure, with twigs and branches and so on, and then we're going to sit around in a circle, and we're gonna have a little discussion. So, we got that little hutch built -- it was just a model -- pretty quickly. And then we sat down, and he told us the story of Purim. It was my first introduction to any Jewish history or Jewish culture. Now, in retrospect, consider the irony of March or April of 1942 -- here's the story of Purim -- and not far away, we're 20:00experiencing another Purim. Of course, at the time, none of us knew that. But, it certainly, in hindsight, has always been a very vivid illustration for me. And -- yeah, that's about it.

CW:And what was your impression of the United States on your first arrival?

HS:Well, it was very interesting. We came up the Sound -- which one is that now -- it's not -- it's the one that ends up in Philadelphia. And as we were coming 21:00up, we noticed that, as buildings were getting taller -- in other words, getting more into the urban areas -- the tall buildings had flagpoles, and flags on them, American flags. Which we thought very bizarre, because in Europe, the only places that had flags were official government buildings, or schools. But no other buildings. So, well, it's an interesting flag, okay, that's -- sounds good. When we arrived, we had a bunch of photographers taking our pictures, as though we were celebrities. So again, we thought, "Well, we're something special 22:00here." I didn't really get to -- I mean, I was thrilled to be in America, and I didn't really get to see the city, until I moved in with my aunt and uncle. And, of course, the New York skyline, with all the skyscrapers and the lights and so on -- very impressive. One thing I do remember, is that, every so often, there would be an airplane flying -- usually small ones, but it could be bigger ones, too -- and I'd look up, and, of course, they didn't have the swastika on them -- they were American planes, which I realized that -- I am now in a friendly area. I enjoyed living in the city. I enjoyed going to school. I was very impressed with everything. The food, the -- although I should say, I did not, let's see -- 23:00how shall I put it? I thought it rather distasteful to have a sweet drink like a soda -- with, say, a hamburger or a hot dog. It just didn't seem normal. When you eat meat, you drink something that's either water or wine, but not sweet. But otherwise, the food was great. I learned a lot about different ways of dealing with everyday activities, when I came to live in New York, and I learned very quickly. So, I was right in the swing of it, so to speak.

CW:And -- just, moving back a little bit, do you remember the boat ride --

HS:Sure.

CW:-- coming over, and --

HS:Oh, sure.

CW:-- and what do you remember of that?

HS:Well, it's interesting you ask that. We left Lisbon, went up to Oporto, and then went across, and went down to the -- there goes the memory -- the islands -- the island, the -- I'll think of it in a minute -- and we were about to leave there, and I wrote my --

CW:Like the Caribbean, or --

HS:No, no, no, no --

CW:-- the northern --

HS:-- this is the Spanish colony -- not the Canaries -- it's the other ones -- 25:00there's several little islands together. I'll think of it. We left the harbor, and started across. And then -- I don't know, a short time thereafter -- I looked around, and I noticed that we changed directions. How I realized that, I to this day, do not know, except maybe judging by the sunlight, and so on. But as we -- the next day, on the bulletin board, there was an announcement, that we had to circumvent a battle scene, yesterday, between U-boats and Allied aircraft. That's all it was -- that's all it said. Oh, I don't know, about five, six years ago, I decided to -- now, thanks to the internet, and so on, I went on 26:00and typed in "North Atlantic naval battle," "October 1942" -- I'm sorry -- "1943." And "U-boat" and "Allied planes." And up comes the exact location, and the exact time when that battle took place -- on October 4 of 1943. And, sure enough, there was a U-boat and a cow -- the refueling U-boat -- in our vicinity. And, you know, looking back at it, you say, "Wow, this is like a Hollywood movie." Of course, at the time, none of us realized the danger, because there were, in fact, many, many boats lost at -- in that year. But this, of course, was a neutral ship, and -- a Portuguese ship -- and it, in fact, carried many, 27:00many well-known people, subsequently recognized, from Spain -- or from Portugal, in this case -- to the United States. The other thing I remember is -- I mean, very vividly -- was -- we hit some pretty heavy turbulence -- some storms -- as we approached the Western Hemisphere, and not realizing that that was just about the end of the -- or maybe in the middle of the hurricane season -- so, we could've been in a lot of trouble. But -- yeah, the boat ride was relatively uneventful. We saw flying fish, which I never even imagined existed. But I remember their flying, and everybody looking, and being in awe. No, I enjoyed 28:00the boat ride, and I explored the boat very extensively, from the anchor and the chain, all the way to all the cabins and things.

CW:I know you moved around a lot, so I'm --

HS:Yes.

CW:-- I'm gonna ask a couple of questions, with the word home -- but, I think, I'm gonna ask, sort of, abstractly. But if there's a specific place that comes to mind, when you're coming up with an answer, you can tell me (laughs) where you're talking about --

HS:The -- by the way, the island, that we were at -- the Azores.

CW:Okay, good. So, you talked a little bit about how there wasn't -- how it was a secular environment in -- when you were living with your parents.

HS:Right.

CW:So, can you just -- can you describe, sort of -- were there any aspects of your home, and the culture, that felt Jewish?

HS:Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. In Paris, one of my great-uncles and -aunt had a Jewish restaurant. And I remember it vividly. It was in a courtyard, opposite the Jewish clinic run by the Ordn, by the left-wing organization. And, in fact, all of my mother's relatives were all leftists -- not too much of a range, but all leftists. And so, this restaurant, [Degure?] restaurant was a gathering 30:00place. It was a workers' -- I guess, cafeteria is a better term, except that you sat at tables and there were waiters and waitresses. There -- you didn't -- it's not like a cafeteria where you self-serve. But there would be events there -- political events -- and I remember vividly eating boiled fish steaks -- the Warsaw style, which was sweet. It's the only main food, so to speak -- meat or fish -- that I like sweet. It -- for me gefilte fish is sweet. It's not the salty ones -- it's the Warsaw style. So food was definitely -- there was what we called the Jewish bread, which was basically a -- kind of a corn rye, as we 31:00would call it here. So, food, yes, was very Jewish. And I was very aware of that. My folks did not, for example, have matzah in the house -- so matzah was something which my aunt and uncle, living in southern France at the same t-- same village -- same town as we lived in -- they had matzah, and I was introduced to matzah, I suppose, at the age of seven or so -- seven or eight -- to my recollection, never having seen it before. But all the other breads were Jewish breads that I was very familiar with. When I would get a cold, or a sore throat, a gogl-mogl [egg flip] was a standard -- you know, with the egg yolk, 32:00and honey, and the butter, and the milk, and so on. Also, we -- there were foods that my mother made, at home, which were clearly different -- and, in fact, our non-Jewish neighbors would, if they were around -- and they usually popped in in each others' apartments very frequently -- I would hear my parents explaining that this is a Jewish dish. And -- well, for me, that was just normal food. So, food was definitely a -- there was a cultural thing. Also --

CW:Did you --

HS:Yeah.

CW:-- before we move on from food, was there a favorite Jewish food of yours when you were a kid?

HS:Hmm, not that I can remember. Although I -- you know, like applesauce, that was chunky, was a standard Jewish dessert. The other one was what we called 33:00"kompot [compote]," which was, basically cooked fruit -- plums, and peaches, and apricots, and that was very -- and I knew this was not a regular French dessert. But I can't think of any one that -- oh, I mean, I liked them all, you know, the chicken soup, noodles, the whole works. In fact, my mother made her own noodles, and so I really enjoyed that. I mean, that was home food -- that was home cooking.

CW:And then, you were gonna say, other than food --

HS:Oh, other than food, there -- I knew that my folks went off to gatherings, 34:00and meetings, and they -- and I knew that the rest of the family used to attend those, so -- and then, we had a lot of friends who attended those. So even when they spoke French, I knew that there was something different about their French, from the non-Jewish friends. So the language was very important. And it turns out, in fact, that even though I had not been spoken to in Yiddish, that many of the words, when I came to live with my aunt and uncle in New York, were recognizable. And very interesting, that when I came to live with them, I knew French and Spanish. They knew English, Yiddish, maybe a little Polish, but that 35:00was it. So, communication was difficult, and mandatory, and so I quickly learned Yiddish, and English. My uncle was president of his branch of the Ordn in Washington Heights, and I immediately was enrolled in kindershule [Yiddish elementary school]. So one of my first letters to my folks, from the United States, and I have a copy of it -- has the numbers in English, one to ten, and, on the next page, I write them a few words in Yiddish that I learned -- and, of course, my uncle was helping me, or my aunt was, in writing to them that I am 36:00learning Yiddish. So I quickly learned, and I -- and part of the reason that I was able to learn the Yiddish is that I think I -- there were many words that, besides, you know, meydele [little girl] and yingele [little boy], I obviously had picked up a lot of other, just -- very passively -- words, you know. So -- but anything else Yiddish? No, I don't think so.

CW:In terms of politics and, sort of, what was going on with the war -- was that some-- were those things that you -- that your parents discussed with you?

HS:It's hard to say that they discussed it with me. I mean, don't forget that I left France when I was eight years old. But everybody was discussing politics. 37:00So, those of us who were tuned in, or interested, or listening, knew that, even though Marshal Pétain was my hero, he certainly was not my parents' hero. And they didn't dissuade me from writing him, and getting back a photograph with a red, white, and blue trim around it. But certainly made it clear that these are not our friends. So yes, politics was very important. I knew, for example, when we lived in southern France, that the Spaniards, who were living there were people who had been forced to leave Spain because of the war. And they were our 38:00friends. And in fact, I have a photograph, as a kid -- as a two-year-old -- with my father, visiting a certain place, and one of the guys around is sitting on the ground -- I mean a bunch of people gathered around -- and he's got his left fist up in the air. So it was pretty clear, from early on, where my politics were -- and not far from the rest of the family's, yeah.

CW:So, when you -- once you were in New York with your great-aunt and -uncle --

HS:Right.

CW:-- what was the environment in their home, in terms of Jewishness, and those things?

HS:Yeah. Well, they were both very active in the IWO, the JPFO. My -- both my aunt and my uncle -- that's the way I referred to them -- were in the chorus, in the Jewish People's Philharmonic Chorus. My uncle was president of his branch, and so, virtually every evening, after dinner -- not quite every, but almost every evening -- he went off to a meeting. And sometimes the meeting was at their place -- at their apartment. There were a lot of events tied in with the kindershule, or with just the branch. For example, banketn, as they called them -- the banquets -- usually starting somewhere around one or one-thirty in the 40:00afternoon, and lasting pretty much until close to dinnertime. And, you know, a couple of hundred people gathered in a large room. Tables were set, food was served, there was a program, there were speeches. I was one of these curious kids that didn't mind listening, and sitting and listening and not being bored. So, for me, that was just a regular, normal thing. So, I knew about the dias committee, and I knew about Vito Marcantonio before I knew about other people, you know, more visible in the national scene. I remember campaigning for FDR in '44, and, of course, for Henry Wallace in '48, but that's getting a little ahead 41:00of the story. Yeah, politics played a very important role. Yiddish culture, Yiddish literature -- I remember the first play I participated in in kindershule, I was Topele Tutaritu in Sholem Aleichem's "Dos meserl [The pocket knife]." [sic] So -- and that got me very interested in performing, in being on the stage. So that -- I was very keen on learning about Yiddish, learning Yiddish, learning all I could, and participating in all of the events. So, we ended up going to Union Square, on various mass meetings, and so on. And this was, so that it was both at this kindershule, and at home. I was always raised 42:00with the idea -- even during the war, and certainly -- that is, during the war in Europe, and certainly in the United States, even to this day -- that there is a difference between what's going on in the home, and what's going on in the outside world. That is, the kids at school were not part of that world -- that was the kindershule, the political activities, and so on. So that I always had a separate life -- a life for the community at large, and the life that was secular, Yiddish, politically left, or in the home, which is where it was reflected.

CW:Looking back on that time, and the -- your parents, and then your aunt and uncle, who were raising you at various points -- were there values -- Jewish values and -- or traditions that you felt they were really actively trying to pass on to you?

HS:Oh yes. Certainly, taking a very active interest in the world, in politics, in the community. Helping people who needed help -- certainly Jews, but certainly outside of the Jewish community. So that -- my parents, from the earliest age that I could remember, were always being helpful to people around, 44:00in the neighborhood, whether they be Jews or not. For example, in living in Montauban, in southern France, it would not surprise me to come home from school, and find that there's a stranger in the house, who is going to be staying with us for some days. This is someone who might have escaped from one of the concentration camps in southern France, or was coming through from Paris clandestinely, and knew that he could come to our place, and we'd put him up. So, I was very aware of that. The -- even though I referred to them as my 45:00parents' friends, I realized, even at the time, that these were strangers. So, yes, you helped whoever needed help. The -- 'cause a very long, involved story, which I won't go into, but -- where my father was very instrumental in helping several people. And we do have -- there are some recorded -- published -- publications. One is called "The Mezuzah in the Madonna's Foot" and chapter ten is about us. And there are several stories in there about that.

CW:Now, where -- what neighborhood of New York were you living in with your aunt and uncle?

HS:In Washington Heights. So I went to public school -- it was 169, and it was 46:00right across the street from the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. So I used to walk from 160th, up Broadway, the eight or nine blocks to school. Depending on which side of the street I decided to walk on, I would be walking right past the Audubon Ballroom, which, years later, was significant, in that Malcolm X was assassinated there. And the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center was an interesting site, because when I went back to do my master's at Columbia University, I spent some time up at the medical center library, and looking across the street to my old school.

CW:And you also went to Camp Kinderland?

HS:Oh, yes, I went to Camp Kinderland. That was a very significant development. 47:00I -- just to back up, my aunt and uncle from Mexico sent -- I believe it was twenty-five dollars -- to my aunt and uncle in New York, so I could go to Camp Boiberik, the Bundist camp. And I was there for two weeks, and I liked it. I thought it was nice. The next summer, being that I liked camp, my aunt and uncle, of course, sent me to Camp Kinderland. As far as they were concerned, there was no other place to send me. So, I spent a month there, in nineteen forty-- what was that, forty-five. And liked it very much. I liked everything 48:00about it. The food was great, the location was great, the kids were great. My first counselor was Herb Gutman, who, years later, became the leading authority on the slavery families and Reconstruction era. Died at a very premature age. But Herbie was -- I remember him very well, and he made sure that I was accepted as one of the kids, even though I spoke funny. The -- Camp Kinderland had a tremendous impact on me. I was there for four years. After that first year -- it was for the summer -- for the full summer. My folks came in April of '46, so that summer of '46, summer of '47, and summer of '48 -- spent my full summers 49:00there. Both of my folks were workers, shop workers. My -- what happened is that my mother's salary, for that summer, went exclusively for my camp, you know, tuition, and so on. Had a tremendous impact. It politicized me, even more than I had been. It gave me a very rich -- not only Yiddish culture, because we did go to kindershule -- I can't say that it was every day, but certainly several times a week. And I thought it was a lot of fun. Other kids didn't think so -- some of them -- but I sure enjoyed it. We did plays, we learned songs, and so on. And in '47, and subsequent years -- no, was it forty-s--? Yeah, '47 and '48, Pete 50:00Seeger came. He just lived down the road, so he came and spent two weeks with us. So in no time, I was singing Irish songs like "Kevin Barry," as well as "Zog nit keyn mol [Never say]" and "Birobidzhan," and, you know, all these other songs. So, yeah, camp had a tremendous impact. And not only the programs, in terms of culture, but also just the communal life and the way things were arranged. We had a communal kase [Russian: fund], as it was called -- that's a Russian word, obviously for those days in which kids pooled their money together 51:00-- we just put money in there -- and so, on what was called "free night," we would go down to the camp store, and we each had, whatever, twenty-five cents to spend, taken from the kase. The -- life at camp was really very exciting for me, from beginning to end. One year, we had -- well -- I loved color war. And one year, we had been very much involved in the color war, towards the end of the year -- the summer -- must have been already end of July. And we realized -- a bunch of us were talking -- we realized that, here we had spent the summer with everybody being very friendly and all, but then, all of a sudden, when color war 52:00came about, there was the blue team, and there was the white team. The camp had been divided into two camps -- into two teams. And the -- this was across the whole camp, so any bungalow would have, at least -- or, as close to possible -- half would be on the blue team, and half would be on the white team. All of a sudden, the kids who were on the other team became our enemies. And we didn't like that. And so, just before capture-the-flag -- the final event of color war -- a bunch of us were standing around talking -- by now, we were second-gr-- and fir-- no, we were first-grader-- first group members -- that's the oldest group, thirteen to sixteen. And the discussion evolved, to the point of, "Let's call 53:00off this whole thing. Because, there's nothing productive in it. Instead, let's think of some communal, constructive, co-operative projects that we could do." Now, this -- as far as I know -- came out of the kids themselves. In other words, it just evolved. It's altogether possible that some counselor planted this seed. I doubt it, because I remember being in the group that was discussing this, and the thing just snowballed within -- certainly a half hour, so that I ca-- and then, there were no counselors around, it was just the kids. So you know, and we saw a lot of Soviet films, emphasizing co-operation and 54:00collectivization. "Road to Life" was a significant film, among others. And, so that -- oh, the other one was "They Met in Moscow," which was a love story, pretty much mimicking a very low-grade Hollywood production, where they meet, from their respective collectives at a fair, and how they're criticized for letting their personal life interfere with the collective. We had a lot of Jewish and Yiddish activities. We had the ghetto memorial. We had -- and, of course, Hiroshima Day came in after that, so that it was in that spirit, we -- 55:00and it was not simply a matter of Jewish themes. We -- for example, Rosa Lee Ingram's kids, Sammy and -- can't remember the other kid's name -- two black kids -- the mother had been accused of killing a white farmer, whom she claims was in the process of raping her, when she killed him with his own gun -- the two boys spent the summer at Kinderland, or at least some part of the summer, with us. And we thought that was terrific. So we were way ahead of the curve. We were talking integration long before the rest of our friends down the block were talking about it. So Kinderland was a very significant aspect of my development, 56:00and I don't know how to repay Kinderland, but it's certainly -- I have a great debt.

CW:In terms of the sort of idea of calling off color war -- what happened in the end?

HS:It was called off, yup. The counselors didn't even give us a counter-rebuttal. They just said, "Fine. I think it's a great idea. You've learned an important lesson." And it was -- and it was really brutal, because it got to the point where my best friend was on the other team, and we didn't talk to each other for the couple of days. I mean, it was -- we were, you know, "You're on the other team," you know. It's not that I was angry with him, or he 57:00with me, but, "You're not on my team." So there was a significant impact, and I'm glad to say, we dealt with it correctly.

CW:I think I want to ask another question before we get to Los Angeles --

HS:Sure.

CW:-- here (laughs), about the Communist party at that time, and particularly Jewish Communists. I know that there were -- before you were born, and during the early years of your life, there were some very significant splits in the party, so, do you remember talk of those, and sort of how your parents and people around you were dealing with it?

HS:I had nothing to do with that. I was either sheltered from all of that, or 58:00that was never brought up, neither in the home -- oh, I heard my uncle a couple of times say something about Earl Browder, kind of angrily. But that's the extent of it. We were not involved in any of that as -- we kids. The -- it had, I would say, no impact as far as we were concerned. We -- I know that, among the songs we sang was "Avanti Popolo," which the refrain says, "Long live Communism," and so on -- and "liberty" -- and, as far as we were concerned, that 59:00was good. We didn't say that to the world at large, so, in '48, one of the kids in my junior high was wearing a Wallace button, and it was only after many, many weeks that I finally approached him, and said, "Yeah, I -- I'm supporting him, too." Even though I did campaign for Wallace, and attended the Yankee Doodle rally in Yankee Stadium. That -- again, that was separate from my public school life. But as far as the -- I -- you know, we supported Vito Marcantonio, we supported Leo Isaacson. But -- and any of the other things -- we went down to 60:00the courts if there was a demonstration, but what the inner workings were, or inner squabbles -- that was not part of -- that didn't get to us, at least.

CW:Um-hm. So, can you just ex-- I know you mentioned a little bit earlier, but -- can you explain how your family moved out to California?

HS:Yeah. In nineteen -- late 1948 -- the economy wasn't doing all that well, and my father -- my father's shop was closing down, by November, December of '48. And they were moving the factory down to -- somewhere in the South. And -- my 61:00father was laid off. Collected unemployment -- my mother was the only breadwinner. So they decided that this was not -- this was not a viable situation, and, just about the same time, my aunt had died, in '48, so my uncle and his son and daughter-in-law were all going to be moving to Los Angeles. So my dad said, "Do you know what? I'll, uh -- I'll go with you." So, in late winter, early spring of '49, they all moved out here. And my mother and I stayed 62:00in New York, so that I could finish my school. And that -- well, I had graduated from junior high school in January of '49, but they wanted to wait till the end of the school year, so that I had finished one semester of high school in New York. So my mother and I packed everything up, and we joined my father in Los Angeles, very early in June, after school had finished. And we just fell in love with it. It was great weather. I was a little chagrined, one night -- in the middle of the night, I woke up, and I thought that smog had attacked us. It turned out that it was really fog, and so that -- it wasn't as bad as it seemed. But, otherwise, everything about LA was terrific. We enjoyed the sunshine, the 63:00greenery, the cleanliness, and so on. So, it was really a good move for all of us. But that's -- that was started with a economic necessity, and although my parents had always said that they wanted to move away from the dark and dirty cities in the Northeast.

CW:Can you tell me a little more about the Kinder Theater that you were involved in?

HS:Okay. When I -- in New York, after finishing my kindershule -- graduating kindershule -- I went to the Brooklyn mitlshul [high school], the I. L. Peretz mitlshul. Enjoyed that tremendously. And that was where my -- not only my Yiddish culture was active -- but that's where I -- my social life was. So, 64:00friends that I went out with, socialized with, were all in mitlshul

. I left all of that, when I came to California. In California, there was a very unique situation, in that the -- several factions within the Yiddish community existed. There was the Farband, which was the middle of the road -- no, I'm sorry, Farband was on the right end of the spectrum. There was the Arbeter Ring, which was middle-of-the-road, and whom we referred to as "di rekhte [the right-wingers]." And there was the "di linke [the left-wingers]," the IWO shules. And, in Los Angeles, because it is spread out, and because the 65:00population was not the way it was in New York, where there -- where we had a Bronx mitlshul, and we had a Brooklyn mitlshul -- what happened in LA is that the elders got together, and said, "You know what -- this isn't gonna work out. Maybe for the kindershules, we can still have the neighborhood factional school, but let's create a mitlshul that involves -- or integrates -- the three directions." So, sure enough, they had, for years, fareynikte mitlshul, unified mitlshul, that included an Arbeter Ring teacher, a Farband, and an Ordn teacher. And, it worked out very nicely. So one taught Yiddish literature, grammar, and 66:00son. The other taught social studies. And we even had a Hebrew teacher, who taught us Hebrew as a foreign language. Which is why I really never learned Hebrew beyond very rudimentary words. But we all liked it. We knew who the kids were, where they came from. We knew who the teachers were, and where they came from. But that didn't take on its -- the significance that it might have in -- someplace else. Because here we were all together in this, so that was -- that was okay. So we knew that, with this one, you don't bother talking politics, or if you do, you'd better be prepared to argue a lot. But -- and, of course, as 67:00soon as someone discovered I was from the IWO faction, I was greeted in a very, very friendly manner. So that there were factions, but we transcended those. And what happened was that in 1950 -- early '50 -- one of the young people in the administration of the Bureau of Jewish Education here in Los Angeles, by the name of Than Wyenn, was an actor, and he came up with the idea -- he was teaching drama to the various schools -- Jewish schools. In those days, we didn't have day schools -- they were just all after school hours. He would help 68:00out with productions -- theater -- theatrical productions. And he came up with the idea that we should organize a theater where he would teach classes, where we would learn the skills of acting, à la Stanislavsky -- and learn makeup, and learn costuming, and sets, and so on. And that's what happened. So, for a solid year, we had lessons every Sunday morning. We would all gather at the kultur klub [culture club] here in town, which was an umparteyishe [non-partisan] culture organization -- it was strictly cultural. They would invite people to speak on literary and cultural topics, not on political ones. And -- so we got 69:00to hear poets, and writers, and journalists, and so on. And -- so many of us attended the Kultur Klub, in its later -- that is, in Saturday night activities, with our parents. But Sunday mornings, bright and early, we would spend a couple hours learning how to be actors. And do improvisations, and so on. So we became quite talented, as a group. And I must say, all of the members of the kinder teater [childrens' theater] were academically very successful, and, to this day, I still associate with many of them -- the ones that are still alive. Some -- many of them -- we've lost many of them by now. But the first year, we put on 70:00what some of us thought was a rather silly, foolish play, a children's play, called "King Solomon and the Bee." And it's the story about the little bee that's about to be swatted by King Solomon, and, as he's getting ready to swat it, the bee says, "Spare my life, and I will help you." And the king thinks this is ridiculous, but, okay, so he doesn't swat the bee. And, sure enough, in a later scene, the Queen of Sheba comes to visit, and she says, "You're -- they tell me you're a very wise man. If so, can you tell me which one of the flowers that are being worn on the heads of these dancers -- these women dancing -- which one is the real flower? The others are all fake. Which one is the real flower?" And he's looking, and he's looking, and, sure enough, the little bee 71:00that he spared comes flying along, and lands on the real flower. And so he picks it correctly. The lesson being, no matter how small you are, you could still have a big impact. That was our first play -- big production, big sets. We had the -- very professional groups -- [Moise Zolotarev?], who had done sets on Broadway, not only with the Artef, but with professional groups on Broadway itself -- commercial theater -- did our sets, and our costumes, and my father headed a committee that sewed the costumes, and so on. So theater became a very 72:00central part of our lives, starting in September, when we got the scripts together. We auditioned for the parts, we learned, and so on. And by late May or June, we had a major production, renting out the Wilshire Ebell, which is a, I believe, about a thirteen-hundred-seat auditorium -- filling it up. Parents were involved in making the costumes, and selling the tickets, and all the various activities. I wrote this up in "Yidishe kultur," and it's published as the history of the Yiddish kinder teater, which was unique -- it lasted from 1950 to 1955, when most of us -- well, we got too old for the Kinder Theater. My father 73:00always objected to the name "kinder," because it made it sound like it was not of professional quality. But it was, in fact, to the point that I was offered a four-year scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse, to become an actor, but I said, "No, thank you. That's -- that's too unstable of a life for me." And I became, at that -- by that time, too interested in psychology, so -- I was the oldest of the group, that is, the first one to get through the various things, so I was at UCLA when we were doing the last production, in '55 -- and so -- let's see, what else? It --

CW:And alts af yidish [all in Yiddish]?

HS:Oh, I'm sorry -- yes, everything was done in Yiddish. The children all spoke Yiddish. Those who did not know enough, often I would look down at their 74:00scripts, and what they had done was to transliterate -- they had, of course -- everybody had reading knowledge of Yiddish, and so they were transliterating into English, so they could read the lines better when they were rehearsing. Very interesting -- one of the issues, and one of the things that was very significant in the survival of the Kinder Theater, was that a lot of kids were getting bored with attending mitlshul. They didn't want all that serious work, and so the parents and the teachers got together and said, "Okay, you can attend the Kinder Theater only if you are enrolled and attending, satisfactually -- the mitlshul." So, the contingency management worked, and kids who were going to 75:00drop out didn't drop out, and remained in mitlshul, and were members of the Kinder Theater. But everything was in Yiddish. During rehearsals, most of the directions were given in English, primarily because Than himself -- while he understood Yiddish and spoke a few words -- was not sufficiently fluent to direct in Yiddish. Besides, I'm not sure how many of the kids would've really understood what he was saying. But every one of us look back -- we look back on the experience glowing -- we had a reunion -- I organized a reunion at the kultur klub, and we must have had about, I don't know, maybe twenty-five who attended. By now, we were grandparents.

CW:Wow. So, I wanna fast-forward a little bit --

HS:Sure.

CW:-- here. So you mentioned -- it's -- about these various Yiddish organizations --

HS:Right.

CW:-- in Los Angeles. I'm wondering if you can tell me, sort of -- for you personally -- what secular Jewishness means to you?

HS:What secular Jewishness means to me. Okay, it's very interesting -- I had never heard the word "secular," or used it, until my kids were -- no, no, until I was married, and taught in one of the kindershules out here, and somebody said 77:00something about "secular." And I said, "What is secular?" And I looked it up in the dictionary, to know what it was -- "Oh, veltlekh" -- it's the way we spoke about it in Yiddish, "veltlekh" -- it's "worldly," it's "of this world." It was, for me -- it included a lot of things. It included dealing with the reality, the here-and-now, the impact of -- the historical factors on where I am today. It is -- certainly -- doikayt [Bundist concept of "hereness"], meaning "here," where I am now. So it rules out, for example, Zionism as a category for me, simply because -- not that I have anything against Zionists, but, if I am living in the 78:00United States, and this is my country, and this is where I intend to live, then Israel is not where I am. It is not part of my life. I could support it. I could say nice things about it, or say bad things about it, but my secularism includes only where I am now. So it's -- for me, it includes a non-religious material world. It excludes what generally is called spirituality. But then that's more my take on it, because of my professional life. As a professor, as a 79:00psychologist -- I don't call myself a psychologist. I am at best, a behaviorologist. Which means that I deal only with behavior as observable. So, spirituality, for me, is very tentative. It's a very nebulous -- and it is excluded from secularism. So that motivation I can translate into what's going on around me -- everybody is cheering, so I'm gonna cheer as well. There are contingencies on my life, so what's going on in the world, you know -- the contingency management par excellence would be grandma's rule. You get to have 80:00your dessert only after you've eaten your meat and vegetables. So that, for me, the -- what is going on is very much in the material world. To change what other people call one's mind, for me is: you change the behavior. In order to change the behavior, you change the environment. So, and that's part of my secularism. So that it includes both the cultural and the personal aspects. It's a very broad concept. Broad in the sense that it's an all-inclusive -- includes lifestyle, it includes values, and it includes -- whether it's child-rearing 81:00practices, and so on.

CW:Well, speaking of child-rearing practices -- when you were creating your family, what did -- what kind of Jewish home were you consciously creating?

HS:Okay, it's an interesting question. We have a son and a daughter. They both graduated from Sholem Community Organization or Institute, as it was called at the time -- secular, Yiddish-oriented school -- Sunday school. We were very involved in it, so that, again, what was going on in the immediate world around us, the shules, was part of our family, or home. My wife was president of the parent organizations -- parents' organization. I was -- I don't know -- chair of 82:00the education committee, and so on. We attended every event that took place, whether it was on a weekly basis, in a school, or whether it was special occasions -- holidays, and so on. My parents, who were very much Yiddishists and Yiddish speakers, attempted to teach -- and, in fact, our son, more than our daughter, learned a great deal of Yiddish, to the point where he understands quite a bit, today. My in-laws were much more oriented to the temple. I don't know that they were religious, but they were not committed secularists, let's 83:00say. So, we had some conflicts. My mother-in-law kept referring to Sholem as "the temple that the kids attend." And, we kept saying, "Oh, it's not a temple." But, so that, there were some -- it became very difficult. So that, at this point, our two granddaughters -- our daughter's daughters -- both have had bas-mitsve [bat mitzvah] at a temple out in the West Valley. Very interestingly, the oldest one, who is now approaching high school graduation time -- in her bas-mitsve speech, with the rabbi standing by her side -- when she gave her 84:00little speech, basically said, "I don't know," or "I don't think that I believe in a God." Which was okay -- it's -- giving a lot of credit to that temple, because they were, basically, very liberal in their interpretations. But our home was very much -- we did Passover, we did Hanukkah, very much in a secular tradition. A deity was never mentioned. The rituals were not carried out as rituals, but only selected ones were -- we lit the candles, but said no brokhes [blessings] over them. But, instead, we dedicated, for example, the Hanukkah candles, whether it was to the Maccabees, to the heroes of the Warsaw ghetto, and so on. Friday nights, we would light one candle -- oh, no, maybe two candles 85:00-- but, it would be with no brokhes, but just simply dedicating the candles. And, during that time, we went around, and each member of the family would say, either something of significance that happened to them that week, or something they were looking forward to next week. The Dodgers got a lot of support for hoping that they would win the game that weekend. There were things that were not necessarily Jewish, but things that, you know, were of importance to the kids, certainly. We always made sure to incorporate family members' rem-- that is, remembering family members, and say, "Well, we hope that Aunt So-and-so, or Uncle So-and-so gets over his or her illness, and comes out of the hospital," or 86:00whatever things were going on with the family. So they got incorporated in -- over the years. The hamster got a lot of best wishes for health, when it was ill. When we would have visitors, they would be startled to hear our ritual around the table, but most of them were very pleased, especially realizing that they were incorporated into the ceremony, and would have to acknowledge something in their personal lives, for that week, or the next week, or whatever. You know, "I hope that I get the job that I'm applying for," or something like that. But it was a way of closing off the week, and looking forward to the next week, from a secular point of view. Same with the holidays.

CW:For you, in particular, is there a specific work of art -- a book, or a piece of music -- that's had a special impact, or continues to have special meaning for you?

HS:I generally don't have favorites of anything. I have -- I find that if somebody asks me, "What's your favorite -- whatever," it's a impossible task for me to select it. So, no, I don't have any one, but I certainly enjoy classical music. I am especially enjoying klezmer music, whenever I play -- we've got a very large collection of Yiddish music. But then again, we've got a wide range of folk music, from all cultures, and certain aspects of the political spectrum. 88:00We -- I can't say that's there any particular thing, but I do -- just the other day, we were listening to a discussion -- I think it was Rabbi Heschel's daughter -- and she was mentioning Nathan the Wise. And that struck a particularly nice note, remembering the message that it was one of tolerance among various groups. And how, in the name of religion, a great deal of damage has been brought to us. But -- no, I enjoy Yiddish music. I enjoy most 89:00pre-nineteen -- oh, dear, -- -seventies music? I think I stopped at that point. Whether it's rock, or heavy metal -- no. But before that -- yeah, we have a -- and the same goes for literature.

CW:Yeah. Now, you mentioned a couple of times in your youth, and also, you know -- at Kinderland, and also in the kinder teater and the mitlshul out here, that there were visitors, sort of -- writer -- Yiddish writers, and things -- is there anyone that you remember, looking back, as a great personality or a great story about that?

HS:Yeah, well, to begin with, I come -- that is, my father's family has had some 90:00noteworthy personalities. My aunt -- my father's oldest sister was herself a writer in Poland, and headed up the Yiddish educational programs in Lower Silesia after the war, eventually moved to Israel and was a writer for the Communist Yiddish daily there. And so -- her name's Chava Slucka-Kesten. Her daughter became an actress with the Ida Kaminska theater -- Hadassah Kesten. Her husband -- that is, Hadassah Kesten's husband -- was Binem Heller, the poet. And 91:00we incorporate his poem, "Pesach has come to the ghetto again," with every Passover event that we attend -- seders, or just programs. The -- in Camp Kinderland, my very first year, we had a visitor from France. Had no idea who this was, but I was selected to greet him in Yiddish -- say a few words in Yiddish -- and in French. I had no trouble with the French; the Yiddish I got some help with. And there's a photograph of me shaking hands with him. Turned out, it was none other than Adam Rayski, who was the editor of the Paris Yiddish 92:00daily, "Di naye prese," and also was head of the Jewish Resistance fighters in France. So I certainly look back on that with -- and I did not only speak to him by phone, but we were in correspondence. And I gave him a copy of the photograph that he did not even know existed. So, he was very pleased with that. There -- yeah, there are a lot of personalities that were criss-crossing -- my folks were very involved with hosting visiting poets and writers, and so on. We had a situation, at the kinder teater, in which politics played a big role. Itzik Manger attended our "Shloyme hameylekh un der bin," this "King Solomon and the 93:00Bee," and was very impressed to see a Yiddish kinder theater, and he said, "I'm going to write a play specially for you." And he did. And the following year, the scripts were printed up and distributed. We tried out for the parts. And it was none other than his "Hotzmach" play, and I was to be Hotzmach. After about a month, we got some bad correspondence from him, with a lot of questions. Some of the people here, in LA had written him, that the Kinder Theater is nothing but a komunistishe shtik [communist tool]. So that, Communists were involved, and he bowed out, sent a telegram, "Stop rehearsing." "Collect all the scripts." Well, 94:00all but one, that I got. And we never did put on that play. It was put on a year later by the University of Judaism, theatrical group, after they had translated it in English. It was not done in Yiddish, to my knowledge. I don't know if it's ever been done. But we were ready, willing, and able to do it, but it never happened. So, oh yes, there've been various individuals coming through. especially with my involvement in both Yiddishkayt LA, and CIYCL -- the California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language -- I had a chance to meet several people. We hosted them here, in fact -- put up several people from Israel, and so on. The one that, of course, I've continued to be in contact 95:00with, is Yitskhok Niborski, with whom I'm in regular contact, and whom I will be seeing this summer, when my wife and I, and our son and daughter-in-law, and our daughter and two granddaughters, go to France, and visit Paris, and we'll certainly look up Yitskhok Niborski. Unfortunately, Raisky is no longer alive, so we can't visit with him.

CW:I know that you're involved with the Child Survivors of the Holocaust --

HS:Yes.

CW:-- organization. How, if at all, has this early experience shaped the way you think of your Jewish identity?

HS:Well, it's a very interesting question. I think having had the experience of 96:00surviving the Holocaust is an important one, no matter who was -- or is -- a survivor. I happen to be in a very different position than most. For me, the Holocaust, while it was a terrible situation, terrible conditions, was not a traumatic one. Even when the gendarmes came to knock at our door, my mother whispered -- well, first of all, they made sure -- both of my parents made sure that I should not say anything, be very quiet, and we'll pretend like we're not here. My mother kept whispering to me, "This is a fun game we're playing, and they're never gonna find us, because we're not gonna answer the door." And, 97:00every couple of minutes, she would say, "You're doing a great job of playing this game." And I would chuckle -- not loudly, but just -- in the dark, I'm sure, had a big smile on my face. I say this because at no time did my parents react in a panicked or traumatized fashion. Even when we crossed the Pyrenees, for me, that was an outing. That was a fun hike. Most of the time, I was carried by one of the guides, anyway. But it was not the terror-driven kind of situation that it could have been, had the adults in my life -- my parents, the guides, and so on -- treated it in some other way. Even when I came to this country, 98:00coming to live with my aunt and uncle was just a temporary situation -- all right, it was two and a half years, critical years, I'll grant you, but not traumatic. I knew where my parents were. I knew they were safe. Although, at first, I was very concerned as to whether they'd get out of Spain, but once they were in Cuba, I was -- I had no concerns, no fears. When, in growing up, I would mention to somebody that I was born in France -- "Oh, uh, where were you during the war?" And I would start talking about it. Most of the people did not want to hear it. They would cut me short, in one way or another. Usually in a very 99:00friendly fashion, but -- and I'm sure, from their point of view, looking back, it was, "We don't want to traumatize you because you've been traumatized enough." From my point of view, it was simply, "Wait a minute. I -- I," you know, "I think I have something interesting to tell you." And it doesn't feel traumatic to me. So when I meet with my fellow brothers and sisters -- Holocaust survivors -- I see myself in a very different situation than most of them. Not all of them, by any means, but most of them. Many of them, for example, cannot talk about it, without getting choked up -- perfectly understandable. Many of 100:00them lost very close family members, whether it was their parents, or siblings, or both. For me, I had none of that -- oh, I did have, you know, my aunts and uncles in Paris, my cousins in Paris, whom I knew -- many of them perished. But, of course, it was a distant thing. My grandparents, on my mother's side perished in the Warsaw ghetto. But I didn't know them. So, it's -- I know, when my uncle -- my father's brother -- wrote, after the war, a message -- that is, he wrote to my folks. And in there, he says, addressing me, that I am the only Slucki 101:00that remained alive. When my mother was reading the letter out loud to me, she got all choked up. It was one of the few times that she cried about things. But again, for me, it was very distant. When I get together with my cousins, whether they're the ones who survived the war in France, or the ones who were born after the war, in Australia or Israel, we could talk about all these family members. For me, there is no choking up. It's -- part of it, I think, has to do with my secular upbringing, as well. So it's not just the demeanor, the individual management, but it's also the philosophical position.

CW:I gather that you know a little bit of Esperanto?

HS:Yeah, I (laughter), I -- in high school, I was involved with -- well, we had clubs. So we had the World Friendship Club, which was accused of being Communist, and so on, during the Cold War. But one of the things I thought would be very cute is for us to create a club -- Esperanto Club -- and we -- I was told, we could learn Esperanto very easily. And so we bought the books -- a group of us formed the Esperanto Club. We had as our sponsor the teacher who taught Spanish and Latin. And we had a great time learning the language, and we would chat -- and we were all amazed how quickly we could -- once we learned all 103:00the rules, and just did a little twist on the pronunciation of the vocabulary -- we were able to, you know, navigate the language well. I haven't spoken it or read it in at least five decades, if not more, so I am very rusty in it. But yeah it's a -- I took that up as a little hobby. It turns out, also, that -- as I found out much later -- that my mother, as a young girl -- as a teenager -- had her first eye examination from none other than Dr. Zamenhof, in Warsaw. And so, we have another connection. So, when we visited Warsaw in '93, we paid homage to his grave in the Jewish cemetery there.

CW:Wow. What about Yiddish -- do you have opportunity to speak it?

HS:Yeah, but it's very limited. We -- even members of the board of directors of Yiddishkayt and CIYCL have, at best, limited Yiddish knowledge. Some are much more fluent than others. Same goes for the Sholem groups. So, when we get together, we'll do that. Every so often, friends and I will send each other email messages in Yiddish. So that part of it is humorous, and part of it is exactly what we intend to say, you know. As an aside kind of comment that one would -- it's usually a snide remark about somebody. It reminds me that when we 105:00-- in mitlshul, we discovered that we could transliterate notes to each other in public school, by writing them with Yiddish letters -- with Hebrew letters. So, we could write in English, you know, "Where are you going?" or something, and use the alef-beys instead of the roman letters. So, it was kind of cute to do that in public school.

CW:I just have a couple more questions here. I know that you have taught at the Sholem community --

HS:Yes, yeah.

CW:-- and I think was a story about teaching Yiddish names -- to write names in Yiddish --

HS:Oh, yeah.

CW:-- to the students?

HS:Yeah, what -- we were -- my wife and I were very involved in our children's education. And when our daughter was of age to enter public school -- let's see, she was born in '67, so, say, '73, '72 -- we got involved in our local schools. They had community advisory boards, and the school that our kids were to go to is right -- a block and a half from here. And we -- there was a lot of discussion, at that time, about the pending changes that were going to take place -- this is now, we're talking, '73 -- as a result of the Brown decision -- 107:00desegregation of 1954 -- finally coming into effect, here. And that schools were going to be integrating in some way. And in our case, as with many other cases, the school was segregated, not by fiat but because of the neighborhood school. So, the kids would go to their local school. It just so happens that the neighborhood was all white, or all black, or all Jewish, or all whatever. It isn't that people were being kept out. Well, we decided to be pro-active, and we had -- because we had a very unique situation here. As I say, a block and a half 108:00away from here -- on Airdrome. About three quarters of a mile east of here, on Airdrome, was the adjoining -- the neighboring school. It turns out that our school was virtually -- not quite 100 percent, but about ninety-six percent -- white Jewish. The other school, three quarters of a mile away, was virtually -- not quite all, but ninety-five, ninety-six percent -- all black. Mason-Dixon line was a major boulevard right about halfway between the two schools. So, the parents came up with a concept, and we had meetings -- community meetings -- about this -- all very progressive, mostly Jewish families -- that we could have 109:00a fully integrated student body with neighboring schools, so that we could maintain the neighborhood school concept, by taking all the kids in both schools, mixing them all up. One site would be the upper grades, the other site would be the lower grades, and then we would have a fully integrated, perfectly integrated school. Well, that looked very good, and people were starting to take steps to do that, until, to my chagrin, Jewish families -- some, not many, but some -- decided that they didn't want those kids playing with our kids. And, so, they really rallied, and opposed our plan -- which, by the way, was developed in 110:00Princeton. It was called the "Princeton pairing plan." And it went all the way to the superintendent's office. In fact, it almost came down to fistfights. And they weren't gonna budge, so -- and we weren't gonna budge. So we ended up getting the ACLU to prepare to sue the Los Angeles unified school district. To prevent that from happening, LA unified school district came up with a compromise. The compromise was, "How 'bout, if you have three classrooms in one school, and three classrooms in the other school, and you integrate those?" So, three would be the upper site, and three would be the lower site, fully integrated. At first, there was a great deal of commotion. We were -- some of us 111:00were very much opposed to that, because it was tokenism at its best. On the other hand, other people were saying, Let's do it, because it'll get things started. So that's what happened. So we ended up with three classrooms in one, and three classrooms in the other, and to get finally back to your question, one of my activities -- as part of the intercultural activities, which were throughout the time of their education, for our kids -- I went into the classroom, and taught all those kids how to write their names in Yiddish, using Yiddish letters. The -- whether they were Jewish, or not Jewish, whether the name was really an easy name, like David, or a very difficult name that's, 112:00maybe, ethnically bound, and there is no Yiddish equivalent -- I just simply transliterated it. And so it was very much like -- we had heard that some schools were doing this with Japanese. So, you got to write your name in Japanese, and brought it home, and everybody said, My, how nice. Well, do it in Yiddish. And so they -- that was a fun activity. I also did other things like demonstrate the conditioning of a rat in a Skinner box, using my professional -- in demonstrating something for the kids. So yeah, we had a lot of fun, being involved in our kids' education.

CW:Speaking of your kids, what has been most important for you to transmit to 113:00your kids -- and to these other kids, that weren't necessarily yours -- about Jewish identity?

HS:I think it boils down to one word: "mentshlekhkayt [kindness]," be a mentsh. And that's not spelled the German way. It's spelled the YIVO way, M-E-N-T-S-H. Be a human being. Consider other people. Don't be egocentric -- oh, to a certain degree, you have to be egocentric, but not exclusively. Give a helping hand even though you may not want to. Give a helping hand even though it may not be considered a helping hand, but just a normal part of co-existing, living with 114:00someone. So that -- mentshlekhkayt is very, very important. One time, I remember my son approaching us and asking -- I think he was in college by then -- and he says, "Hey, you know, with all your interest in Yiddish, and all of that, if I were to date someone who's not Jewish, would that be a concern to you? Would you oppose it?" And my wife very quickly responded, by saying, "No. As long as it's a mentsh, you know, a human being that's mentshlekh. But one who's not religious." Because the secularism was very important. It would have been much 115:00more difficult had our kids married someone who's not Jewish -- or Jewish -- but who's religious. In both cases, they did marry Jews. In both cases, non-religious people. So, that was important to us.

CW:Great. Well, I know you're -- this is my second-to-last question (laughs) -- I know you're involved in several of the Jewish non-profits and organizations in LA. What do you see as the role of these cultural organizations in transmitting Jewish, and specifically Yiddish, culture?

HS:Oh, I think it's -- these are very important. What we do, in both of the -- 116:00well, all three, I would say, because Sholem is also involved -- I'm not on the board of directors of that, but all -- what we do is we put on events, whether they're lectures, whether they're concerts, dances, or, for that matter, just festivals -- just to have a gay old time, not tied in with a printed word, or something of that sort. It's very important for people, first of all to be exposed to that. "Oh, I didn't know that, uh, you know, such-and-such, that" -- for example -- "that 'Fiddler on the Roof' was done in Yiddish." Or that 'King Lear' was done in Yiddish. That these various events take place, so that we get 117:00a good -- not necessarily rich -- you know, we like to use the word rich culture. But it may not be rich -- it may be very pedestrian -- we had one event that had to do with a Yiddish cookbook that was published at the very beginning of the century. Rather pedestrian in its presentation, and the whole thing -- it was okay, you know. But it doesn't have to be of the highest cultural values. But we do want something that would have a contributing effort. The more cultural it is, the more values are associated with it -- fine. It becomes 118:00troublesome, when some of these events come on that are -- well, let's say shund [art deemed to be of inferior quality] -- the old, very -- I guess "rubbish" would be a good substitute -- that demean individuals, or demean the culture. Yiddish that's used simply for the sake of humor usually is very derogatory. So we don't do that. It doesn't mean that you can't have a translation of Shakespeare into Yiddish, and somebody reads it. But it doesn't have to be funny. Or that the funniness comes in because of the accent, or because of the 119:00inappropriateness of the words. So, not only exposing people to a cultural experience, but selecting what are truly valuable, so we sort, and select, very carefully. It's not just to have an event, but to have an event that has value. Now, as you can imagine, each one of these -- if it's done by a committee, which it usually is -- ends up being very heavily debated. And I must admit, sometimes it comes out very well, and sometimes it comes out rather poor. All I can do is 120:00do my very best, and that's all we can expect from the committee. Our audiences usually enjoy what we do, but, every so often, you'll get a comment that reflects back to the rubbish that I mentioned before. And that they really liked this other thing better, because, it, you know -- it had more schmaltz, and so we shudder, and -- so you don't win every one. You try your best, and that's all you can do.

CW:Yeah. Well, my last question is, where do you see the place of Yiddish in America today, and if you have any ideas about where it's headed?

HS:Yeah, it's -- I've given it a lot of thought, and my friend Hershl Hartman and I have had a lot of discussions about this, because our interests are very similar, and we've developed in the same way. It appears that, you know, obviously, that Yiddish as it existed in Warsaw, before the Second World War, or as it existed in the Pletzl in Paris, or even here, though many, many decades earlier -- just isn't gonna come back that way. In order for that to happen, you have to have the grocer, and the butcher, and the baker, and all the various -- all be Jewish, and Yiddish-speaking. And you do have pockets of that, among the 122:00Orthodoxy. It's hardly going to survive as a means of communication in the everyday sense of the world. There are obviously fewer and fewer books being published in Yiddish. Fewer and fewer people who speak it. More and more of the speakers being on the older end of the spectrum, and dying out. Every so often, you get this very glowing, optimistic sound of the horn that, "Hey! They're teaching Yiddish at such-and-such university." Yes, and then when you stop to 123:00ask these people, "Did you go to college?" Yes. "Did you take a foreign language?" Yes. "What'd you take?" French. "Do you speak French?" No. "Do you read French?" No. "Do you understand French?" Un peu. Meaning that, when I get to Paris, I can kind of look up and I see a word like "sortie," and I say, "Oh, there's the exit." But that's hardly -- I mean, French would not survive if it was based on, or dependent on the American student learning French in high school, or college, for that matter. And one of the things that's come up -- and Hershl, I think, was the first one to spell it out for us -- was that Yiddish is 124:00going to switch places, if it hasn't already, with Hebrew. That Hebrew, as a language of everyday intercourse, is obviously thriving in Israel. And, with Israelis moving to other parts of the world, like returning to the United States and so on, we've got pockets of Hebrew-speaking people here in LA, and schools, and so on. So Hebrew becomes the everyday language of discourse, and Yiddish is the language around which dissertations are being published. I have a cousin in Australia, who's -- their son David has done his research on the Bund in Europe 125:00after the war. He's fluent in Yiddish, but there aren't many of those. However, the ones who are fluent turn out to be the scholars, and that's where Yiddish -- in fact, where you can have a conversation with someone -- very interestingly, some distant relative of ours, through my daughter-in-law's side -- it's her brother's in-laws -- the mother, that is the grandmother, was speaking -- was a Yiddish speaker. So, when we were introduced, she said, "Oh, she speaks Yiddish. You could speak to her." So, I started, and I asked her the question in Yiddish, uh, "Vi hot ir gevoynt far der milkhome," or something, "Where did you live 126:00before the war?" or something. She answers me in English! And, so, the kids are around, and saying, "Grandma, speak to him in Yiddish." "Yeah, I am, I am." So, she was unaware that here she was speaking in English, and felt much more comfortable with a very heavy accent -- European accent. But yet, that's the communication. That's what's happening, and that is that the everyday people, the non-scholars, who speak Yiddish, are either not using it enough, and forgetting it, and not feeling comfortable in it, uh, or they just don't know it. And so, consequently, the speakers that were going to be the scholars -- so, in the same way that Latin is spoken not by Latinos (laughs), but is spoken by 127:00Latin scholars. It's gonna be the same thing. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it is -- well, I must say, for nostalgia's sake, there's something missing. When Sholem Aleichem says, "M'makht uf dos moyl un m'redt [You just open your mouth and speak]," that's just not gonna happen. Even under the best of circumstances, it's going to be a struggle. I speak to my cousins, who are the Yiddish speakers, whenever I speak to them. My cousin in Mexico, I speak to them in Yiddish. My cousins in Australia -- sometimes Yiddish and sometimes English. My cousins in French, since their Yiddish is not all that good, it's French. And that's what's happening. So the future of spoken, communal Yiddish 128:00life -- secular, communal Yiddish life -- just is history.

CW:Well, a hartsikn dank, thank you so much for taking this time, and sharing all of these --

HS:Well, my pleasure.

CW:-- things with me.

[END OF INTERVIEW]