BENTE KAHAN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney, and today is April 27th, 2013. I'm here in Wrocław, Poland, with Bente Kahan, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Bente Kahan, do I have your permission to record this?

BENTE KAHAN:Yes, very nice.

CW:Thank you. So, can you start by telling me a little about your family background? I know you've actually created an entire work about your family, but if you could just tell me briefly.

BK:Well, I'm a Norwegian Jew, which is quite rare. Today, it's about a thousand of us. I grew up in Oslo. My mother was also born in Norway, but her grandmother 1:00-- she came from Lithuania, in 1905. I used to say that she came to Lithuania the same year as the Prince of Denmark became King of Norway. So, when I sang to the king this fall, I said to him, "We really do have something in common." (laughs) But this is actually the fact that my mother is a very Scandinavian Jew, and her father was also a Swedish Jew, which meant that she survived the war in Sweden, and not like her uncles, and aunts, and cousins, who were sent to Auschwitz. As for my father's side, he came to -- he was a Holocaust survivor, who came to Norway after the war, and -- from Hungary, today Romania, and he was a Hasid as a child and his first language was Norwegian. I grew up in a -- no, first lang-- Norwegian, I'm sorry (laughs) -- Yiddish of course, that's what 2:00we're gonna talk about. His mother tongue is -- was Yiddish, of course. And so I grew up with Yiddish at home, but we were post-war Jews in Europe, and I was born thirteen years after the Holocaust. I was also born just after the state of Israel, like ten years after the state of Israel has -- had been established. So, for us, it was all this very dark side of what had happened to all of our families, and to, you know, the close -- the older generation. We didn't really talk about it, but it was present, and so Yiddish was not something we should learn. That was a language of the past. We should learn Hebrew, at least to read and to know our prayers, and when we finished high school, we should go to Israel, and we should learn about Israel, or maybe live there, and that was the 3:00way we should be. It means that we learned about our Jewish history two thousand years back, and then from 1948. So there was a big, big gap in between. And the war -- one shouldn't talk too much about that, in my childhood. I went to Israel, like all the others. I went also to the States, because I became an actress and -- yeah, should I continue, or you want to ask me something?

CW:Sure, yeah. Can you describe a little bit about your home? Would you say it was a very Jewish home?

BK:Oh, very. It was the Jewish home in Oslo, so if anybody came to Oslo, and they wanted to come to a Jewish home, they came to us. And I also have four siblings -- we were five children -- so we were very traditional. We were not Orthodox, or religious, or anything, but my father had been a Hasid, and, you know, it's something called in Yiddish, Yiddishkayt, and it was in all corners of our house. If anybody came from the Jewish world to Norway, they would of 4:00course visit our house.

CW:For example, do you remember anyone in particular that visited?

BK:Oh, yes, we had many famous people, but -- of, you know, the Jewish -- from Israel, if anybody, you know, came, and it was our house -- and even my father's boat was a natural meeting place. And, of course, when Elie Wiesel got his Nobel prize, and long before that, he used to come to our house very often. I think Bashevis Singer was at my parents' house, you know, s-- and Golda Meir, I think -- I mean, Goldmann -- you know, the most important people in the Jewish world of this twe-- twentieth century. I mean, many of them, not all. But, if they came to Oslo, and if they didn't come to our house, of course we would meet them in the Jewish community house, because if they came, even as, like, statehoods, they would always drop by the Jewish community. And we were very tiny and very 5:00intimate place. And it was a cozy place to be. It was like a second home, because we had so many activities -- Bnei Akiva, kheyder [traditional religious school], all this -- so it was an integrated part of our lives. We grew up -- we went to Norwegian schools, but we also had this very Jewish part of our upbringing.

CW:Did you have formal Jewish education in addition after school or Sundays?

BK:Exactly. We had the kheyder, you know, like once a week, we went extra, to learn the Hebrew alphabet and to know our prayers, and to learn a little bit about the Torah and what's written there. And then we had Bnei Akiva, and I was even Rosh Bnei Akiva -- head of Bnei Akiva -- when I was in high school, and I was the head of fifty young children who went to this very Orthodox Jewish organization. And we organized seminars, you know, Shabbats, you know, and 6:00things like that.

CW:Um-hm.

BK:So this is also -- when you live in such a small community, you learn to take a lot of responsibility, or you learn to take care of each other, which is very nice. It was like almost a shtetl [small town in Eastern Europe with a Jewish community]. (laughs)

CW:Within a big city? (laughs)

BK:Yes, exactly.

CW:And can you describe a little more about -- you mentioned that you didn't really talk about the war, you didn't -- Yiddish was not something that you learned. Can you talk a little more about the attitudes toward Yiddish? Were there specific -- did you have specific understanding of what the attitude was?

BK:Well, my father spoke so fluently Yiddish, and he's really a Yiddishist -- he's still going strong, Baruch Hashem [Hebrew: Thank God]. He lives in Oslo, and he's a real Yiddishist. So, you know, it's like, if he had somebody to speak 7:00Yiddish with, he would speak. But with my mother -- my mother would understand, and she could speak a little, but she didn't really speak that much. But when we shouldn't understand, then definitely they should speak Yiddish. But it was like some language of the past that you shouldn't really bother to learn, because you felt it was like a waste of time. It was nobody speaking that, only very Orthodox people. And when I grew up, also, I didn't know about the richness about the richness of the Yiddish as a culture, that it also had this non-religious part of it. I als-- always thought of it as a very Orthodox language. Well, it was lots of things that I discovered later about Yiddish and the culture. But, for me, Yiddish -- oh --

CW:It's okay.

BK:But for me, the Yiddish was very much linked with the past, and Hebrew was connected with the future. Although I didn't learn Hebrew until I went to 8:00Israel, when I was nineteen. But I learned how to read, and it was all directed to that. And there was also the sadness over Yiddish. It was the language of the victims, all those had died, and -- but then, there was also the humor. Because, when I had my uncles from New York coming, and my father would start with the jokes, and they would start with the jokes. They're called Mendy and Yidl, which couldn't be more Yiddish than that. So they would, you know, and tante [aunt] Rachel, and they would talk Yiddish and sometimes a little bit Hungarian, a little bit Yiddish, and then go over to English, you know. So Yiddish was -- yes, it was present all the time. And because I knew -- I learned in school -- I also learned German, and then later on, I learned Hebrew, and later on I even learned Polish. So you get it all together, and it helped me with the Yiddish.

CW:Right. And how did you become interested in acting and music?

BK:Oh, that's like -- I think it's in my diary since I was, like, thirteen or fourteen years old. But I never thought, really, that I would become an actor. I just thought that -- I thought it was like a dream. So I thought that I would study Jewish history, and here I am, I'm mixing both the things. So, when I actually went to Israel, I want to continue to study at Jerusalem University Jewish history, but I was accepted to the acting school at Tel Aviv University, so, you know, things happen, and that's how things evolve in your life. And sometimes you cannot only sit and decide what to do, but you give all the options open, and then suddenly surprises come. So it was a little bit of a surprise for me. And I think, all my life I've been trying not to be an actor 10:00and not to be a performer, and I kind of end up being a performer anyway. (laughs)

CW:Was there music in -- or art -- very present in your home, growing up?

BK:Absolutely. We sang a lot, and, of course, we sung the bentshn, you know, the song after we eat, and so on. But singing was present, and it was from my father's side, because my great-grandfather, he was a composer, a Hasid who was composing new -- he was composing nigunim, I mean songs without words, and also for prayers, and so on. And my father was -- loved to sing. I mean, he -- any cha-- you know, he will -- and he knows a lot of the Yiddish repertoire, and he would just, you know, sing that. But it just, like, be, like, in the back of -- you know, like a -- like a tableau in the house. But singing, you know -- but we 11:00did mostly the Hebrew songs, not the Yiddish songs. But my father, from time to time, would bring up the Yiddish songs, becau-- he had a small book like this -- or, he still has the book, and if you're really friendly with him, he will maybe find in his close -- very close closet, he will open up this book, and it almost fall apart, because he wrote it by hand after the war. And he collected songs from prisoners, you know -- from survivors. And some of the songs he has given to me. So it's really a treasure, and they are in that song. Still, there are some of those songs that I haven't used, and I -- when I use the songs from that book, people always ask, Where did you get that song from? It's in no song book.

CW:Is there a particular song or nigun that you associate with your father?

BK:Yes, yes. It's this song -- I sing a cappella, and it's very much about -- 12:00that you should learn and study. You can become whatever you want in life, but never forget who you are. And it's the teacher who is telling the child how to read, and he's teaching him the Hebrew alphabet, and it's for him not to forget his identity. You want to hear?

CW:Yes. (laughter)

BK:(sings) [Yiddish - 00:12:33-00:13:55]. You want the second verse too? 13:00(laughs) [Yiddish - 00:13:58-00:15:24]

CW:Zeyer sheyn, a sheynem dank [Very beautiful, thank you very much].

BK:I forgot to tell you that, actually, it ends very sad, and when I sing it for a non-Yiddish audience, I don't sing that ending. But it is that ending. They say, Because of the little dots, that's why they are killing us. And it's not a very nice ending. (laughs) But it's the real ending, and usually I only say, that's why -- because of the dots, and so on, that's why we are like we are. But so, you could, you know, use the different kind of endings.

CW:So why does that make you think of your father?

BK:Because, you know, although he's very emancipated and a modern man, and he says that he wants understanding between Christians and -- and Jews, and all that, and he's so, you know, modern in his thought, he is a little Hasid from Sighet, you know, and he's still a little yeshiva bocher [yeshiva student], and I also think it's the essence in his learning, that he wanted us to become, you know, people of the world, but not to forget who we are. And I think it's a beautiful text, because it, you know, it concerns everybody. I think it's important to know who you are, whether you're from the Yiddish culture, or any other culture.

CW:So, have you --

BK:And one more thing --

CW:-- oh, sure --

BK:-- I'm sorry --

CW:-- of course.

BK:-- and I think, also, it's -- that it's not a Yiddish song that is, like, from the '20s and '30s, that has a different kind of a tone. Like, you, you know 17:00-- you have a -- the music is different. This is very cantorial. So it's very -- it's very much my father also, that they -- this cantorial way. So that's why I love to use that as well, not only the other Yiddish songs, because it is, you know -- there would be no Yiddish, and no Yiddish singing, without, you know -- it comes originally from the synagogue, so, you know -- so this tradition is important also.

CW:Did you celebrate all of the yontoyvim [holidays] when you were growing up, or --?

BK:Oh, well, we selected (laughs) the most important ones, but of course we had, you know, the biggest holidays, of course, and also in the Jewish community.

CW:So, transitioning a little bit -- have you studied Yiddish formally at one -- 18:00at any point?

BK:I mean, it was really by chance that I got interested in Yiddish. I think it was a little bit about, you know, searching, and about that song I just sang, because I -- as I told you, I was in Tel Aviv, I was in New York, then I went back to Tel Aviv, and I worked as an actress in experimental theater here and there. I had the main role at Habimah, even, in Israel, at the National Theater. But then I found it very difficult, cause I couldn't really acclimaticize [sic] myself. I couldn't find my world in Israel. I was so European. And I thought, maybe, if I became religious, then maybe it would be much better. So for a while, I stayed in the yeshiva close to HaKotel, to the Wailing Wall, until I one day woke up and I said, I will not live the rest of my life in front of the Wailing Wall, so I just maybe should go on with my life. And I came back to Norway, which was completely -- I mean, really, it was not planned. I mean, I 19:00was, you know, the girl of the world, I should have even lived in Israel, you know. Or -- and I -- or in New York. I could have stayed there. No, and I came back, and it was, like, also very, like, "Oh, yeah, she came back. She didn't like it there." Or, whatever, it didn't work, or, you know -- it's like a failure, kind of. And there was a girlfriend of mine from childhood, who was a Jew from Nor-- from Norway -- from Trondheim, from north of -- she had studied directing in England, and she came back and said, "Bente, you just have to be -- we're gonna make a performance about Yiddish -- Yiddish culture." This was in 1983. Were you born then? No? (laughs) So you see, it's a long, long, time ago. It was in 1983 when I came back to Norway, and -- and I said, "Wait a minute" -- she wanted to make a Yiddish-Norwegian cabaret. So I thought, Okay, you know, like, it's -- you mean, I'm gonna sing Yiddish songs? Yes, and we're gonna tell 20:00about the culture, and we -- we're gonna, you know, like, present this for the non-Jewish audience in Norway, and I said, "You know, I do everything -- try not to be an actor, and here you drag me again into this." I thought to go back to the university and maybe, you know, finally do something, you know, with my head. But I kind of, you know, fell into this cabaret, and we got fabulous critics and all the newspapers -- it became very popular. It was called "The Yiddish-Norwegian Cabaret," and "Above the Town" -- I think she was inspired by the Chagall painting, "Above the Town." And so -- and the Norwegian audience, they were just like -- oh, they were just so hungry for it. And that brought me back to the theater, so, for a while, I started the whole shtick, you know -- the National Theater, all these things that you think you have to do, until I realized that I was just, like, you know -- I wouldn't get the part of Nora in 21:00"The Doll House," or anything like that, because I was too dark for Norway, at the time. Now it's changed a lot, but in the '80s, you know, the theater directors even said, What will you do with your beautiful brown eyes in Norwegian theater? So, you know, it was a different reality. And so I had to realize that I have to -- if I wanted to make a career, I had to make it on my own. So I started this kind of search, and I made a performance about Bessie Smith, "Bessie: A Bluesical." It was also a minority and I, you know, sang blues, and -- and then I did a performance about immigrants, about Iranian immigrants, because in the late '80s, they started to come to Norway. And then I got a larger grant from the Norwegian government, and I decided to devote my work to Jewish culture and heritage, and through music and theater. That was in 22:001990. So I joined, I think, the Ibsen Festival several times after that, but since then I've just like -- that was my road, and already, '91, I was invited for this big festival here, in Wrocław, and I performed "Yiddishkayt" with I think six or seven Norwegian musicians. They call themselves the Gypsy Orchestra -- none of them were gypsies (laughs), but they play beautifully, and we performed -- it was televised in Norwegian -- no, in Polish television, I think two programs. And then I continued to work. The next was my Mordechai Gebirtig program. I couldn't believe that this man had written -- and I thought he'd written it for me, because nobody had touched it. I felt like, this is just amazing, this material is so fantastic, and I was just, like, going over it and 23:00I -- I was -- and it was, like -- it made itself a performance. I think I've performed it two hundred or three hundred times all over the place, and -- in Yiddish, of course, but I always do some text in front of it, so people understand the songs and the meanings. I'm now also started to translate it into English, and my husband will do a big translation into Polish, because the Poles -- they don't know what they really have. He lived all his life in Kraków. He lived nowhere else, and he's part of, also, Polish heritage. So that was, like, an amazing thing for me to -- to meet that man. And I had a lot of, you know, fantastic experiences with Mordechai (laughs) -- Mordechai and I -- first of all because I -- I linked up with two fantastic musicians from Warsaw, and the first thing I told them, "Don't listen to Jewish music, please. Don't do the shtick. I 24:00will translate all the words." And I had a woman translate -- she translated for me into Polish, like, word-to-word -- what it means. Here is the music line, and this is my text. So now -- and they were very, very scholared musicians -- like classical musicians. One accordionist, but also pianist and violinist. But they, like, you know -- top, top school, because in Poland, the music education is very, very high standard. And so that's what I said. And we worked three or four months in the rehearsal space, because at that time, I lived for a while in Warsaw. And they promised -- they didn't listen to any (laughs) Jewish music. And that's why, when people, you know, listen to the CD, they see it's so refreshing, because it's not similar to anything, and it's really -- it's the words. It's all about the words, which is, like, my thing, because I'm an actor. 25:00So for me, the words are really important. The music is always secondary. It's always what I want to -- what I want to farmitle-- you know --

CW:Transmit.

BK:-- transmit, exactly. So, yes, and that was like -- and then, for a long while, I got into another woman, who was called Ilse Weber, who didn't survive the war, also. She -- I mean, Mordechai Gebirtig, he was shot in Kraków Ghetto in 1942, and Ilse Weber, she died in Auschwitz in 1944. She wrote her poetry in German and I was asked first to do cabaret songs from Theresienstadt. They were all in German -- that had nothing to do really with Ilse Weber, but then I found in the archive, in Yad Vashem -- I found this Ilse Weber, and found out that her son lives in Sweden. And it all evolved and it became this theater performance 26:00that I now have in I don't know how many languages -- five languages, or something like that. And in Poland I had five actresses doing it in Polish, but usually I did -- the five characters I did on my own, as a monodrama. But that for a long time, I was not dealing very much with Yiddish, because that was also the text, so it has to be in Norwegian, the whole songs and the text -- in German, I performed it, you know, for years, and then -- and then in English I had it, you know, in theaters in London, even. And Holocuast Mem-- the Washington Holocaust Museum, I also performed -- you know, many places. Oh, I would like to add one thing, because this -- I mean, Ilse Weber is not really about Yiddish, but if we go back to Gebirtig, I want to tell you one story --

CW:Okay.

BK:-- because I had many experiences with Gebirtig, but there's maybe one thing that was the most -- biggest, when I performed Gebirtig in Yad Vashem. And I 27:00thought there wouldn't come so many people -- and that was before they had renovated the museum. I thought, you know, okay, people don't know me so well, so, you know, I'm not that known in Israel -- although, I'd, you know, worked there for many years before. This was -- I think it's '97, or something like that. And it was "Farewell, Cracow" -- "Blayb gezunt mir, kroke." And -- but Yad Vashem had -- they have a lot of members and, you know, their friends of Yad Vashem, and they announced that there would be Gebirtig concert. It was packed, you know, like, it was so many people. I didn't know that Gebirtig was so popular, but these were the people who really -- they knew Gebirtig, and they appreciated him like I do. So, they were like -- and, so -- it was an amazing -- also, because I usually played the whole thing for people who don't understand Yiddish. So how can you sing, and you do things, and they don't understand? You have to kind of, you know (non-verbal sounds) -- here they understand all the 28:00details, all the refinery. And then afterwards, this, you know, man comes up, and he gives me a medal, and he said, "I have kept the medal all the time, and only if I liked the concert, I would give it to you." And it said -- it was the title of my performance. It was the Friends of Gebirtig Association in Israel, and it was the photo of Gebirtig, and his handwriting -- Mordechai Gebirtig -- and in the end, "Blayb gezunt mir, kroke," which was the title of my performance and concert, so -- but -- and, one more addition about that concert was that my sister lives in Jerusalem -- she's very Orthodox, and suddenly she meets her neighbor, and, you know, a man cannot go to a concert where a woman is singing publicly. So he said, "I'm not watching. I'm not watching. I'm standing behind the pillar." (laughs) So it just explains to you how important Gebirtig, and how important this character, you know, that we don't know about. This -- there is a world out there who really appreciates it, and some people, by chance -- I'm not 29:00very much YouTube thing, and I have very few things on -- other -- mostly other people put it on -- and there was somebody putting my "Kinderjohren [Childhood years]" song on YouTube, and it has more than 650,000 hits. So it tells a little bit about, you know -- always people said, Oh, Yiddish, oh, it's so narrow, you know, nobod-- I think it's more and more important, you know. It's more and more important because -- how can you learn about a culture, about the world, if you don't know their language, or don't understand, you know, how to get into that world? And so Yiddish will always be important.

CW:So, then, can you talk a little bit about how -- about what it's like now to live in this city, in Wrocław, doing this work? Do you -- yeah, do you have any family connection to this place?

BK:Well, I came to Wrocław because my husband -- he grew up here. He was born 30:00in the Ukraine, and he grew up here, and he was in the opposition -- Solidarity, and I was doing a performance about human rights in the '80s, and he was talking afterwards, you know -- he was the human rights guy who'd been in prison, and all that. And they -- of course, the kids always asked him if he had been tortured, and things like that, because that's very interesting. But, anyway, so that's my link to Wrocław. So that's why I got to these Polish musicians, too, because in the early '90s, we decided, after Communism fell, to spend some time in Warsaw. And then, in 2001, we decided to come to Wrocław, and we thought we were gonna stay for one year, because I was supposed to go to the United States. But it didn't really turn out, and now we're just here, and we love to live here. And since 2005, I'm involved in the synagogue project -- the White Stork Synagogue -- where I started something called the Center for Jewish Culture and 31:00Education. It's a center for everybody, not only Jews, but for the whole city. And the idea was to u-- that former synagogue, which is used -- it's used as a synagogue on High Holidays. It follows all the rules of the Shabbat, and High Holidays, but it is more a culture center, with two balconies and with exhibitions of eight-hundred-years-old history, of Breslau -- Wrocław, because this was -- before the war, was Germany, called Breslau, the third-largest Jewish community in Germany. And then, from '45, Wrocław. So, when it comes to Yiddish, it has more history of Yiddish after '45, maybe, than before, because the German Jews, they spoke mostly German and it was an important Jewish center for educating rabbis and intellectual center. But as for after the war, it was 32:00an important culture center when it comes to Yiddish theater and all that. But -- this is a little bit about Wrocław -- about my work here, is that the synagogue was in a bad state, and we had to look for funds. So that's why I started my foundation, and, you know, when there are problems in order to, you know -- how to do it, and so on, so that's why, modestly, the foundation was called my name. So only Bill Clinton and Bente Kahan who have their own foundations (laughs) -- that's what my brother says, anyway. But it was a good idea, because there were so many conflicts, and so on, and everybody could blame me -- I'm the Norwegian Jew, and if I do something wrong, then it's all my -- all on me. And if not, you cannot really put it on anybody, and becomes wishy-washy. So I think it was a good idea.

CW:How'd you become interested in -- in this synagogue? There's so many projects that one could imagine, but was there something about this particular building 33:00and its story that touched you?

BK:Well, I think it was just a continuation of what I had done. I mean, since 1990, I had just focused all my work on Yiddish heritage, or Jewish heritage, and this was another side of it. It was like I saw a huge site -- a city that had more than 800 years Jewish history. And when you came to the city, you could not find that history at all -- it didn't exist. At the same time, in the right of the center of the city, there was a huge building that could really tell the story, and if you put the exhibition inside, at least I feel that when I come there as a visitor next time, I will know that there was a Jewish story in this town. So I think it was -- and it wasn't just another town. It was an important town for Jewish history. It's raining, but this is, you know --

CW:It's okay. The small mic doesn't pick up --

BK:Okay. So, I mean, it is an important building, for many reasons. Let's talk 34:00about architecture. You know about the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin? Yeah, it's the son -- the architect is the son of Fritz Langhans, who did the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin. And he's called Carl Ferdinand Langhans, and he was the same architect who did the opera house in our town. So it's not just any building. This is this. This is a very important building, because it was not destroyed during Crystal Night, and most of the synagogues in Crys-- in German, Kristallnacht -- '38, ninth of November -- were destroyed. The other synagogue, the larger one in Wrocław, or Breslau, at the time, the Neue Synagoge, was completely destroyed. It's not far from ours. And so -- and then you have this aspect that -- what about the future? When my father, let him live long, will 35:00not be here among us -- Marek Edelman just passed away a few years ago -- how will we remember the Jews of Europe? Will we only have your Yiddish -- beautiful Book Center and beautiful museum in Washington, D.C., or is it important, even in our virtual world, to have a place to come to in Europe, to come. Here we have now, the Jewish community, this whole -- all the buildings surrounding also belongs now to the Jewish community. All of it will be renovated, and hopefully can serve anybody -- the Jews, the non-Jews, who want to learn more about Jews of Europe. And if, you know -- one can easily change this history of Europe and say, well, you know, the Jews didn't really have so much, you know, to do with the history of Europe. But I was just now in Kraków about a -- conference about heritage, and in Köln, you know, they have things from first century after 36:00B.C., or, you know, at the -- they have artifacts and things which proves that we've been here about two thousand years. And in this city, we have, like, eight hundred years. So -- and if you want to write the history of Europe, you have to include the Jews. You have to include Yiddish. You have to include Ladino. But, of course, Yiddish was a much larger -- in a larger scale, you know -- eleven million of those Jews of Europe, they -- most of them had Yiddish as a mother tongue. And if we want to build anything in the future -- I mean, human rights, civil society, whatever -- one cannot forget what happened to the Jews of Europe. This is something that will be more and more and more important. And when people say, Oh -- even yesterday, I heard, Oh, yes, good, when you know it's not only about the Holocaust. Maybe I'm, you know, obsessed. You know, I do 37:00all these things. Of course, my Center -- it's full of life, it's a lot of this, but of course, Remember, remember. Because -- because -- and the building should always have that little touch, too. That you have that sore, -- that -- that scar. And the thing -- it's a beautiful building. Everything is positive. But, you know, when you are here, on this earth and soil, there is always this wound, and the people -- even the Poles in my age, they help me -- they were not -- non-Jews -- they help me, two men particularly, who put all their efforts completely pro bono. And we did that together, and it was like repairing. It's like a big wound you don't know what to do with it, and you feel like you're 38:00repairing the world, in a way, and mankind. You're trying to do something that maybe, you know, will be better. And that, we don't know. But what is great is that many people enjoy it, and when I started to say, in the Jewish world, that I'm gonna, you know, renovate the synagogue, they thought I'm meshuge, and, you know, I should go to Israel, I could do work there, and what am I gonna do there in Wrocław? And I knew that it was important, but I know it's even more important now. And I know it's important for you, and for your children, and the grandchildren, so on.

CW:Where do you see Jewish history in -- in Polish history now? How is it represented, and --?

BK:I think it's completely -- it's so difficult, because the kids -- they don't understand, like, for example, in Warsaw, before the war, every third person was a Jew. So they don't, you know, really relate to that. And I think the educational system -- they haven't really taken it seriously, you know, to -- to 39:00integrate that Jewish history into their own history. That's why they were eager now, with this seventieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It was amazing. For one week, all of Warsaw was just -- everybody was walking around with these yellow flowers, and -- and it was so positive, but that was also repairing. Because they know they have to repair. It's not enough to write in the newspapers and discuss, and so on. They have to go to the kids, and they haven't done that. They have to teach the kids. They have to -- and if they want to be Europeans -- open-minded Europeans -- they have to start somewhere, and they have to start with their own country. And they haven't yet started. And the thing is, you know, it's a post-Communist country, still. I think they've gone -- done a lot. I think they're fantastic, but I have made school performances -- I have four different productions I've made, with Polish actresses, and I think 40:00more than twenty thousand school kids from this region have been to one of those performances, whether it's elementary school, high school, or junior high school. I do different -- make different productions for them. And I feel -- I don't know -- and, no, this is very modest, but -- even some of the performance have been with standing ovations. And I wondered, Why do they like my performances so much? Because I tell them something about themselves that they'd never been told. I made one performance, which is called "Wallstrasse 13," and it tells about our local history, from 1933 till '68, but it concentrates only on the Jewish part. And I didn't understand, when one of my coworkers says that, you know, "They like it so much, because they feel that you tell them something about their own history." And -- and that was lovely, really. Because, you know, in a way I feel like, you know, "last Mohikaner," or, like, you know, kind of 41:00very isolated, in a way -- one Jew working with a big, non-Jewish audience, trying to tell something. And, you know, it's all about communicating. And this is -- I mean, there's a long way to go, with education and -- because they've been very eager, you know, with books, literature, films, newspapers, and so on. But they kind of -- I don't know, they -- it's a big challenge to teach a new generation.

CW:And where do you see yourself as an artist -- how does art and the performing artist play a role in this cultural transmission?

BK:Oh, you know, it's all kind of the same thing. It's about my heritage. It's about wanting to be part of this continent that I really love, and feeling a 42:00responsibility towards all my relatives that were just so cruelly killed, both from my mother's side and my father's side. And I think they deserve that, that we should not, you know -- that Europe is -- has always been -- there has always been the Jewish touch in -- what we have created here in Europe, being so proud about this -- it's -- we're -- we have contributed and we're part of it. And not only the geniuses, but, you know, we were part -- we're a part of its soul. Although I love Israel as a state -- I think it's important for the Jews to have a state like that -- but I will always be a European Jew. This is where I'm born, and I think my children also will be.

CW:What is it important for you to pass on to your children?

BK:Well, I think the same sense of identity that we're talking about -- my father's song. That they should learn about their identity, but that they must absolutely open up to the world. And they have to be a mensch, as we say in Yiddish -- to be a human being. That is the first thing, for me. Of course, there's additional thing about our heritage, and so on, that I'm so much -- but it's all about the same thing. I mean, for me, it's about human rights. It's about the most basic things about respecting other people who are different. Even if it's difficult, at least try to put yourself in their place, and -- yes, that's very important, for me. Whether they are religious, not religious, where they live, and so on, who they marry -- it's up to them, you know. But that they 44:00will be a mensch, yeah.

CW:From the United States, at least, we are -- there's a lot of talk of a renaissance of interest in Yiddish in Eastern Europe. Do you see that -- that --?

BK:Well, there's first of all the music gig, kind of like, the klezmer thing. People like this music. Also in New York. It wasn't, when I started in '83. But now, of course, it's, you know -- and it's nice that young people also enjoy this music, and the rhythm. I've made a children's CD, and -- with Yiddish songs -- and it's wonderful that the small kids love these songs, and learn them by heart. (laughs) It was the songs that I heard as a child, and I made it with my daughter and her friends when she was about eleven. And -- but as for Yiddish as a language, yeah, maybe. Still not so much, but it's more the music, I think, 45:00because it's more difficult with the language. And the language is quite difficult. I mean, people think, Oh, Yiddish is so easy. It's not, because, especially if you read the literature, there's so many connotations to religious, for example, things, and if you don't know these things, you fall out. So there's a lot of, you know -- it's a -- it's a very rich language, also because it has so many synonyms of so many different -- I haven't really learned formal Yiddish. I just took one course in Vilna, one month, and it was a lot of fun. And it was more to formalize my knowledge. But I'm very jealous at my -- what do you call it? -- not my second cousin, but second, second, second, second cousin, who's called Mendy Cahan, who comes from Antwerp, and lives in Israel, 46:00and is doing Yung YiDiSH in Israel, and, you know, he spoke Yiddish in school. He grew up with Yiddish. It was his mother tongue, and it wasn't mine. It was just something I heard as a child, so it's a very big difference. I said, "You will always have" -- I always tell him, "You'll always have an advantage over me," cause I, you know -- but when I sing, I kind of sound probably okay authentic. (laughs)

CW:What's been your family's reaction -- your parents' to this interest and --?

BK:Oh, I think my parents -- my mother, ole-hasholem [may she rest in peace], she doesn't live anymore, and she was my fan as an actor and singer. And I think, for my father, it's wonderful that I'm kind of bringing this further, this tradition. And, of course, he's my mentor, so I always call him wherever I 47:00am, and I have a question, and so on. I'm so lucky. I have my private teacher. And -- but I've tried to be very independent, so, in the beginning, I didn't want to ask him at all, and I wanted to do it all on my own. But now, you know, it's -- and it's a lot of fun, so, if I call him, just, like, in the middle of the day, and I have some question about Yiddish, it's like the best thing that I could do. He's -- he'll be so happy. So, it's wonderful. It's also a way that you link with each other, you know, in a nice way. My other siblings, the other four, they're not really been interested in Yiddish, so (laughs) -- so I have an advantage over them, right there. But they have other -- a lot of good qualities.

CW:I wonder, is it ever difficult to be this -- carrying this culture, and representing this culture, and advocating for it, sort of, in -- you're sort of 48:00a one-person -- one-woman show. (laughter) Is that ever difficult?

BK:Well, it's become my life. I'm so part of it, and I was very proud now, I must say -- also very modest -- I'm a very modest person -- when we were there and this -- about heritage -- different synagogues in Europe, and Jewish-European heritage, in Kraków, at this conference, and I realized, really, how much our synagogue is a success, and our project. That it's not only a building that has been renovated, that it's a full-time culture center. If we don't do events, as the foundation, I rent out the synagogue for, like, best artists -- European, international artists who perform in the synagogue. So it's like -- we have, like, best Spanish or Portuguese or even African, or whatever, 49:00you know. Because all the big festivals in Wrocław, they rent out -- so we also do the maintenance this way. But it always -- it brings also the building, as a prestigious place. So those people who renovated it, they had thought, Oh, we're renovating another heritage site, and it will be probably closed most of the time. And ours is, like, full all the time, with events, with kids, and school performance, and this, and gallery, and -- so that is a lot of satisfaction. And I'm not at all alone -- it sounds like a one-woman show, but it's not. I tell you, with the whole renovation of the synagogue, I have two wonderful men who are my partners. (laughs) As I said, they had not really Jewish background, but they both were -- it was so important for them, and still is, that building. And they are professionals, with several doctor degrees, because that's what they 50:00have in this part of Europe. And they just did this as, like, a passion. And even the people that I have in the office -- I always measure them if -- I don't hire somebody just because they need a job. I hire them if they have the passion for this. So, I mean, you don't earn very much in my foundation. And I have -- I think I have a daily team about eight people, or something like that. So it's become quite an enterprise. And so I -- great artist, like an Israeli artist, who opened the door of the synagogue, and said, "This is what I've dreamed to do all my life" -- Yoav Rossano -- so he's doing the balconies. And I have Barbara Pendzich, who is an American from Chicago, who is a doctor in history, who also -- you know, so I have only wonderful people. I have the best producer that you can even think of, that used to work for the festival -- big festival here -- Aga Imiela, and Dominika, and -- you know, I have -- I've just wonderful people 51:00in my office, that are so talented and giving their talent to this. And, in order to do a foundation in Poland, it's not like in the United States. I know that there's a lot of bureaucracy in the United States, but if you want to, I can bring you to the other office, and show you some of the -- those paperwork that we have to do for each little invoice, and for each little thing, 'cause if you get funds, you know, it's about the transparency. You get public money, and all that. And it's a huge job, and you have to have very honest people, and it's very, very complicated. Which is good, because, you know, it's all transparent. You come, you see, whatever. And -- but it requires a special kind of team. So -- and I'm lucky. I'm lucky that -- and I don't think it's just because of me. I 52:00think it because the whole idea -- the project -- is so positive and more people find it interesting than me, so that's why -- why it's -- sorry to use the word -- a success. (laughter)

CW:So, just two more questions. Can you tell me a little bit about this new project, "Jidisz far ale," and also maybe your vision for what the future of Yiddish might be?

BK:Well, the "Jidisz far ale" is very much to popularize the Yiddish language and culture to an audience that maybe never have met this culture before. And it's actually, again, a continuation of what I've always done, so -- but here, it's -- I'm just a project manager, and have kind of figured out the project with the university, with other people -- it's not only me, it's Joanna Lisek 53:00from the university, who is teaching Yiddish also, is very much involved in this project. And our partners in Norway -- the Jewish Museum in Oslo, the Holocaust Museum in Oslo, the Jewish Festival in Trondheim, and other theater, with a very famous Norwegian playwright, who will be performed in Yiddish here (laughs). So -- but the project is very much through art, so -- for example, one project is young Norwegian and Polish artists -- visual artists -- who will be inspired by -- from -- we will give them Yiddish literature, and they will be inspired by it, and we will see it. There will be a big work-out of this. But it's also about translation Gebirtig to the Polish audience, that they should know more about him, and make a big performance about that. We're making a CD about -- 54:00subject is only women in the Yiddish cultu-- literature, so we'll make songs out of it and make a CD from workshops. And also a big, big exhibition of Yiddish women -- or, women in Yiddish literature, or in Yiddish culture. Because the women play such an important role in this culture, and it's interesting to show from a women aspect. And what more do we have? And then we have lectures, both in Norway and in Poland, from all over. And we will -- you will be able -- people in Wrocław will be able to learn Yiddish over a two-year period, and they will get credits at the university, that we have already organized. So -- and so it's really Jidisz far ale, Yiddish for everybody. And so we're very proud to be able to do this project. With Norway and -- it's a special fund, and 55:00it's a three-years project. So, yes.

CW:I wonder if you might be willing to sing one more song, a Yiddish song that maybe speaks to some of these -- this vision you have for -- for Jidisz far ale (laughter), or Yiddish -- the future --

BK:Yeah, I didn't really answer you about what I think about Yiddish for the future. But I think it's a little bit in "Jidisz far ale," you know, the way that we're presenting -- also because when you -- when we're teaching, it's not only about teaching the language, but more going into the culture and the literature, and so on. So I think that's the way Asha is going to do it, so -- Joanna Lisek. Another song, yeah. What should I sing then?

CW:Is there a song that's particularly meaningful for you lately?

BK:Yeah. I have to think. (laughs) Now I don't think of a song right away. You have to give me some time. A Yiddish song, of course.

CW:Sure. Maybe a Gebirtig song?

BK:A Gebirtig song. Yes. This one actually I have translated into English. But you want to have it in Yiddish?

CW:Any -- if you can do both.

BK:(sings) [Yiddish -- 00:56:46-00:59:05]. (laughs)

CW:A sheynem dank. (laughter) Well, I'd like to end by asking if you have an eytse [piece of advice] -- do you have any advice for future generations?

BK:Uh, an advice? Oh, good question. Yes, I think that learning through culture is, of course, very important. All my productions have always been this element of teaching, because, if I present something to an audience who doesn't know, it's very important. So, if you're a presenter, or if you -- if you present this culture, you must always think that the audience don't know nothing. They don't know this; they don't know that; they -- what you take for granted, because, you know, all the time -- and it's almost like the director tells you -- as an 60:00actor, he tells you, "Forget that you learned the text, and say it the first time," you know? And it's the same when you're teaching a culture that people don't know. Don't take for granted that people know anything. Most people don't know -- have never heard about Yiddish. So this is -- of course, is very important. And when you present something anew, it's always -- through art, it's always very different, because you remember things differently. If you just tell them in a lecture, it's not the same as if you experience something emotionally. I think emotions will play more and more important role, because we live in a non-emotional world, and direct feelings -- basic things -- and Yiddish has so much feelings and so it must survive. (laughs)

CW:Great. Well, a hartsikn dank, thank you so much for sharing your story with me and also with the Yiddish Book Center.

BK:I'm very happy. Thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]