RAPHAEL ROGINSKI ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney, and today is May 5th, 2013, we're here in Sejny, Poland, and I'll let you pronounce your own name so I don't mess it up.  

RAPHAEL ROGINSKI: Raphael Roginski.

CW: 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?  

RR: Yeah, yeah, that's okay. 

CW: Thank you.  Okay, just to start, can you tell me a little bit about what you know about your family background?  

RR: Well, I know -- it's not too much, but, I was born as a refugee, in Germany.  And my -- this is what I know, it's a couple of things, because we spend six 1:00years, after when I was born, and my mother had a divorce with my father, so we come back to Poland, and stories about these Jewish ancestors, stay mostly in Germany, because my mother, she's half Jewish and half Uzbeki and Tatar.  So when I was born, I know about my family everything, which is not popular in Poland, because people mostly they know about especially Jewish roots, they know, sometimes, they know by accident, that family, they had some conflict with 2:00the mother or something, and she's screaming, "You are like a Jew" or something.  So it's always something very weird in Poland, that you know about so, your ancestors.  So, in Germany, I was born in an amazing place, it was Frankfurt, which is, now it's a typical city, but at '70s and '80s it was a, something like -- island full of refugees from around the world, especially Eastern Europe, very big -- and Yugoslavian community.  And Jewish from around the world, but especially from Eastern Europe.  And this was the last time when Jewish people 3:00spoke Yiddish.  So I heard this language, and it was mix of a couple of languages in my house, so I started speaking some language, I think, when I was four, or something, because it was too much languages.  So my father, because he was born before the war, he remember Yiddish, it was his language, first language, I think, maybe Polish too, but I don't know.  And with his friends, they made something like a shtet [small town in Eastern Europe with a Jewish community] tradition, but it was something different.  And this what we know from books, you know, this romantic view of shtet.  This was typical shtet, but with the old problems.  But something new happened there.  People after 4:00the war, they wanted to live like Janis Joplin or someone like this, they want to keep everything very strong, and so they -- this community of my father, they had -- they gambling a lot, they have a lot of women, mostly much younger than they are, and they -- it was amazing.  For me, the culture, from this reasons, Jewish culture is something much more open and completely outside of this mythology of Jewish culture.  For me, for example, my father was a gambler, but a very serious gambler.  He played for houses, cars, and even wives sometimes, 5:00not my mother, but -- (laughs) it happened.  And they spoke in all Yiddish, the gambling, and I saw this.  My childhood is mostly cards, my mother played, and I, because my father, he had these traditions, so he give me this.  It was my first toy, was cards, so this is part of my Jewish traditions.  And second is this, that when they had problems, they always go to synagogue.  For example, when I was born, my father -- in Germany, they have a law that you have to find some important person in a city, and this person signs your bor--

CW: Birth certificate?

RR: Yeah, yeah.  So mine, this important person for my birth certificate was the rabbi of Frankfurt, so it's funny, but generally, I, this, completely outside religion.  My father, even that he have only Jewish friends, he don't wanted to be recognized as a Jew.  So that's, of course, he was typical.  Even from these reasons that he was born before the war, so for him, this world was much more normal, you know?  

CW: Did he ever talk about his life before the war, or --

RR: Yeah, but he -- generally, we had -- after six years when I was born we came back to Poland, so the Polish government, they cancelled our passports, with my 7:00mother.  So, when I goes to the school, they sent some letter to school that I am a spy.  You know, I have seven years, something like that.  But they, you know, we had very big problems in Poland when we come back.  And I got in complex relation with my father, because he wrote some letters to us, but after he had the choice, you know, write the letters, and missing all the time, and, or forgot about us.  So he took the second choice.  So we didn't have contact for almost twenty years, something like that.  And after we met, and after one year, he died.  So, during this one year I had some possibility to ask about 8:00something, you know, but he had the typical trauma, because his parents, my grandparents, the Germans, they killed them, and he saw this, you know.  So, this first trauma, and general ghetto, and after he lives in the underground, and he was -- with the help of my second grandmother, whose name is Roginsky, he survived the war.  So, this what I know, it's a couple of things, but nothing concrete.  I know the date, but we don't have papers or something like that, because everything was destroyed.  I know names, but I never even made something with some research about names, because for me it's -- what can I do 9:00with much more names?  

CW: Yeah.  So -- can you describe a little bit about your home in Poland?  

RR: After when we come back?  Maybe I will describe, a little bit, the German home, because it was an amazing place.  Because, we had only one friend of -- from a German, like Germans, but much more of these people, my father helped a lot with resistance in Poland, so during the wartime, yes?  The refugees coming, and they slept mostly at our home.  So it was amazing.  And this was one part of this house when I lived.  And second is two Jews from Russia and 10:00Poland, and Jews who was born before the war, so this was, this Yiddish language and everything happened there.  And, for example, my uncle, I don't know, for example, about some connection with this uncle, but he was, I think he was family of my father.  So, he was -- this can be a symbol of -- what this Jewish culture for me, when I speak about this uncle.  He was small because because the Mengele, he -- what's the name, he keep the -- growing, yes?  So, he was like a normal person, not like a -- midget?  But he was a normal, look -- but 11:00he was small.  And very charm and, you know, an amazing man.  And he had a number of three-hundred-something, he was the first in Auschwitz, almost.  And he was a very funny guy, he loved me a lot, and he always bought me some presents, you know.  I had an obsession about cars, so I collected cars, and I have over one thousand, mostly.  So he was one of the part of my collection.  And when you see this story, that the Mengele, and everything, it's traumatic, it's like some of the book about Holocaust, you know, typical story.  But on the other hand, he was a very funny guy, and he had an obsession about very big German womans.  Typical Nazi women, you know?  He had a lot of lovers, even 12:00four at the same time.  So for me, the Jewish culture is like this.  It's not only book about Holocaust, it's something that people after Holocaust, they live, and they have some life, and my life in Germany was very fun, you know?  It was amazing how it mixed with the shtet tradition, people from the shtet, who survived in some, you know, very contemporary town, and it was amazing, this crash, it was something like a crash.  And my uncle, second uncle, who survived the war in -- jak jest "piec"? Boże, zapomniałem. Taki na chleb, wiesz. [Polish: What is "oven" in English? God, I forgot. To bake the bread.] 

AI: Who survived inside?  Inside the oven?

RR: Inside, yes, oven, yes.  Like, the ovens for bread, like, it's a big one.  So he survived there, and he was -- he always had the same suite -- you know, suit, yes, with the hat.  And he spoke in every language, but not in one language, it was a mix of a couple of languages, it was amazing.  So, it was a funny story, and so, of course, this was traumatic, but the trauma coming to me, you know, after a couple of years.  But, this is the second story.  So, when I come back to my house, my family in Poland --

CW: Wait, before you do that, can you just describe what your home looked like?  What was --

RR: We had a couple of houses, and flats.  Because my mother, my father, he 14:00played, you know, so he lost, sometimes, home, after he wins, or -- everything changed.  I remember a situation where we lived in a hotel for working class people, like very poor people, but beside this hotel, my father parked two very nice cars.  But he waiting for how to sell them, these cars.  Because he win cars, but he lost flat -- house.  (laughs)  

CW: What was the -- was he working as well? 

RR: Yeah, he worked -- this is the story on the second, nice story -- he worked, he had a couple of works.  Generally he gambling, but he had -- I remember he had a shop with the cheese, like a luxury cheese shop.  And, but he 15:00had trauma after the war, and it was normal that he -- sometimes he came back to home and he laying in the bed two weeks for sometimes.  He drank only -- he drank, but only water, he never drank alcohol.  He drank, and he laying, and never talk to us.  So we knew it's about this, that it's something from this time.  And he had a second, I remember the second work, he had, in the main street, now it's a very luxury street in Frankfurt, but in the '70s, '80s, it was something like a -- like a place for sailing men.  Marynarz [Polish: 16:00sailor] is sailing men?  Like, you know, with a lot of burdels [Polish: brothels] you know, and -- jak jest, Boże, zapomniałem [Polish: and how do you say, oh God, I forgot]. Hooker house? No. Yeah.  So my father, he -- you know, because the Jewish people, they wanted to have some fast success, so they, mostly they, it was a, they had a, you know, burdels.  So my father --

CW: Brothel.

RR: -- yes, his friends, he had, and my father was a -- Boże, nie wiem jak jest "szef" [Polish: God, I don't know what "chief" is] -- chief of this house, or something.  But in a -- no, it's funny, because, for example, I remember, I have a teddy bear from a very famous hooker from Frankfurt, and which -- she remember Nazi time, and we she was a lover of someone like Hesse, or someone.  But my father, he was open.  Even my uncle, the small one.  For them it was 17:00normal that people from Wehrmacht coming there, and everything was crazy.  And, the second -- this was my first meeting with Israel, because one room was always closed, and nobody coming there, only my father, who took food there, and he leave there beside the doors.  And after, when we met, after twenty years, he told me that this room was a room for Mossad.  Because the street, now it's a very luxury, and main street in Frankfurt, but at this time, it was, everything started to be important in Germany, and in Frankfurt, so they had some point for landscape, I don't know.  They took someone in this room, so this was my first 18:00meeting with the name Israel, that Israeli lived there.  So Israeli, for me, was people who live in the room permanently, one room.  (laughs) And what, after?

CW: Well, I don't know, is there anything -- any other great -- I mean, any of the refugees that were staying in your house that you remember particularly?  

RR: Yes, it was, when I think about this, it looks something like "Twin Peaks," this series, you know this film?  It's something like "Naked Lunch," or something like that.  Like, everything was a little bit dark, and with a red light.  And this, for me, this is Jewish culture.  Of course, I like this 19:00mystical things in Jewish culture in general.  Not even religion, but general culture.  But generally, you know, for me this culture is something like a Polanski film of "Chinatown," something very dark.  And I remember a lot of people, very weird people.  I remember my father friend, he was from Yugoslavia.  He was a Sephardi Jew, and he had -- he didn't have -- what's the -- hands, only fists, from here.  You know, and when I was a child and I look at people like this, like my uncle was small, hooker who was -- who looks weird. 20:00 Everything was very weird, and completely multicultural, because even the Jews from Poland and Russia was different.  I remember one guy, I don't know who, maybe this was my family too, but at the end of '70s, in Austria, they had a very big scandal with someone stealing some purse, or something like this, and this was my uncle.  (laughs)  He lives in our house sometimes, with his wife.  She was typical Jewish religion, with the peruke [Polish: wig].  

CW: Sheytl [Yiddish: traditional women's head covering (wig)].

RR: Yeah, yeah.  And, but he was completely open.  And in general, these 21:00people, it was different than mafia, it was old mafia, like they have a very style, a big style.  He was very sophisticated in this.  So I think -- I learned a lot from this.  My music, general Jewish music is from there, and general, a couple of things in my life coming from there.  For example, this, how to be -- zaraz, muszę przypomnieć sobie polskie słowo [Polish: wait a second, I need to think of it in Polish] -- how to be proud from what you do, something like this.  And how to take responsibility for this what you do in 22:00life.  Because they -- even that they gambling, they have some style.  Like crafters, like people who made something by hands.  And it's amazing, they think about themselves as not artists but crafters, something like that.  So yeah, this is my first six years. 

CW: So when you say that you learned a lot from that time, can you express sort of what it was that you learned?

RR: Especially, I learned this that I am always open, for people.  For me, I never had something like, I need some time for -- to accept some other race, or 23:00something like that.  For me, it was completely normal, and this was first thing which was very hard for me and my mother, that this country still, it is still multicultural, but we don't have even maybe one percent of Polish blood, but our ancestors maybe lived here, one thousand years, something like that.  But generally, for -- in this reason, I felt -- I knew it about my ancestors, at least that I'm a little bit different, but generally we felt like Polish people.  So for me, this missing to this what was in Frankfurt, it's still 24:00something like gasoline for my activity in art.  Generally about everything, because I play Jewish music, but I play a lot of other musics.  This, and -- this, it's very important that I never had something like Jewish culture, never was for me something saint, you know, it's a culture, nothing more.  But of course it's complicated, because nobody survived, and someone have to do something with this what we have like a synagogue or something.  Like here in Sejny, they took some responsibility for this history here, of Jewish people, and it's amazing, it's happened only in Poland, you know, Israel, where I was 25:00live, when I talk about this with the people, they never believe that something happened like this.  They even don't understand this.  So it's very funny.  But generally for me, it's very plastic? Plastic culture, you know, it's not -- jak jest taki "sakrament," wiesz, coś stałego, wiesz, takie [Polish: how do you say "sacrament," you know, something that you can refer to]? 

AI: It's like a sacral place. 

RR: Yes, it's not sacrum [Polish: sacred] for me, yes.  It's always, this that I have this background from Frankfurt and this understand that I live today, not before the war, it helped me to do something contemporary, I think.  

CW: So, I want to move on, but first, how did your parents end up in Frankfurt?

RR: How they arrive there?

CW: Yeah.  

RR: Because '68, you know.  They met at '70, but my father was without work, and he was with some girlfriend in Mazowsze Dance Theater, something like that, it's very close to our town, Podkowa Leśna, and they met in the train, something like that.  And they dating, and after two years maybe, he wrote on the newspaper, his story, you know, when you have a text and this white border or something, this space, he wrote story like this on the newspaper, on each 27:00side, and this that he have to go outside Poland.  And he escape.  So she read this story and she knew before that he have too much Jewish friends, but it was normal for her.  But she -- maybe -- she knew it about his Jewish.  But maybe not about name, or something, because he had a different names.  Roginski, it's not my true name.

CW: Do you have a question? 

AI: I have just a question about March '68, because that's a really significant date for your family.  Do they were talking to you about it when you lived in Frankfurt?

RR: No, no they -- never, never, never.  We never -- generally my family, it's 28:00a very unusual in Poland, because they never spoke about something, bad things in the past.  They always, they lived for the next day.  They had some depression stuff, but they never made something, "Oh yeah, we had '68, so we are victims" or something.  I think we know about, we have some intuition, and it helped for us that we never, that we are never surprised of foolishness of the world.  For us it's -- I think my father he missing to Poland, but I never grew 29:00up like a son of victim.  It was even before, even about the war, and anti-Semitic at his work, because he was a typical look, Jewish look, so everybody recognized.  And yes, so yes, we never had the cult of tragedy.  

CW: You mentioned already a little bit, but -- sort of how -- what it was like for you once you moved to Poland, and that big change in terms of --

RR: It was second thing that I started live not as a typical person, because 30:00when we come back, I come back to Podkowa Leśna which is amazing place, my grandfather was one of the founders of this place 100 years ago.  And it was a place in the forest, it's a town in the forest, and it was built by businessmen and artists, artists in Poland.  And, so I grew up in some amazing place in the forest, and here, we had always vacationed like three months, or even four months sometimes in the Suwalszczyzna region so I live completely outside Warsaw and these lines for meat or something like this, for some food.  Because my grandfather, he was completely against communism, but he had some 31:00deal with the communist people, so he was very rich, but we never used this money for us, we always shared.  My grandmother especially, she shared with everything, you know, food, we always had some people at our very big house, you know, like a dwór [Polish: mansion]. It's not castle but --

AI: Palace.

RR: Ah yes, like a palace, yes.  We had, because during the communist time, when you had too much money, you have to hiding this money, so mostly, my grandfather, he bought a lot of antiques, so I grew up with a lot of antiques.  We had one room, was completely only for antiques, nobody lives there.  So, art deco, and everything was there.  And we had an amazing -- I grew up with my 32:00three brothers, cousins, and we had forest outside our garden, and everything was -- when I recognized a lot of things, like people lives before the war in Poland.  Like writers write about their childhood, sometimes it was look similar.  Like, we had a niania. 

AI: Nanny. 

RR: Ah, nanny, yes. But everything, in a way, everything had some flavor of war sometimes.  But, as I told you, it was never like, we never talked about this. 33:00 But we had a lot of friends who was victim of war.  Like my aunt, was -- she had children, and the bomb explode beside her, and she had the children in her hands, you know, like that, and the children died.  And she always had the -- she was, until the end of the life, she was alone, and she had something like this that sometimes she made something like that, (extends his arms as though holding a child) and crying, you know, and for a while.  And we growing with this, because this is Poland, it's not that one nation had some tragedy.  Like, 34:00my grandfather was in a concentration camp, my grandmother was in -- powstanie warszawskie? 

AI: Warsaw Uprising.

RR: Yes, Warsaw Uprising.  She had a lot of scars.  And the amazing thing in my life, in my school, I had a teacher, and she was -- she lost everybody from her family, during the war, and she was completely against Germans.  And I remember, I had maybe ten years, something like that, and she was very -- she was a teacher of history, and she was very angry for us, and something, something will happen during the lessons.  And she asked us something like, "You are Polish?"  Yes.  "You are Polish?"  Yes.  Something like, and I was completely against everything, from the beginning, so she asked me, and I told 35:00her that I am a German.  And she was very angry.  But I didn't know about this, about her story.  And she took me outside the class, and she told me that, "You even don't know who you are."  Something like that.  And after many years, my mother told me that she and my second grandmother, she helped my grandmother, the second grandmother, survived my father.  So it's amazing.  So everything was by accident, but -- and she live.  And I want to go to her, but she's very old, she's, I think one-hundred-something.  So, yes, and in general Podkowa Leśna it was amazing place, with forests, and we always -- our 36:00main play was war, you know, wartime.  We killing Germans all the time.  And we build base from underground, and after the snow we had some igloo.  We always shooting to the Germans.  All the time.  (laughs) So this is -- but it's typical in Poland, everybody playing like that.  And we -- I remember play about ghetto, that we are -- but I don't know how, but we made some uprising in a ghetto, as children, but I never heard about this ghetto uprising, but we had some idea.  And during this time, I had this forest story, and I recognized after many years that I never grew up with religion, so I recognized myself as a 37:00transcendental.  So when I read Emerson and the second transcendentalists, it's mine.  It's something, like, I know this from here, Sejny, and from Podkowa because we always had some very strong connection with nature, and during twenty-five, maybe, I lived with my brother in a teepee, here, close to the -- in general we spent a lot of time in the forest, we slept there.  The forest was something like a town for us, for another people.  And we never had contact with the Pod-- with Warsaw.  It was only visit some family or someone, but never -- even when I started playing guitar, we had some very big community 38:00of hippie, and we played there, and it was amazing.  And in Podkowa, I had close friends, from when I was child, and we spent a lot of time, and we still have a relation, and it's amazing, because after many years, we recognize ourself that everybody have some Jewish roots, but we never talk about this.  But we've been very close, and first dance, everything was -- not only, but in general, the main, I think eighty percent of my close friends have some Jewish roots, so it's nice, I think, funny.

CW: Was there music around in your family, in your home?

RR: No, never, maybe in my father's family, but I don't know too much.  But art, it was my first, my first school after the -- Boże, jak jest "podstawówka" [Polish: God, how do you say "primary school"]? 

AI: After primary school.

RR: Yeah, yeah, so my first high school was art, I was a sculpture, sculpturist.

CW: Sculptor.

RR: So, but at the same time, I had my first guitar, I buy here in the forest, from some guy in the army, so I had the choice, so music was the winner.  So -- yeah, but I never had some meeting with the music.  But I, when, my first meeting was a very strong, it was the music of The Doors, and John Lee Hooker, 40:00it was my first CDs, LPs, yes, so it was very early record of John Lee Hooker, and I think, you know, from this time, my story's completely, you know, connected with this music, even when I play, rebetika, or gypsy, or Jewish music, I always play something from The Doors and John Lee Hooker, so yes, it was very strong.  I started playing on a tennis racket, yes?  One year, maybe, something like that.  And I bought my first guitar close to this place where we talk.  

CW: Can you tell me about where we are right now?

RR: Yes, it's amazing place, the one place in Poland where people never act 41:00strange of their soil.  And they still live there from ancient time.  And it was very white place, even, I think it's much more open at the beginning of 20th century, but at the beginning of 20th century, you had bears here, and animals from ancient times.  And it was completely closed region.  With very original mythology and everything.  So, this place, for me, it's a very strong part of my identity.  I learned a lot from these people, from people from here, 42:00especially during the '80s, when I don't remember shop where we bought some food, I remember much more when we hunting, with the children even, it was amazing.  And I remember cows in the forest, because they don't have fields, so they put the cows to the forest, and we running łapać -- catching the cows.  And I drank milk from a cow in the forest, it was amazing.  So it's -- and I diving a lot, for hunting fish, and they learned me a lot.  And it was different than 100 years ago, but generally they, I understand that we have to 43:00find some balance between this what we hunting and this what we take from a forest, it was amazing.  Because it was my first, very natural lesson about ecology.  And yes, this place is full of magic myths, and everything, it's close to Lithuania, and the exchange of these pagan traditions, it's a lot of pagans, like pagan traditions.  Even when you see some sculpture on the crossroads or something, it's mostly pagan.  So, yes, this is the Suwalszczyzna.

CW: When did you ever use Yiddish?

RR: What?

CW: Yiddish language, did you ever use it yourself?

RR: Not, only when I was, I learned letters, because, when I started playing I never find some notes, or some traditions.  So I have to learn letters for recognize who wrote something, or something like that.  So this I know, but I never spoke in Yiddish.  But my father, of course, and my mother, a little bit.  But, Yiddish for me, it's a language which was -- I took main lesson from a Yiddish language, for how to play Jewish music, because the sound of Yiddish is -- generally this music coming from a synagogue, where you play very open form, 45:00it's not like you have bars or something like that.  It's the words, it's very important, and you have to sing this, like it's the same like a Muslim tradition, like you have ornaments and everything.  And after, in the Yiddish tradition, because this was Hebrew, in Yiddish tradition, there, the people took strictly from a synagogue this tradition, so Yiddish, it's a part of this music, it's not -- you never understand this music without some knowledge about Yiddish.  And this that I remember, this Frankfurt story, that the Yiddish was -- they used this not only in the poetry, it was poetry of the streets, mostly. [BREAK IN RECORDING]

AI: So my question is, Raphael, why you chose so many Yiddish words for your music?

RR: Yeah, because, it's some plan about find some space for another language in Polish monoculture world, now.  It's a monoculture.  So my CDs are always, the titles and the names from Yiddish.  Because this what I can do with find some -- kurczę, nie wiem jak to wytłumaczyć, takie bogatsze, żeby wyglądało, że jest czegoś więcej [Polish: oh dear, I don't know how to explain that I want to make it appear that there is more]. 

AI: To make this feeling that there is even more than in fact it is.  

RR: Yes, than people expect, you know, that we have -- that we are in Poland, and we are Polish people.  So I find some way, in my opinion, that I show that it's not true.  Before the war you had newspapers in Lithuanian language, German, Yiddish, and everything.  So you had a lot of letters, and yes, alphabets.  So, yeah, this is the reason.  It's only, because I don't have an idea for singing in Yiddish, so I have a -- I do this, what can I do.

AI: But your group is called Alte Zachen, why?

RR: It's a, I lived two years, almost, in Tel Aviv, and Alte Zachen is a term 48:00when people, mostly Arabs, they driving with the car, it's not a car -- to jest dorożka -- nie dorożka, tylko za koniem, wiesz [Polish: it is a carriage -- not a carriage but behind the horse]. 

CW: Cart.

RR: Yeah, yeah, they have a horse and cart.  Ah yes.  So they always calling, Alte zakhn, alte zakhn [Old things, old things]!  And they made research for old thing, you know.  And the second meaning of this, is that we play something old, but not only Jewish, because we mixing niguns [melodies] with music from the '60s, so we never play something contemporary, but we live today, so in general it's -- I don't know, it's fun.  

CW: So, going back a little bit in terms of music.  Did you have any important 49:00teachers or training in terms of music?

RR: It depends which one, but Jewish music, never, I never had a teacher.  It's because -- in part you don't have a tradition of Jewish music.  And this what we know from United States, in my opinion it's a tradition from United States, it's not from here.  Of course it comes from here, but they change, because it was a tradition of people who wanted find some -- sposób [Polish: way]. 

AI: Some way?

RR: Some way to earn some money. 

CW: In terms of -- you're talking about klezmer?  American klezmer?

RR: Yeah, this is the term which was my main enemy, because I hate this term, 50:00because everything is a klezmer, but this not true, because klezmer tradition is one of the couple of traditions.  So I never play klezmer music, and generally, klezmer tradition is the poorest tradition in Jewish culture.  It's something like this, even until the 80s, we used the term klezmer for people who play on weddings.  So they play everything.  And this what's happen in United States, they coming, people like Naftule Brandwein, and he play in Ukraine, and after a couple of years, he changed his style to be much more jazzy, and this what playing Frank London, and people like this, it comes from Naftule Brandwein. 51:00 They have a stronger connection to jazz than we here, but we here, we don't have tradition, so -- my teacher was a landscape, mostly.  Like, I traveling a lot in the shtetls, the places where I wanted to find some connection with the Jewish traditions, and my childhood and everything, mixed together.  But I remember a lot of moments that I sitting beside some building, like here for example.  I remember this synagogue where it was a magazyn [Polish: warehouse] for -- nawóz [Polish: fertilizer]?

CW: Warehouse, yeah, for fertilizer.  

RR: Yeah, yeah.  So, I remember this, and -- but I felt something beside.  And this was my first meeting with this culture, and after I started recording these 52:00places, because I believe that I can hear something more, like this training that you close the eyes and use, and this what happen outside.  And first you listen, you heard cars, but after, you know, you can hear something, what is far, much more far.  So this is -- this was my teacher for Jewish music.  And this was my first, this what we talk about, is that I met trauma, first when I was twenty-two, something like that, when I start with Jewish music.  And when I met with this complete emptiness.  But it's not possible to ask someone, what 53:00was before the war, or even how to play today, it's impossible.  So my traditions -- it's a work with the roots of this music, but generally, I always feel like I live today, in this surrealistic situation and I want to find some way to build some world.  It's completely my world, I don't believe that we have Jewish culture in Poland, it's not culture, because Jewish culture is -- in general, culture is a meeting of people who growing with some traditions.  But we don't have this one, but we have something very important too, but it's not, I think it's not a term culture, it's much more studies, or find some way to be, 54:00to find some connection with something what was happened before the war.  It's very important, but it's not culture for me.  So I have a in a musicians, I have one friend who have the same problems like I, so it's not too much people.  

CW: Can you just describe for a minute what the synagogue looked like when you first saw it, when it was this warehouse?

RR: It was -- it's amazing, because in Poland it was normal, sometimes you find some weird building, and it was a straż pożarna [Polish: fire brigade]. 

AI: Firemen.

RR: Fireman place, or something like that, and they rebuild a little bit, but 55:00after you saw some weird letters, you know, and -- no, but it was completely normal.  During the communism, it was forbidden to know about this.  In the '80s it was much more easy, but not for children.  I remember only building, nothing more.  And my feelings, because someone told me that it was a synagogue, and I, what is this.  And here was a postal?

AI: Post office.

RR: Yes, post office, and the second building was a factory of the shoes, and so, this is Poland.  

CW: Can you talk a little bit about your music?  What is your vision with your 56:00music, first of all?

RR: First, in general, in my life, in music, I'm missing always to something.  Because I don't know what is this.  When I was younger, I felt that it can be some culture, special culture, like, maybe Jewish or something, or hippie culture.  But after I recognized that it's much more complicated, I know that I am missing to some idea for life, like this transcendental philosophy or people who had much more honor, honor?

AI: Honor.

RR: Honor.  That they had much responsibility for life.  I'm missing to strong 57:00people, like writers, after the war for example, in Poland. I love this period, you know, in Poland. 

CW: Who are your favorite writers?

RR: I have a lot, like Czesław Miłosz of course, and I love poetry after the war, like Iwaszkiewicz, Różewicz, it's nothing original, but I think they had some very important knowledge about war.  I never met something similar to this.  After the war, it was amazing time for culture in Poland, until '70s.  For example, I know the best theme about war, which is completely about something different than war, it's a symbol.  It's a Polish film for me, it's 58:00named "Salto."  So this film was my teacher.  I saw this film, maybe 20 times, something like that.  So yeah, I think missing, longing to something, it's my root of everything.  And I'm always on the road, I never -- I don't know, I'm still searching something, people, traditions.  And I love music from around the world.  Jewish music is one part, but I play a lot of music.  Last time I recorded music of Bedouins, for example, in Israel.  I still making research of people.  Like, not only musicians, composers, but in general, 59:00people.  And I -- sometimes I use some biography to find some idea to how to be as a man and musician.  So I think it's -- I have only this longing and intuition, nothing more, generally, in life.  

CW: How long were you living in Israel?

RR: Two years almost.  With breaks, because I sharing time between Poland and --

CW: And what was your motivation for going there?

RR: Oh, it's very hard story, because I had some experience with family.  I had 60:00not wife, but girlfriend, and we had a child.  And we took -- jak jest, nie divorce, ale jak się rozstają [Polish: how would you say, it's not a divorce but when people break up]. 

AI: Separation.

RR: Yeah, separation.  So I was completely destroyed after this.

AI: After you completely broke up with her?

RR: Yeah, yeah.  Completely.  You know, because I grew up as a child without father, so for me it was very traumatic.  So, I don't know, I bought ticket, it's nothing more.  And I started live there.  And I sharing time, like, I came here to Poland for two weeks, and I spent with my son, and after three weeks I have been in Israel.  So it was completely crazy, but I live much more 61:00in Israel, I felt much more -- and I felt very strong connection. Of course, with this what was happened there, with this symbolic Zionism, it was very important for me.  The first meaning of this what can be Israel.  But I hate religion, so Israel is not for me.  You know, Tel Aviv is different.  But general, I speak about this because religion -- you always meet religion on your way, in Poland and in Israel too.  So I wanted to be outside.  And religion always asked me about this, "Who am I?"  And I never want to find some idea for this.  And it's about passport in Israel, it's a very weird that this country 62:00is like outside, you know, you have a wall, the passport is a, you know, the procedure? Yes, it's like racist, you know, it's very weird.  

CW: Yeah. 

RR: Oh, and sorry, but, I have one story about this, because it's amazing.  Because sometimes, you know, people are there, I don't talk about people like we, but some people like from government, or city government or something, when I had some meetings, they ask me about my identity.  And I tell them that I have this and this.  And why you don't have a passport?  And I tell them that 63:00this procedure is very weird for me, that someone have to find some proofs for my identity.  And I remember amazing story of Imre Kertész, the writer, he's one of my gods from my panteon [Polish: pantheon].  So he had amazing story in Austria, when it was his first trip outside Hungary.  And he visit some synagogue.  And of course, like always, you had some security there, and police.  And they ask him, "What you want to do?  Why you want to go outside -- inside?"  And he tell them "Oh, because I'm a tourist," "And you are Jewish?" "Yes."  "Okay, give for us some proofs."  And he write that I don't 64:00have, it's amazing, it's very symbolic.  I don't have, and -- I don't know.  Because it's a question about something more than papers.  So, the writer who is main writer about Holocaust, he don't have a proofs.  So for me, it's okay too.

CW: What is your take on the idea, and we can talk about more specifics later, but just first about your idea of cultural revival?  

RR: My idea is this. That we had a war, and we lost a lot of minorities.  In 65:00Vilnius, you had eighty minorities.  So, we always, in Poland, we always speak about, Okay, we had the Germans, gypsies sometimes, but generally in the towns, for example, in Krakow.  Okay, we had the Germans, Russians, Jewish, Poland, and something, and it's five.  But in Vilnius, for example, you had eighty, in Łódź, it was similar.  So, it's a question about who they are.  And it's amazing, when you made research in Vilnius, you had the Eskimo people, for example, a couple of tribes.  It's amazing, so for me, I still live in this place, so for me, war, when I will use something that okay, it's finished of something.  Like people like to do something like that.  So Germans, they are 66:00win, for example, that, okay, they kill everybody, so we think that we don't have some past, or the past is not this what we have now.  For me, it's some -- some accident.  But it's not cut from a -- because you still can feel a lot of things, you can find a lot of things here.  So for me, it's some period, you know, the war is some period.  But when my father survived, when I was born, when people used that, everything we lost during the war, so who am I?  Am I a ghost or something like that?  So it's for me, it's very important to find my 67:00space.  I find this already, but when I was twenty-five, when I started to play Jewish music, it was very important to find some connection with the past, but mostly I wanted to prove for people who came to the clubs that we have something more than a monocultural country.  And I know that we win with the Jewish culture and a couple of cultures, because I made something with the gypsies, you know, people don't know too much about gypsies in Poland, but we had amazing tradition, and so, for me it's -- I think it's a contemporary time, it's not a revival.  It's a -- I don't like this, I was always against festivals.  I like 68:00festivals, but -- we had a -- at the beginning, we had some little fight with this festival reality, because, we had -- I remember we've been very angry for everything, well, not for Holocaust or something, but we, we had some mission, and I remember story of Marc Chagall, when he arrived in Paris, in his biography, he talked that he had some grymas [Polish: grimace]. 

AI: Wyraz twarz [Polish: facial expression]. 

CW: Drool, or spit?

RR: (overlapping dialogue; unclear).  But he had something like that, (grimaces) it's like he was angry, yes.  Yeah, like (UNCLEAR).  But I think it's something similar to us, he was angry.  I don't know, I feel some 69:00connection with his position.  But, so, we had -- I remember at the beginning, we've been like resistance of this music, and this culture.  And I remember that festivals, and this reality, they hate us at the beginning.  Because our vision was different, and good, with a good quality.  But they had a very -- Boże, "wygodny" [Polish: God, "comfortable"] --

AI: Yeah, they had a very comfortable feeling about --

RR: Yeah, because they had people from United States, embassy give them money, so we have a festival, and what we need more?  But we had a lot of questions, you know, about this, and the questions, for me it was very easy to ask about 70:00very -- Boże, jak jest [Polish: God, how does it go] -- controversial things, because this is my childhood and everything.  For me it was -- I ask about everything, so everybody been angry for us.  

CW: What were your questions?

RR: Excuse me?

CW: What were some of the questions?

RR: For example, about -- I remember we play music from towns, like Jewish folklore from cities.  And sometimes the text was about some hooker or someone like this.  So this was completely, this was border for these people from a festival reality, and people like writers, that they write about Holocaust and everything, is hard, and we are in this.  For example, for me, the title, "We 71:00from Jedwabne," it's some kind of symbol, that "we."  I'm not from there, but the woman who write this, for me, she felt some special -- like someone special, because she had some Jewish roots.  In general, in Poland, still you have, but at this time it was a time of -- jak jest "fetyszyzacja" [Polish: How do you say "fetishization"]?

AI: Fetishization.

RR: Yes, fetishization of this culture.  You know that, okay, we, and you, and something.  Yes, you do something, you can do something with the Jewish culture, but we know, something later.  So I hated this, and we fighting with these people, and we asking them, what you know about this, because sometimes 72:00they coming to our concerts, and they told me after, Oh, it's not Jewish music.  And I ask them, "What is Jewish music?"  Because I never find some notes from Poland, recordings, or something.  So from where you have this knowledge about Jewish music?  Because I feel this, and so my feelings are different from your feelings?  So, we had a lot of stories like this.  And we fighting with this fetishization, so our idea -- amazing idea, I don't know, it happened by accident.  But we play -- I come back to my childhood, I start to play in places for every -- jak jest wykluczonych, takich wyrzutków [Polish: that people that are exluded, marginalized]. 

AI: Yeah, in very -- places, like, out of, on the -- marginal places.

RR: Yes, and the people who are -- who was marginal, like at beginning of this 73:00century, was the people outside, was gay, lesbians, and some crazy artists, and our career, it starts in places like this.  We play everywhere, always in the underground, and we play Jewish music.  It's amazing, and people ask about this, and we always talk about this, okay, we have this, you have this, and we have this, and tomorrow we will play second concert with a gypsy tradition, or blues.  So everything is ours, we don't have borders.  So this band was, for me, this band, this movement, I think, small, but still, was first a movement 74:00who talk about this that Jewish culture is normal, you know, it's not, you know, it's something special in this culture, is this, that it's very eclectic, yes, that you have a lot of influences from another musics, music traditions.  But generally it's one of the cultures, and we always speak about this, so for people it was very controversial.  Because second thing is this, that it's very big business, Jewish culture, because, you have a lot of festivals, and this that you want to keep people in this Holocaust trauma, it's a business, you know.  It's enough when you see one interview with the Foxman, you know, what's the name, the Jewish Defense League, something like that?  When you see this, 75:00he's a, you know who Foxman is?  So he's, for me it's a symbol of this, what's it about the dark side of Jewish culture.  Because he's a very dangerous person.  You know, he want to have some influences for young people, he organize some workshops and everything, so everybody's scaring about Holocaust, and everything, you know, like, he have a very big connection with the government, the right wings governments in Israel, for example.  But he create culture, this is, I don't care about politics too much, but I met his idea, 76:00sometimes. [BREAK IN RECORDING]  

CW: I'm wondering sort of how you see your role as an artist, as a performing artist, in the transmission of culture?

RR: Jewish culture?

CW: Sure.  Well not only, but specifically.

RR: I think -- this what I tell you before about this missing, and the -- I think I can add something different.  It's this, that I'm a medium, like I feel like a medium.  I never felt about myself as a star, as a rock star or someone like this.  I always -- I know that my intuition is something like a -- jak 77:00się żyły nazywają [Polish: what's the word for vein]? 

CW:Vein?

RR: Vein.  Which is -- which have a connection with something, like soil or heaven, or I don't know what.  But it's mean that I don't -- I recognize that I don't believe for some religion, but I know I feel some connection with something which started in myself from my intuition.  I feel like in some Eskimo tribe mythology they have some amazing symbolic story about God.  God for them is blind, blind -- jak jest "kolos" [Polish: how do you say a "giant"]? 

AI:Blind.

RR:Yeah, it's without eyes, like someone very big and strong who made everything by accident, like the mountains, and islands, and everything is by accident, because he's strong, but he always listen where is a bird, who is -- Boże, jak to jest, on go tak prowadzi, taki ptaszek [Polish: oh God, how to say that, it's guiding him, it's a bird]? 

AI:The bird who is a guide. 

RR:Yes, bird is a guide, so I feel the same.  My body is a -- it's not that I feel like a god, but it's a symbolic talk about people in general, in Eskimo tradition.  So I feel like this, I have a body, and I play, and I have some bird.  I always -- you know, this missing, and this everything, it means that I always feel some light, like I always have some star as a guide, something like 79:00that.  It's symbolic, it's not calculation.  

CW:Do you consider yourself an activist for culture, for anything in particular?

RR:But now, only when someone needs this.  But before, of course, yes, we've been -- it was very strong movement.  Very small but very strong.  And we fighting, yes, I know this.

CW:So can you explain sort of what your goals were as an activist?  What were you --

RR:We fighting for a vision, for a view, for a Jewish culture, as something fresh.  It's not static, we fighting for find some place for this culture now. 80:00 And for this, that people will have a choice between this, museum stuff, of klezmer, something, sometimes it's nice, but generally it's nothing.  But people, it depends from a people.  Sometimes it's much more easy find some klezmer concert than our concerts, so, I believe that people have a choice, that it's not mine.  I'm never fighting with these people, not these people, but this reality, this klezmer reality and this museum.  I never fighting for them that I want to kill them.  I want to build something very strong, but they 81:00fighting with me, so, with my temperament it was too much, so I started fighting with them.  So yeah, so we, I know, now I know that people have a choice in Poland, yes.  

CW:Can you explain a little bit -- I know you've mentioned it already -- how you go about collecting music, collecting stories?

RR:I collected music from around the world, it's not only Jewish music, but from these reasons, this longing, permanent longing, I made research with the music, which can be my teacher.  You know, like, teacher, and something like a soundtrack of my identity.  But this music is completely different.  One day, 82:00I can listen music to Vietnam, mix it with free jazz, and something like that.  For me, music is -- I always made research with the music as something ancient, I always -- each music, each tradition, I always want to come back to this moment when we, as monkeys, we sitting around some campfire, and we started to play on the sticks and stones, something like that.  (laughs) And this is my idea for music.  Because when you know this, it's very simple, but it's very important, when you know that we've been some monkeys, half-monkeys, and we made the same campfires, and we made the same idea of play music, and everything. 83:00 Until this day, you can find this -- that borders, like a country's borders, it's not connected to borders in a culture.  General culture, borders of culture, are, they are always like this.  (interlaces fingers) And the countries have lines.  I recognize only these borders, the cultural borders.  But when you want to be a musician now, it's mean, in my opinion, it's mean that you have to be nomad.  You don't have a choice -- Boże, jak jest "komfortowo" [Polish: God, how do you say "comfort"]? 

AI: Comfortable.

RR: Comfortable.  You know, to be someone who's sitting at home and writing, and someone buy your music.  You have to, I think it's still some kind of war, 84:00for a normal.  For this, what can be honoring music, responsibility and everything.  For me it's very important.  I learned from people like hunters from Africa, like, when they speak about music, how they learned music, how they learned about this, how to be men, first of all, it's very important for me to find some connection with this. 

CW: I know that you used some nigunim and cantorial music.  How did you learn those -- that music?

RR: Nigunim?

CW: You know, the cantorial stuff. 

RR: I had some accident in Krakow you remember, I find at some bookstore, I 85:00find old book with the niguns.  And we start to play this.  And this what was very important for me, it was find some connection with the original singing of niguns before the war, because generally people did -- nigun was a song, or form of song, which was composing only for, make the trance.  It was the same like, you have a snare drum in a teepee, people play the drum and they 86:00singing and they have some trance.  So the same it was with the nigun.  It's an old tradition of people to make the trance, it's very normal for people, so when they started singing, they, one guy singing, second guy clapping, they playing on everything what they had, bottles, and one guy dancing, so from this reason, I recognize this as some free jazz tradition.  Like, this the reason why I found the band Shofar, who play only niguns, and made some connection with free jazz.  For two reasons.  One is this: that we wanted to find some good way how to play this music, and second is this: that we want to find, in this situation, that Black people during the '60s, free jazz musicians, they had always some romance with religion, like Coltrane and everybody.  So we want to 87:00find the same thing with the Jewish tradition.  

CW: Great.  I have a couple more questions, but I'm wondering if you might want to play anything for us?

RR: Yes, of course, something.  It's not my guitar, but I can. (plays the guitar) 

CW: Wow.  Thank you.  (laughter) Do you have any other questions?

AI: I want to ask you how -- because in contemporary Poland, in the past ten years, also because of you, many things have changed in the discourse about Jewish culture.  How do you feel today about that?  Because you became representative of the Jewish culture, but where you would like to be, and how do you feel today?  

RR: Yes, I feel knowledge about this culture changed completely.  It's amazing how audience, and people, they change their need for this culture.  For example, I see this on a lot of festivals, that they change program, because 91:00people want something new, so it's amazing.  I think some part of this is our work, so it's very nice, and yes.  How I -- I think everything is great here, with this culture.  I don't know place which have a much better situation with the Poland.  It's amazing, because everybody recognize Poland as anti-Semitic.  But it's Foxman, this politic.  But of course anti-Semitism and racism, it exists everywhere, but here it's not a problem, I think.  But reality change, and the people know much more, and this is what they say.  It's not -- I don't 92:00know second country who have so big knowledge about this culture.  So, but still, it's a -- you know, people from a educational, you know, teachers and everybody have a lot of work with this, but normal people who are open, they know much more, teach, each year, they know much more about this culture, but what will be in the future, I don't know, but I know that I have to be like someone who even when I work as a contemporary person, as a musician, I working 93:00for this, that I closing some time, some history in Poland.  I know this, it's not possible that it will be -- it never changed, this -- the future of this country.  It's not only in this country, but you have two closing stories.  So for me, I made something like this with a couple of cultures, I don't know, like a grabarz, nie wiem [Polish: gravedigger, I don't know]. 

AI: Like a funeral man.

RR: Yes, it's something like that.  But it's not -- for me it's not sad, I cannot be angry, because it's not choice, it's not only Holocaust, it's a choice of people, that you don't have some relation with in United States.  That 94:00natives, they live completely outside, you know.  And even, this what I felt when I've been there, that even with the Black people, between Black and white people, it's still, you have some border.  It's not, maybe for normal people, but generally jak się mówi taki szary [Polish: how do you say a ordinary man, lit: gray man]? -- Smith, Jack Smith?  The normal person have some, that's okay, this is black, this is white.  So, this is weird, but it happen everywhere, and everywhere you have something like, you have to say goodbye for some culture, like blues culture, for example.  Which is my very big love, you know I editing book about this period, but it happened in the '40s, last 95:00recordings, Alan Lomax, he made in the '40s, and this world doesn't exist now.  So, it happened everywhere, it's not only Jewish.  But of course we can come back to this politic.  Everybody -- not everybody, but a lot of people want to find some way for earn money from this debt, okay, Jewish culture, it's one culture which is dying, but it happens everywhere, it's not only this culture.  But with this culture you had not -- but it's everywhere, everywhere of this culture, like Black people and natives and -- Jewish, every has some Holocaust, in this period, in their period, so I think it happens.  

CW: Is there anything you want to say about that song that you played?

RR: It was improvisation of a couple of songs.  This what I play.  It's nothing concrete. [BREAK IN RECORDING]  

CW: I know that you've now played and traveled around the world.  First of all, what has been your experience of playing in all of these different places, the reception of your music, and also just the feeling of performing?

RR: I think everywhere it's the people need some come back to something which is from the ancient times.  Like people much more want from three years, maybe five, people much more want to be in some trance, and to be a part of music. 97:00 So I recognize that everywhere it's the same, the situation is the same, like in Israel and Poland.  But sometimes you find some differences between countries.  Like in Israel, it's what's amazing for me, that people are still making research with folklore, with folk music.  People still want to find some original folk music in Israel, because everything is new there.  And music too.  So people still mixing some music, like Arabic music with Yemeni, and it's very popular in Israel, so I love this in Israel.  And, from this reasons, we 98:00recording Bedouin music, because it's amazing story, because one composer in the beginning of Israel, he traveling with Bedouins, Palestinians, and everybody.  He collected music, and he started writing some mix of this music, and he writing texts and everything.  And I recorded CD with his music.  It's amazing.  Emanuel Zamir.  He was a Russian Jewish, and he played the recorder.  But generally, I think everywhere is the same.  Of course, sometimes you want to play somewhere much more than in another country, but yeah, I think it's a 99:00time of changes, now, because people, I think people want much more extremely experience, like, I'm a very big fan of the band Swans, and the leader of this band, he plays from the '70s, and he, in an interview, he said something like this, that he had a lot of bands, and he was like a star.  But one day, it was five years ago, maybe, he wanted to make something completely different, like a trance for people, and he played three hours concert, and it's amazing.  But now they are very popular.  Before five years, people know about this band, but 100:00now they play, every year they play three hundred days.  So it means something, and I want to be inside this.  

CW: Yeah, I'm wondering, I mean, maybe this is kind of a version of that question that you don't like to answer, but I'm wondering sort of how you see yourself.  Is there one identity that is central for you, in terms of Jewish, or Polish, or world citizen, or some identity that --

RR: I think I recognize myself as a nomad.  I heard about Natufian people, it was some nomad, not minority, but some tribe, I think, in Israel, in Israel a 101:00lot of people don't talk about the hippie people, because it was some culture, like natives.  So sometimes I feel that I am Natufian.  But generally, I feel that I have to be like a medium, this what I say, you know.  And when I am in Israel, I have to be much more Israeli, and when I am between gypsies, I have to find some way to be gypsy.  It's like, my music, in general, when I am working, this medium style, it's similar to something like, to be actor? I'm not -- on a stage, I'm almost always static.  But in my mind, it's completely, my mind 102:00change when I play.  It's changed for -- music, I have to be someone from the culture which I play during the concert.  So yeah, I think, I don't know, I'm a medium, nothing more.  (laughs)

CW: What do you see as the place of Yiddish language in all that we've been talking about?  I know you talked earlier about the names on your CDs, but in general, where do you see Yiddish language today?

RR: Of course with the help of these girls, like Anya Rozenfeld, and you know, we have a, it's always only girls, so it's very nice, sometimes I play with them, so fifteen girls, they reading some poems in Yiddish, and they play guitar, it's amazing.  Like, a competition of Miss you know, something like 103:00this, for me.  (laughs) So this is, in Poland, I see this language here, and in my notes, I have some archives here, but nothing more.  And in United States, you can find something, in New York, but I don't know, my experience -- I am not very old, but I saw a couple of worlds, who passing away, yes? Like -- jak to się mówi [Polish: what do you say about someone who passed away], passing away? 

AI: Yes, who passed away.

RR: Passed away, like this world of my father.  This, I don't have these people now.  I knew it, that I have some debt for them, this was one of the reasons 104:00why I play this music.  But in general this life.  In Frankfurt it was, sometimes people don't believe me for this, it's completely weird.  And from, I don't even know from where, little bit from Singer books, but I don't know.  But yeah, but I know that this world doesn't exist now.  So, I don't know, that some worlds, I never, I don't know, that some world with the Yiddish language exists now, as a -- I know Hasids, Hasidic, in reality they use Yiddish.  But in a normal people, like people who talk about culture or 105:00something, I don't know, maybe in United States, but not in Israel.

CW: Do you have a piece of advice for younger generations, younger people?

RR: Czyli co? "Piece of advice" to jest -- [Polish: What is that? "Piece of advice" is --] 

AI: Porada [Polish: A piece of advice].

RR:Ah, porada.

AI:Słowo mądrości [Polish: A word of wisdom]. 

RR: Słowo mądrości. 

AI: Ale coś z serca, nie tylko z głowy [Polish: But from heart, not your head]. 

RR: No wiem. U mnie jest tylko z serca. [Polish: I know. With me it comes only from the heart.] (laughs) I think, this what we talk about, that you have to be, that you have to find some honor inside yourself, and responsibility for everything that you do.  And this that you always have to be ready to fighting, 106:00like fighting for a much weakness situation --

AI: For someone who's weaker than you.

RR: Yes, than you.  But it's mean that it can be person or some story, like you have to fighting for find some way to take this to the contemporary time.  I think, yes, you have to be strong, because nobody, the world never calling for your idea, for your life.  You have to be strong and if you have something to say, you have to fighting, it's not -- you have a lot of things against 107:00yourself, in contemporary times, so I think you have to practice your -- it's something like a box match in a forest, you have to make some training, and you have to remember about this, about nature and everything, how to be, not too much offensive, not destroyed, but find your way, and your world, how to build your reality, very strong, you have to find your government inside yourself and everything.  So I think that's it. 

CW: Great, would you be willing to play something else for us before we finish?

RR: Yes, but it's not my guitar so it's very hard.  (laughter) Maybe do you have a piece of paper?  A very small piece of paper?

CW: Yeah.

RR: So this will be special.  This my Jewish music box, katarynka.  I recorded music of Bach, Bach music, in preparation guitar, and I played like a person from the past, like an ancient, like a monkey, so it was with the papers inside the strings. (plays guitar) 

CW: Nu, oysergeveyntlekh [Well, wonderful].  (laughs) A sheynem dank, thank you very much for taking this time, I'm glad we were able to do this, and for 113:00speaking not only with us, but with the Yiddish Book Center. 

RR: (laughter) Thank you. Dziękuję [Polish: Thank you].

[END OF INTERVIEW]