INA LANCMAN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney, and today is November 7th, 2014. I am here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts with Ina Lancman. Is that the right pronunciation?

INA LANCMAN:Um-hm.

CW:Okay. And we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

IL:Please, yes. (laughs)

CW:Thank you. So, there's a lot to talk about. (laughter)

IL:Yes.

CW:But why don't we jump right in. We're going to be mostly talking about your father.

IL:Um-hm.

CW:Can you start off by telling me his name and where and when he was born?

IL:So he was born, Naftali Herz-Kon -- and that was his dad's name -- in 1:00Storozhynets', which is a shtetl [small town in Eastern Europe with a Jewish community] very near Czernowitz. And Czernowitz is, the size of the city, and its location is out, you know, in nowhere -- in incommensurate with its fame. It is, you know, immediately recognized by so many people everywhere. And, so, who said that? Aharon Appelfeld said, they -- Czernowitz-born Israeli writer -- that Czernowitz is a city where books and people live. And so there was -- there were some things in the air, in the -- special in that city.

CW:What do you know about his family background? So --

IL:Um --

CW:-- parents, your grandparents?

IL:-- his dad was a watchmaker. He repaired watches, which was a very good profession, because watches are -- were very expensive, and fixing them was very expensive. But he was a gambler. And so his mom finally divorced him when my father was, I think, less than ten. And his brother was four. So -- and I don't think, you know, the children ever saw the father again. So she brought them up, 3:00and there was a grandmother, the mother's mother, who was -- very feisty woman. Businesswoman. And they had an inn, and it was a -- probably daily inn, where people -- because the inn was right in the middle of the market, the daily market, where peasants came to sell stuff. And so people would check in for a day, and -- just to have a -- to rest or to park things. But also, of course, you know, on multiple days' basis, they also rented -- so, that's how they survived. But very modestly.

CW:Hmm.

IL:Very modestly.

CW:And do you know -- was it a religious family?

IL:Yes. Everybody was religious. So, my dad was educated in heder [traditional 4:00religious school]. And at -- he, according to his story of his childhood, he left the shtetl when he was twelve and went to Czernowitz, and from there on, he was on his own, which was pretty typical for that time, especially for boys. They felt very constrained. There was so much in the air, excitement about changes and strikes, and new ideas. So it wasn't untypical. Yet, it sort of, you know, meant -- I can't -- I don't know the details, but he apparently worked at 5:00factories in menial jobs and then started writing and went to school in the evening.

CW:Um-hm.

IL:And then started writing poetry, I think. He may have been seventeen when his first poems were published in "Tshernovitser blayter."

CW:Um-hm.

IL:So --

CW:Would you be able to put those down? Would it be okay for you --

IL:Oh!

CW:-- to put them on the table? The --

IL:Where are the pictures? What did I do with them?

CW:Oh, no, no, just the -- your glasses.

IL:Oh, my glasses. I thought (laughter) you want the pictures --

CW:Oh, no, no. (laughs)

IL:(UNCLEAR)

CW:It just --

IL:Okay.

CW:-- it looks a little better if you don't --

IL:Okay.

CW:-- have that. It can reflect. So, do you have a sense of -- did he ever talk to you about his early life, what that was like in -- growing up?

IL:So, this is a huge question, and a very short answer, my sister and I knew 6:00nothing about it, his early life. Very little about the life, you know, after he arrived in the Soviet Union with my mother. Nothing about his camp experiences. We were completely shut out of all of that history. And his -- what he had to go through it, to survive -- I mean, the survi-- he survived, it was a miracle. But there is so much now -- Gulag literature and memoirs and he never talked to us. 7:00So -- and then, we grew up in his town, Czernowitz and neither he nor my mom ever told us that this movie theater, the biggest movie theater in the town that we constantly went to, that was the temple. That was the gorgeous, exquisite temple that was turned into a movie theater, and there was nothing left to recognize it. And they never told us that. So, I found out very recently, when -- you know, I joined a huge group on the internet, and they're all people -- sort of generation between my father and me, and they remember Czernowitz. And 8:00then, I went to Czernowitz in '06. So, I learned everything about the Jewish past, the Czernowitz Jewish past, recently.

CW:Hmm.

IL:I was completely ignorant of all this, and it's -- I still ponder about it. But I hear it all the time, the experience is the same of children -- not only children of people with similar experience, but people who had very turbulent lives, they usually don't share it with their children -- very -- very rarely.

CW:Mm.

IL:And so, no, we didn't, no. It was the same when we moved to Poland, my mother never showed us the Jewish Quarters where she grew up, that these were -- and 9:00that's what the ghetto was, and that's where there was -- then, of course, she wasn't there when the ghetto -- but the Jewish Quarters were, I think it's, like, almost one-third of Warsaw was Jewish Quarter. There were very wealthy neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods and bohemian neighborhoods. So, I just -- beginning to find out --

CW:Can you tell me --

IL:-- I'm beginning, so --

CW:-- a little bit about your mother's background?

IL:My mom came from a rather well-to-do family. And, moderately religious. More, her father was sort of moving away from the orthodoxy. He still was very 10:00traditional and he was the owner of a wholesale ladies' shoes enterprise. And, so they were well-to-do. There were six children. Everybody was educated. Secular education. And the father was very open-minded. The mother was -- her mother was religious, and she even -- at one time, she wore a wig, then she stopped. But she was more strict about religious matters. But her father was very open-minded. (BREAK IN RECORDING) She had grown up in Warsaw and she was a teacher when my parents met.

CW:Hm.

IL:And, you know, my father was twenty and she was twenty-two.

CW:Hmm.

IL:So -- (laughs)

CW:And how did they meet? Do you know?

IL:Well, through other writers. My mother was very -- her circles were all bohemian. So they were artists, they were sculptors, they -- you know, painters and lots of poets and writers, and that's how they met.

CW:Mm.

IL:Yes, so --

CW:So, I know that you have sort of learned this since -- not necessarily from him, as you said.

IL:Um-hm.

CW:But can you maybe give me -- so, he's in Czernowitz and then goes --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- to Poland. Can you sort of give me the headlines there of his early life?

IL:Okay. So he seems to be getting himself into trouble at every stage of life. 12:00So, in Romania -- you know Czernowitz was Romania. He was at odds with the police there. But I'm not sure exactly what it was, because -- I suspect that the problem was that he was trying to evade conscription into the army. But he may have indeed been a kind of on the fringes participant in some demonstrations and he was wild. He probably -- he was a pretty wild child and he already, as a 13:00teenager, apparently -- his mother was tearing her hair because he was distributing leaflets, you know, at the market. And all her clients were there. And so, this was their livelihood, the inn. So he was, you know, somebody who was just trying to get where action was, and always got caught. That's my take on it, but maybe, that he wasn't really a serious -- at that time -- and then, in Poland, when he came to Poland and the reason he came there, because that's where the Yiddish literature was. That was the world center of Yiddish 14:00literature. And he was -- he published in one of the most prestigious -- at first, prestigious literary journals, that was the "Literarishe bleter." And then, he's -- and this was not ideologically aligned. It was just pure art, for the art's sake, kind of a group of people. And everybody published there. Singer and Perets Markish and so he -- then, he switched to the communist group and their publication. And it was very popular at the time for writers to travel to 15:00smaller towns with Yiddish population, large Yiddish population, and recite poetry or read their prose. And so that's what he did. And apparently, he liked to do it. But he, after he joined this leftist group, he apparently injected some incendiary stuff in these meetings and he was illegal in -- he had no residence permit in Warsaw. So a lot of people were -- Itzik Manger was there, (UNCLEAR). And people, also, from Eastern Europe went to Belgium, to Poland -- 16:00lived there for years and had no residence permit, so -- but if they, you know, tried to be invisible or just go about their, you know, business of surviving, then nobody was pursuing them. But my dad joined this group and they were proselytizing, sort of communist ideology. And that's what got him immediately noticed. And I think, in Warsaw, he was arrested twice but not so much for what he was doing, because others were not arrested. It's because -- not only he was, he was making trouble, but he was illegal. And so he was a draft evader, because he left Romania, I mean, because he, you know, didn't want to go into the army. 17:00And so, this was 1932. There was no place to go. Either Romania or the United States -- he had no one in France, there was no going to Germany, of course, or Austria. And nobody in the United States, and this was -- the Soviet Union -- was the only place to go. And Soviet Union looked good, because the Yiddish culture was -- there was such a flowering of Yiddish culture, and was state sponsored, and they were doing well --

CW:And this is when there was some sort of prisoner exchange?

IL:He was -- so, yes. He was basically sprung out of -- he was in prison and so 18:00the Polish government was going to hand him to the Romanian government, and the Romanian government wanted him to punish for evading the draft. So, the literary community, the PEN Club, the Yiddish PEN Club, kind of organized on his behalf. And they started trying to figure out where he can go. And the Soviet embassy was very -- in Warsaw, very agreeable to the idea, because they liked, you know, young people who are capable in proselytizing and there was an enormous influx 19:00of political immigrants at the time, from Europe, in any case, to the Soviet Union, so it was the thing to do. It was the trend. Thousands of communists who, at that time were -- felt an endangered species in their countries, where nationalist -- was rising, and fascism. So he was just one of many European -- central European or Eastern European communists. He wasn't a communist. I wouldn't even call him a fellow traveler. He was just enthusiastic and curious, and he was very young. And he knew very little. I don't think he ever read Marx or, you know, Engels or Lenin or -- just -- he was twenty, he was a kid. And, 20:00so, and Europe -- indeed, all the rest of Europe looked terrible -- there was economic crisis, there were no jobs. A lot of people were hungry, and everybody was looking towards the Soviet Union, and that was -- that seemed like they had the answer to everything. So -- and those that had visited and saw what was going on there were not honest with their impressions, because they couldn't part with the idea of socialism, of communism, and they didn't want to spoil the chances for it to succeed. So, they just thought, well, maybe it's temporary. So 21:00he went, and I -- there was a letter from a Yiddish poet, Shulstein, Moshe Shulstein, who -- and in '35 went to Paris. My father went in '32 (UNCLEAR) he went to -- to Paris and then, later, when, already, my father was back in Poland, he wrote that -- "How we envied you when you went to the Soviet Union, because we all didn't know what will happen to us, where to go, what" -- every place seemed dangerous, and the Soviet Union seemed to be the phenomenal safe -- haven. But, of course, they had to be in prison to be -- (laughs) to be exchanged to go to the Soviet Union, so it wasn't so easy to go the Soviet 22:00Union. You had to be a card-carrying [BREAK IN RECORDING] Communist Party member. So, my father wasn't but he was in prison because of his speeches. And so, he --

CW:So, where did he go in the Soviet Union then?

IL:Kharkiv. Kharkiv was the capital of Ukraine. So, I'm, at this point, working on my Kharkiv chapter. Very difficult chapter. (laughs) So that wasn't -- David wrote about in this book -- it was one of the major centers of Yiddish culture. Was a few journals and papers. And right away, he started publishing. I think a month after he arrived, it was a -- his poems were in -- they -- Minsk and then 23:00in Kharkiv and then Moscow published and -- so things were going well at the beginning. Though I'm sure such horrible things were happening at the time. First of all, there was a famine in Ukraine when he arrived. My mother joined him about half a year later. And that was a terrible time, in -- especially in Ukraine. So, in Kharkiv, there were corpses on the streets, and they -- the authorities could not keep up with cleaning them. That was the enormity of the 24:00famine, so -- and then, there was Kirov's so-called assassination. But, you know, it wasn't really assassination. And then, right away, the Great Purges started. And so, there was constantly, you know, things going on there that -- even if he was doing okay, they had to be awfully anxious. And at the same time, terrible things were happening in Europe, so -- and everybody was talking about impending war. So, was -- these were horrible times (laughter) and -- no matter where, you know, you were at the time.

CW:Yeah. And there -- but there was some literary community that he joined there.

IL:Oh, tremendous, yes.

CW:Yeah.

IL:He -- you know, they were all interconnected. It was a very international community, because -- and I just recently found out that he -- or in the '30s, when he was in the Soviet Union and things were still much freer, he published in the Yiddish communist paper, in New York. So, it was possib--

CW:The "Morgen Freiheit," right.

IL:It was "Der Hammer," it was their --

CW:Oh, yeah.

IL:-- right, was their --

CW:The magazine.

IL:-- journal, right.

CW:Um-hm.

IL:Right. So, and I was very surprised, because I didn't think that it was possible. But obviously, they were -- so, they all knew -- so, the people he met in Warsaw, later on fanned out. Either they went to the United States or France or Soviet -- the Soviet Union. And so they all knew each other.

CW:Hmm.

IL:They -- or about each other, or yeah -- and they all read all the papers, and so, when he came to the Soviet Union, he knew a lot of people or knew about them, and it was vice-versa. People knew either him or about him. So, it was very easy for him to fit in. Of course, he didn't know Russian, so that's, you know --

CW:Can you maybe say, briefly, about languages? You know, the languages that he grew up in --

IL:Yes.

CW:-- and Czernowitz is sort of special.

IL:Yes, right. So, he -- German and Yiddish were equally organic to him. And, of course, he loved German literature and poetry. And so, he began to write in both 27:00languages, which was, again, very typical for the, you know, the Russian, Yiddish, poets or writers started writing both in Russian and in Yiddish, or Hebrew, also. So, he wrote in both languages and couldn't, didn't publish in the -- anything in German. But immediately published -- started publishing in Yiddish. So he couldn't make up his mind. And before he arrived in Warsaw, he spent some time in Vienna. He had an uncle there, a -- I think it was a -- well, I'm not sure. His mother and father were actually cousins, so they both had the same name, (laughs) Kon -- so, I don't know this uncle, because he was Kon I didn't know whether -- on which side he was. But any case, he was in Austria, 28:00and I -- the story goes -- and I don't know whether, you know, the veracity of it. That apparently, he either met with Stefan Zweig or sent him his writing, his poems or his stories in German. And his advice, Stefan Zweig's advice, was that he feels that there is another language that is much more organic to him, and that freed my father, because he couldn't -- it's, like, loving two women, you know? He loved both equally. Felt equally comfortable writing in both. So -- 29:00and, that was just a blessing. It kind of solved for him this dilemma. And -- so, that's the -- this is a family lore, one of very few that we have. And so, that's -- so, he --

CW:And did he know -- was he involved in the Polish-speaking world when he was in Warsaw? Did he -- and --

IL:I don't think so. They had very little connection -- just totally two different worlds. And I just even recently read somewhere that there were translations of Yiddish literature -- the L.I.[sic] Peretz and Sholem Asch and 30:00Singer were -- no, Singer at that time was young man. He didn't -- but the classics were translated into Polish, and suddenly, they -- the Polish writers -- serious, great Polish writers were taken by surprise. They were shocked that this is a world-class literature, because they had previously dismissed Yiddish as a language -- literary language. Not Hebrew, of course. But Yiddish. So, but there was very little interaction with Polish circles, separately. Though there were many great poets in Polish who were Jews, like Tuwim, Słonimski, and a 31:00huge group, more or less of the same age as my dad. Maybe a little bit older, but they had nothing to do with -- these were assimilated Jews and so --

CW:Do you know what happened to your grandparents, and were your parents in touch with them during this period, where they were in --

IL:That's a -- yeah, that's a very good question. Yes, that part I know. My father's mom had cancer, and she, mercifully, passed away before the Holocaust. So my mother's parents, interestingly enough, about the same time that my mother went east -- they went to America, because my mother's oldest sister, who was 32:00twelve years or fourteen years older than her, married an American and moved to Philadelphia. And they -- so, they immigrated, more or less, maybe a year after my mom left for the Soviet Union. So, she could have gone with them. But she chose my father, 'cause she was the youngest (UNCLEAR).

CW:And your father's father, do you know what -- anything --

IL:Well, they lost touch, so nothing is known about --

CW:Yeah. So then, how did it come to be that you were born in Kazakhstan?

IL:Well, because when the war started, broke out, in June 1941, the German army was making headways [BREAK IN RECORDING] instantly. They were just marching into the Soviet Union and taking the territories. And so, all the major cities, now, or industries or people in important professions, whole institutes, scientific, were evacuated into Asia. And that's where -- and my father had just returned from his first stint in the Gulag. He returned in March. And the war started in June.

CW:And so, w--

IL:And so, they were evacuated. And my mother was already -- my mother just 34:00graduated from the Kharkiv Medical School. So, what's very interesting for me, and that's, perhaps, that even though he was arrested and convicted and was sent in a Gulag and usually most of the time, the wives and the children were exiled -- but there were some exceptions, because -- kind of, like, people fell through cracks, and she was left alone. And, she continued medical school, and she had my sister. And she worked as a librarian, and she -- so, she -- you know, it was, like, one or two months before the war broke out, she got her medical 35:00diploma. And so, when the cities were being evacuated, not everybody got a place on the train. A lot of people stayed behind. The only reason she -- they got a place on the train is because she was a physician and they wanted physicians, you know, to have enough physicians back there, because that's where the soldiers would be later on sent to, the wounded. They were all -- many hospitals there for wounded soldiers in Asia. So, that's where we ended up. (laughs)

CW:And --

IL:I mean, they ended up, and I ended up, being born there.

CW:And just to back up a tiny bit --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- what was the explanation or circumstances of his first stint in the Gulag?

IL:Well, there was the Great Purges. And this was the most -- after the famine, this is another -- the next most horrific -- one of the most horrific of Stalin's crimes. So he was accused of being a Polish spy. You know, the -- everybody was accused of being a spy. Now, sometimes not even -- what country. For a foreign country -- maybe even that's not mentioned. So, he just got caught in the Great Purges, you know, they're talking about millions of people arrested. And, again, most of them were executed immediately. He was just kind 37:00of not important enough. It's the -- the more important you are -- you were, the more likely you would be executed. So it is -- Stalin was trying to eviscerate the population of all independent thought or different ideas. He wanted to make sure that nobody will be -- that people will be so terrified and so frightened of showing their displeasure or having different ideas how things should be done -- so he -- that was his way of enslaving the nation, these purges. And indeed, 38:00it terrorized the -- so, he was just one of millions. And, again, he was caught. And, in a way, he fared better than most, because most people who were arrested during the purges -- and if they were not executed right away, they sometimes were executed during their stay in the Gulag or, after their term -- they served their term, they were not allowed to return to the cities they came from, but were told to settle in these same areas, just as a free -- around the Gulags, just as a free person. So, he really fared better than -- again, there were rumors that he -- there were some inter-- somebody interfered on his behalf or 39:00some people -- I don't know. It -- maybe just, again, one of these exceptions that luckily happened in cataclysms, you know? Some people somehow survive or don't get the worst of it. So that's the story. There -- (laughs) there is no guilt, there is no -- he wasn't, you know, he wasn't in opposition or -- it just didn't matter.

CW:Yeah, right. So, I know it was only three years, but do you -- what is your first memory --

IL:Three years?

CW:-- that you were living in Kazakhstan, right?

IL:Um, no --

CW:For the -- it isn't --

IL:-- I was born there. No, we actually left Kazakhstan very soon -- I think in '42 or '43, because my father joined the antifascist committee, and they accepted him. They accepted him. They started publishing his poems, they -- in "Eynikayt," and that's also something very interesting that you would think that -- he -- nobody would give him a job after this first tenure in the Gulag when he came back to Kharkiv, the -- he was blacklisted, officially and non-officially. People just were afraid, if they -- because he had -- it's all -- was in your papers. They wouldn't just -- he was ready to do menial jobs, 41:00just to do something. So, he wouldn't be called a parasite, because this was -- you know, there was no way to -- (laughs) way out. But he couldn't get jobs. And then, suddenly, I guess, either the call came or he sent -- to "Eynikayt" or to Moscow, his poems, and they published it. And this was an opening.

CW:Huh.

IL:And so, they moved closer to Moscow --

CW:Mm.

IL:-- after that.

CW:Well, I want to switch a little bit and --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- I'm wondering what -- what were your earliest memories?

IL:Well, fantastic. Fantastic memories. It was very short, but our life in 42:00Czernowitz after the war, you know, from the moment when I remember, was, you know, a normal, happy childhood. Things were going well. My dad was publishing, was being paid. Writing some very long reportage pieces for "Eynikayt." Czernowitz had a very nice group of Yiddish writers, and there was a Yiddish theater in Czernowitz, and a very good one. And so people gathered in our apartment, there were parties, there was music, there were, you know, poetry recitations. There were performances of new plays, in our apartment or somebody else's apartment. But it lasted maybe two or three years, and then suddenly, the 43:00dark clouds started gathering and people got anxious and fearful and suspicious and stopped socializing or talking or -- so --

CW:So, can you tell me more about what these -- I mean, what were -- as a child, what were the --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:Can you paint a picture of kind of what these gatherings were like?

IL:Well, gay and it seemed to me that everybody there, the way I remembered it, they were all so elegant. And, -- I remember my mother dressing up for the party 44:00and putting, you know, makeup -- and I thought she was very exotic-looking. She was not a beauty, but very exotic and very interesting-looking. And, so, you know, I was sitting somewhere in the corner, watching them -- they were flirting, they were singing, they were dancing. [BREAK IN RECORDING] There would be someone who -- I don't remember, but there was a -- one or two composers, and they would perform -- play something, you know. We had musicians over. The violinist and cellist and, you know, they would set up the music, and then the composer would give them notes and they would play. So, that's how it was, as it should have been, given the type of people, artistic people that were there, and 45:00all the young at the height of their artistic powers. And --

CW:So, what were the recitations like? Who -- how did -- where did they happen and --

IL:Well, it just -- somebody would say, "Well, so read us what you wrote, you know, that you" -- "Oh, I just finished this morning." And, "Well, so go -- come on," and so, I don't remember any criticism, (laughs) and -- that I don't remember, but people wanted to hear, and so it was -- it was a moment of hope that things will change after the war, that it will never -- that '30s will 46:00never come back. And that they will be -- that the country -- not just, you know, Jewish writers, but the country will be starting on new footing, that it -- everybody knew it's impossible to go on the same way, and -- so people started feeling freer. And they weren't, you know, looking over their shoulder when they read -- when a poet read a poem, or said -- "But please, this is only to remain -- this" -- no, they really felt like they used to, those that came 47:00from Europe, you know, like it was in Warsaw. That's how it was for my father and my mother in Warsaw. Nobody was afraid. They were just creating, according to their visions, talent, imagination, you know, their need to experiment, and to hear others, what they think about. So, that was a very, very unique and rare moment --

CW:Were there any --

IL:-- right after the war.

CW:Were there any of these friends who -- with whom you, as a kid, had a special relationship? How did they react to the kids, you know --

IL:The fact that he was arrested when -- oh.

CW:No, no, I mean, the -- in these evenings or these --

IL:Right.

CW:-- gatherings, how did the people, friends react to you and your sister as --

IL:Oh, we -- they didn't notice us. (laughs) You know, I mean, they came to say, 48:00"Aw, so cute" and -- but they were so into their own group and, you know, the social interactions and so, really, it -- uh, so why are you asking this question?

CW:Just curious. (laughs)

IL:Ah, okay.

CW:And would you -- could you describe what the apartment looked like? What were the homes like in Czernowitz?

IL:What's interesting is that when my parents came to Czernowitz -- when we already came, because my father went there early -- but I think we came at the end of '45 or beginning of '46 -- the city was empty. Everybody left the city and went to Romania, as soon as the, you know, Soviet army took over the city 49:00and the borders were still not even porous. They -- there was a chaos. So you could go anywhere. So, there was an exodus, en masse, of Jews and of Romanians, and the city was empty. The apartments -- everything was for taking. Pots were still there. Some apartments even had some food, you know, on the stove. They just fled, you know, in panic. Because immediately, as the Soviets took over Czernowitz, they started arresting people. Started arresting people that -- there was immediate terror. Arresting people, putting them on trains to more 50:00remote parts -- just a kind of -- on the street. From the street. So, people started leaving. As soon as it turn out that the borders -- and they were Romanian citizens before the war. So, my father and my mother couldn't do that, even if they wanted to, because they had a -- Soviet citizens. All these people had -- so, we had a -- you know, a very nice kind of a middle class apartment. And then, only later on, the city was populated with people from other parts of Ukraine. And -- but still, people who made it first to the city had beautiful 51:00apartments. Those that came too late had to contend with the communal, you know, apartments. So -- but after my father's arrest, we were all -- we also became a communal apartment. (laughs) They took one -- we had -- there were three rooms and a kitchen, and one room was given to a Russian officer with his wife and daughter. So, we became a communal apartment. (laughter)

CW:And for someone who hasn't been to Czernowitz, can you just tell me a little bit about what the city is like?

IL:Well, I was there recently, and it's been all spruced up beautifully. The 52:00center is tiny, basically. And the, you know, you walk five blocks away from the center and it's already countryside, so -- and it has remained this way. They built some apartment blocks, but, well, pretty far from the center. So, it's a sort of -- a copy of nineteenth century Austrian style. Very pretty. The buildings are very pretty. All more or less four stories. Beautiful parks, wide streets. And it was terribly rundown during my time and afterwards, apparently 53:00even worse. But, yeah, you know, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, for some reason, Czernowitz is apart, is very unusual in Ukraine, in all of Ukraine, and that's -- they have rejuvenated the city. They returned sort of -- its beauty. They -- the really -- somebody there in the government -- and they have the money, I don't know where from. There is a talk about Austrian and German money, that apparently, whether from sentiment or -- but that there was some influx of money there to spruce up the city. And they did a very nice job. So, 54:00was very nice to see it. (laughs)

CW:That was in '06, you went?

IL:Yes, yeah.

CW:Yeah.

IL:Yeah, I went there -- it was -- not, '08. I'm sorry, it was '08. Was 100 -- 100th year anniversary of the first conference on Yiddish language. And, uh --

CW:The famous Czernowitz --

IL:Yes.

CW:-- Conference --

IL:Right.

CW:-- yes.

IL:Famous conference. And there was a conference there, and I kind of piggybacked on it. And I knew two people who participated in the conference. So, I sort of joined and it was very -- a nice conjunction. Sort of in conjunction with that conference, to be there, so --

CW:So, when you were growing up -- and within your family, with your parents, what language did you speak?

IL:Russian. Russian. Only Russian. My parents didn't speak Yiddish to us, though 55:00everybody around us spoke Yiddish, the grownups. And it's true, but it's strange -- it's something I would like to understand. I have answers to that. But I recently read that Sholem Aleichem's five daughters didn't speak Yiddish, either. [BREAK IN RECORDING] So, it's a huge question to answer why they didn't believe in its survival. But in -- you know, there was one particular reason that is -- I understand it's very valid -- for my parents and people like my parents to keep Yiddish for themselves, because they need to be -- they needed 56:00to be able to talk freely, and not to worry that we would overhear something and inadvertently use it in a convers-- you know, so, we were a liability with the knowledge of Yiddish, where it -- yeah, liability to them and to ourselves. So, I --

CW:So --

IL:-- think that's --

CW:So, as a kid, what did you think about -- did you ever think about Yiddish and sort of what the fact -- what was your idea of what was going on in terms of the Yiddish events and recitation and everything?

IL:Oh, I loved it, even though I didn't understand anything, you know? Oh, I -- these are the best memories. And I'm sure if things were normal -- and being in 57:00the middle of this kind of a community, very exciting community, I'm sure I would have wanted to learn and understand and be part of it. But it was very complicated, our -- afterwards, you know? Afterwards. We shunned it. We didn't want to be associated with it. And I remember -- I have a memory of a Yiddish language spoken by these people or something -- so beautiful. But I grew to associate it, Yiddish, with the -- sort of a -- lower classes in Czernowitz, people that were vendors, street vendors. Were -- who spoke a very peculiar 58:00Yiddish. Their own. My father loved it. Loved their Yiddish. He would, you know, he was seeking them out to talk -- but for me, it was a terrible stigma to be associated with the sound, and I really cringe when I think about it now, that that's the reaction that I had, yeah, and couldn't understand it, that this was already, when I was in high school and my father came back from the second Gulag, I couldn't understand why he gets so -- always got so excited when he got to talk to people or would stop somebody -- he heard them talking and arguing, 59:00being very loud. And this is another, you know, feature that always made me recoil.

CW:So, looking back at that time, where do you feel like you got that other idea of Yiddish?

IL:From the environment, yeah, from, you know -- maybe my best friends. I had a lot of Russian friends. Russian or Ukrainian friends. I was -- most of us -- my sister and I were very well-adjusted socially. And we had a lot of friends. And they would react this way. Their parents would react this way. They loved us, but we were not, you know, them. So -- and I remember that when my father came back and my friends heard him talk, and he had the heavy sort of German Yiddish 60:00accent -- in Russian -- they were in shock. "Why does your father talk like this?" (laughs) So, to them, suddenly, this sounded like, you know, these -- the sort of lower strata of society that is loud, that is -- uses hands a lot, and the whole body, talking. And it was kind of something they recoiled from, and -- but it -- you know, this is the face of anti-Semitism, of -- my parents used to 61:00say that this is in their blood. Well, it's -- that's another side (laughter) topic.

CW:Well, what was -- I mean, you mentioned the sort of Yiddish artistic world that your parents --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- were involved in. But what was the sort of Jewish life in Czernowitz at that time like? What -- I mean, communal life in terms of --

IL:Oh, yeah.

CW:-- you know, not -- it was the Soviet Union, so religion --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- you know --

IL:Well, no, there were -- there were religious Jews who didn't make it on time. They were, you know, formerly a Romani-- native. Czernowitz natives were Romanians. And so there were religious people. And they had clandestine 62:00synagogues in people's homes, in people-- apartments, if they had a -- not in a communal apartment, but people had some smaller apartments, so only -- that were not communal. And I remember seeing and not understanding what it was. The ten men, all dressed in very dark black or very dark -- would emerge from a building, every now and then. Sometimes from one building -- and I couldn't understand this. It -- you know, why they -- learned much later about what it was about. So, there were -- there was, but it was clandestine. And there were also businesses that were clandestine. They -- life in Czernowitz was a little 63:00bit easier and freer from the rest of Ukraine, for instance. Somehow, the Soviet government there -- and again, this is something for historians to research, why this happened. But the grip of the government and -- was not as -- and the fear was not as pronounced and real and reasonable as in other places. So yes, there 64:00was Jewish life, but more social, business, and also religion.

CW:And for you and maybe your sister -- but for you, what was your Jewish identity at that time?

IL:Cultural, I think. Cultural. But it's also so ridiculous, because cultural -- but what, we didn't know the language. Historical. We used to say historical. We are so -- you know, as -- I remember distinctly as a child, and I actually even expressed it -- one time or maybe even more than one time to my parents, when I was little, that I wish I weren't Jewish. So -- and I was maybe seven or eight 65:00years old, and I already felt the stigma and the disdain -- so, but then, kind of, the spirit of defiance took over. And I think, again, it's true about many other, you know, young Jewish people my age at that time, that we did not want to be cowed by it, that we did not want to be upset by it, but ignore it and feel proud and, you know, not being -- not trying to hide it or -- so we learned 66:00how to cope with it in this way. But what it was, our Jewishness, it was mostly that that's what we were considered, who we were considered to be. But that's what it was all about.

CW:Hmm. So, do you remember when your father left for -- was sent away for his second time in the Gulag?

IL:Yes, of course. Yes, of course, I -- that -- yes, I -- uh, I witnessed all, um, the arrest. So, yes, I -- yeah.

CW:You were seven?

IL:Yes, yeah, it was all in front of my eyes. Yes, so that's -- that's a chapter in the book. (laughter)

CW:Could you --

IL:Because it's a --

CW:Describe it a little bit?

IL:Well, the thing is that this was March '49 already. Yeah, a lot of people 67:00were arrested. And everybody just waited. So, I didn't know anything. I just -- I didn't probably even wonder why suddenly there's no gay life around my parents, you know, this exciting life. But now, I sort of recall that my dad was pacing a lot, that he wasn't sleeping, that he was -- that there was a lot of whispering, that sometimes people came and went and they tried not to be -- like, they were trying to be invisible. And there was all this whispering going on. And so, from that, I gather, that all the news -- were reaching them 68:00immediately: who was arrested in Kiev, who was arrested in Moscow or in Kharkiv. And so, as far as Czernowitz, I don't know -- my father could have been, actually, the first of all the writers to be arrested. It's -- I think so. I'm not sure. But I think he must have been the first. So, it -- during the -- it was expected. And then just, you know, one day, they were in our apartment. And there was a search, and my father had to sit in a chair and I had to sit in another chair. (laughs) In a d-- in -- in -- not in the same room. He was in his study. He had his own study. Very nice room with all his books and his papers 69:00and so, I don't know what they were looking for. I think they found a copy of "Mein Kampf." Of course he would have a copy of "Mein Kampf," 'cause he was interested (laughs) and he could read it. In any case, that's the one thing that I kind of remember. Not that I knew what it was, but it's -- they were the -- these were small town KGB people. So, when they saw the book -- they were working around from one to another. There were eight of them, yeah, and showing "Mein Kampf" -- otherwise, all his books and all his papers, they were in German or in Yiddish. They couldn't -- or Romanian. They couldn't read -- they didn't know what it was with "Mein Kampf," you know? Everybody knew the cover of the book. So, they took all his papers, they took many of the books. Then they sort 70:00of closed -- there were two doors to his studies. They were stamped with -- you know, not to enter, not to remove the taping. And, you know, and they took my dad, and I saw it all from the window. I watched, you know, how they , um -- and, so -- and my mom -- actually, the -- so, I was with him for most of the time. Nobody -- my mom was at work, at the hospital, and my sister was in school, because her older classes went in the afternoon to school. So then, 71:00after a while, two officers brought -- they fetched her from the hospital and they brought her home. But she was already at the end, basically. And I think Vita came, my sister -- it was all over. So, um, (laughs) uh, s-- yes, that is one of my most --

CW:So, what did you see from the window?

IL:Well, I saw how, you know, there was a truck and, um, was kind of a tarpaulin-covered truck. And so he -- well, they kind of helped him into the truck and they all got inside. And that's -- and there was no one on the street. 72:00This street that we lived on was always very busy. Kids -- it was, like, everybody disappeared. So, it must have been immediately -- you know, the news went out and it was eerie. It was really, like, from a surrealistic movie scenes, you know? It's just quiet, or I remember it as no sound. But there was nobody there. And how it happened spontaneously, where there were some KGB 73:00plainclothesmen who were guarding the entry to our stretch of the street, sort of a block -- but there was no one there. And then, for hours afterwards, nobody came out, so -- and I remember not understanding why -- what happened? And then juxtaposition -- so, um, yes. (laughs) That's a -- and we didn't know anything about our father until about three years, so -- and the first time we did, the letter was posted by someone -- by a free person on the outside of the Gulag. 74:00So, they worked at the Gulags, and sometimes he could bribe them to take a letter. And maybe by that time, either my father had enough money or -- I don't know. So I can only imagine why it took so long for him to be able to smuggle a letter out, because that's how people got correspondence. And then, actually, there was a correspondence, official, you know, stamped by the Gulag, and we were allowed to start sending him packages. Food packages. And that's what we were doing. We were sending, every month, food packages. And s-- (laughs)

CW:What would you send?

IL:Lard. And that's -- I remember lard. Sugar. Honey. He had a -- the only 75:00relatives -- he had a cousin in Czernowitz and his mom -- it was his aunt. And he loved her honey cake -- and she would always make, you know, a big honey cake. But it's lard, because that's protein and it doesn't spoil. You know, a slab of lard. And sugar, honey, right? Flour. Yes, flour, too. So, I guess they could sell it and -- because what he can do, but maybe -- uh, everything -- there was a shortage of absolutely everything. And I think that the prices were such and the shortages were so horrendous that my mother probably spent half of 76:00her doctor salaries, which were very low in any case, on one package, because you had to buy everything on the black market. So -- (laughs)

CW:Right.

IL:-- such were the realities. (laughs)

CW:And, in the meantime, you were going to school. And what was -- can you just say, very briefly, what school was like?

IL:Very normal. In the meantime, this is what's amazing, also, for me and for Vita. We had, you know -- there was no ostracism. We didn't suffer. And that's, again -- I heard it was very different in Kiev or Moscow in school for children of the arrested people. But we had none of that. And we led very normal -- just 77:00as any, you know, Soviet child whose parents were not connected at the -- so, they struggled, but they were, you know, okay. I had friends whose parents were -- had high party positions. And so, there was a big difference in the standard of living, but their standard of living was, by any measure, not high, in any case. So, the people in the local government -- so, basically, there was not such a big difference. And we didn't feel it -- so that was the nice thing. (BREAK IN RECORDING)

CW:When a letter would arrive from your father --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- what was that like?

IL:(laughs) It's a very good question, actually. First of all, so, when they 78:00went through the official channel, they had to be in Russian. And there was nothing interesting in them -- just, you know, "I'm fine, and just take care of yourself." When they came through unofficial channels, they were in Yiddish. And sometimes, I even didn't know, you know, that when my mother got -- and how -- so they -- very far in between, very rare.

CW:Hmm.

IL:Maybe once in three months, something like this. Really not often.

CW:Hmm. How did your mother handle it?

IL:Yeah, she was very brave. And she -- with one exception, she had this 79:00terrible fear of uniforms. When she saw somebody passing on the street, out of the window, she saw the -- police or somebody in a uniform, she would panic and would hide, you know, in a closet or -- so, but otherwise, she kept her cool. She, it's, first of all, as a mother, she didn't fret over us. So, basically, we 80:00were very independent. And we liked it. She worked a lot, because she had to make money for these packages, and her salary was very small. So, we didn't see much of her. She took nights in the hospitals. It was -- you know, paid well. And she kept to herself the best -- her way of dealing was to keep -- not to trust anyone. And she had just maybe two or three friends sort of left over from the olden days, but otherwise had very little contact with -- personal contact with anyone. Very nice, very polite with everyone, but kept her own counsel. And 81:00no ambition, professionally, because she didn't want to step on anybody's foot, or just whatever -- and she had been demoted many times, and then as soon as the political situation got a little better, she went back to her position. Then something happened and, again -- so, she -- it's just -- she let things happen to her with no, almost as if she were one of these exiled peoples, because they had no rights. So, that was her strategy. And I think it worked. It -- in a way. 82:00In a way, it worked. At the great cost to her, I'm sure. But that was her strategy. Was a difficult question. I think about it a lot, uh-huh. Well, you know, something that maybe you are not aware -- there was -- you know there was this -- doctor's affair. So, that was a horrible time. That's when she really -- all her composure and kind of trying, in her way, to hold things together broke down, because, mm, that was, you know, every doctor, Jewish doctor, was in peril.

CW:So --

IL:Uh, so --

CW:(UNCLEAR)

IL:Yeah.

CW:Yeah, of course.

IL:Yes. And, you know, with her husband being in the Gulag, and Jewish and doctor and pediatrician, you know? So, it's -- so this was --

CW:So, that was '49, right?

IL:No, no.

CW:I think it was --

IL:That was -- that was --

CW:Or fifty--

IL:-- '53.

CW:-- fifty-- yeah, okay, '53.

IL:That was really, uh, two or three months before he died. Stalin died.

CW:Hmm. And what about --

IL:So --

CW:And -- well, in '52, the -- was it known, sort of, The Night of the Murdered Poets?

IL:No, nobody knew. Nobody knew. My father in the Gulag knew nothing. He knew a lot of secrets and horrible things that were done that nobody knew, that the government, the Party, Stalin did, because a lot of perpetrators were in the Gulag, too, 'cause they were in the Gulags because they knew too much. So it 84:00was, like, the best place to learn the true Soviet history, in the Gulag. But that part, nobody knew. Somehow, it did not get out.

(BREAK IN RECORDING)

CW:I'd like to just ask about his return and sort of --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- that day, and, what you remember of that.

IL:A return for my --

CW:Your father's return.

IL:Oh, my father's return. So, he came home after having spent three months in Moscow. He was very sick. So, he basically spent -- he was immediately restored in -- his membership in the union of Soviet writers -- was restored, because he 85:00was rehabilitated, you know, soon after. So many years -- what was -- is fourteen -- and seven years in the Gulag, "Sorry," you know, "you are not" --

CW:So, this is '56, right?

IL:So, it's '56 --

CW:Yeah.

IL:-- yeah. So, he was rehabilitated. He was given some, you know, recompense for it. But he was in the best hospital for these three months, to repair his health and also gain weight. He didn't even want to come home for us to see what he looked like. But I have a picture -- oh, that's a picture I should send you, of -- no, that's not of his release picture. No, on the picture -- I have a document of his release, and I don't know whether the picture was taken at the arrest, the same -- or when he was released. But it's, you know, yeah, a 86:00difficult picture for me to look at. So, anyway, so he spent three months in Moscow, had the best care, and reunited with lots of his friends. Everybody came to visit him, you know, there. And so he came -- it was hard for him. It was not easy for us, emotionally. It -- we were, you know, we were young, Soviet women for him -- to him. He had no influence on our upbringing. We were brought up by the Soviet system, and though we were very different from, you know, our 87:00immediate environment, we were -- we knew we were different. They -- as I said, we adjusted very well with it, and we had friends. But we were different, and they acknowledged, always, that we were different, and it was never understood why, how different, but there was a difference. But to our father -- we talked like, you know, Soviet young women or girls. And were pretty ignorant, just as -- you know, everybody else. And I think he -- it pained him. It's a kind of a 88:00disappointment that -- you don't want to be disappointed, but it pained him. And he just didn't know how to reconcile with it -- or should he interfere with it? And maybe it's better for us, because nobody thought that we would ever get out. So, maybe it's better for him to leave us alone, because we need to live in this system and not to put ideas into our heads. Anyway, it did happen. It did happen, and so we -- very -- we were -- must have been ripe for it, because every word of his reverberated into something much bigger. Things got kind of 89:00connected, associated, immediately. So, I think that by the time, this was -- he came back '56. By the time it was, like, '58 or -- we left the summer of '59 for Poland -- I felt suffocated. I could not -- and my sister, the same way. So it had an enormous impact. And, of course, my mother, too, opened up once, you know, my father was -- so we felt really -- there is no hope, no future, no -- we just -- you know, it's better to die or something. It was just desperate, so -- and it happened very quickly. (laughs)

CW:Yeah. So, you were --

IL:So --

CW:-- in your -- you were a young teenager --

IL:I was --

CW:-- when he came --

IL:Well, by the time we left, I was not even seventeen yet, when we left. But that's already, yes -- so -- but it's also -- was a time of thaw, as you remember, you know, post the twentieth part. So, things suddenly appeared also in Russian press. This was a very short time, and then it disappeared. And that also had an enormous influence on us, because suddenly things were, could be, talked about and remembered. And, still, a lot was not being said, but was understood. You know, one read between the lines more than and so, that -- this wasn't -- it was -- Khrushchev clamped down on it very fast. But he let the 91:00genie out, because then there was '70s and dissidents and refuseniks and so, it so --

CW:Yeah, the thaw.

IL:-- I think we were experiencing what -- probably our generation was -- maybe it happened to us a little early because of our dad. But it was inevitable, was -- so --

CW:Well, before we go to Poland, I --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- wanna ask you just some -- to tell me a little bit about your father.

IL:Um-hm.

CW:First of all, I know we have pictures, but --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- can you just describe what he looked like?

IL:Well, I think when he was young, he was stunning. I heard it from many people, and the pictures show it. And he was someone who people remembered, who noticed. Then, when --

CW:What was stunning about him?

IL:Well, he has incredible blue eyes. Not just the color, but the size. And then, the intensity of his expression. And the intensity of every reaction. Even -- if it's enthusiastic or if it's amusement, but -- and it's, you know, much greater than anybody -- just average person is amused. So everything was outsized emotionally about him. He could be, also, down very profoundly, almost scary. He had the capacity to be -- sort of elated by smallest things of beauty, 93:00if it's music -- it would just -- he couldn't contain it. He was not someone who could see something beautiful or hear, or see this gorgeous ballet or performance, fantastic actor or actress. So he was very, very expressive. And he didn't say gorgeous or beautiful. He told everyone, you know, he verbalized it. 94:00And that was so original -- how it was beautiful, what was so special about it. And so, that was very compelling, and very interesting. And I think that that's actually something people liked about him. It wasn't just empty words. But there is such an understanding of what it is that evoked such reaction in him. And at the same time, you know, vice-versa. If he -- something that offended or didn't play, he also had very good words for everything. So he was not a man of small feelings. And I don't mean small to denigrate and -- in quality. I'm just 95:00quantitatively, he was, you know, capable. So, I -- and I think that is very -- so, a characteristic that everybody who knew him would mention. So he -- and also, he was -- I -- again -- and this is -- I know from reaction of other people to him -- (BREAK IN RECORDING) Meeting him was very memorable. So, I remember going to post office to pick up some mail for my father. And the clerk there knew my father. And -- because he -- she was giving him this mail. And 96:00then -- so she said, "You are his daughter? You" -- she made me just -- such nothing, that -- how can I be a daughter of somebody she -- and so, she started telling me she just adores, "I adore your father. What a man, what a special man." And so, this is -- in my life, I have experienced it a number of time-- the same kind of -- an outside reaction to him as his, you know, reaction to things that moved him one way or another. So I think he had an effect on people, (laughs) so --

CW:And what did he look like, in your -- you know, when you knew him as your father?

IL:I don't remember m-- uh, oh, he was also -- would he -- I -- you know, people 97:00don't -- and children don't remember, really, as -- I don't know. He wasn't -- at that time, very -- as handsome as he was when he was young. So, he was just my father. No, that is an interesting question. I remember much more of what my mother looked like than whether it was for something I noticed. But I was terribly surprised when I saw these -- all these pictures much later in my life, and was surprised how gorgeous he was. It seems to me, you know, on these pictures. So it was his voice that I remember much more, the quality of his 98:00voice and his reaction, and also his reciting poetry. And I am very sorry that we never recorded anything. It's --

CW:Can you describe his -- what his voice was like?

IL:Uh, booming. (laughs) He actually was a very good singer. He was very musical. He loved to sing. He sang a lot, to himself. And he often sang as he wrote, and as he read, he -- almost like, I think -- he was -- it was like an incantation. So, he was reading what he wrote -- was some kind of a melody. And 99:00I don't know what -- it wasn't the recognizable melody. And I don't know whether it has to do with the tradition, the Jewish prayer, the -- was sort of part of him. But that's -- that I remember, that he was reading to himself what he wrote and kind of, in a singing voice, singing, yeah.

CW:Where would he write in the house, you remember?

IL:Well, he had in -- actually, in -- Czernowitz, no, we had two rooms, so -- and because it was a communal apartment. But in Poland, he had his own study.

CW:And before -- he also had this study --

IL:Uh, yes.

CW:-- before --

IL:Right.

CW:-- I read --

IL:Yeah.

CW:-- yeah.

IL:Yeah. He also -- in -- we -- in Czernowitz, we lived near a beautiful park. 100:00And in Warsaw, we lived near a little woods. And that's where he would go, and he would even carry a little folding stool, and would go for a walk and then sit and write and come back with the stool, you know? So, he needed nature. It was a part of his inspiration.

CW:Were there particular times of day that he would write?

IL:I only remember that -- yes, definitely very early in the morning until afternoon. And I remember often waking up, either to the sound of the typewriter, five or six in the morning or, you know, he was already typing, or 101:00to the sound of his reciting or singing, or that -- that -- that's the memory I have.

CW:Wow. Can you, I mean, we've talked about his life up to where we are, before you moved back to Poland, but can you describe a little bit about his writing? I know was mostly journalism and poetry.

IL:Um-hm.

CW:But can you say what you know about his style and subject of writing?

IL:That is -- I don't, because I read very little in translation. Only what other people -- what I heard of, but I understand that he was, that it's a very modernistic -- that he was one -- he was more modern as a poet than not -- well, 102:00he was one of the few who were sort of very avant-garde in his generation of Yiddish writers. And so I don't know if all of it is like that or, it's -- there is a slight rhyme to it, apparently. And it's not even a rhyme as -- well, it's -- somebody described it as the -- there is a melody to it. So, you know, I have translations into Polish and in Russian. So far, the best translations are Russian, because this translation -- translator kept that melody. Was able to do 103:00that. But in Polish, it's sort of white verse, you know? It doesn't, I think the translations of Leftwich are also a little, um -- retain that a little bit. But, mostly. So it's very hard for me to -- I don't know enough of his work. I don't know how good his prose is. Yeah, I know that his poetry -- he has amazing poems and some weaker -- as, you know, everybody. And --

CW:So, the ones that you have read and the ones -- or heard about as --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- being his amazing poems -- can you give an example or talk about the subject?

IL:I don't -- it's really -- has to be somebody who is a sort of a historian of literature. I really -- I would like to -- I am very opinionated on subjects. On literature and poetry. But I don't know his enough to really peg him, you know, what kind of a poet he was. I think he was an expressionist. But again, I am not sure.

CW:Hmm. Do you know what the critical reaction was to his writing? What --

IL:It varied. Well, it's also -- you know, the critical reaction in the Soviet 105:00Union or in Poland, it all depended, you know, on ideology, and so, I don't know. I don't know. I -- there actually was -- there had not been too much criticism. Just -- not negative or -- but just generally -- all the -- there are very -- there were very few literary critics left after Stalin and the Holocaust, so it was a kind of a strange literary milieu -- it had more poets than prose writers, and critics, even fewer. So, I d-- (laughter) so, I think 106:00that's -- because I am not aware of any kind of a critical work about his poetry, his writing. I don't know.

CW:So, I want to go back now to Poland. And can you just explain -- your mother applied for repatriation or --

IL:Right, yes, that --

CW:And then, you were in Warsaw for -- number of years.

IL:Yes, right. We were in Warsaw from '59 to '65. My parents and Vita, I was already married by that time, so we stayed behind, and then my husband and I defected because he was a nuclear physicist and they wouldn't have, you know, let us emigrate, just like my parents were allowed to. So we defected. We went 107:00for vacations to Paris a year after they had left. And so we -- in Paris, we asked for asylum, political asylum. And then we applied for American visas. Immigration visas. And so, we were three months stateless in Paris, something like three months, but not bad. Uh -- (laughs) not a bad place to be stateless. And then we came to the United States. So -- and my father --

CW:So, can you just say briefly --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- what this period -- you know, he was -- you --

IL:In --

CW:-- mentioned before that he sort of came out -- I mean, after being sort of depressed in Czernowitz that being back in Warsaw there was a big shift.

IL:Yes, yes, yes. Warsaw, Poland was so much freer and so much -- open and connected to the West. And it was such a stark contrast that we didn't expect it, because, after all, it was that we mistook it, all of us, for the West. We, you know -- and turned out it wasn't the West. And, so, and my dad could not hold it anymore, you know? He had to speak up, he has to write. He had to. He wanted to connect with the whole world, and he had friends and people he knew all over. He started corresponding and I think that the, it -- the Soviets had 109:00second thoughts, that this was a terrible mistake that they let us out. And they send an informer, KGB informer, who was somebody from Czernowitz -- and Jewish. And my father knew his father very well. Very, very respected person in Jewish circles, very literary, very -- his father. And this young man was a physician. And he -- my father took him in as -- he were his son. And he kept on writing 110:00reports, whatever my father said, and I think he made up a lot, too, because he needed to perform. So, he added some ridiculous things. I have all these reports now, you know? So -- they -- basically, there was a pressure on the Polish secret service, secret police, to arrest my father. They had no interest in doing that, and, so -- and that's what happened. So they arrested him as an Israeli spy --

CW:That was 1960?

IL:That was the end of 1960. They -- yes, because he also -- why Israeli? 111:00Because he made friends with the Israeli embassy personnel. The secretary -- not the -- it wasn't an embassy. It was consulate, 'cause they didn't have a full diplomatic relation at that time. So, the attaché, the secretaries, they used to come to our house and so my father became an Israeli spy. So, they had to drop it, because they couldn't prove it, of course. And then they found an article that my father wrote about the terrible situation of Jews in Romania, and that was the only thing that they could use to convict him of anti-socialist 112:00propaganda. And so -- but it was not -- and, of course -- and there were, you know, articles in the West, there was pressure. The -- there were reporters asking questions at Polish embassy in France, in the United States, so they felt -- and between -- Poland fell between the -- you know, the rock and the hard place. Here is the pressure from the Soviets and the world. They were just creating a different image for the world as much more independent. So they were very happy to, you know, kind of get out of it. And so, but this was the last 113:00blow for my dad, I -- he really -- that's -- he really didn't recover from that. Uh, so --

CW:And how long was that -- that --

IL:He was in prison about fifteen months. And three of it, he was -- the last three -- because they -- the trial -- they never went to trial. The day they went to trial was fifteen months after and, after he was arrested. And he was given a sentence of one year. But he spent fifteen months, and he just walked out of the trial, free man. But he -- out of these fifteen months, he was three months in a psychiatric institution. But he was -- he had -- very special 114:00arrangements there. He was, like, a personal guest of the director of the -- you know, had access to his villa, his library. So, it was -- they really -- Polish government really was looking, you know, the way -- the ways to wind it down and kind of be done with it. So -- at that time -- but it was a totally -- unnecessarily -- for my dad already.

CW:So, had he had the idea of going to Israel come up earlier, before that? Um --

IL:Well, they knew that they will not stay in Poland, that they would go 115:00somewhere. He -- were not sure, because for Yiddish writers in Israel -- the situation was very difficult, or -- you know, few outlets to publish. And, as a matter of fact, it was everywhere. Maybe best in the United States, but they had no way of getting to the United States. So, you know, and so -- and that's where the family was. His brother was there, my mother's family. And I think it was a great choice to go to Israel. He loved Israel, and he never regretted that, even though it wasn't easy for him, because he wasn't really making the money. There was no -- there was, what, one paper, and there's something in Argentina and one 116:00or two in the States, there was -- but my mom started working right away, very soon.

CW:Did you ever visit them there?

IL:Sure, yeah, yeah. When my son --

CW:I'm sorry, can you --

IL:Oh, I'm sorry. When my son was nine months old, I made a visit there, yes. No, of course, yeah. Yeah, but, you know, he didn't live that long, so --

CW:Right. So, was he able to connect with other Yiddish writers --

IL:Oh, yes.

CW:-- there and --

IL:Yes, yes.

CW:Where did they live?

IL:They lived in Hadera, and then they separated, I think, about two years or three after they -- and my father lived in Jerusalem, and my mother -- continuing to live in Hadera. And, yeah, he was in touch -- no, of course, they 117:00-- and then, a few -- right -- I think in the last year of my father's life, Yiddish writers from Russia started coming, yeah. So, it really -- and, yeah, I think already after he passed away, they established new periodicals or journals or papers, you know. It really became very lovely and -- because a lot of Russian Jews came, also, who read Yiddish and -- so, there was an audience suddenly. (BREAK IN RECORDING)

CW:Can you tell about this letter to Sutzkever and the -- or sending the poem to Sutzkever?

IL:So, this poem, it's -- he had great misgivings about this poem because the poem -- Shmuel Halkin was -- I think he was a little, somewhat older than my 118:00father. And, I don't remember. Maybe more than -- somewhat. Uh, h-- very, very talented. Very talented writer, and a lovely man. Everybody remembers him as soft-spoken, warm, and he, like my father -- he survived a camp. Actually, he was -- yeah, I think he was more than ten years older than my father. So, when he came back from the camp, he was in very, very poor shape. I think he was around sixty-one, so for somebody -- and also, very gentle and delicate man. And 119:00they -- the Soviet Union wanted to show that to the West, because there was such an -- a -- such a shock at the execution of the Jewish poets, that they -- as always, they do these shows for Western consumption, and they decided. the club of -- in Moscow, of the Union of Soviet Writers -- decided to have in his honor, to celebrate his jubilee -- what jubilee, I don't know, what -- his age or jubilee of his years as a writer, I don't -- it's not clear. But jubilee. And he was given a -- even some award, and so, he actually died very soon after. It was 120:00a shameful, very cynical thing. And my father write the whole story, you know, in the -- it's -- he gives an introduction to the poem. So, he was so enraged. He was there. He saw. He saw the poor Halkin, like, he -- probably the men didn't know where to hide. It was such a travesty in view of what had happened. Nobody ever mentioned -- nobody ever celebrated these people or said, you know, 121:00-- I don't -- you know, it's such an outrage. But you were not even allowed to speak about them, basically. That's the situation, was -- so, my father was really very, very upset and outraged. And he wrote this poem where he mentions all of the Yiddish writers who were either executed or sent to the Gulags, and then, you know, every stanza is devoted -- dedicated to one of the writers. And then -- and the -- ends with, "and we celebrate Halkin's jubilee." So, it was a bit controversial, and my mother was involved in it because there was a feeling 122:00that it's against Halkin. But it wasn't as far as my father was concerned. It was this cynical use of him, so he had misgivings about it. And also, it was a kind of a poem -- he wrote it still in the Soviet Union. That was dangerous even to keep in your drawer. And, but somehow, he managed to either -- maybe he just memorized it and then wrote it down in Poland. Again -- but again, in Poland, they wouldn't publish it. And so she -- he felt a little bit guilty, and my 123:00mother felt also -- and maybe -- he may have, later on, toned it down as far as Halkin is concerned. Because the -- the feeling was that -- why is -- that maybe it's a -- somewhat an attack on him. And, of course, that's the last thing he wanted to come across as. And so, I think when he did send his -- immediately after they came to Israel, I think that my mother was against him publishing it in Israel. And so he sent to Sutzkever to see what his reaction would be. And, of course, he saw it exactly the way my father felt about it. It had nothing -- wasn't against Sutzkever -- Halkin, but it was against the people who are using 124:00him in view of the context. So, apparently -- you can read the letters, or somebody should translate it -- but apparently, he was -- everybody -- he and all the editors at the paper were very moved by it, to tears, to -- really bitter, you know, pain and tears reading it. It's a very powerful evocation of lament. So -- and, of course, they published it and then Leftwich included -- translated it and included it in the anthology, so --

IL:-- so, that's the story, and it's -- (laughter)

CW:He -- I'd -- your -- I mean, your father died young --

IL:Tak [Polish: Yes], yes, seven-- sixty-one, yes.

CW:And --

IL:Very young, yes.

CW:-- what were the --

IL:Well, he was -- he -- it was -- heart failure. But, you know, he was tortured. Tortured. He had some damage to his skull. He had -- this was -- these were neurological damages. He couldn't sleep. He was -- he had a perennial inability to sleep. It was torturous not being able to sleep. So, he had a lot of problems. He physically -- he seemed to be okay. He, you know, was -- he 126:00loved walking, and he actually fell so in love with Israel that he walked across Israel, and it took him two or three weeks. He walked on foot. The -- across that -- the whole country. He wanted to -- I don't know how long it -- but he wanted to see it on foot, and talk and see people and how it all looks like. So, he -- on the -- you know, on the one hand, he had physical strength, but on the other hand, it was fragile, you know? It probably -- that physical strength was impelled by emotions. And in this case, he was so in awe of the accomplishments of the Jews in building Israel, what they have done and how they have done it, 127:00that that kind of impelled him. And he did things that require strength, but he didn't have it in reality. And so, his just heart, apparently, had given out. So -- he was depressed, too, you know, because when you perennially cannot sleep, it's -- your ability to create is impaired, so --

CW:How did you find out, or, that he had --

IL:It's -- (laughs) I actually didn't find out right away, because we were -- we rented a little cottage. I had two children, two small children, in Catskills. 128:00And my husband was with me. And, so, only when he went to the city, the -- and that time, peop-- you know, you didn't have the letters forwarded or something, so I found out, maybe a month later, the -- it was -- yeah, I was devastated, be-- I don't remember how it was, what -- whether we'd -- never gave them the address and just thought it's enough if they send it to, you know, our address in New York, and then the -- uh, my husband would pick the letters periodically, but we found -- I found it -- that -- it was pretty awful, yes, so --

CW:Well, I want to ask about the materials, if that's okay. I mean, so you went back to Poland for the first time in 2004, is that right? Or --

IL:Yes, right.

CW:So how -- first of all, just briefly, how did you decide to go back and --

IL:Well, because I started reading -- I have a lot of friends in Poland, and my -- of contacts were continued -- and so -- and I started to -- being very interested in Polish press to see what's happening. So, I learned that they created the Institute of National Memory on the model of the similar insti-- Germans -- Germany, East Germany, was the first to create something like this, where they brought all the files of the secret police, organized them -- so put 130:00-- created the archives for special, dedicated building with dedicated staff to take care of these documents of the crimes of the communists, and make them available to researchers and to victims or the victim's family. So, when I heard about this, that they are doing it, that's when I was sure that I'm going to do this, I'm going to try to get these -- his files, investigation files. And, of course -- and I started dreaming about getting the same from Russia. So -- but I 131:00knew that that's a long haul, that that's not going to happen. And, indeed, it really happened for a very short time. And then -- and now it's almost impossible, but -- so, in Poland, so, I went there in 2004, and the first few years, there were difficulties there. There was also cases of abuse. Somebody, because -- you know, the documents sometimes were not so clear, and sometimes they weren't -- they were not -- they were fakes, so -- and people started using the political -- people in opposition, politically, in the new -- in new Poland started searching for their past in these documents and abusing them. So, it 132:00turn out to be very -- a difficult proposition, and they had to -- for a while, the -- to sort of pause the access and figure out exactly, how -- what kind of laws should govern this -- the whole process. So, it took about three years before they put their act together and I was able to get access to them, and also get copies -- digital copies of everything.

CW:And these were the secret police reports?

IL:Yes, these -- this is right. Right, the investigation file, the interrogations, the -- the depositions of the witnesses. The government 133:00witnesses. They were, you know, all -- and the -- so, this was a very interesting -- and then I found out from them, who was the informer, because it also included some of his reports, of the informer, and just from his description there, even though he had a -- he has a code name there, I knew who he was. So I knew his name, you know, and so I asked for his file. And I was right. It was -- (laughs) and I got also his file. So it's quite a piece of history, Um-hm.

CW:Wow. And then, you -- it took a while longer to get the -- your father's writings --

IL:Yes, so, then, from these papers, I didn't know what happened. I knew that 134:00they didn't give back my father everything that they confiscated. And so I imagined that they would be together with his investigation file. What there was there -- they translated almost all the papers they had confiscated into Polish. They had, you know, Jews -- Yiddish-speaking Jews working for them. So for me, now, it's a boon to have everything translated. (laughs)

CW:Yeah. (laughter)

IL:So, they're not good translations, but at least I know, you know, the gist of things. And so, I then assumed that probably they did the same thing that they did in the Soviet Union, they destroyed these things when they arrested -- so 135:00all the papers that were confiscated, my father's papers in the Soviet Union during the tours were destroyed. All the writers who were the greatest writ-- Babel, you know, for instance, Isaac Babel. I didn't know the -- yes, apparently there were seven suitcases of his papers hauled off from his apartment during his arrest, and no one can find them, still. So they were just incinerating them. So, I thought that the same thing -- the Poles did the same thing. And I -- you know, I asked and, at this institute and they said they don't know, but maybe I should ask in the state archives. Maybe the state archives -- the 136:00communist court archives were given to the Polish state archives. And so, they said, yeah, they might be there. So, I learned that, no, it wasn't destroyed. But it's -- it is there, and that's, you know, how I found them. But they didn't want to give it back. I -- you know, they wanted to give me copies. But I wanted the originals, so it took us two years, a good lawyer, (laughs) and some publicity, important publicity and important Polish media. And, finally, we won the case, so --

CW:Can you tell me about when you and your sister flew there to get them?

IL:Oh, God, this is -- it's still too close. It was so emotional. It was really, 137:00really emotional, but it's so -- still so fresh, you know? I think -- you know, it's bittersweet, that -- it's sweet -- it's not even sweet. It's the fact that -- it's much more bitter, because -- the fact that we had to fight for it, that it wasn't as I imagine it would be obvious that they have to return it to us in a democratic society. So it was very unexpected and I feel bitter about the difficulties -- unnecessary and I feel that it was an indignity to my father, 138:00it's -- that they didn't honor -- this was not the way to honor, you know, the memory of my father, that it was a terrible thing to do that. So -- but I -- we were lucky, because we had a very, very bright and courageous and persevering lawyer -- so --

CW:Yeah. Um, can you give his name?

IL:The lawyer's name?

CW:Yeah.

IL:Sure. His name is Tomasz, Tomasz Koncewicz. He is a professor of law at the University of Gdansk. He's an activist lawyer. Has many books published. 139:00Publishes regularly on matters of all law, and particularly Polish courts of which he's very critical. And he's fast becoming a household name, basically, on these topics. So, people are talking about him, eventually being on tribunal court. It's like our supreme court, or on the court, the EU court, or -- I mean, he's -- and without a lawyer like this, an activist lawyer, I would -- we probably wouldn't have won, or it would have dragged on for years and years. So, that's -- (BREAK IN RECORDING)

CW:We've talked so much about your father's life --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- and -- incredible, (laughs) but what was he like as a father?

IL:I think he was great when we were small, those years, it's -- he was in the world of his own -- so, pulled by it, by all that, I don't know. I think my sister had much more connection, better connection with him than I had. So, you know, it's -- it just doesn't apply when you have a father with such life 141:00history. I think the question doesn't -- cannot apply, because he didn't have a normal life. So, you know, so, it would be very easy for me, for instance, to feel that he didn't -- he wasn't a good -- but you can't apply these norms to -- and so, I never judged him this way. I never -- this question has been asked me a number of times, and I think that in, to the circumstances of his life and our life, it just doesn't apply. You cannot be -- I mean, of course he loved us and -- but, basically, we lived somewhat separate lives. And thank God that we didn't live his life, because -- (laughs) I mean, it's a terrible thing to say, 142:00actually --

CW:What was -- what has been the impact of having a Yiddish writer as a father for your own identity, Jewish identity --

IL:Yeah, I think that that's -- yeah, that was a big part of my identity, very big part, but not enough for me -- for instance, demand that I want to know Yiddish or -- so, it -- I think there's a lot of ambiguity in all our lives and identities. And this -- it's still -- it is still there, yeah, so it's not so simple.

CW:Hmm. Course. And you're now writing a book? Can you say --

IL:I am.

CW:-- couple words about that?

IL:I am writing -- I am -- this is my project. It's a very difficult one. And 143:00it's -- I'm learning about the era in which I lived and knew nothing about. It's only now that so many books are being written and they -- you know, there's access to archives. I find, really, the nature of the country I grew up in, (laughs) and that even though I knew some and I thought I knew a lot, I had very little inkling of the true nat-- the whole history of all the currents -- and in the context and of the history of Europe, in the twentieth century. So, this is -- I'm trying now to wrap my arms around every -- all of this, to understand my 144:00father's -- and his generation. My father and his generation, what happened to them. So -- (laughter)

CW:Well, is -- I have just one last question, but is there --

IL:Uh-huh.

CW:-- anything else that you want to add to -- that would -- any stories, iconic things that you think we -- you'd like to --

IL:Um-hm.

CW:-- share?

IL:Oh -- I should have prepared something (laughs) to --

CW:No, that's okay. (laughter)

IL:I -- there is -- okay, it's a -- no, I am -- no, that story is not actually 145:00-- oh, well, I think I've --

CW:That's okay, yeah.

IL:-- I -- I --

CW:You don't need to.

IL:Yes. (laughter) I think --

CW:We've talked a lot.

IL:I think, yes, I've -- we just -- a lot of -- (laughs)

CW:It's been amazing.

IL:-- stories. (laughter)

CW:Well, I just -- I'm curious what you feel you've learned from him through, you know, knowing him, but also through doing this project of researching his life?

IL:Well, this has -- this has been and continues to be totally revelational, it's such a -- it's -- I could not have had a better way of spending my retirement, first of all. (laughs) And it was -- and had I known that it would 146:00be such a difficult project, and so demanding, I would have retired early. I would, at least five years early. Because it's really -- it's a very demanding -- takes a lot out of me, and it's -- you know, when I read or hear about writers saying that when they were working on a novel or a book, this is -- they slept and they breathed and they -- the book -- this is about the stage I am in now. And so it's, and it's my way of, you know, honoring my dad, so -- (BREAK IN RECORDING)

CW:I just want to thank you very much.

IL:You are welcome.

CW:A hartsikn dank [Thank you very much], as we would say in Yiddish, (laughter) for being so generous with your stories about your father. And thank you, also from the Yiddish Book Center.

IL:It was my pleasure.

[END OF INTERVIEW]