Keywords:"The Tree of Life"; 1950s; child-rearing; English language; father; French language; grandmother; Holocaust survivors; immigrants; Jewish communities; migrants; Montreal; Montréal; mother; motherhood; multilingualism; parenting; parents; Polish language; Quebec; Québec; raising children; World War 2; World War II; WW2; WWII; Yiddish language
Keywords:"The Tree of Life"; adolescence; Canada; Canadian Jews; Chava Rosenfarb; Chawa Rosenfarb; childhood; English language; mother; poet; publishing industry; teenage years; writer; Yiddish in translation; Yiddish language; Yiddish literature
Keywords:"The Tree of Life"; 1930s; 1940s; anti-Semitism; antisemitism; Chava Rosenfarb; Chawa Rosenfarb; ghetto liquidation; ghettoization; Holocaust; Holocaust survivors; Holocaust trauma; intergenerational Holocaust trauma; intergenerational trauma; Nazi occupation; portrayals of the Holocaust; representations of the Holocaust; World War 2; World War II; WW2; WWII; Yiddish language; Yiddish literature; Łódź; Łódź Ghetto
Keywords:"The Tree of Life"; 1970s; Chava Rosenfarb; Chawa Rosenfarb; daughter; English language; Hebrew language; Holocaust; Holocaust survivors; mother; mother-daughter relationship; poet; portrayals of the Holocaust; representations of the Holocaust; translator; writer; Yiddish in translation; Yiddish language; Yiddish literature; Łódź Ghetto
Keywords:"Aroys fun gan-eydn" (Out of Paradise); "Bociany"; "Letters to Abrasha"; "Of Łódź and Love"; "The Tree of Life"; 1940s; 1960s; Chava Rosenfarb; Chawa Rosenfarb; concentration camps; English language; Holocaust; Holocaust trauma; poetry; Poland; Polish Jews; Yiddish in translation; Yiddish language; Yiddish literature
Keywords:adolescence; adult education; Columbia University; New York City; New York University; teacher; teenage years; Yiddish education; Yiddish language; Yiddish speakers
Keywords:America; American Jewry; American Jews; attitudes towards Yiddish; Bennington College; Canada; Canadian Jewry; Canadian Jews; cultural divides; generational divides; Montreal; Montréal; Quebec; Québec; United States; Yiddish culture; Yiddish language; Yiddish speakers
CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney, and today is July 21st, 2016. I am
here in Toronto with Goldie Morgentaler. We're going to record an interview aspart of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have yourpermission to record?
GOLDIE MORGENTALER:Yes.
CW:Thanks. So, let's jump right in. Can you tell me your mother's name and where
and when she was born?
GM:My mother's name is Chava Rosenfarb, and she was born February 9th, 1923, in
Łódź, Poland.
CW:And do you know anything about her name?
GM:About her name? You mean, why she was called Chava?
GM:I don't know why she was called Chava. It was probably after a relative. I
know that she was very proud of her yikhes [ancestry] -- of being descended fromsomeone whose name she actually doesn't have. On her father's side, she wasdescended from Reb Jonathan Eybeschütz, who was -- I think he was a big rabbiin Prague, but he was involved in the whole controversy of Shabbetai Zevi. AndI've never quite gotten straight which side of the controversy he was on. If youread the -- he's in the "Encyclopedia Britannica," and we were just in Prague,and there's a whole panel devoted to him. So, on the one hand, I think he wasnot a follower of Shabbetai Zevi, but on the other hand, he may have been asecret follower. And my mother writes about him, and she loved being descendedfrom him. It was on her father's side, so that's why the name is different. 2:00
CW:And can you say a little bit more about her family background?
GM:Well, so on her father's side, she has this yikhes of being descended from
this famous or infamous rabbi. Both her parents came from a small town in Polandcalled Końskie. And they both came separately. They ended up going to Łódź,'cause Łódź was the big manufacturing city of the time. And her parents,though they were both from the same village -- same shteytl [small EasternEuropean village with a Jewish community] -- they actually didn't -- they mayhave known each other, but they didn't marry till they got to Łódź. And mymother, when she was young, she went back to Końskie a lot to visit herrelatives. And she has wonderful memoirs about those visits. And her book"Bociany" is based on her recollections of those visits. She came from -- on 3:00both sides -- very religious people -- very, very Orthodox Jewish, pious Jews.But both her parents rebelled against that. And when they were in Łódź, theybecame Bundists, and they stopped adhering to religious customs. But my mother'smother -- my grandmother -- her father, once he heard that she had become anateist [atheist] and a Bundist, he came after her and he hit her with a stick onher head, the back of her head. And where he hit her, the hair never grew back.I know this story also from my mother's memoirs. But yeah, it was -- for theparents of my grandparents, it was a terrible thing that they left the -- zeyzenen aropgefaln fun rikhtikn veg [they fell from the right path]. So, it was 4:00hard for them. Yeah.
CW:Yeah. And can you give a sense of what the shteytl was like?
GM:I've never been there. Well, that's not true -- a few years ago we went
there. But it doesn't look at all like what it was like. I think my mothercaptures the atmosphere quite well in "Bociany." And her suggestion that it wasa beautiful place where the -- and it's the only one of her books where shereally talks about the relations of Jews and Poles, which were very fraught andvery -- not ambivalent, but there was -- for the Jews, I think, it was not aneasy life, although they depended on the Poles, and the Poles depended on theJews. So, there was a sort of symbiosis, but at the same time, the Jews were 5:00constantly afraid of pogroms. And all of that gets caught in "Bociany," as doesthe -- just the beauty of being in the country. "Bociany" means "storks," soit's -- the storks come back every year. And so, just the descriptions of naturein that book, I think, give you some sense of the atmosphere of what it wouldhave been like to live in a shteytl like that. But I have to say, for my mother,she only experienced it as a girl on visits. She didn't grow up there. She grewup in the city.
CW:And what were the parnose [livelihood] from the -- the occupations of the
families? Do you know?
GM:My mother's parents -- my mother's father began as a weaver. I mean,
originally, they went to Łódź because they wanted to work in the textile 6:00factory, 'cause that's where they employed. But according to my mother, (laughs)her father was so good-looking that he was given a job as a waiter in arestaurant on Piotrkowska Street. And I've forgotten the name of the restaurant,but -- so he earned his living as a waiter. Her mother did work in thefactories, and she was a shtoperke. And a shtoperke was someone who -- you'vegot the fabric, and she runs her hands over the fabric for faults in it, so thatshe can feel it with her hands, and then they would mend it. So, that was thejob. That's all my grandmother did. She didn't weave or anything -- she was justa shtoperke. She shtopped up the faults in the fabric.
CW:Wow. And do you know anything about the earlier generations -- what their job
was in the shteytl?
GM:Yeah. My mother's grandfather -- so it would be my great-grandfather -- he
7:00dealt in chalk in Końskie, in this town. So, he sold lime and chalk. And herfather's father died when he was very young. So. her father's mother had a tinylittle -- it wasn't even a shop. It was just a sort of window on the puciej,which was the marketplace, also in Końskie, and she sold knickknacks. They werevery, very poor. Both sides of the family were very poor.
CW:And then, do you have a sense of your mother's early life -- youth -- in Łódź?
GM:Do I have a sense of it? I know what she's written. So, what I know about it,
that's what I know. (laughs) I once asked her to write her autobiography, 8:00because I wanted to know what was truth in her novels and what was fiction. Andshe started, but she couldn't go on. And I think she had one of these -- she wasa writer who really needed to fictionalize in order to get at the truth. So,what I know, I know from her fiction, essentially. I think -- she was the eldestof -- her parents had two daughters, and my mother was older. She sounds likeshe was a little bit of a rebellious child. She kept running away from school.She was sent to one of the TSYSHO schools -- Medem Shul -- that the Bundistparents got together and established. Originally, I think she wasn't very happythere, (laughs) so she ran away a lot. And she gave her teachers grief. But as 9:00she got older, she was very bright, and so she became one of the best studentsin the class. And she had a crush on one of her teachers. She had a terriblecrush. (laughs) And one day, the other students -- she must have been eleven ortwelve, something like that -- students decided that -- since their parents werealways going out on revolution, right, that they were gonna have strikes. So,the students in her class decided they were gonna have a strike, so they justmarched out of the classroom. And my mother, who adored her teacher, refused togo. And so the teacher, who was in the room, (laughs) turned to her and said,"What kind of a Bundist are you? Why don't you go, too?" And he got mad at her.You know, she was a strike breaker. And she felt awful. (laughs) So, that storyis in her book. It's in "The Tree of Life," and I think she even told me, so I'm 10:00pretty sure that actually happened. And I know that her crush on her teacher wasfor real. And he came to a bad end. He was -- during the war, they all came tobad ends. Anyway, and while she was at this school, she sat on the same bench asmy father. My father was the son of a Łódź city councilor, also from theweavers -- a weaving trade. So, my mother and my father ended up getting theprize for best students. And the principal, when he awarded them their prizes,he made the mistake of calling my mother by my father's last name -- he calledher Morgentaler. And years later, (laughs) when they actually got married, and 11:00they learned that this principal was still alive, they went and told him that hehad foretold the union. (laughs) But my mother and father were childhoodsweethearts, so they were -- like, they were dating when the war broke out. Andthat's pretty much what I know about her school years. If I'm talking too much,tell me. (laughs)
CW:No, this is perfect. And she went to Polish school, too, right?
GM:This was the Yiddish school for elementary school. And then she went to -- I
don't know enough about the Jewish school system in Poland, but what she told mewas, it was a Polish school -- they studied in Polish, everything -- but it wasa Jewish school. So, I guess it was run by Jews. I don't know. So there, shelearned Polish. And that was important, because her parents didn't speak verywell. And for her father especially, it was a problem, because he was a waiter 12:00in a restaurant, so he needed to be more fluent. And he had a Yiddish accent inPolish. Whereas for my mother, she learned Polish very well. And while she wasat this Polish high school, maybe even earlier, she became friends with a womancalled Zenia Marcinkowska, who later on became -- after the war -- they wentthrough the war together, and after the war, Zenia became a very well-knownwriter in Sweden -- in Swedish.
CW:Did she talk about the Bund much?
GM:A lot. A lot. The Bund was the atmosphere they breathed. Even when I was
13:00young, there was a constant discussion about the Bund. Most of my mother'sfriends were Bundists, and my father's, too. My father was the one who hadprestige -- yikhes in the Bund, because his father had been such an importantrevolutionary, and city councilor, and he was a martyr, also, because -- so whenthe Germans marched in to Łódź, he was one of the first arrested. So, theBund played a large role, certainly in their younger years. But by the time theygot to Canada, I think the Bund has become -- as an idea -- my father completelywent away from it. My mother felt very nostalgic about it, but I don't think shewould have called herself a Bundist. It's hard for me to know, really. But it 14:00certainly was something that I grew up with -- I knew a lot about as I wasgrowing up.
[BREAK IN RECORDING]
CW:Could you just explain what the Bund is, briefly?
GM:Well, basically, the Bund was the Jewish socialist party. It was a huge
political movement in Poland, especially between the two World Wars. And theyelected a number of people to the councils of various Polish cities. I think itwas the largest party in Poland between the two World Wars, if I'm not mistaken.And they were anti-Zionists, also, because the Zionists -- they felt -- theywere adherents of doikayt [Bundist concept of "hereness"], that Jews should betreated equally where they are, where they live, and they had no patience for 15:00this idea of a pie-in-the-sky country of our own. And they were workers, right?It was the workers' party, and they wanted rights for workers, and especiallyfor Jews -- Jewish workers. And I guess the most important part of Bundism asfar as my mother was concerned was the emphasis on Jewish culture and on Yiddishin particular -- and they were Yiddishists, right? They promoted the idea ofYiddish and taught it in the schools. And that part of Bundism, my motheradhered to all her life. And she really felt that it was important. That waswhere she lived -- emotionally, spiritually.
CW:Was she involved in any of the youth movements? Like, did they have Bin and
GM:She was a member of SKIF, yeah. Although, she was -- when she was young -- I
mean, before the outbreak of the war -- she was involved with all of that. Andeven in the ghetto, if you read "The Tree of Life," one of the characters isbased -- is autobiographical, and her name is Rachel Eibushitz, harking back tothat famous rabbi. (laughs) But she was very involved with the Bund, and she wasa member of SKIF, went to zimer-lager [summer camp]. And yeah, I mean, theirwhole lives were really bound up with the Bund. And she writes a lot about the Bund.
CW:Before we go on with her biography, I just want to ask if you could describe
what she looked like.
GM:Well, I can see her right there. (laughs) She was beautiful. I think -- a
17:00number of my friends remember her as being beautiful, and that's what Iremember, too. I once told her -- when I was a child, I said to her, "Mom,you're really beautiful." And she said, "All children think that about theirmothers." I'm not sure that's true, but I felt a little put off. I never toldher she was beautiful again. (laughs) But I think she was a beautiful woman. Interms of what she looked like, she had dark hair and sort of -- her eye color --I never could figure out what it was. It was sort of an indeterminate color. Butshe had a kind of faraway look sometimes -- when she was thinking, sometimes shewasn't there. And she had a wonderful smile -- like I said, a very warm,embracing smile, which I loved. I loved her very much. 18:00
CW:Are there any defining physical features of hers that were most prominent, or
when you think of her?
GM:Like what?
CW:I don't know -- eyes, nose, mouth?
GM:Well, the smile. And very beautiful eyes. Her eyes were beautiful -- like,
the shape, and they were large, and very expressive. I thought she wasbeautiful. I thought she was beautiful even when she was in her sixties, andshe'd sometimes have this kind of glow. She always thought she was tall. And Ithink in Poland she may have been tall, but in Canada, she used to walk intodress shops for tall women, and they'd say, you know, (laughs) You're too short.She was not that tall. She was taller than I am, but she was about five-five --at her height. But in her head, she always thought she was tall, but she wasn't. 19:00I can't think of anything else. (laughs)
CW:Could you describe how she dressed?
GM:When I was young -- when they were immigrants -- she had only one or two
dresses, which she alternated. She didn't have a lot of clothing. When she wasolder and my father became very prosperous, she dressed very elegantly, and shewould get clothes made for herself. And it mattered to her. I think that's alsoa European thing -- like, she was always shocked if I didn't want to wearjewelry or something. Like, How can you not wear jewelry? How can you go outlike that? She always had this very European idea that you had to be elegantwhen you went out. And she dressed quite elegantly. 20:00
CW:And in photographs of her when she was younger, what do you notice?
GM:When she was younger -- I just think she was beautiful. I don't know what
else to say. (laughs)
CW:(laughs) That's fine. That's fine. And what was her physical presence? I
mean, you know, presence.
GM:How do you mean that?
CW:Like, if she were in the room, what would be her sort of presence? Is she
someone that people would notice when they walked in the room, or not necessarily?
GM:It's hard to know. She did not like socializing, especially as she got older.
She hated chitchat. She didn't like going out that much. And she wasn't a big 21:00talker, because she didn't like -- you know, like, chatting. She thought it wasa waste of time. And so, sometimes, I think, she gave the impression of beingaloof -- and she was aloof. And she didn't have always the best opinion of theJewish community of Montreal. I think she was once accused to her face of beinga snob. That might have been fair. (laughs) She was not inclined to put on achatty exterior if she didn't feel like it. But if she met someone whom sheliked and she was interested in, she was a wonderful listener, and she was verygood at drawing them out. And you could feel that all her attention was on you.But most of the time, she had to be really engaged. Otherwise, her mind was off 22:00somewhere else.
CW:And going back to her biography -- can you explain where she was during the war?
GM:Where she was? She was in the ghetto. The Germans marched into Łódź in
1939. And then, in February -- just one day before her birthday in February --they set up a ghetto. So, that would have been 1940. I think she was aboutseventeen years old then. Yeah. And so, like the rest of the population ofŁódź, they were herded into the ghetto, into a very small apartment -- in aslum, basically, of the city, called Bałuty. They didn't live there originally, 23:00but I think my mother's family had relatives there, so they were not completelysort of without knowing people. But they were in an apartment that had basicallytwo rooms. And the parents slept in one room, and my mother and her sister slepton chairs in the kitchen which were sort of put together. And conditions rapidlygot very, very bad. She had various jobs at what -- they called them resorts,right? It was really kind of factories. And the story of her life in the ghetto-- I mean, she wrote three volumes about it, so there's a lot. A lot happenedthen. But that's basically it. So, she was with her parents and with her sisterin the ghetto.
GM:So, she started writing poems in the ghetto. And she would show them to
people. She worked at a resort that -- a very strange place that the Germans hadset up. It was supposed to be a resort for showing off Jewish culture and howridiculous Jewish culture was. But it was run by a man called Rabbiner -- I'veforgotten his last name. But they made all kind of papier-mâché dolls of --you know, portraits of Jewish life. But the Rabbiner, Hershkowitz, I think hisname was, or something similar -- he didn't speak Yiddish very well -- I don'tremember where he was from -- so he needed someone to translate into Yiddishsome Hebrew prayers. And somehow, he heard about my mother, so that became her 25:00job. And she liked this Rabbiner very much, and she would show him her poetry.And one day when she was there showing him her poetry, the poet Simkha-BunimShayevitch was in the same place. And so, the Rabbiner showed my mother's poetryto Shayevitch, who was already -- had been an established poet. He was in hismid-thirties by then. And he got her to come to the meetings of the writers'group in the ghetto. And that was a major event for her. So, she became one oftheir youngest members. And they would read to each other. And it was really akind of -- an escape from the misery around them, but also, they took literaturevery seriously. So, they met originally at the home of Miryem Ulinover, and thenlater on at the home of -- I'm blanking on his name -- I think it was 26:00Lejzerowicz, the painter. And my mother went to those writers' circles all thetime. I think it was what got her -- helped her to survive the ghetto. And shewas writing all the time -- she wrote a lot of poems. And she became very closewith Shayevitch, too.
CW:And are those poems lost?
GM:Yeah. So, when the ghetto was liquidated and they were all sent to Auschwitz,
she had the poems in her knapsack. And when they were disembarked on theplatform in Auschwitz, the kapos just came around and tore all personalbelongings from people's hands. And so, they tore her knapsack from her, andthat was the end of the poems. But since she survived the selection, she was 27:00sent to a work camp at Sasel. And there she had the highest bunk. And so, shestarted to recreate the poems. And she wrote them in pencil. She was lucky inhaving an overseer, a German overseer, who was rather sympathetic. And so, sheasked for a pencil. And with the pencil, she wrote in tiny letters so itcouldn't be seen just over the -- in the ceiling. She recreated her poems. Andthen, she memorized them. So when -- after the war, she wrote them down again,and that was her first book of poetry.
CW:And what about your father during the war? Where was he?
GM:So, my father and my mother were the same age, so he was also seventeen. And
28:00he was also in the Łódź ghetto. His story is a little bit more tragic, in thesense that my mother in the ghetto had her parents with her and her sister, sothey were a family unit. My father's father -- basically, the men -- when theGermans marched in, the men ran away. They tried to get into Russia. But therewere apparently masses of people trying to get into Russia. My father's fatherdecided he was gonna go back and face the music. And not -- why he did it, Idon't know. But, so he went back. My father eventually also went back. And theyarrested -- because he had been a city councilor for the Bundist party, he wasarrested almost immediately, and taken off to prison and tortured, and 29:00eventually, marched out and shot. So, my father would have been about seventeen-- maybe even younger, sixteen -- when that happened. And I know this because hewrote his father's obituary. And the family just basically camped out around theprison, trying to get food to the prisoners. And then, my father was told afterthe war what had happened in that prison. So, the father was taken away in 1939and was shot. So, that left my father, his younger brother, and their motheralone in the ghetto. They also -- my father had an elder sister, but she hadgone away to Warsaw, so they didn't know what happened to her. So, eventually -- 30:00and my father and my mother, they were dating, you know? (laughs) So, theycontinued that relationship. My mother was always -- would bring him -- if shehad extra bread, she would bring him, they would share it. In the end, when wordgot around that the Germans were gonna liquidate the ghetto, my father, hisyounger brother, and their mother went over -- it was actually Shayevitchdecided that my grandparents' apartment -- there was two rooms, which was prettyunusual -- that they could block it off and make it look like there was nothingthere, and that they would all hide in the room that was blocked off. So, it wasfour people in my mother's family, three people in my father's family, mymother's friend Zenia and her stepmother, and Shayevitch, so ten people in a 31:00tiny room. They couldn't make any noise. And they hid out -- the first fewtimes, they actually fooled the Germans. But the third time, one of the Germans,when they were leaving, realized from the wall that there was more room thanwhat they had seen when they'd entered the front room, so they went back andmoved the -- they had a shafe -- a dresser. And they moved the dresser. Andthere, they found them all, and that's how they all were sent to Auschwitz. So,at Auschwitz, the men were separated from the women. So, my father and hisbrother and their mother were sent to the gas chamber at Auschwitz. So, the twobrothers were sent to Dachau -- with my grandfather -- with my mother's father.And then, towards the end of the war, they were all on -- you know, the Germans 32:00put the Jews on trains going further and further into Germany to sort of hide,so they were on the train like that -- my father, his brother, and mygrandfather -- my mother's father. And the Allies bombed the train. And so, myfather and his brother -- they were young guys -- they just ran out of thetrain. And they sat on a -- my uncle told me -- they sat on an embankmentwaiting and waiting for my grandfather to come, but he never came. And then,when it got to be night, they decided they couldn't wait any longer, and theywandered off. My grandfather must have been killed on the train, because henever came out. But my father and his brother wandered off, until they heardpeople speaking English, and then they realized that must have been Americans.And so, they ran up to them. And my father taught himself English in the ghetto, 33:00and he was never shy about showing off his language. (laughs) So, that's howthey survived. But then, my mother and her mother and my aunt had all been takento Bergen-Belsen -- and Zenia, also. And they were liberated by the British atBergen-Belsen. After the war, everyone was looking for everyone else. And mymother and her sister went off -- just hitchhiking around Germany, looking fortheir father. In the meantime, my father arrived in Bergen-Belsen DP camplooking for her -- and found my grandmother, who had survived the war. And so,he waited there until they came back. And that's how they were reunited.
GM:My father stayed in Germany, because he wanted to become a doctor. He went to
the university there. And my mother -- once she knew her father was dead, sherefused -- all three of them -- her mother and her sister -- there was nothingleft to do in Germany, right? And they hated the country and they hated thelanguage and they wanted out. But no country would accept them. So, what theydid -- the Bund, I think, organized sort of illegal smuggling operations to getpeople into Belgium. And my mother and her sister and my grandmother all went onone of these transports, where the smugglers cheated them -- told them, You arenow in Belgium. They weren't. And in order to be paid -- the smugglers had to goback. And my mother wrote in Yiddish that they shouldn't pay these smugglers, 35:00'cause she was very suspicious that they hadn't been let off past the border --which, as it turned out, was right. But there was a farmhouse, and they justwalked to it and asked where they were and asked for provisions, which,apparently, they were given. And then, they continued on the road to Brussels.But they were illegal. So, they lived in Brussels for five years with identitycards that said "doit immigrer" -- "must emigrate." My father, in the meantime,was in Germany, trying to become a doctor and studying. And I just found theirletters to each other. I got someone to translate them, 'cause they were inPolish, of all things. My father refused to write Yiddish. So, it was a lot ofback and forth about, Is he gonna come? Is he not gonna come? In the end, he got 36:00wind of the fact that my mother, who had been left alone in Brussels, was seeinganother man. And then, he decided he better make a move, so he went to Brussels,and they ended up in Brussels together. And that's where I was conceived. (laughs)
CW:And you were born in Montreal?
GM:In Montreal.
CW:Can you describe the home that you grew up in?
GM:Can I describe the home? You mean, like, the physical place?
CW:Um-hm.
GM:Well, I was born just a few months after my parents got to Montreal. And my
father was a student -- he was still studying at the University of Montreal. Andso, at first, it was very poor, because my mother was alone in one bedroom,which they rented from another couple that had come earlier -- with a baby,essentially. And they both worked: he packed books, she worked in factories. 37:00They were really quite poor. But I don't remember that; I was too young. Andthen, eventually, they found a flat of their own. Meantime, my grandmother andmy aunt -- my mother's sister -- were still in Paris -- in Brussels, in Paris.So eventually, they came over, so they needed a bigger space. So, we lived off-- do you know Montreal?
CW:Yeah, a little bit.
GM:We lived off Bernard Street, which was the Jewish ghetto at the time -- on
Bernard Street, which was off Park Avenue. And then, we moved to Outremont -- itwas Ducharme Street. And that's where I -- most of my child-- that's what Iremember best. And it was a long apartment with a Polish landlord who my motherdid not like. They were constantly fighting over things. And there were mice inthe walls, and she was terrified of mice. And it was (laughs) -- we were 38:00constantly having cats that were supposed to kill the mice. But you could hearthe mice. It was not a pleasant (laughs) -- you could hear them in the walls. Iremember trying to fall asleep and hearing, like, the scratch, scratch. (laughs)So, it was better than living in a room, but it wasn't a high-class place. Andthen, my father got his medical degree, finally, when I was about five or sixyears old. And then, financially, things started to look up -- sort of.
CW:And what was the Jewish community like in Montreal when you were growing up?
GM:I don't remember, 'cause I was a little too young, but I think they were
wonderful. My parents were brought over by my mother's publisher. Was a man 39:00called Harry Hershman that I would love to know more about. And I called himzayde [grandfather] -- my grandfather. He wasn't my grandfather. But he dideverything. And there was an organized community. And he was one of these -- hewas a publisher of Yiddish books, but he was also a groyse tuer [importantactivist] in the community -- in the kehile. And there was a committee thatreally worked very hard to bring over Jewish immigrants, survivors, to Canada.It wasn't that easy. And when my mother came, I mean, she was greeted -- by thattime, she had a reputation as a writer. And you probably know this story -- shetold this all the time -- that when they arrived -- first they arrived inHalifax and then they took a train to Montreal. It was the middle of winter; itwas February. And greeting them at the train station was Melech Ravitch and his 40:00wife and a whole greeting party. And Ravitch kissed her hand, which -- nobodyhad ever done that before, and so she never forgot that, that that was herwelcome to Montreal. And in terms of the Jewish community, I think they behavedvery well, and they helped them a great deal.
CW:And how had she become known for her poetry?
GM:Because her first -- when she was in Brussels, she published a long poem, "Di
balade fun nekhtikn vald [The ballad of yesterday's forest]," in the "Tsukunft"in New York. And then, she had been reconstructing all of her poems. I don'tknow who came to whom -- I think Moyshe Oved in London read "Di balade fun 41:00nekhtikn vald" and got in touch with my mother -- I think. I'm not a hundredpercent sure about that. And he offered to publish her book of poems, whichincluded "Di balade fun nekhtikn vald" -- "un andere lider" -- and other poems.So, he was her first publisher. And Hershman in Montreal got hold of this book,so that's how they knew about her. And I think people -- there were reviews ofher books. And Moyshe Oved made a big evening for her in London, so she went toLondon, and all of the Yiddish community of London came out to hear her, andthere was a reading. And I have photos of that, and they're on the website. Andthat was a big deal. And I think also, that way, helped to establish her name.She met Esther Kreitman, she met Itzik Manger. So, she became part of the 42:00Yiddish writers' world in that sense. So, by the time they came to Canada in1950, certainly Ravitch had heard of her -- I mean, he was there, right? Andshe'd become -- I've read articles, you know, about the yinge dikhterin vos hotibergelebt di milkhome [the young female writer who survived the war]. So, Ithink she had a name by then.
CW:And what were her writing habits? When would she write?
GM:All the time. (laughs) My childhood friends -- that's what they remember --
that we were always being shushed because my mother was writing. I don'tremember so much being shushed, but I remember she wrote constantly. She wouldwake up in the morning very early. Then, she would take a break when I woke up, 43:00and she'd get me and my brother ready for school. And then, we'd go to school,and she'd write some more. And then, we'd come back, and she'd feed us. Andthen, she would -- whenever she had a moment, she would write. She wrote all thetime. I mean, "Tree of Life" is a big book. It's three volumes. And that's whatshe was working on primarily.
CW:Did she have a certain place in the apartment she would write?
GM:Yeah. She had her own little office. And she had a Yiddish typewriter. But
she wrote everything by hand first, and then retyped it. And I guess while shewas retyping, she probably edited and changed things, too.
CW:And what did that office look like? Can you describe it?
GM:I don't remember it that well. It was a mess. (laughs) It was full of her
writing. You know, it's funny, I actually don't remember it very well. I just 44:00remember -- it was not a big room. But by this time, we were -- m'hot zikhpopravet [we improved ourselves], as they say. (laughs) We were in better shapefinancially. So, we had this long apartment on Ducharme, and this was one of therooms. That's about all I remember.
CW:(laughs) What was that like for you when you were really little to have this
Yiddish writer mother?
GM:(laughs) When I was really little, I don't think I was very aware of what she
was doing. When I was older, I wasn't too happy that she was always writing.(laughs) I wanted her to pay more attention to me. So, once, I took one of hernotebooks in which she was writing and I threw it down the incinerator. And she 45:00jumped up and ran -- we were on the third floor -- she ran all the way down(laughs) and saved it. The fire was not on then, so fortunately, she saved it.But (laughs) I was not in the good books for a long time. (laughs) I wanted herto pay attention to me, you know? And I would get -- like, if I got bored orsomething, I would bug her. And, you know, I -- that's (laughs) -- when I gotolder, I actually felt -- I liked that she wrote, because I felt that all waswell with the world when she was writing. 'Cause otherwise, things -- it was nota happy marriage, and they would fight. So, when she was writing, there waspeace, and I thought everything was fine.
CW:Did she share her work with you?
GM:When I was older, she did. And I didn't want to listen very often. But yeah,
46:00she certainly tried. And then, when I was thirteen, I had an operation on myback, and I was bed-ridden for a while, and she came in with her play, which hadjust been produced in Israel in Hebrew, and she wanted me to translate it intoEnglish. Like, I was thirteen, you know? (laughs) And I couldn't escape. And Ididn't particularly wanna do it. And my English was the English of athirteen-year-old who didn't even have English as a first language at the time.So -- but that was my first experience of being her translator. And as I gotolder, I did more and more of that with her. Her English was actually quite good-- like, her spoken English was very good. But writing is different. So, sheneeded someone who thought in English, because she thought in Yiddish. So, she 47:00would use English words, but sometimes, they didn't sound right -- like, theorder sounded wrong, or something was off. But I didn't become good atrecognizing that till I was quite a bit older myself. When I was young, I wantedto master English. I desperately -- I felt that my English -- my written Englishwas terrible. It didn't feel right. It didn't read the way books read when Iread them. So, it took me a long time to feel that I had finally got a hang ofthe language.
CW:Did other writers come to visit your homes?
GM:Constantly. Constantly. I forgot to mention when you asked me about what the
Yiddish world was like when she arrived -- there was Ida Maze -- had a salon.And my mother -- from the minute she arrived, she was invited to the library, 48:00she spoke. She met all the Yiddish writers. So, when I was born, Ida Maze wrotea poem on the event of my birth that was published in the "Keneder Adler." Claimto fame. But there were constantly -- Itzik Manger came when he visitedMontreal. I apparently met him, but I don't remember very well. Ravitch camevery often with his wife, Rukhl. Who else? Yehudah Elberg was part of that svive[scene]. Who else? Chaim Grade, my mother knew well, but Chaim Grade had -- I'msure you know -- he had a problem with his wife, and so there was an incident inNew York which I won't go into now. But all of the Yiddish writers -- Singer, wemet in New York. So, she pretty much knew everyone who was a Yiddish writer at 49:00the time.
CW:And what was it like for you? Did you have any relationships with these older
-- with the writers?
GM:With the writers? I was young, you know? And they were adults. And some of
them were sort of pretty dure adults. Like, Ravitch scared me a little bit,'cause -- I met Singer, and we were on a trip to New York, and I had just read"Satan in Goray," but I read it in English. And I very proudly told Bashevisthis -- that I had just read his book. And he said to me, "I've always wantedyoung people to read my work." And I took offense, because at the time, I didn'twant to be called a young person. (laughs) But, I don't know. I mean, I was too 50:00young to really interact with them very much. When I got older, it was a littlebit different. But I didn't, really. My mother knew Rokhl Korn quite well, too.
[BREAK IN RECORDING]
CW:What were the languages that you heard growing up?
GM:Mostly Yiddish. My parents spoke Polish when they didn't want us to
understand. But I realized fairly young that if I waited long enough, they'dswitch to a language I did understand, 'cause they didn't like speaking Polish.So, it mostly was Yiddish. And then I learned English at school. And we alsolearned French. So, those are basically my languages.
CW:Your grandmother lived with you also?
GM:Yeah. She died in 1959. So, she lived with us, but also not with us. Because
51:00by the time she came, she was already quite sick, so she lived at friends of myparents, not far away. But towards the end of her life, she was living with us.She died in our apartment.
CW:And did you get to know her? Did you have a --
GM:I knew her. I knew her. I don't remember her very well, I was nine when she
died. But she was wiser the ways of children than my mother. My mother was easyto fool, and my grandmother was not very easy to fool. (laughs) So, as a child,I had mixed feelings. (laughs) But she must have been quite a woman. I mean, shesurvived the war with two daughters, you know? Apparently, she was the only 52:00mother -- like, the only woman of a certain age to survive the war, so that allmy mother's friends called her -- called my grandmother -- mameshi [mommy] andtreated her as if she were their mother, because they all lost their parents.So, in the community, the Yiddish community of Montreal, she had quite aposition. But she got sick. She died of cancer.
CW:Can you tell me a little bit more about your relationship with your mother
growing up?
GM:Growing up? Like what?
CW:What was she like as a mother? What was her parenting style?
GM:I loved my mother. (laughs) She was a wonderful mother. She was very warm --
warm-hearted. And I always felt that she was on my side. And I felt that she 53:00loved me. And my relationship with my father was -- I never felt that. So, shewas really sort of my haven in times of trouble. I could always go to herwhenever I had a problem. And I would come home from school, and we bonded,because I would sit at a table, and I can talk. And I would talk and talk aboutwhat happened in school and, you know, all the kinds of things that -- and shewould listen. Now, when I was older, I realized there was -- she listened, butshe would also jump up. And if I said something that she thought was clever,she'd jump up, go and write it down, and come back. And, Yeah, go on. (laughs)And many of my sayings found their way into "The Tree of Life." There's a littlegirl in there, so that's -- that little girl says what I used to say. But during 54:00those afternoon meals, we really bonded. She was a very good listener, and shewas interested in my life to an extent that I think was really quite remarkable.'Cause, you know, what was my life? My life was school. And just, you know, Ilike this girl and I don't like that one -- and, you know, all the plotkes[gossip] and everything. So, I think she was a wonderful mother. I mean, Ireally -- she was a very warm-hearted woman altogether. Very loving.
CW:And what school did you go to?
GM:I went to folkshul [Yiddish secular public school] -- to Jewish People's
School. And a lot of my schoolmates, or some of them, were also children ofsurvivors. There was a whole survivor community there. And the school -- one of 55:00the tensions between my parents was the school. So, my brother, who was younger,never went to the school. And I think it was bad for him, because he neverlearned Yiddish. He never learned -- like, what the school gave me -- it was asecular Zionist school, right? But it gave me a sense of what it means to beJewish without being religious. And so even now, I feel very, very Jewish.
[BREAK IN RECORDING]
GM:Looking back at the school, I think, I'm very happy I went there. But it was
a bone of contention between my parents, because my father -- my father'sreaction to having survived the war was, he didn't want to know about beingJewish, he didn't want to know -- and he felt this whole business of keeping upthe Bund -- you know, all this stuff -- he didn't want to know. He was the onewho insisted that we all speak English, that we all go over to English. He 56:00basically wanted to forget his own past. And he made fun of my mother for --because she was doing the opposite, right? She was going back. She wasconstantly trying to remember and memorialize what had happened. And she wantedto send her children to Jewish school, and he refused. So, they came to acompromise, which is that the daughter -- that was me, who didn't matter somuch, goes to the Jewish school, (laughs) and the son, my brother, would go to amuch better -- quote-unquote "better" school in Westmount -- like, the privateschool in Westmount. And that's basically what happened. But I knew when I wasgoing to the folkshul that my father disapproved of everything they wereteaching us. And so, it made for -- in me as a child, I had a lot of 57:00ambivalence. I couldn't read -- like, you know, Yiddish is my first language. Icouldn't -- to this day, I can't read Yiddish smoothly out loud. I was alwayshesitating -- like, stammering, whereas I have no trouble with English. So, Ithink it had an effect on me -- his disapproval. So -- anyway, I think Ianswered your question. (laughs)
CW:Were there any important lerers there for you?
GM:Any important what?
CW:Lerers -- teachers?
GM:Oh, lerers. I don't remember liking any of them. I probably shouldn't say
that. (laughs) There probably were. I'm trying to think. There were some. Therewas a Mr. Rubinov, who was a very sweet man. I liked him. Mr. Scheintuch was my 58:00grade six teacher. But I had some of the English teachers who terrified me, andI was afraid to go to school. There was one in particular who yelled at me allthe time. I don't know why. And I won't tell you her name. But I literally wasafraid to go to school. I would vomit, I would -- it was horrible. And my fathereventually went and complained about this woman. There was also Mr. Dunsky, whowas the vice principal and was a big scholar. But I was twelve years old, so thefact that he was a big scholar -- I found him very boring. You know, you changewhen -- kids' perceptions of things are different, so when you get older, yousort of look back and think, Oh, yeah. I should have taken advantage of whatthis man knew. But at the time, I didn't. 59:00
CW:So, can you say more about this -- age thirteen, your first translation?
GM:It wasn't very good. (laughs) I didn't know English well enough. I learned
English primarily at school, and with my friends, so what did I know? (laughs)The story I always tell is that I -- my mother's play is about the partisans inVilna -- about Isaac Wittenberg, who was the partisan. And I thought -- youknow, Canadians say "eh" a lot, so I thought that's how English is spoken. So, Iwould have the partisans saying things like, "Time to get the weapons now, eh?"(laughs) You know, things like that. (laughs) I just -- it was not a very goodtranslation. I've redone it since. (laughs) But it was that kind of thing. Imean, and my mother -- she felt very insecure with her English, especially her 60:00written English, so I guess she thought that since I go to school and I speakEng-- you know, that I would be better. But I didn't become good until I wasmuch older.
CW:And then, so when was the next time you translated one of her things?
GM:I vaguely remember translating other of her things, but mostly I didn't want
to, because I wanted to live my own life. (laughs) But when I was in mymid-thirties, she finally got a publisher in Australia to publish "The Tree ofLife" in English, and she really begged me to help her with the English. And so,that was really the first time that I really worked as a translator in English.And it was also the first time that I read her work seriously. And I was blown 61:00away. I hadn't realized what a great writer she was. And so, it wasn't reallyuntil I was mature -- like, thirty -- that I came to understand what she hadbeen doing all those years that I resented because she was so busy writing. Youknow, I knew her poetry. I liked her poetry. But I hadn't read "The Tree ofLife" in Yiddish. And then, when we had to work on it together, that was arevelation to me. I was really blown away -- by the book, by her ability tocapture, you know, in such breadth, a whole community. And it was interesting. Iwas afraid it was gonna be very boring, but instead, I got so caught up with thecharacters. So, it really -- the problem with being young is, you're young. 62:00(laughs) And you need to grow up.
CW:Could you explain a little bit about what that book is about?
GM:So "The Tree of Life" is about my mother's life in -- sorry. It's about life
in the Łódź Ghetto. And it starts in 1939, before the Germans -- on NewYear's Eve, 1939. It follows ten characters, each one of whom gets a differentchapter, of various walks of life. And so, it shows you what the Łódź Jewishcommunity was like before the war, and then what happens when the Germans marchin, and how life constrains. So, the first volume goes from New Year's Eve, 1939to the end of 1939. And the next volume starts on New Year's Eve, 1940, and 63:00that's -- the first scenes there are the scenes of the Jews being forced intothe ghetto. And then, it continues -- the second volume goes for two years. Andthen, the third volume is the last two years. So, it basically covers the wholespan of the period of ghetto life, up until the liquidation of the ghetto. Andthen, it doesn't go any further. In the end, all the main characters get sentout of the ghetto. And intellectually, you know that probably most of them willnot survive. But, I was so attached to them by then. I asked her, you know,Maybe so-and-so survived? Or, Did so-and-so survive? And she said, "You know,that's how it was. Nobody survived." She's got three characters who survive, one 64:00of whom is her alter ego. And she couldn't, at that time, apparently, writeabout the concentration camps. So, the book ends with everyone being sent out ofthe ghetto, and then there's several blank pages, and then something aboutAuschwitz. And then, there's an epilogue in which the woman who is my mother'ssurrogate sits down to write this novel. But within the span of the threevolumes of "The Tree of Life," most of the characters, I've come to realize -- Ithought they were mostly fictional. I don't think they are anymore. I think mostof them are based on actual people. Some that are clear are -- there's a --Simcha Bunim Berkovitch is based on Shayevitch. And then, Rumkowski is a major 65:00character -- she doesn't change his name. And I think, given that she hardlyknew him, the portrait there is really quite remarkable -- of this character. Imean, he was -- I'm sure you know -- he was a fascinating man -- like, for goodand ill.
[BREAK IN RECORDING]
CW:So, you were saying that you were really impressed with your mother's writing
once you started.
GM:I was. I was.
CW:How would you describe her -- I know you could read it in translation and
everything, but how would you describe her style?
GM:Her style? For the most part, it's realistic. But occasionally, it goes -- it
becomes very poetic and very impressionistic. So, for instance, there's a scenein the second volume of "Tree of Life" where -- it's just a -- it's a true scene 66:00-- where they're emptying the hospital of patients and throwing them down fromwindows. And her description of that is more impressionistic than it isrealistic. They're just throwing people out of windows. It was horrible. Andthen, there's a scene in the third volume where one of the main characters istortured. And you see the torture -- you see the results of the torture,actually -- through ants; through ants who are climbing up his body and drowningin his blood. So, it's all narrated from the point of view of the ants. And asyou're reading, you realize what's happened to this man. But you're not told 67:00that directly. You're told that through what is happening to the ants. And theants start to become -- to take on the symbolism of Jews, drowning in blood. So,she can -- and occasionally does -- become almost -- I don't even know what tocall it. Not surrealistic, really, but she sort of blots the reality by -- orcomes at it indirectly, through other means.
CW:Did your parents talk to you about the war?
GM:My mother did. My mother was always ready to talk about what she remembered.
My father didn't want to talk at all. But my mother talked a lot. I didn'talways want to listen. You know, I found it -- as I got older, I found it really 68:00painful. It's hard to listen to that. So, I would run away. I wouldn't alwayslisten. And I regret it. I regret it. I just -- I could not listen to some ofher stories. It was just too horrible -- and too depressing. I wanted a happylife, and this was not happy. So, I ran away. And that was also, I think, why Ididn't want to read "The Tree of Life" in Yiddish, and I didn't read it till Iwas in my thirties.
CW:What was the process of translating that book with your mother?
GM:That book was hard, (laughs) because I was working from -- so she would do
the first draft. So, she had the draft, and I had to fix it. But my mother couldbe very stubborn, and she thought she knew English well. And I thought -- so we 69:00would have horrible fights. And I would say, "You can't say this in English."She said, "But I want to say it." And I'd say, "You can't say that. It's notEnglish." And we'd (laughs) fight a lot. A lot. Real screaming fights. But --and I would -- I was working from pages -- like, I'd have a typescript, and thenI would fix what I thought needed fixing and rewrite sentences, and then shewould put them into the computer. It was a very primitive computer at the time,(laughs) and she didn't always accept what I had changed. And if I saw that, I'dget angry. Why am I working on this, you know? (laughs) So, we'd have anotherfight. (laughs) But that was basically it. And we worked like that till we finished.
CW:How long did it take?
GM:I don't remember exactly, but it took a long time. Maybe about a year or so?
70:00And I think I may not have worked as much on the third volume, because I findthe English in that volume is not as good as it might be. So, I don't rememberwhat happened there. But basically, that was how we were --
CW:And looking back, what kept you working on it?
GM:The story. I was really ta-- and also, I mean, it was my first real -- what
do I want to say? It was my first real experience of what it must have been liketo have been in the Łódź Ghetto. Like, I had known vaguely, but this reallybrought it home -- what it was like. What I remember being struck by was theconstant anxiety: that you never knew, from morning till night, if you were 71:00gonna survive, if your loved ones were gonna survive -- that kind of anxiety. Idon't know how people lived with that. It was horrible. And then, you know,there were other things also -- the constant starvation and the -- as the noosetightens, as things get worse and worse, you wonder how people could have livedthrough this. And so, in a sense, it was a revelation to me. I had no idea aboutthe shper -- the geshper [German: curfew] -- and what that was all about until Iread my mother's book. And also, the thing that I'm very impressed with in herwriting is that she doesn't sugarcoat anything. Like, if there were Jews whodidn't behave properly, she writes about them. She doesn't portray all the Jewsas, you know, innocent victims. They're not. Like, she portrays them as humanbeings. I think that's really one of the achievements of the novel. 72:00
[BREAK IN RECORDING]
CW:And then, that book was published in Melbourne? Or in --
GM:First in Melbourne -- in English.
CW:In English?
GM:It was originally published in Yiddish, right? And when it was published in
Yiddish, I think it was '72, she was inundated with -- she won all kinds ofprizes -- she was inundated with response from the Yiddish-speaking world. Butthe Yiddish-speaking world is a bagrenitste [a limited one], you know? It wasnarrow. And so, she wanted to have it published in English. And even before itcame out in Yiddish, she was already working on the first draft of the Englishtranslation. And so, it was -- in English, it was published -- first, it wasalso translated into Hebrew. I don't know what the reaction was to that. But --so it was published first in Melbourne, but without rights in North America. So,it was not published in English in North America until 2004, when University of 73:00Wisconsin Press brought it out. And they brought out essentially the Australian version.
CW:I'm curious about the import of translation and that your mother felt that.
Did she talk to you about why translation was so important to her, and why shewas writing in Yiddish but --
GM:I think it was important to all Yiddish writers, frankly. (laughs) Because it
-- first of all, I think it was becoming more obvious that there were fewer andfewer readers. And writers don't write for their drawers, right? The deskdrawer. They want to be read. So, the public was shrinking. But I think even theprevious generation of Yiddish writers, they wanted to go into English -- like 74:00Sholem Asch and, you know, Singer. Because a non-Jewish language is where theworld lives. And most of the world's not Jewish. And I think my mother wasmotivated by exactly the same thing -- she wanted readers, and she wanted morethan just Yiddish readers. I mean, even -- she couldn't even reach all Jews,right? Because not all Jews knew Yiddish. So, I think the motivation -- shedidn't have to explain it to me. (laughs) I understood. It was sort of obviousto me.
CW:What was the impact of working on that translation -- that first translation
project with your mother -- well, I guess, not the first, 'cause that was whenyou were thirteen, but (laughs) the "Tree of Life" project. What was the impacton you personally?
GM:It changed my relationship to my mother. Because until then, she was my
75:00mother, and I loved her as my mother. But after that, I really respected her asa writer. I mean, by that time, I had a degree in English literature -- I had asense of what was good literature. And I realized that she was a great writer.And to me -- so I looked at her differently. I looked at her as -- first of all,we were working together, so we were really peers in that sense, but also, I wasfull of respect that I hadn't had before. Because my father had sort of made funof her as a writer -- that she was always living in the past -- and so Iaccepted that he was right. And when I actually worked on her books with her, Irealized that what he had said was horrible -- that he undercut her for no 76:00reason, that she was really a very good writer. And he would have known that,because he read "The Tree of Life."
CW:And then, moving on from that to her other books -- could you explain what
her other works were after that?
GM:So after "The Tree of Life," she wrote "Letters to Abrasha." "Letters to
Abrasha" -- I'm working on the translation right now. It never got into English.And there, she actually writes about the concentration camps. So, with "Tree ofLife," she just didn't have the courage. And in "Letters to Abrasha," it dealsmore with her own childhood again -- in Poland, in Łódź -- and it also dealswith what happens with the concentration camps. And again, it's fiction, right? 77:00So, not all of it is what happened to her. And she's changed a number of things.And I really wish I knew what was fiction and what was not. Some things I know.The heroine of "Letters to Abrasha" is the younger sister of two, whereas infact, my mother was the older sister. But some things are clearly based on herown childhood. The sections in the concentration camps are horrific. Very hardto read. And I keep putting off translating them. Bits and pieces have beentranslated in English -- like, the liberation of Bergen-Belsen appeared in the"Montreal Gazette." And just recently, in "Tablet" -- I don't know if you saw it-- I published the arrival in Auschwitz. But it is hard going for me, so I 78:00haven't -- I should work on it more than I do. But eventually, (laughs) I willget it translated. So, that was her second book. And that's a one-volume book.And then, she wrote "Bociany," which was about the shtetl that her parents grewup in. And "Bociany" originally in Yiddish was two volumes, but when it came outin English, she called the second volume "Of Łódź and Love." So, that's acontinuation of the story of her parents, but in Łódź.
CW:And did she continue to write poetry?
GM:She wrote poetry until about 1965. That was the year she published her last
year of poetry, "Aroys fun gan-eydn [Out of Paradise]." And then, she continued-- she did, I mean, but she never published another book of poetry. Like, shehad little poems here and there. So, she did, yeah. 79:00
CW:And while we're here in this house and we have a lot of your mother's art
around -- when did she start doing painting or drawing?
GM:I think she did it all the time. 'Cause the paintings in the bedroom were
when I was a little girl. And I think she did it between books -- as, you know,if she didn't have an idea for a book or she was sort of cogitating, (laughs)she would paint. And she always liked to do that. And she did also other formsof arts and crafts, like the mural. And also, I don't have any room to hang itup here, but she also did tapestries -- like, full-length tapestries, which shewould sew by hand. So, she was very, very creative. If she wasn't writing, shewas doing something else like that. And the sculptures she did, as well.
GM:Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, she would stand at an easel and she would
sort of, you know, do her drawing -- and erase lines that were wrong and redo --I mean, she really -- she was good. I mean, she really put her heart into it.And this mural she did in the basement of our house. How she knew how to do amural, I don't know. And the whole basement was full of the little tiles. Andyou have to put something on the -- it's, like, on the background, so thatthey'll stick. And you have to know -- it's complicated. When she was doingthis, that's all she was doing. When she was doing her tapestry, that's all shewas doing. Like, she was very involved. She had an amazing ability toconcentrate (laughs) on things, which I really admire, 'cause I'm -- you know, I 81:00start doing one thing and then I get distracted and things. So, she wasn't likethat. (laughs)
CW:So earlier, we were talking about other Yiddish writers, and you said when
you got older, the relationship changed with some of them?
GM:Well, I wouldn't say the relationship really changed, but I was more aware of
who they were. When I was young, I mean, these were just my parents' friendscoming to the house. So apparently, I was present when Manger came, but I don'tremember that. I was really young. But when I was older, I became -- I was muchmore aware of who they were -- you know, like Ravitch and certainly, YehudahElberg came a lot -- I mean, they were quite good friends. But by the time I wasin my twenties, I think Rokhl Korn had died, Ida Maze had died, so a lot of themI met only as a child. 82:00
CW:What was it like as you were growing up -- I mean, I know you were also your
father's daughter, but what was it like to be Chava Rosenfarb's tokhter [daughter]?
GM:I liked it. I used to drop her name all the time. (laughs) I once -- at the
school -- at the folkshul -- Dora Wasserman came to put on -- she was putting onplays, and in one of the plays, she didn't give me a part -- I didn't have aspeaking part. So, I went up to her and I said -- how would I have addressedher? -- "Khaver vaserman, ir veyst nisht ver ikh bin. Ikh bin der tokhter funkhave rozenfarb [Ms. Wasserman, you do not know who I am. I am Chava Rosenfarb'sdaughter]." (laughs) I got a part. (laughs) So, I knew -- especially in thefolkshul, I mean, I knew to name drop. (laughs) And I did -- a lot. Because my 83:00mother's name had currency, and I was not above exploiting that. (laughs)
CW:How did your relationship to Yiddish change over your life?
GM:I think when I was young -- like, when I was an adolescent -- I really didn't
want to know from Yiddish, I mean, it's just -- but once I started -- I went toNew York. I was at Columbia for a while, and there was a job opening at NYU inadult education -- or a teacher of Yiddish. And I figured, I can do that. So,without really realizing that my Yiddish was the Yiddish of a child, basically-- so I got the job. I got the job on the basis of the person who interviewed mealso didn't know Yiddish. (laughs) So, he said -- so this one guy said to me, 84:00"How do you say 'oranges' in Yiddish?" And I said, "pomerantsn." And this guyturns to the one who was hiring me and said, "Boss, she's the real thing."Because he thought I would say, "oranzhn," right? So, I knew it was"pomerantsn," so I got the job. And then, I had to teach Yiddish. My basis forYiddish was fine -- it was -- but that's all it was, there was nothing there.So, I had to teach myself. And in teaching myself, because I had to teachothers, I started to get more involved with the language and more interested.And then, while I was at Columbia, I took a course with BarbaraKirshenblatt-Gimblett on Yiddish folklore, and I loved it. And I loved it. Ireally -- I loved the whole thing. And so, instead of turning my back on it, Ireally started to come back. But I'll never forget the way I got this job. I 85:00mean, that was not the way (laughs) you should hire a Yiddish -- and also, itillustrates how -- (sighs) what had happened with the language. You know, thatthat would be a job interview for a Yiddish teacher? One word? (laughs) Youknow, it's --
CW:People talk about the generational divide between, you know, people -- the
European-born and American-born. Did you feel that, and what was therelationship between those generations?
GM:How do you mean that?
CW:Well, I guess the question is, what was the relationship between those generations?
GM:In Canada, I didn't really feel it. I mean, my friends at folkshul were
basically -- a lot of them were like me, you know? Come from Yiddish-speaking 86:00homes. And Yiddish was taught at the school. I didn't really feel anything likethat, except when I went to college. I went in the States. I went to BenningtonCollege. And a lot of the professors there were Jewish. And I would say, veryproudly, "I speak Yiddish," and they would laugh. Well, they wouldn't laugh, butthey would say, Oh, you speak that? You know, there was something -- and Ialways thought of it more as an American/Canadian divide than as another kind --a generational divide. Because my Jewish friends in Montreal had my background.And also, the fact that Yiddish in Montreal was not that rare. And people didn'tfind it amusing. And then, I get to college -- it was really my first experience 87:00of being outside of my milieu. And there, I would meet American Jews, and theirattitude was different, much different. And I was a little appalled, frankly. Imean, one of my teachers was Malamud. He was -- well, he was okay with -- hethought that it was really cute that I spoke Yiddish, because he didn't. Butthere were others who'd sort of say, Oh. (laughs) So, I don't know if that'swhat you mean. But I found the attitude of American Jews towards Yiddish hard tosympathize with, really. I thought they were dismissive and really had no senseof -- A, of the language. Like, they'd make jokes -- you know, kitchen Yiddishjokes. They had no sense of the language and no sense of -- that it was a 88:00language. I'd say, "My mother's a Yiddish writer" -- very proudly, I'd say, "Mymother's a Yiddish writer," and somebody once said to me, "I didn't know youcould write in that language." (laughs) So, that was a shock, I have to say.
CW:What do you see as the role of Yiddish now?
GM:Oh. (laughs) I don't know. I don't know. What do you mean by "role"?
CW:Place. Place in the world.
GM:I hope it doesn't die out completely. It gives me hope that you're both so
young (laughs) and that you're interested in the language. I get verypessimistic about it. Nobody speaks it -- with the exception, maybe, of theHasidim -- as an everyday language, and that's not good. So, people learn it, 89:00but it's also -- it's a small number of people learning it. I would actually bemore interested in what you think is the role of Yiddish.
CW:I can tell you later. (laughs)
GM:Okay. (laughs)
CW:I don't know if I have anything wise to say. Is there anything that you would
like people to know about your mother that they wouldn't know?
GM:That they wouldn't know? I can't think of anything. (laughs) I think she was
a very unusual human being, and a very -- my husband once said she had abeautiful mind, and I thought that was a very nice compliment and true. Shedidn't look at the world the way other people look at the world. She had herfaults: she could be very stubborn, she could be also very sort of aloof andreclusive. But basically, her understanding of the world -- she always was 90:00different. It was unique. You never knew what she was gonna say. And she couldcome out with some wonderful things. And it's also true in her writing. It's adifferent way of understanding the world. I think she was a very unusual personin many ways.
CW:Do you think she has a readership now?
GM:I can answer that by what I hope. What I think, I actually don't know. I know
that people read her books. But how many? I have no idea. I do occasionally getemails from people who have just read her book, telling me how impressed theyare. I don't know. I don't know. "The Tree of Life" has just been translated 91:00into Polish. I'm told that the reviews are good, but how many people arereading? I don't know. It's just the first volume that's been translated. And Iget royalties from the University of Wisconsin Press, so somebody must bereading. I don't get a lot of royalties, but I get something. There's never beena year when I didn't get something. So, that's an indication that she is beingread. How many? I don't know.
CW:And why should people read her?
GM:I think because if you want to know anything about what happened to the Jews
during the Second World War, then you have to read her. Because she -- first ofall, there are very few novelists who survived the war who wrote novels as 92:00opposed to memoirs. Most of the -- I think I'm right about this -- most of theliterature that was written by survivors after the war is memoir or history.There aren't that many novels. And so, the novel puts together a kind ofartistic sense -- and in the case of "The Tree of Life," a historical one. Theadvantage of a novel over a history is that it gives you a sense of what it wasactually like to live through these events. So, I would say, if you want to knowwhat it was like to be incarcerated in the Łódź Ghetto for five years, andsystematically starved and -- you know, and in horrible conditions -- if youwant to know what that was like, then you should read "The Tree of Life." If youwant to know what it was like to grow up in Poland as a young Jewish girl and 93:00that society, then you should read my mother's other books. Because she capturesthat, I think.
CW:I had a question -- I just forgot it. Hold on one sec. (pause) Well, I think
I lost it. Oh. Reading your mother's work at different times in your life, haveyou noticed different things?
GM:Well, "The Tree of Life" -- it's so big that you always notice different
things (laughs) than when you first read it. So, in that sense, yeah.
CW:And I just want to ask you about the website. I mean, it's a really big
GM:I want people to know about my mother. And I thought, This is one way for
them to know it. I'm not tech savvy; I know nothing. So, I have a formerstudent, actually, at the University of Lethbridge, who helped me set it up. So,he takes care of all the technical stuff. But I really -- it was a way of -- Iwas afraid she'd be totally forgotten. I mean, that's why I work on her -- ontranslating "Letters to Abrasha," and I'm working on a book of her essays. And Iwill, eventually, write a biography of her. I don't want her to be forgotten. Idon't want all that work and intelligence and -- to just be erased by time. I 95:00know that that's probably a futile hope, but that's the motivation.
CW:And I asked this in your childhood, but now, how has having a Yiddish writer
as a mother impacted your own identity?
GM:Oh, very much. Well, I mean, I define myself as Jewish -- secular Jewish. I
guess I identified with her almost all my life. So, I don't know that it'snecessarily only the fact that she was a Yiddish writer, but I certainly -- shewas a very important person in my life, I think, for sure. And while I'm not 96:00always happy with the notion that I might be growing into her -- like, to becomeher -- I don't mind too much, either. (laughs)
CW:Well, I'd just like to end by asking what you learned from her.
GM:What I learned from her? I learned the importance of hard work -- of
concentrating. She was so disciplined. Every single day, that's all I remember.Even when I was an adult, every day, she was always at her desk, she was alwayswriting something -- and until really when she was in her seventies. And if youwant to produce anything, that's how you have to be. So, I don't always followthat, but I think that's not necessarily a bad lesson to have learned.
CW:Great. Well, is there anything else you want to add about her?