Daniel Stein, Interpreter

In those years I was fighting with the partisans in the Carpathians and your mother was fighting in Belorussia. I did not then know that an ideology which places itself above morality inevitably degenerates into criminality.

After the war I compiled the history of a country which never appeared on the map of Europe, a country without defined borders—Yiddishland, the country of people who spoke Yiddish. I gathered materials on the history of Jewish resistance in the territories comprising Yiddishland—Poland, Belorussia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Latvia. I published it in a succession of historical journals, and wrote my dissertation, since I was living in postwar Poland, on the history of the workers’ movement. The present book is not a scholarly monograph, however, but my reminiscences of those years and the testimony of people I knew personally.

We, the last remaining old timers of this charred continent, may not be on first name terms but at least we know each others’ names. I have been a friend of your mother’s from the earliest years of my life. We were children living in the same building on Krochmalna Street, which became known to the whole world thanks to the orphanage Janusz Korczak built there. Believe me, the name of your mother will be prominent when the history of this time is written.

I cannot demand that you should read the whole book, but I have made you a photocopy of some pages which I obtained from the archives with great difficulty. They tell of events which occurred shortly before you were born. I remember you complained that your mother wouldn’t tell you anything. You are unforgiving toward Rita, but you do not know what she went through. I think you should.

Yours affectionately,

Paweł

1956, Lwów

P

HOTOCOPIES FROM THE

NKVD

ARCHIVE

(Central Card Index, No. 4984)

All prisoners sentenced under political articles who are members of Polish socialist parties and organizations are to be released. List of 19 persons attached.

Acting Prison Governor, NKVD Captain A.M. Rakitin

Signature

Date: 5 October 1939

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I, Rita Kowacz (Dwojre Brin), was born on 2 September 1908 to a poor Jewish family in Warsaw. In 1925 I entered Mucha-Skoczewski College to train as a teacher. Regrettably, numerous arrests and periods of imprisonment have kept me from completing my studies.

In 1925 while studying at the college I enlisted in the ranks of the Grins revolutionary youth organization.

In 1926 I joined the Polish Young Communist League and organized a study circle at a hospital in Warsaw.

In 1927 I became secretary of the district committee in Wola, a suburb of Warsaw. Co-opted to the position of Secretary of the youth cell, I attended meetings of the Communist Party of Poland. During the period of disagreements between the “Bolsheviks” and “Mensheviks” I sided with the Mensheviks.

In March 1928 I was detained and arrested during a demonstration by a workers’ group at the Pocisk Factory and sentenced to 2 years’ imprisonment. I served the sentence in the Serbia Prison in Warsaw and the Łoma municipal prison.

In March 1930 I was released. I joined the regional committee of the Polish YCL and became secretary of the anti-war section.

In October 1930 I moved to Łód and set up a study circle in the hospital finance department. In Łód I was secretary of the district committee and a member of the provincial committee.

In January 1930 I was again arrested and given a three-year prison sentence, which I served in Sieradz Prison. There I was secretary of the prison Communist organization. Upon my release in 1934 I became a Party worker, first as secretary of the Czstochowa committee and subsequently of the Łód committee.

In November 1934 I was arrested, but released two months later.

In January 1935 I joined the Communist Party of West Ukraine. I became secretary of the Young Communist League of Lwów and district (Drohobycz, Stanisław, Stryj).

In September 1936 I was again arrested, and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. In November 1936 I gave birth to my son Witold in the Brygidki Prison.

In April 1937 I and my son were transferred to the Fordon Prison near Warsaw. In both prisons I was leader of the Communist organization.

In January 1939 I was again transferred to the Brigitki Prison in Lwów, from which I was released after the arrival of the Soviet Army.

Rita Kowacz

APPLICATION

TO THE MUNICIPAL PARTY ORGANIZATION OF LWÓW

FROM RITA KOWACZ

Pursuant to the liberation of East Poland and the transfer of these territories to the USSR, anticipating that inhabitants automatically acquire Soviet citizenship, I, Rita Kowacz, a member of the Polish Young Communist League since 1926, apply for admission to the ranks of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

Signature

Date: 5 October 1939

A list of individuals is attached who are prepared to vouch for the truth of my statement and, as senior Party comrades, to recommend me for membership of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks):

1. Antek Wózek (“Pigsticker”)

2. Antek Elster

3. Marian Maszkowski

4. Julia Rustiger

5. Paweł Kociski

12. 1986, Boston

F

ROM THE DIARY OF

E

WA

M

ANUKYAN

Talking to Esther about my childhood, I have unexpectedly made some discoveries about myself. Esther is a remarkable person. She almost never comments or asks questions, but just her presence is so supportive, so intelligent that I seem to become more intelligent and sophisticated myself.

With Grisha it is just the opposite: intellectually he is so far superior to me that with him I am struck dumb and am terribly afraid of saying something silly. In the bedroom, however, I am completely in charge because I really am the cleverer one in bed. The thing I have discovered from talking to Esther is that my memories are far deeper than I thought and I am re-assessing them. Reminiscences, then, are not a constant. They are unstable and changeful. That is amazing!

Now, let’s think less about the instability of memories and more about the facts. I don’t really have all that much to go on. We know from official documents that my brother and I were taken to an orphanage by Sister Elbieta. Almost nobody now remembers a Polish Communist writer called Wanda Wasilewska, a favorite of Stalin, but it was she who organized this orphanage for the children of people Stalin himself had murdered. Without her, there would have been nothing. Officially the refuge was under the patronage of the International Red Cross but secretly of the Polish Catholic Church. How we came to be with Elbieta I have no idea. I know only that my brother and I were taken there not by our mother but by another woman and that the year was 1943. I was not even three months old at the time and Witek was six. Nor do I know how we were brought across the border. It must either have been done officially with documents from the Red Cross, or illegally. For two Jewish children the latter seems improbable, although for centuries village people in those regions have been crossing the border using secret tracks through the forest and swamps.

The Polish orphanage was in Zagorsk. Why this small town, a little Russian Vatican which had previously been known as the Troitse-Sergiev Monastery, was chosen for the home I do not know and now there is nobody left to ask. Perhaps there are still some old nuns living out their last years in Poland who looked after us then. After the war, in 1946 or so, the orphanage was moved to Warsaw, where I think it exists to this day. I was destined to return to it in the 1950s, when my mother brought me to Warsaw.