Lidia had decided to abandon efforts to seek American citizenship. It would require her to reside five years in the United States, and she believed she could never make her living teaching Esperanto in America for so long a time. In spite of the strong advice some of her friends had given her not to go back to Europe, this time her mind was completely made up. 'Certainly', she wrote, 'Europe is not a good place now. But Shoghi Effendi did approve that I retum to Poland.' To go to Poland was, she now believed, her destiny.
A few days before, she had received a letter from Roan, who, knowing nothing of Lidia's passport problems, wrote that she had dreamed there were cockroaches and mice in Lidia's house. 'Your dream . . . was not completely untrue,' Lidia wrote to her. 'In the symbolism of dreams, as much as I understand it, those undesirable animals certainly represent something unpleasant, evil about my home.' To Della she further explained: 'undoubtedly the cockroaches and mice in my house symbolize the difficulties of my homeland.'
'Thanks be to Baha'u'llah!' she wrote Roan. 'Oh, I prayed so, so much to Him during those days, that He spare me the terrible fate of being expatriated. I know a man in that situation, so I know what it is like. And I had reasons for not being certain of the ConsuFs decision. The first reason - race!'
But Lidia's problems were still not over. Now she leamed that, before she could leave the country, she had to show she had complied with United States income tax laws. The United States govemment was forcing her to leave the country because she had accepted money for her classes, and now it wanted her to pay tax on that money! She was presented with a 1040-C form and various tax schedules to fill out. The tax for aliens was ten percent with no exemption for a non- resident, who was not supposed to be earning money in any case.
When she opened the letter that contained the imposing official forms, she felt 'truly, a crocodile crawling out of the envelope couldn't have terrified me more than that densely printed sheet with so many sections, specialized terms, etc.' The total amount she had' received from her classes was about 630 dollars.
Lidia's difficulties were coming at a time when the world situation was deteriorating in a frightening way, and the fear of war increasingly became a specter that overshadowed ordinary life. This atmosphere of anxiety led to a famous and bizarre event which happened that same week. On the night of October 30, 1938, the American public was seized by mass hysteria when a very realistic, though fictional, radio drama convinced many that New York and New Jersey had been invaded by spaceships from Mars. It was H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, narrated by Orson Welles. 'People across the country were in panic,' Dr Charles Simon recalled. 'The next evening I was explaining to Lidia Zamenhof the extent to which the public had been demoralized by the broadcast, and although she had not heard the program, she expressed amazement that Americans could become so nervous over a radio program.'
As she often did, Lidia saw a lesson in the incident and later wrote an article about it. She described the radio broadcast which had spread such terror across the country. When it was all over, she observed, 'no Martians had come to Earth to increase the confusion of our unhappy planet'. She contemplated the possibility: what would happen ifbeings from another planet landed on earth? Wouldn't they be more highly civilized than humans and long ago have risen above the primitive need to make war? And if not, wouldn't the peoples of the earth forget their differences and hatreds and unite to defend all mankind? 'It is strange and painful to think that unparalleled catastrophe is needed to awaken in men the awareness of human unity,' she wrote. 'But if that is the lesson mankind requires, can it escape it?
'Far from us,' she mused, 'the planet named for the god of war shines, a little red light. Let us not fear that planet. The danger that threatens does not come from it.' If Mars himself- not the planet but the war god Mars - were to fall upon the earth, reddening it with blood like the planet itself, Lidia wrote, 'even then, let us not despair. Let us work, endeavor and pray that it will be the last great test, that mankind will never again need another bloody lesson, that it will rise up chastened from the calamity and become what it should be' - one mankind in unity.
News of Lidia's journey to America had reached as far abroad as Johannesburg, South Africa, where an article appeared about her in the Zionist Record. 'The latest fashion amongst religion-mongers in
America is the Baha'f sect,' said the article. 'This movement, vvhich originated some eighty years ago in Persia, appears to be having a great vogue among seekers after new thought ... I am reliably informed that many Jews are taking an interest in the cult. The most outstanding Jewish supporter is Lidia Zamenhof, daughter of that famous founder of Esperanto, the universal language.
'It is a long way from the BialystokJewish eye-specialist, who was a keen Zionist, to the Baha'i Temple in Chicago. Yet Miss Zamenhof manages to make use of all her father's arguments in favor of a universal language for the purpose of the new "universal religion". Miss Zamenhof is a polished and a charming speaker and large audiences are being carried away by her eloquence.
'The Baha'i Religion recognizes the Esperanto language,' the article continued, 'and hopes that it may become the universal medium of prayer. . .'
When Lidia saw a copy ofthe article, she wrote immediately to Roan objecting to an 'extremely incorrect and misleading piece of information in it'. Lidia's concern, her letter showed, was for absolute truthfulness and accuracy even when the matter was somewhat painful to her. 'I am afraid', she wrote, 'that all the readers surely will think that the Baha'i Faith officially approves Esperanto . . . Can't you explain that the choice of the universal language must be, according to the instructions of Baha'u'llah, made by the Universal House of Justice, and that before that body makes the choice, no Baha'i organization, neither the NSA, nor the Guardian himself, can identify the Baha'i Faith with Esperanto? You can also say to him that Shoghi EfFendi greatly encouraged the Baha'is (just as 'Abdu'1-Baha did) to learn Esperanto considering that it is currently a tool of international understanding, but he cannot give any guarantee that it is the language which will be chosen . . . It is the duty of us Baha'is to avoid and try to avoid all inaccurate and misleading information concerning the Faith, even if that inaccuracy suggests something which we like, which we hope for, and ofwhich wepersonally are certain.' ThehumbleLidia was embarrassed that the reporter had called her 'the most outstanding Jewish supporter' ofthe Faith. 'Can't he more modestly say "oneofthe supporters"?' she pleaded.
Roan wrote a letter to the Zionist Record explaining the Baha'i position regarding Esperanto, which was duly published several months later. But some of the Esperantists were angry at her for writing it, not understanding the position of the Baha'fs and unaware that it had been Lidia's request that the correction be made.
Personally, Lidia was convinced that Esperanto would become recognized universally as the international auxiliary language, and she was disappointed when some Baha'is dealt with the matter as if
Esperanto did not exist. Several articles on the topic of universal language had recently appeared in the Baha'f magazine IVorld Order, and Lidia told Della: 'it is certainly interesting to see that the magazine dedicates so much attention to the theme. But, whenever I see someone seriously discussing which language to favor, it makes me think of people who are discussing how to open a door that is already open. . .'
Lidia's classes in Cleveland ended on November n, and on the following Monday she was to take the train to New York City, where she would spend her last two weeks in America. Her students gave her a farewell party at the home of one of the local Esperantists. She was particularly touched when one of them gave her a lovely corsage, to which was attached a card that said, 'You made me very happy!'