by Israel Kipen
The first ten years of my life coincided with extraordinary events which tempered my parents’ world. The attempts to overthrow the Bolsheviks who now governed Russia; the assault by the new Polish army upon Russia; the counter-strike by the “barefoot soldiers” reaching the very city of Warsaw; the incendiary situation in Germany culminating in the demise of the Weimar Republic and the collapse of the German Mark with their attendant economic and psychological effects – these formed a part of the background of my fledgling years. Added to these, the unsettled early years of newly-acquired Polish statehood could not but affect that generation. The Grabski era – so-named after the Polish Finance Minister at the time who introduced the spectre of the “Grabski wagon” that took away the last stick of furniture from tax-defaulters or the cow from the Polish peasant – also had far-reaching repercussions, to the extent that it fuelled Jewish emigration to all corners of the globe and which, in relation to those who went to Palestine, became known as the Grabski aliyah. This decade – 1919 to 1929 – culminated in the Crash which brought the Depression in its wake and, in a cascade of subsequent events, the Second World War another decade later.
If life for all was uncertain and unstable in the inter-war years, it was still more so for Polish Jewry. Anti-Semitism, historically indigenous to Europe, found particularly fertile ground in Poland where the Jewish population amounted to 10% following Poland’s independence in 1919. On the assumption that official and popular anti-Semitism may be directly proportional in intensity to the given numbers of Jews living in a society, then Polish anti-Semitism was “explicable”. What made the Jews a “problem” was their widespread distribution throughout the Polish state, but concentrated most predominantly in the cities.
When one reflects upon the individual and corporate psychology of Jews in Poland between the wars, one is struck by the ambivalence and total illogicality of the situation. In my own home town of Bialystok, for instance, whose population was overwhelmingly Jewish, a Polish child could nonetheless hold potential terror over me. He was liable without provocation to throw stones at me or at older folk, not needing to fear retaliation, for such was our mind-set as Jews that we were the ones who dreaded the possible consequences if were we to retaliate. Such a sense of vulnerability was so deep-rooted and endemic that Jews lived in constant suspense and uncertainty, and I, for one, used to be inwardly grateful that, when passing a Polish boy, no incident occurred. While the British image of a policeman is of one who can be relied upon to protect a citizen from harassment and the accepted wisdom of justice is that an individual is presumed innocent until proven guilty, Poland was from its inception a police state. The individual charged by a policeman was considered ipso facto guilty unless proven innocent. Where this prevailed as a general rule for Polish society, with regard to the Jews, whatever the circumstances objectively, the dictum was absolute: the Jew was always at fault. Anti-Semitism was as much integrated into government attitude, policy and legislation as it was a sentiment prevalent among the common people. At the very highest administrative levels, Polish deputies and functionaries used Jews as scapegoats for any number of social ills beyond their capacity either to ameliorate or eradicate. The Jewish press reflected these debates. Hostility abounded all around.
Little wonder then that, as Jews, we were already conditioned to fear the other – the police, the petty functionary, the state, the surrounding population – before our powers of reasoning had developed sufficiently to apply the tools of rational analysis to the situation. Such an outlook then became self-perpetuating, and there were no shortages of instances that would serve to reinforce these fears.
And yet the paradox was that, side by side with these ever-existing uncertainties, one could still live as a Jew in a homogeneous self-sustaining community that was capable of endowing the individual with the illusion of tranquillity. Such duality must have had a very deep psychological impact on the Jews beyond their own comprehension. Life had taught them to live simultaneously on two different levels, constantly trying to balance the two vastly disparate, seemingly irreconcilable, realities into a mental as well as physical accommodation.
Against this, to give the other side of the picture, the indigenous Pole was also party to a certain duality within his environment. He was Polish-born, Polish-bred, and the son of Polish parents in an independent Polish state. Yet when he walked out into the streets of Bialystok or Vilna or Brest, among many other towns, the majority of those he saw were unlike himself or his parents. Moreover, he was heir to stories taught at school, or in his church and often at home, these rendering him not particularly favourably disposed towards the Jew, let alone inclined to accept the reality as it was. He too thus became party to mistrust which, coupled with the observable facts of life around him, made the bridging of the gulf inevitably existing between Pole and Jew exceedingly unlikely. For what he saw was that the Jews were not the peasants and the Poles were not the traders, while whatever material progress and improved living standards were being made was in the cities, where expectations of self-betterment and of opportunity were most surely to be had, but whose dwellers were, in larger part, the Jews. In order that the Poles, too, should benefit from these improvements, the ruling classes sought a way not so much through transforming a largely impoverished, agrarian, backward and illiterate peasantry into an urban proletariat, as in opening up to their own Polish folk those economic activities till then historically assigned predominantly to the Jews. According to Polish logic, the first step towards the implementation of such a programme was to rid Poland of its Jews and have Poles occupy the vacated places. One slogan that made its appearance then was “Zydzi do Palestiny” (“Jews to Palestine”). Though it was only a slogan, for the 3 million Jews in Poland it marked a signal of intent, while at the same time it fired in the populace at large expectations of being inheritors of good fortune, thereby leading to excesses on both individual and organised levels. Instigated by those at the upper range of society, these notions trickled down to all levels, and the simpler and more unsophisticated were those who received them, the more naively did they hold to the hope of their immediate realisation, seeing themselves the while as the unchallenged beneficiaries of the anticipated change. Throughout the ‘twenties, therefore, tensions mounted, to which the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Depression, made another most telling contribution.
It was in this mood that Polish society entered the ‘thirties. Though the country was polarised within, it was united in its hatred of the Jews. Not even the professed brotherhood of socialism would bring the Jewish proletariat within the framework of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). The unions found no room for them. Jews had to organise themselves into their own unions and fight their own class battles and strive for improved work conditions and wages on their own.
Then a new providential phenomenon came into being. In Germany, beyond Poland’s western border, Adolf Hitler caught the headlines. While the antics of his ragtag bands may have been at first shrugged off by the solid German middle class and been a mere sideshow to the rest of the world, to the Jews the new contingency looked different. The more Jewish shop windows the rabble in Germany smashed, the more newsworthy did they become and the more of an example did they set for others to follow. With the accession of Hitler to the position of Reichschancellor, anti-Semitism and its outward manifestations became, in neighbouring European countries, more “respectable” and therefore not beneath emulation. In Poland, politicians no longer had to camouflage their sentiments and intentions behind diplomatic double-talk about the Jewish problem. They could now permit themselves to be more open, more clear and more explicit. When the economic campaign against the Jews intensified, the operative word was owszem – “by all means” or “go ahead”. The government gave its formal blessing to wage open battle to remove the Jews from their economic positions. This included not only commercial positions, but also others that were means of advancement, such as the free professions and the universi
ties where measures such as numerus clausus and numerus nullus were introduced into faculties like medicine, law and others which offered the highest potential for eventual status and financial reward. Only arts faculties remained unrestricted since they held no particularly attractive remunerative future for their graduates. Hence the Jews were still permitted entry into these in 1937. Meanwhile, the Polish government used what it saw as its good offices with the British government to permit a greater immigration of Jews into Mandatory Palestine, though the more desperately the Jews tried to get to Palestine, the more violent became the Arab reaction to those Jews who were already there.
The more bold and far-sighted among the Jews sought a way out. Usually, these were people who had little to lose by leaving. In the post-Depression years, no country was prepared to absorb immigrants in large numbers. Immigration quotas to the United States, for example, incurred delays of more than ten years for the many who wanted to enter. Where flight was achieved, it was on the basis of individual initiative. For the mass, however, the Evian Conference of 1938 was a true reflection of the general unwillingness of nations to accommodate more than token numbers of German Jewish refugees in the late 1930s. As for the millions of Polish Jews, they had no ready escape; they were quite literally trapped.
This was the general background against which my adolescence was played out. My generation sensed the dangers but could do little more than be constantly mindful of its progressive worsening. As there was no clear way out, young people my age went about their lives in a seemingly normal way. We played our games, dreamt our dreams, and continued to make private plans. We re-enacted the age-old human tendency to accommodate both hopelessness and cheerfulness simultaneously, not letting the prospect of doom rob us from one fleeting moment of joy or gratification. As the Romans had said: Carpe diem – we lived for the day.
From the Jewish viewpoint, in the circumstances prevailing in Europe in the ‘thirties, Zionism became the most logical and compelling solution. Whichever way one looked at the situation, there was little reason for wishing to continue living in a state of limbo such as we had been pushed into in Poland. But, this notwithstanding, the reality was that few found the courage to uproot themselves, while even those who did contemplate leaving found that the gates of Palestine were almost closed, only a trickle being permitted to enter. Those idealists, mostly single youngsters, who did resolve to leave, first had to undergo a process of physical, mental and emotional adjustment to the conditions and rigours they could expect to encounter in Palestine. Most of them came from the provinces; among them were many who felt that Poland held out little worthwhile prospect for them; while there were other particularly strong personalities – a number of personal friends among them – who mustered the self-discipline to leave their comfortable homes with the express aim of migrating to Palestine. To this end, chalutzic (pioneering) units were established. The members of these units lived on a communal basis, performed the most demanding and back-breaking jobs for minimal return, and huddled in primitive conditions, which were particularly severe in the long and bitter winter months. One could not but admire their single-minded commitment and determination and their readiness to forego the relative comforts of their homes.
For my part, I found myself undergoing an inner struggle. My home was Zionist. My secondary education, too, was gained in an environment profoundly Zionist in spirit and in orientation. The Hebrew literature on which I had been nurtured challenged me personally as it did my people collectively. I felt as if I were personally charged by Leib Yaffe, one of the leaders of Palestine Jewry who visited my school, to create a revolution in my home and persuade my parents, if they were not themselves ready to move to Palestine, then at least to let me go on my own. I was sixteen at the time. I knew that Yaffe stood on firm ground in advocating aliyah, but I also knew that my family circumstances were such that, in practice, such a departure for Palestine was unattainable for me. Hence, I was caught between two opposing forces and felt myself dangling in mid-air.
In addition to the oppressiveness of life inside Poland, the intending emigrant to Palestine had to surmount the difficulties imposed by Britain in administering the country. True, a number of Jews did get to Palestine. But this is no way implied any readiness by the British Mandatory authorities to permit easy access or acceptance into the country. British policy in 1930s Palestine reflected the sterility and harshness of a colonial empire unable to come to terms with its changing role and influence in the world. Its prime motivation being self-interest in the retention of whatever might it still had, Britain was unmoved by the needs of a people singled out for harassment and worse in the wake of a resurgent Germany under Hitler. The contempt with which Hitler treated the world, the occupation of Austria, the frenzied arms build-up, the German demand for the return of the port of Danzig by Poland, and Hitler’s incessant harangues against Poland grew shriller by the month. And yet, Poland itself, German’s immediate neighbour to the east and clearly under notice, found it difficult to concentrate on such “mundane” matters. Its national parliament had more important and pressing issues to debate, one of which was ritual kosher killing of animals by its Jewish population. Absurd as it was, the mind of Poland could not concentrate on ways to resist Hitler; it was too concerned with fighting Jews.
In June 1937, I completed my secondary education and returned to my father’s factory. During my matriculation year, Father had managed as best he could alone, even though the work was truly beyond the capacity of one man. He had refused to employ extra hands before I came back. When I did come back, I was eighteen, I was familiar with the manufacturing process and privy to certain production secrets, and I was willing to throw myself into the work with full enthusiasm and with keenness to prove myself. There was plenty to do.
One of the trade secrets I learned in the production of watoline was the choice of raw materials for the composition of the yarn we spun. The products differed in quality, distinguished by the degree of softness and height of pile they yielded after their final brushing. The trick was to so create a mixture of waste components to achieve the best results at least cost. Father taught me the kinds and proportions of serge and woollen wastes to use in preparation for the spinning, and when he left the supervision of the process to me, I began to experiment with different ingredients myself with satisfactory results. One particular yarn resulting from a combination of materials I had devised was so pleasing that Father, inspecting the first roll to come off the machine, not knowing the while that I had been experimenting with raw-stuffs, turned to me and said with patent satisfaction, “You see, I was right in my choice of raw materials and proportions”. “Yes, Father” was all I could say. I dared not reveal the truth. Had he known it, he may well have praised me for grasping the intricacies of the trade so well, but I lacked the courage to let on I had acted contrary to his own specifications. From then on, however, I did contribute to discussions relating to combinations of materials and at times Father accepted the “risk” of testing out my suggestions.
Ours being a relatively new industry, we had to battle to gain a foothold in the market and this required ingenuity as well as risk in permitting credit to buyers. This was the most difficult and unpredictable part of the business, for the entire distribution system was based on credit supported by promissory notes. The true or effective value of those promissory notes equalled only what the buyer could afford to pay, even though it was legally underwritten by everything he possessed; and one major problem was that many of the shop-keepers to whom our sales agents sold the goods possessed very little indeed. This was an aspect of the business that disturbed me greatly, not only because of the losses we sustained through dealing with less than credit-worthy buyers, but because it made me confront certain formerly unknown or unexperienced realities.
By the end of my first uninterrupted season in the factory, a very considerable number of promissory notes returned dishonoured. Father suggested I tour about the country to reclaim w
hatever could be salvaged. So it happened that I came to see Jewish life as it was lived in the many scattered townships of the Polish eastern hinterland, and what I saw was a very sorry picture indeed. The poverty and forlornness that I encountered in my dealings with the predominantly chassidic people were heartbreaking. Little half-empty shops were strung along the streets; their merchandise was laid out in such ways as to conceal to best effect the essential barrenness of the shelves; the shopkeepers, on the whole pale and drawn, waited behind counters for customers to cross their thresholds, something that occurred not particularly often. These people, I realised, could only subsist on credit, there being no way, short of miracles, for them to redeem the promissory notes. I saw for the first time – and to my distress – how fragile human existence was and how bitter the daily struggle for survival of those Jews could be. Even this ‘fortune’ the Poles were also intent on taking from the country’s Jews. By the time I returned from that trip, our financial situation had not greatly improved, but I was cast into deeper personal misery. What I had seen haunted me and robbed me of my peace. I felt myself too young, too soft and too vulnerable for the task, and it was in this frame of mind that I decided upon a return to study, persisting with my wish until Father let drop whatever resistance he put up and agreed to my enrolment in the university in Warsaw.