by Dita Kraus
It took a while until he started communicating in Hebrew and stopped biting. He was two and a half and had been quite verbal in his native Czech. He continued calling me Mámo, until one day when he was already about five, he asked me, “Why do I call you Mámo when all the children call their mothers Imma?” He had completely forgotten his Czech. From that day I was also Imma.
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There was something in the structure of the kibbutz that remained an enigma for me. Everybody was equal, true, but there were still differences in status. Some members thrived on the reputation they had acquired long ago. Nachum, for example, was considered an outstanding worker—a quality most highly valued—but I saw him lingering over his breakfast longer than anybody and having long talks with the electrician or the boiler-room manager, instead of being at work. Some people enjoyed privileges or special considerations that I did not understand.
Also I wasn’t sure if the kitchen manager was my boss. Did she have the right to order me about, or did I have the right to say no? For the first year all newcomers were not full members, only candidates. Would they accept me when our membership was discussed by the general assembly? Perhaps I’d do something wrong, and they might not vote us in?
I was confused and did not feel at home. Often I had attacks of migraine and upset stomach. On the one hand, there was freedom—no household to take care of, no shopping or laundry—but I also could not relax, because I sensed that I was constantly under observation. As a matter of fact, the feeling that this was only some provisional and impermanent episode remained with me throughout the seven years we lived on the kibbutz. I never unpacked all my suitcases, symbolically and literally.
Although the children were separated from their parents most of the day, they were still the most cherished and pampered treasure of the kibbutz. There were the babies’ and the toddlers’ homes and the kindergartens with the little chairs, beds, and plenty of toys, swings, slides, sand pits, and toy tractors. Each toddlers’ home had two units for six children. There was a bedroom, a large play-cum-dining room, a shower room and cubicles with tiny toilets, a roofed porch, and an outdoor playground with a colorful wooden fence around. The lower school grades lived in dormitories with an attached classroom, while the older children went to the proper day school at the edge of the kibbutz. All the staff, including the teachers, were kibbutz members. When the kibbutz needed another nurse or teacher, it would choose one of its members to study the profession. Of course, a person who was not willing could refuse. On the other hand, if someone wanted to be sent to study something for which the kibbutz had no use, it would be vetoed by the general assembly.
There were, however, some exceptions. First of all, the kibbutz still upheld the principle of voluntary help for the good of the nation. They would send an experienced chaver to help establish a new kibbutz along the border or to coach street kids in the cities. If a member brought up some promising idea for a new source of income, it would often be supported by the general assembly.
Thus, for example, there was Honza Beck and his Bubatron. Honza was crazy about puppets. He was an adult with a child’s soul. With his deft hands he carved and painted the heads and limbs of the puppets, invented an ingenious mechanism for their movements, and built a mobile folding stage. With a staff of helpers, he would tour the country with his shows of fairy tales.
The most beloved of his productions was a tale in which Buba Ziva (buba in Hebrew means “doll”)—so named after the first baby born on Kibbutz Givat Chaim—played the main role. Buba Ziva also became the heroine of a children’s book, and Honza’s Bubatron became extremely popular all over the country. He came from Czechoslovakia a long time before the war but could still speak Czech. Honza was a cheerful person, full of energy and crazy ideas. We became very good friends, and our friendship lasted until his early death.
The main income of Givat Chaim came from the canning factory Gat, later Pri-Gat. Initially it produced orange juice and jams, but it gradually branched out to pickling olives and canning all kinds of fruits and vegetables and salted peanuts. During the citrus season, huge trucks arrived daily and unloaded grapefruits and oranges. After the juice was extracted, the pulp was left outside, where it grew into veritable mountains and fermented, its scent permeating the entire kibbutz for the whole winter. It was the cattle’s favorite food. By the way, the cows also loved music, and Franta, the cowshed manager, had the radio playing classical music all day long. It was the secret of their huge milk production.
Like most kibbutzim in Israel, Givat Chaim not only grew agricultural products on its lands; in winter it also tended vast state-owned fields of crops in the Negev.
Two or three chaverim would load a tractor and other agricultural equipment onto a truck and drive to the south, where they stayed for lengthy periods, sowing, cultivating, and harvesting. In those times the Israelis were still full of pioneering zeal, readily volunteering for tasks for the benefit of the nation and the new state. I liked this spirit, and when I was asked to donate my free Shabbat to pick grapes or other urgent chores, during what in Hebrew they so aptly call “the burning season,” I never refused.
Another voluntary contribution of the kibbutzim to the welfare of the state was the absorption of the members of the so-called Youth Aliyah movement. The movement’s aim was to take care of youths who had come to Israel without their parents, sometimes orphans, but also children of large families that had not yet settled down and were still in the tent camps.
The kibbutz offered them accommodation, an instructor, and a housemother to look after them. They were at school part-time, and they worked and learned Hebrew part-time. It was a good way to introduce the teenagers to life in their new country. The kibbutz, of course, did not do this without ulterior motives. It hoped that the youths would stay and become members. The state also contributed toward the cost for their upkeep.
Yet I really never could adapt to the notion that, in order to be a true female kibbutz member, one had to give up all cosmetics, high heels, and earrings. To look well-groomed was generally disapproved of. In the cities, kibbutz women would be recognizable by their unattractive clothes, with hair either short- cropped or gathered in a ponytail. When I went to visit my friend or uncle in Tel Aviv, I carried my high-heeled shoes in a bag, changed into them on the bus, put on lipstick and makeup, and hoped that I would not meet anybody from the kibbutz.
Kibbutzniks wouldn’t use an umbrella in the pouring rain; it seemed to them an unnecessary luxury. They rejected the polite social behavior of their former homes; they were the new revolutionaries, who didn’t dance the waltz or tango but rather the hora and at the table talked with their mouths full. Instead of wedding ceremonies, the chaver and chavera just declared before the general assembly that from now on they were a couple, and they moved into a room together. From that moment, they were considered married. This, however, changed after the state started establishing ministries with departments and officials demanding documents—in short, a bureaucracy. Then even kibbutzniks had to marry, with a rabbi, of course.
Our friend Arnošt once told us that, on his wedding day, he missed the bus when returning from work in town. The rabbi, however, was in a hurry and couldn’t wait. Another kibbutznik replaced Arnošt and married the bride in his stead. The rabbi wasn’t informed.
Otto and I were still olim chadashim, which means “new immigrants,” and therefore entitled to a grant from the state, as well as Hebrew instruction for half a year. We knew nothing about the grant—the kibbutz received it on our behalf—but we did get Hebrew lessons. This was, however, a complicated issue.
The entire group of newcomers was supposed to receive instruction twice a week for two hours. First of all, there was no permanent classroom; each time we had to find a room with chairs and tables, but usually there was no blackboard. Our instructor was Ruben, also a former Czech. But as our group consisted of Polish, Hungarian, and Czech newcomers, there was no common language in which to explain the Hebr
ew words. Ruben tried Yiddish, which we Czechs didn’t know, but could work out with our knowledge of German. The problem, however, was increased by the fact that Ruben didn’t know Yiddish, either, only German. He nonchalantly overcame that obstacle by improvising and changing the gender of German nouns. For example das Haus (the house) became der hois, or die Arbeit (the work) became dus orbeit, and, as a last recourse, der Bart (the beard) was dih bohrt. Instead of the German personal pronoun ich (I), he would say yach. Another obstacle was that often Ruben was otherwise occupied and didn’t appear for the lesson. Or some of the students would be drafted for urgent tasks that couldn’t be delayed, and the lesson wouldn’t take place for lack of participants. I doubt that in the end we got more than a dozen Hebrew lessons.
I picked up my Hebrew at work, in the kitchen, the dining room, the laundry, and the kindergarten. Many kibbutz members didn’t know German, Czech, or English, so I just had to learn Hebrew. I remember once, when I used the exclamation Ježíš Maria (Jesus Mary), which was a common expletive for all Czech-speaking persons, no matter whether Jews or Christians, I was rebuked by a chavera: “We Jews do not say this in Israel.”
A great help was our new friend Matti Megged. Matti was a salaried teacher, not a member of the kibbutz, and he and his wife, Hanna, lived in the hut next to ours. Matti was especially interested in our Czech group, because he had recently been in Prague—something to do with arms for Israel. We had to communicate in English and the little Hebrew we knew, with the rest in gestures. I remember Matti telling us something that happened to him in Prague. When he and an Israeli friend were traveling by tram one day, they commented on the big tits of a girl who was sitting in front of them. She kept her eyes lowered, but after a while, when she rose to get off, she remarked casually from the corner of her mouth, “Not only does she have big tits, but she also speaks Hebrew.” Today this wouldn’t surprise anyone, with the hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists, but in 1948 no one knew Hebrew in Prague.
Matti spent many hours with Otto and me, asking lots of questions, wanting to know everything about our pasts.
He was an exception; most Israelis didn’t want to listen to tales of the Holocaust. Much later I heard that Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion himself had said that any man who survived the camps must have been a Kapo or collaborator with the Nazis and any woman survivor a prostitute. No wonder, then, that the kibbutzniks dismissed the whole matter with a wave of their hands, saying, “Yes, yes, all right, but you don’t know what we had to undergo here, with the war, the Arab armies, the Palmach.”
An important feature of kibbutz life was culture. Every week two films were screened in the gym hall: one for adults, another for children. Several times a year every member got a ticket for a theater performance in Tel Aviv, Hadera, or Netanya. Transportation was provided. We sat on benches on the open back of a truck, wrapped in a warm coat or blanket over our Shabbat clothes. I remember the first Hebrew play I saw. It was called He Walked in the Fields, and I understood neither the plot nor the dialogue.
Once a year, a kind of book fair was set up in front of the culture hall and each of us could choose one book. Of course they were all in Hebrew. I always donated mine to one of the senior members. Often there were lectures about various subjects, and, above all, there were concerts. In those years, even top musicians and actors were willing to perform in the kibbutzim, usually for a small fee but also for free.
So, for instance, Frank Pelleg, the noted harpsichord player, gave a series of lectures about baroque music, playing samples on the piano. He would arrive in the afternoon, but, as the performance was in the evening, the chaver of the “culture department” would search for someone to host the artist. Pelleg was originally from Czechoslovakia, where his name was Pollak, so Otto and I readily volunteered, and we hit it off with him perfectly. We became real friends and later visited him and his wife, Inge, several times at his home on Vitkin Street in Haifa. I remember him telling us how he’d smuggled the musical score of the opera Brundibár to Israel.
During the forty years of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Israel was considered a western imperialist enemy, and travel between the two countries was severely restricted. But Pelleg was invited to perform in Prague. There he met Eliška Klein, the sister of the well-known composer Gideon Klein, who perished in the Holocaust. She had in her possession the score of Hans Krása’s children’s opera Brundibár, which had been staged at Terezín, where it was a huge success, and everyone who was in the ghetto remembered and loved it. Eliška entrusted the manuscript to Pelleg, and he carried it to Israel in his suitcase. It was a risky undertaking, since the authorities forbade such “national treasures” to be taken out of the country. The customs people searched the foreigners’ luggage very thoroughly, especially for propaganda material. Had he been caught, it would have certainly caused a serious diplomatic incident. But apparently the customs officials didn’t have instructions to confiscate musical scores, so it stayed safely in Pelleg’s suitcase.
In 1955 Pelleg entrusted the score to Otto, who, together with the music teacher Adi Nir, staged the opera with the kibbutz children. It was the first production of Brundibár in Israel. The performance took place in Givat Chaim when we commemorated ten years since the liberation of Terezín. It was attended by dozens of survivors from all over the country.
Not only did we have artists from “outside”2 providing our entertainment, but we also had our own choir, conducted by the kibbutz music teacher, and even an amateur actors’ group, led by Chanan, a theater aficionado. The choir rehearsed in the evenings after work, and the songs had to be ready for festivals such as Pesach and Chanuka.
The principal festival to which the chaverim paid the most serious attention was, however, neither Pesach, Rosh Hashanah, nor Yom Kippur, but Purim. Purim is a lesser feast commemorating an event in ancient Persia. Queen Esther, who was Jewish, and her uncle Mordecai saved the Jews from being killed by the evil Haman. Purim is celebrated with masks and costumes, much like carnivals in other countries.
Preparations started many weeks in advance. Fancy costumes were sewn or constructed and decorated, and elaborate charades were prepared for the big event. Every year a theme was chosen in addition to the traditional Megilat Esther story. Once it was the Twenties; other times, On the Beach or At the Zoo. One memorable charade was Pre–World War I Fashions.
Our friend Paťa was the producer, and we, the Czech group with a few of our Hungarian and Polish colleagues, acted as figures in the charade. We rehearsed in the communal shower room late in the evening, having first put our children to bed. Everyone came up with new funny characters, and we laughed nonstop.
The scene was a public park with a nanny pushing a cardboard pram, behind which crouched chaver Efraim with a baby cap and a pacifier. There was an elderly couple, he with a top hat leaning on a walking stick, she wearing a huge hat decorated with a whole garden of flowers. Eva and Peter wore children’s shorts and played ball. A policeman swung a baton, and a young couple petted on a bench. It looked like a photo of bygone days.
There were prizes for the best costumes. One year the winner was our plumber. He had constructed a whole mock flushing toilet, with the water tank, including the pulling chain, on his back, and the toilet seat like an apron in front.
None of the kibbutz members were religious; no one wore a kippa. The food cooked in both kitchens—the children’s and the adults’—was not kosher. In the first years, when there was still a shortage of food, our kibbutz even raised pigs for meat. The pigsty was hidden behind the cowshed and the pigs prospered from the leftovers from both kitchens. The pigs were a beloved attraction of the kindergarten children. Some of the cooks were chaverot from Czechoslovakia and Hungary and knew how to make a proper goulash. Yet a few members, who came from Jewish traditional families in Poland or Romania, were unable to overcome their distaste for pork and asked for vegetarian dishes.
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All the Jewish feasts were cele
brated. At Pesach there was a Seder meal in the huge gym hall, all decorated with garlands and flowers. Our ideologue, Chaver Segal, rewrote and modernized the Haggadah, which he turned into a celebration of spring and freedom, even though Israel’s exodus from Egypt was mentioned in passing. But we drank the proscribed four glasses of wine, and our choir, of which I was an enthusiastic member, sang the traditional songs. There were always many guests, mostly close relatives of the kibbutz members, and we all felt uplifted by the truly wonderful evening.
There was another festival called Chag Ha’mayim, meaning “in praise of water.” I think it might have been an ancient tradition of prayers for rain, which the kibbutz revived. It took place outdoors in the fields in late summer. The audience sat on bales of straw. The young girls, in colorful wide-skirted dresses, and the boys, in flowing shirts, danced merrily on the stubble, and the highlight of the feast was a sudden stream of water shooting up high into the air. It was a marvelous, happy celebration. I wonder if there are still such feasts in the kibbutzim today.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
My Career as a Cobbler
My dishwashing stint did not last very long. In the kibbutz it was understood that members would work wherever they were placed; the only exceptions were women in advanced stages of pregnancy, or convalescents.
When I was pregnant with our daughter, Michaela, I was allowed to work in the sewing workshop as a helper to the seamstress, which was considered “light” work. Sara, the dressmaker, was a thin, pale woman with a sulky expression, who on principle was opposed to saying a good word about anybody and would never praise my work. I could sew the straightest seam from beginning to end, yet the maximal sign of satisfaction was a wordless nod while she handed me the next garment.