My Childhood Years in the Pyaskes
Yizkor Book Project
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Well, in my dream I also saw the Jewish “theater” on the Pyaskes. You ask, how could there be a Jewish theater on the Pyaskes? After all, the Pyaskes were in the farthest corner of the city?
The answer is: On the Khanaykes and in the narrow working-class streets between the Khanaykes and the Pyaskes lived a few dozen boys and girls who felt called to be actors. They rented the “Amdurer's” hall (a hall for weddings of the poor) and gave performances (without the knowledge of the police) during the “Khalemoyd” days of both long festivals[1].
They played matinees.
We, the cheder boys, asked our mothers for the “Zehnerle” (five kopecks, ten pennies) for a ticket. But I only saw the two comedies by Goldfaden: “Kabtsnzon and Hungerman” and “Shmendrik”.
I don't remember the first play at all. At least I remember the “love song” from the second one:
“No, David, no, David,
You don't love me anymore!
No, David, no, David,
you don't love me anymore.
You've been away for so long
And you didn't write me a letter.
Today I ask you, answer me,
Do you call this 'love'?
No, David, no, David,
You no longer love me:
No, David, no, David,
you no longer love me!”
The show started an hour later, and we boys were afraid that the theater group had just cheated us out of our “tens” and wouldn't play at all.
But suddenly,
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from behind the curtain, a solidly built Jew, a fat man in his early forties with a brown goatee, came out and, holding a handful of copper coins in his fist, began to complain that not enough money had been collected.
There wouldn't even be enough for a barrel of beer. “A barrel of beer!” he complained, almost in tears.
We children couldn't help him, because we didn't have more than five kopecks. But some older visitors threw him a few “meysem”[2] (that's what we called a coin worth ten kopecks).
And he, the steward, disappeared backstage and the play began.
Translator's footnotes:
I opened my eyes and looked up at the cloudy sky. It looked like we were about to have a “wet” trip...
But the few stars shining here and there reassured me that we wouldn't get any rain on our way to the border town.
My fellow travelers were able to sleep quite comfortably, but not only did they sleep well, they also snored quite well...
I couldn't sleep. Sometimes I kept my eyes open, then I closed them again, but I couldn't fall asleep...
And once again I remembered pictures and conversations I had heard in the distant past, when the telephone was introduced in Bialystok. And I heard the coachmen complaining that the telephone was taking away part of their income. When the “vodoprovod” (public water supply through pipes) was introduced in the city, the water carriers complained that the “vodokatshke” (water pump) would turn them into beggars; and when the horse-drawn “konke” (tram) was introduced, the coachmen again complained that the new means of transportation would bankrupt them...
And I [still] hear
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the non-Jewish conductors complaining on Shabbat [about Jews “staying away”]: “Nima zhidkov, nima ditkov” (a “ditke” was a coin worth three kopecks) and the song of a jester, which he gave to the “konke”:
“Our men give 'Zehner',
Our Jews give 'ditkes',
Have you ever heard of this-
That the 'konke' rides on horses?”
(The “konke” was divided into two “classes”: At the front were long, hard benches, along both sides. At the back were soft seats. The common people rode sitting on the benches, which cost three kopecks or one “ditke”. The richer people rode at the back, on the soft seats, and paid a tenner, five kopecks).
And our “emigration wagon” slowly made its way through the main village streets, passing the towns of Knishin [Knyszyn], Gonyendz [Goni¹dz] (Grodno Governorate) and the small towns of Yedvabne [Jedwabne], Stavisk [Stawiski] (Łomża Governorate), and I still couldn't fall asleep.
Pictures of days not so long ago come back to me:
I am on a warm evening in August 1897, when the tsarist government introduced the “monopolke”, the monopoly on liquor. And I see before me the four “Pyaskover” innkeepers: Velvel, Yisroel, the “Byeler” (Hershl Bialystotski) and Dovid Furye. At that time they were walking around with melancholy in their hearts because they had lost their income. People felt bitter pity for Velvel, because he had nothing, not even a dowry for his daughters... (the other three had their own houses, which brought them some income).
The two Pyaskover Jewish drunkards,
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whom we called “Branfalakh”[1], also mourned. Khayim-Zelig, the weaver, who was known as the Pyaskover joker, gave them the lament he used to sing himself:
“My life, my life,
If there is no more bronfn[1] here,
I'll give my life for it,
If someone will let me lick [the bronfn]”.
Translator's footnote:
And before my sleepy eyes appears the parade that the town organized for Nicholas' visit on Shabbat evening in August, a week or two after the taverns had closed.
I “participated” in the parade. At that time I was a student at Yofe's School and was part of the group of “pyevtshi” (singers).
We had to line up at the corner of Vashlikover and New Town Streets, and as soon as his carriage approached us, we “broke” into the most patriotic Russian song under the direction of our singing teacher, Yakov Berman:
“Slavya, slavya, nash ruski tsar,
Khospodos danny,
Nas tsar gosudar, da y budyet
Bezsmertyen tvoy tsarski rod”.
[Glory, glory, our Russian Tsar, our God-given Tsar,
our Tsar Sovereign, and your royal family will be immortal].
We already know how the prophecy of the “poet” who wrote this “Slavisya” was fulfilled. Nicholas and his family, the Romanovs, not only turned out not to be immortal, but they died, were buried and forgotten, just like the aristocrat's big dog[1] ...
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It is worth noting that the Jewish workers, especially the tailors, adopted the melody of the “Slavisya” for their song:
“The man with the needle,
The man with the shears,
The man who works hard
For his life [all the years].”
Translator's footnote:
Nicholas the Second - and the Last - spent five days in Bialystok and its surroundings. He visited the maneuvers of the Vilnius military district there. As already mentioned, he entered the city quietly and without incident on the evening of Shabbat. However, when he entered the city for the second time three days later, things did not go according to the wishes of the governor and the police.
As he and his entourage entered Tiktin Street from Nowolipie, a pig “the size of Rome” came running downhill from a very narrow alley (almost a niche) into Khaye Odem Street. It pushed its way through the crowd, immediately ran under the governor's carriage, then under H i s [Majesty's] carriage and got lost under the legs of the two horses.
The police chief Malyevitsh and the policemen went wild with excitement. Dozens of policemen standing on the street tried to catch the animal. But the big “doverakher” [pig] did not surrender so easily. He made a noise, a really pig-like noise, and the whole parade of Nikolai's followers had to stop for a few minutes.
Finally, the police managed to chase the “uninvited guest” to the market opposite the town clock.
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Naturally, this incident caused laughter among the common people - and gnashing of teeth among the high and mighty. But everyone wondered:
How did the pig get there?
Khaye Odem Street, Yeshive Street and the surrounding alleys were densely populated by Jews. No gentiles lived there, and you couldn't find any non-Jews there either - no way! So where did the pig come from?
It was rumored in the still that the purpose of pushing the pig onto the parade was to confuse the police in order to carry out an even bigger “jab”... But nothing more happened.
The incident with the pig among Nicholas' horses was later called “dyelo kabana” [the boar's case] by the Russian-speaking intelligentsia of Bialystok.
Very late after midnight I managed to fall asleep. It was a beautiful sleep - without bad dreams and without bitter memories. But the long-awaited sleep didn't last long. My neighbor in the car nudged me and whispered in my ear:
“We're almost in Kolno!”
He saw the steeples of the churches. Fifteen minutes later, the car pulled up to a one-story white wooden house far from the center of town.
Physically and mentally exhausted from the long journey and the memories of my youth, I crawled with great effort from the “agole” [horse-drawn carriage] into the “light-filled world”.
The sun was already shining in the sky, but not in its full splendor. A dark cloud had moved in front of it, and it looked a little angry...
The scenery around the white house - the flat fields, the sparse
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forest and the little rivers - did not get the expected rays of sunshine, so it looked more like October than May.
In the “parlor” of the “white house” we were greeted by two young, blue-eyed boys of 19 or 20 (they looked like brothers), dressed in brown cheviot suits and brown caps. These were the “transfer leaders”, or agents. The most appropriate name for them, however, was “kontrabantshtshikes”.
After we ate a snack, one of the brothers told us that we would soon be going to the border and that we should be ready. He also asked us to say a prayer to God, and the four of us looked at each other and wondered what God had to do with crossing the border.
“Yes, yes!” the other one got angry when he saw us hesitating, “we have to ask God to help us”...
“How should we ask God,” one of us asked jokingly, “in Hebrew or in Yiddish?”
“God understands both languages”, the “kontrabanshtshuk” replied seriously, and with the cooperation of the questioner, we composed this prayer in Yiddish:
“Riboyne-Shel-Oylem [Lord of the World]! Almighty, dear, merciful God! Hear our plea. Help us to cross the border safely and protect us from falling into goyish hands. Omeyn [Amen]!”
The agent also responded with “Amen!”...
When we came out of the “parlor,” a long, narrow cart was waiting for us, lined with some straw.
We quickly
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crawled inside and stretched out. A minute later a bundle of straw was thrown on top of us, three long planks were placed on top of the straw, and the two brothers and two other people sat down on the planks.
Everything was done so quickly and mechanically that we had no time to enjoy the warm sun that was now shining in all its splendor and casting its rays in all directions.
And the green fields around us looked much more beautiful and alive than before...
We rode for half an hour or a little longer in the long, shaking carriage. It shook our shoulders and arms, and the boards with the “kontrabanshtshikes” squeezed our chests (even in the past, people used to hitchhike, so what are you asking?!)[1], until we entered a German village.
I crawled out of the wagon, exhausted from this “pleasure trip”, and would have loved to grab one of the “transfer leaders” and give him a good spanking, but - well, you wouldn't want to do that! ....
Our “carriage” had stopped right across the street from a grocery store and tea house. There we met another twenty emigrants who had been smuggled over during the night.
Among these twenty people were many women and children.
Translator's footnote:
The owner of the store and the “tshaynye” [tea room], a fat German Jew with a brown, round beard, looked at the tortured border crossers and did not stop snarling:
“Russian pigs”.
I took sides with those involved and explained to him in his language that these
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Russian Jews, these men and women, were very orderly, hard-working and intelligent people. And even though these people had not studied in high school, they should not be called “pigs”.
“But they are pigs!” he shouted.
My patience broke and I told him in simple German:
“Derjenige, der ernsthafte, arbeitsame Menschen als Schweine bezeichnet, ist selbst ein Schwein”. [He who calls serious, hard-working people pigs is himself a pig].
Understandably, he didn't like my statement at all, and I got a slap in the face!
When the other “runaways” heard the slap, they immediately came over and wanted to get even with the cheeky guy. But I held them back and explained to them that in our situation we couldn't afford to make trouble because it could seriously hinder our journey.
And just as I was speaking to the people gathered around me, his wife, a slender brunette, appeared with tears in her eyes and asked me to excuse her husband because he suffered from “getting upset easily”.
I told my friends that the “yahudi” had embarrassed himself distressingly.
Translator's footnote:
Around three o'clock in the afternoon, we were already on the train that took us to Prostken. After spending the night in Prostken, we traveled to Berlin; we rested in Berlin and went on to Karlsruhe. It was as it says in Khumesh [Pentateuch]:
“ויסעו ויחנו ויחנו ויסעו” [And they traveled and camped and camped and traveled] until we arrived in Hamburg, the world-famous port city.
There was also the huge emigrant camp, a semicircular, large building for a few thousand emigrants.
Since there was no room in the large hall of the camp,
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we, the twenty passengers, were taken to an empty ship, where we spent two full days until the large ship “Armenia”, which was to take us on our last journey to America, was ready for our long voyage.
As I was standing next to the stairs leading to the captain's cabin, a medium-sized man of around fifty with a brown moustache came up to me and engaged me in conversation. He introduced himself as the ship's doctor.
“Sprechen Sie Englisch?” [Do you speak English], he asked me (he knew I was familiar with the German language because he saw me standing there with the German magazine “Die Hamburger Nachrichten” [Hamburg News] in my hand.
“Unfortunately not,” I replied.
“Don't worry, don't worry,” he comforted me, “German will be spoken all over the world!”
At first I didn't understand what he meant by his prophecy. I reminded him that French was recognized as the international language of diplomacy, English as the language of commerce, and German as the language of science. And I would not agree that German should take the place of the first two.
The “studied” doctor was not satisfied with my opinion and insisted on his prediction. “Passen Sie auf, passen Sie auf” [Look out, look out], he cried angrily, gesturing with his hand, “German is about to invade the whole world!”
Saying “Mahlzeit” [Enjoy your meal], he disappeared.
In later years, during the First and Second World Wars, I found out that the Hamburg doctor had been infected by the murderous slogan:
“Deutschland über alles”,
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(meaning that Germany will rule the whole world). This ridiculous, wildly insane slogan poisoned the minds of the German masses, making them believe that the Germans were the most “civilized” people in the world, and therefore should be allowed to rule over the “uncivilized”. And that the Germanic tribes should be the “master race” and the others their “slaves”, chopping wood and fetching water for them.
What the Tsar tried to achieve during his lifetime in the World War I, Hitler tried to achieve in World War II, and six million Jews and four million others lost their lives in the gas ovens of Treblinka, Auschwitz, Dachau and other extermination camps.
But while these lines are being written, it is already foreseeable that the murderous cry of “Germany above all” will be transformed into “Germany below all”. By this we mean Adenauer's Germany.[1]
Translator's footnote:
On a cool, sunny morning, we finally boarded the ship “Armenia” for our last trip to America[1]. The ship was not divided into first and second class, it was only for third class passengers, which consisted almost exclusively of poor emigrants. (It was said that the “Armenia” was originally an “ox ship”. It was only because the “Hamburg-Amerikanische Schifffahrtsgesellschaft” had no passenger ships that our “Armenia” was dismantled and converted to carry people).
After I had settled down in my “betl” [bunk], in the depths of the second deck, I was again possessed by strange thoughts, thoughts of the past. Now I realized that I had actually left forever my hometown of Bialystok, the birthplace of Doctor Zamenhof
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(the author of Esperanto), Maxim Litvinov (Meir Walach)[1], Professor Zabludovski[2], and Avrom Gotlober[3], where Aaron Liebermann[4], Rosa Raisa, and Reitske Burshtein [Raitza Burchstein][5] lived. Bialystok with its beautiful streets - Nowolipie and Vashlikover Street, New Town and German Street, with the beautiful “Gorodsko Sad” [City Garden] and even with its “slums” - with the side streets of Pyaskes and Khanaykes. Here every “Rosh-khoydesh”[6] was filled with the “khalyastres”, the “gang” of limping, half-blind, mute, or deaf beggars in their “splendid costumes. They went in groups of ten, twenty or thirty, in “closed ranks”, and lived “communistically”, i.e. they shared the kopeks collected from the few donors equally.
These “khalyastres” presented a terribly depressing picture and left a sad impression on all who met them in their hunt for “Rosh-khoydesh money”.
I also remembered those of my childhood friends who were already buried in “Bagnovka”, the Jewish cemetery: Velvel Tabatshinski, a warm, dear friend; Shmuelke Furye, the “Hebrew” who had already written in Ha-Meliz[7]; Yakov-Yosef, the Talmud genius, from the Radin Yeshiva - and my cousin, Leybl Spektor.
Their deaths caused me much pain for a long time.
When I went out on deck again and walked back and forth, I noticed that more than half of the passengers were Hungarian peasants and “polyakn” [non-Jewish Poles] from the Łomża Governorate. As I found out later, the big and rich American coal magnates and steel companies in Ohio and Pennsylvania needed “hands” [laborers] at that time.
These coal and steel “barons” had sent their agents to Hungarian villages and
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used “moving pictures” to show how the immigrants could live happily in the villages of America. The textile “barons” of the New England states - Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont - did the same. They fraudulently lured Polish girls and boys from the villages of Łomża County to work in their cotton mills, for low wages, of course.
There were also a number of Ukrainians, White Russians, some Germans and a large number of Jews from Russia and Galicia on the ship. Many of them were refugees from the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.
As I leaned against the railing of the ship, looking out at the blue sea, a tall Jew with a round, black and gray beard stood next to me. We began to talk. He told me his entire biography: How he came from Slutsk, in the Minsk gubernye (a fellow countryman of my father's), and that he had been to America once, was going back there now, and knew the “Golden Land” well.
“Well,” I say to him, “we'll soon be in America at last, after we've crossed the border and been to Prostken and Hamburg. Now we're already on the last leg of our journey”.
“Ey,” he answers me with a sad smile and quotes the “goyish” proverb: “Nye kazhi hots poka nye pereskots. Don't tell me what's going on until it's over. We're not in America yet!” “Why?” I ask curiously.
“We still have to pass 'Cerberus',” he says, “and this 'Cerberus' is the “Kesl-Gardn”[8]. (According to prehistoric Greek mythology, 'Cerberus' was a large dog with three heads that would not let the bad guys out of hell and kept watch next to the Garden of Eden to prevent sinners from entering).
In this
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“Kesl-Gardn”, my fellow passenger explains to me, “sits a 'tshinovnik', an American immigration official who questions every arriving immigrant and decides whether to let them in or not. He usually finds all kinds of arguments not to let them through. Sometimes he doesn't like the immigrant's physical appearance. And sometimes he doesn't like the kind of job the person did in his old country. For example: cheder teachers, matchmakers, brokers and similar 'shady' businesses, such a person would not be able to make a living in America, but would eventually become a burden on the welfare system, so he sends the desperate emigrant back”.
The rather sinister information from the Slutsker, that we still have to go through a final “hell” and that none of the emigrants can be sure that they will really be allowed to enter, literally killed me...
I was afraid of the “maybe” - maybe the “tshinovnik” wouldn't like me or my profession and would send me back? That would have been a real tragedy for me - a tragedy that I might not have survived.
For, as you already know, dear reader, America was my last resort...
My father's compatriot had advised me that when I arrived in “Kesl-Gardn” and the “tshinovnik” asked me what I did for a living back home, I should never answer that I was an accountant.
“Why not?” [I asked].
He replied: “America is not looking for accountants among the immigrants, but only people who can work fast and hard - so fast, in fact, until 'the breath of life is chased out of you.' Or they want people who can do heavy work, like hauling and pulling loads on ships and freight cars.
“So what should I tell him?”
“Tell him you are a tailor”.
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“Why a tailor?”
“Well, if you tell him you're a carpenter or a locksmith or a tanner, he won't believe you because you don't look like a hard-working man. He'll look at your hands!”...
The advice of the “American” (he was called “American” on the ship because, as you know, he had been to America before) was very good and logical advice, but I was always afraid of the “maybe”...
Maybe, I was afraid, he would interrogate me and give me a thread to pull into the eye of the needle and... maybe I wouldn't survive this “test”?
Don't even ask what would happen then!
Translator's footnotes:
When the weather was fine, the atmosphere on the deck of the ship was very cheerful. People sang, danced and told very amusing anecdotes. Polyakn [Christian Poles] danced and sang the Polish patriotic song “Yetshe Polska ne sginela i ni mushy sginutsh”[1] - a song that was strictly forbidden in Tsarist Russia.
A Ukrainian “shikse” [gentile woman] sang the well-known love song from [the opera] Natalka Poltavka, “Veyut Vyetri”[2] and then danced a “kozatske”[3].
Bundists sang the “Shvue”, “Long live the Jewish Labor Bund of Russia, Lithuania, Poland”[4].
You'd also hear the Yiddish folk song “Oyfn Pripyetshok” [Oyfn Pripetshik, On the Hearth], “Unter die grine boymele shpiln zikh Moyshe'lekh, Shloyme'lekh” [Under the green trees play Moyshelekh, Shloymelekh], and “Hotsmakh iz a blinder”[5].
On rainy days, when we sat in the cabins, Jewish girls and boys sang the “Elegy on the Death of the Scribe Levanda”[6], written in Yiddish and Russian, which begins with the words: “Our tears have not yet dried because we miss Gordon and Smolenski, when suddenly we have to hear the news that Levanda is no longer in this world;
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God, hold your hand over us, do not punish us constantly, let us rest a little; what can become of us if we often have to swallow the bitter drop of wine?”.
We heard funny songs from a group of German immigrants:
“Dreimal Drei ist Neun, wir waren betrunken wie die Schweine” [Three times three is nine, we were drunk as pigs] and “Komm trink Bier, liebe liebe Liese” [Come drink beer, dear dear Liese][7].
And a love song:
“Dear, dear Liese, do you love me? On the green meadow I asked her,” and with the melody from “Rigoletto” they sang, “If you don't want to marry me, if you don't want to love me, then the devil take you and leave me in peace!”
We heard the sounds of “Vikhri vyazhdyebnya veyut nad nami”[8], “Trudno, bratsi, nam zhivyotsya na rusi svyatoy”[9], “Iz za idal svyatavo”[10], and also the two famous Yiddish revolutionary songs: “We are hated and driven”[11], “Dreaming Boatmen”[12], and others I cannot remember...
I also heard several anecdotes:
A young man, a former, knowledgeable “kloyznik” [a devoted synagogue worshipper], asked an older Jew what the “mekhaber”, i.e., the author of the “Rosh Khoydesh” blessing[13], meant by the prayer “חיים שימלא משאלות לבנו” (Dear God, fulfill the desires of our hearts) - and he added to his question:
“What do you mean, if we have already asked for health and livelihood, what other wishes should we pray for? ”
The other replied: “Perhaps he [the mekhaber] meant to ask for children”.
The first one said: “Well, but he had already asked for health, and childlessness has something to do with health.”
The other asked: “Perhaps he had a grown-up daughter and couldn't find a suitable husband for her?”
The first said, “But he had already asked for a livelihood, and if you have enough income, you can get a bridegroom”.
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The other:
“Now tell me, don't make me impatient. What then is the meaning of משאלות לבנו ? ”
[The answer was]: “משאלות לבנו” means that the other person should not have it”...
The other smiled and made wry faces…
A veteran Belarusian soldier recounts:
“An officer ordered his servant to cook a chicken for lunch. A few minutes later, the servant returned and told his “blagoradye” [nobility] that he couldn't cook the chicken.
“Why not?” the officer asked angrily.
“Because the general's rooster is courting the chicken!
An erudite, Russian-speaking Jewish lad tells an anecdote about a tsarist general.
“A general came into a restaurant with his big dog “Mopsi”. Two students were sitting at another table across from him. The general said to his dog: “Study, Mopsi, study, so that you become a professor!” One of the students replied:
“Don't study, Mopsi, don't study to become a general”....
Also, I heard the singing of two young Belarusian peasants who were holding an empty bottle and an empty glass in their hands: „Grafintshik, golubtshik, krasavtshik, ti moy, lyublyu tyebya vidyet's tryokh probnoy vodoy“[14] and „Kilishek to moy bratshishek“[15].
Translator's footnotes:
A middle-aged German asked a young German girl why she was leaving her country and going to America. Her answer was:
“I was homeless in my homeland” ....
A farmer from the Vilna Governorate tells his fellow countryman why he is going to America:
“My 'gaspodoarke' [homestead]”, he said, “did not bring enough income to live on”. As a result, he was
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constantly arguing with his wife, which reminded him of the peasant proverb:
“Yak vsarayu nye molotytsa, to vdomu klutytsa”[1].
Translator's footnote:
A veteran Jewish soldier made a group of people laugh when he told how he responded to his colonel's greeting, “zdorovno rebyata!” [Hey, guys!]. He told how all the soldiers shouted, “zdravya zhelayem vashe visokororye” [I wish you good health].
[My thoughts were, “What, should I wish him good health? - The plague!”
“One of the listeners asked curiously, “And what did you say to him?”
He answered: “When the soldiers replied, 'Zdrvya zhelayem vasher visokorordye,' I shouted, 'Shall you catch the kholyere [cholera] immediately'!”[1]
The cheerful atmosphere on the deck of the ship, the singing, the dancing, the anecdotes, unfortunately had no effect on me. That “maybe” was eating away at me like a worm. But I wasn't the only one trembling inside. Especially the girls who had left to try their luck in America were scared.
Maybe, God forbid, they wouldn't get in, then they wouldn't know where to go. They could not stay with their poor father, they complained, and there was no way for them to earn money in the small shtetl.
And a girl without a dowry couldn't find a decent husband.
But also the war refugees and the political “criminals” who had escaped from the tsarist prisons and from Siberia were afraid. Then there were those who, unfortunately, did not have the ten dollars that every immigrant needed to survive the first few weeks before finding a job (in fact, I had exactly ten dollars left).
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The last two days were sad for all fellow-passengers; you didn't know what to expect in the new country - assuming you were allowed in at all - and how you would get along. I consoled myself with the thought that I could study in America. I would sit down in a library for an hour or two and study anything I could lay my hands on: a newspaper, a magazine, or a book, and no one would punish me for it, and no one would bother me, as had unfortunately been the case at home.
Finally, on a warm Sunday afternoon, May 25, 1905, the huge “Armenia” floated into Ellis Island, known as the “Kesl-Gardn” and also as the “Island of Tears” (because of the many tears shed by those who were not let in).
The immigration officers ordered everyone to take off their hats and get in line. A thin, old doctor with a gray beard came up and scowled at the anxious immigrants.
Together with his three assistants, he examined the heads, trying to find something that shouldn't be there...
But he found nothing, because someone blessed with an unwanted “crown” wouldn't have even tried to travel to America, knowing from the start that they wouldn't be allowed in.
Translator's footnote:
And there I am, standing in the long “shure” (line) between people who, like me, are standing with beating hearts, waiting to get to the “Cerberus”, the official in whose hands lies the fate of thousands of desperate emigrants. As we already know, this American official had the right to refuse entry to emigrants he did not like and to send them back to the countries
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from which they had fled - fleeing poverty, unemployment, pogroms or wars, political and religious persecution.
As I stand in line, I can hear the American official in front of me - a gentleman in his late forties, clean-shaven with a brown mustache, sitting on a high chair, documents in hand - arguing with the people in German, Polish, and Russian.
“So, you're a tailor,” he says with a smile, after I've answered his question about what I did in the old country.
“Yes, yes, sir, a tailor!”
He wasn't “interrogating” me. Nor did I see that he had a needle and thread in his hand. I was really scared for nothing!
I don't know why he smiled when he questioned me. Could it be that he was happy that “his” America was enriched with another tailor? Or did he know that I was deceiving him and feigning ignorance?
In any case, my “bluff” worked satisfactorily, and so I am already on American soil.
If you, dear readers, want to know how I settled in this new country, you'll have to read my first book: “Fall River - Once and Now”.
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| Sholem-Aleichem Sholem Ash Abraham Reizen H.D. Nomberg Gina Medem Y.A. Rontsh Raphael Posner Y.B. Beylin Abraham Mapu Y.L. Gordon Prey [Perets] Smolenskin Levando David Edelstadt |
Tolstoy Gorky Nekrasov Gogol Tshernishevsky Lenin Goethe Schiller Heine Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Mendelssohn Karl Marx |
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