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As a result of this incident, I was given leave of absence from the hospital in case I wanted to go to the Ukraine, which I certainly did. This part was all right, but I had to get a permit from the authorities to go to the Ukraine, which, although now under domination of the Bolsheviks, was not yet pacified. I was sure that a direct appeal to the ones in charge of issuing a permit would be of no avail, so I decided to use the influence of one of two friends who were high in the council of the mighty. One of them, named Dolgolersky was a pupil of mine in my extern days. He was a very handsome, gay and clever fellow who was more interested in the revolutionary movement than in the mathematics I was teaching him. When the town became too hot for him, he went into the underground in Kiev. Finally, he reached Switzerland and became one of the most ardent disciples of Lenin. He came back in the “sealed” car and took an active part in the Bolshevik revolution. I was sure he would help me, but my enquiries revealed that he was at the front.
Apropos, a few words about his later career. He subsequently distinguished himself at the front by defending the town of Tzaritsyn (Stalingrad) and was promoted to the rank of Colonel. When the country was at peace, he was appointed ambassador to France. After I was in the U.S.A., I wrote to him during the depression on behalf of my son. I asked Dolgolersky if he could make a place for my son in the embassy, since he knew both French and Russian and was sympathetic to the Communist regime. I received a very friendly, nostalgic letter with reminiscences of the old days. Included in this letter to me was another letter to help my son, this one addressed to the Russian trade mission known as “Amtorg,” and located in New York. Dolgolersky died a few years ago at his post in Paris; his ashes were carried to Moscow and given a state funeral with the personal participation of Stalin and all other dignitaries. So much for a small-town Jewish boy who became ambassador to France.
In my predicament, I turned to another man named Zorach Greenberg. He also came from Belaya Tserkov and was an intimate friend of the Linetski boys. At the time of Kerensky's revolution, he was engaged as a teacher in some provincial school. Later, he came to Leningrad as a delegate from his district to participate in a countrywide teachers' convention. He was a fine speaker and had the good sense to join the Bolshevik faction at a time when the Kerensky regime was already tottering. When the Bolsheviks triumphed, he was rewarded by being appointed assistant commissar of education to Lunatzorky, who was an old Bolshevik writer, critic, and artist. In contrast to the austere Lenin, he was a pleasure-loving bon vivant. Lunatzorky limited himself to the promotion of fine arts, and Greenberg was actually the commissar of education with offices in the palace of Queen Mary, mother of the late Nicolas.
I had met Greenberg in Leningrad a bit before the revolution, and he had been not only cordial but also respectful and somewhat apologetic; he was not in power yet. Now I went to his office. The waiting room was a big hall where the Romanovs and nobility had been entertained. It was now full of visitors, among them a number of former celebrities. They had to wait, but I was admitted immediately upon receipt of my card. The now-commissar Greenberg was the son of a poor “melamed” and was known among intimates as “Zorach, the Liar.”
His older brother was some kind of moron. Now, Zorach was sitting in a gilded easy chair at a magnificent table; his brother was sitting nearby with his feet on the table, cleaning his fingernails with a pocketknife, a scene that gave me a fleeting reflection on the changes in the fate of men affected by the revolution. I told him about my intention to go to the Ukraine and the necessity of a permit. “Yes,” he said, “I read the paper, and I am anxious to find out what has become of my family.” “My sister,” he added, “is visiting with me, and I will get a permit for both of you.” He was as good as his word and did even more than he had promised. A few days after my visit, I was called to his office and handed a permit together with a train ticket whose ultimate destination was the town of Vitebsk, in so-called “White” Russia. Thus, a nightmarish journey began which was to last nearly two weeks, a distance made in 20 hours under normal conditions.
We arrived at the dismal town of Vitebsk in the early morning and found the station overcrowded with people, mostly “meslotnik”--or men with sacks loaded with goods to be traded for food. Some were sleeping on straw on the bare floor; others were wandering aimlessly about, hoping against hope that a train would miraculously arrive. We were to join these people. We soon formed a group consisting of Zorach's sister, a resourceful young man who, to judge by his way of talking and by the expensive, shabby clothes, was educated and had seen better times, a middle-aged couple trying to make their way to Kiev, and myself.
The formation of a group was essential, since some people would act as a lookout for a possible train while others would rest. Two days passed with no result. On the third day, the young man proposed in all seriousness that we buy a railroad car. He had contacted the stationmaster who was willing to put us in a car attached to a freight train in exchange for an agreed-upon sum of money. It was a preposterous proposal, and we did not fully trust the young man. It was agreed that the Greenberg girl would go with him to be present at the transaction. It was completed as said, and we went in the dead of night to a side track where the train was in formation.
We stealthily crept into a dilapidated car, always fearing a trap. We were relieved to find there a few men and women who apparently had conceived the same idea. We were provided with a bale of hay, courtesy of the stationmaster. We spread it thinly on the floor and huddled together to keep warm.
I fell into a fitful slumber. When I tried later to get up, I found to my dismay that I could not move away from the wall. It was a frosty mid-February, and my coat had become attached to the wall. Our young companion produced a strong hunting knife from somewhere, which I suspected was not his only weapon to use “in case.” He scraped the ice and set me free.
It was understood that the train would go directly to Kiev. Instead, it stopped for good at the station of Gomel. On the platform and inside the station, men and women with numerous bundles and sacks formed a solid mass, and we literally had to walk over prostrate bodies. It seemed inconceivable that this mass of humanity could be evacuated by one train or even a number of trains. However, I was told that the overwhelming majority came from the South and were headed North. I was also told that a train going south was bound to leave in about 12 hours.
This actually extended to nearly 30 hours. When it came, we found a car which was not crowded at all, and we made ourselves more or less comfortable on an upper bunk. Before the train moved, an avalanche of Red army men rushed in hollering, “Civilians to the upper bunks!” As a result, ours became crowded to the point where one had to keep constantly in an upright position. There was no way to turn or to move a limb under pressure.
The soldiers squatted on the floor and filled it beyond capacity. There were bawdy songs and foul language. Some were drunk and repeated adnauseam one phrase, accompanied by indecent gestures, “Throw out civilians, women to the front!” At one station, most of the soldiers left the car. The air became rarefied, and the cold asserted itself.
Then some of the drunken soldiers got a disastrous idea. They gathered bricks and wood at the station, put the bricks on the floor of the car and lit the wood above them. The car became filled with smoke. There was, of course, the danger of setting fire to the car, in which case we on the bunks would certainly perish. However, the sober soldiers got the upper hand and, not without a struggle, extinguished the fire, threw out the bricks together with some of the more stubborn drunks.
It was with much relief that we left the train at a station called Bachmatz, the last leg of our harried journey toward Kiev. There, the young helpful man parted from us. I always had marveled at why the stationmaster in Vitebsk risked his freedom and perhaps his life for an insignificant sum of valueless money. The secret now came out. The young man had given him 210 rubles in gold pieces; the paper money had been just a blind. When I asked him why he had done it, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “The gold pieces were my death sentence, and where I go now, money is not needed.” I don't know from whence he came nor where he went, but it was good to have him as a friend, and he would be dangerous as an enemy.
The station in Bachmatz, an important rail center, was deserted. No train was visible on the tracks. It seemed that some band was operating in the vicinity, and because of this it was dangerous for any train to leave the station. Later, I found out that there was a train which was kept near the local hospital ready for the evacuation of wounded and sick soldiers and that a military detachment was expected to arrive from Kiev to protect the train. I went to see the doctor in charge of this hospital, and he agreed to take me as an assistant, and the Greenberg girl as a nurse, but he flatly refused to accommodate the couple that had traveled with us in the car. When the couple was told they could not accompany us, the man said, “Here, this is not Vitebsk”--a hint to our unlawful transaction in that town. “All right,” I said, “you tell the authorities what you know about me, and I will tell them about your dealing with Machno” (a notorious Ukrainian separatist leader). This was just a shot in the dark, but to my relief, I noticed that it reached its mark. He became more reasonable. I gave him some money; the Greenberg girl gave some medallions to the woman who had coveted them; and we parted amicably.
On the third day, the awaited military escort arrived, and the train left for Kiev without meeting with any disturbance. There was again a two-day delay until we managed to board a train that took us to the town of Zastov, midway between Kiev and Belaya Tserkov. Because of the recent attack on Zastov by the “Greens,” who had destroyed the town and killed all Jews, the station was heavily guarded, and passengers were interrogated and searched. My papers were in order. My luggage contained nothing more conspicuous than some changes of shirts and underwear, a used pair of shoes for my wife, and a few yards of upholstery material of which I hoped a coat could be made for my little daughter. The man in charge frowned at the sight of the upholstery material but magnanimously let me have it. The station was reminiscent of the unforgettable station in Gomel; we spent a sleepless night in standing position.
In the morning, we hired a sled, there being a late winter that year, and in four hours we reached Belaya Tserkov. It was with great anxiety and trepidation that I went to the place where my family lived. They were all alive, surprised, and delighted, and so was I. They survived the massacre, which had not been exaggerated at all. Many of the people I knew were killed, others wounded. The marketplace was in ruins. In most of the “Jewish” streets, the population was homeless. The survivors I met in the street were clad in rags and looked like shadows aimlessly walking to and fro. The greatest shock to me was caused by the sight of a formerly rich merchant who had lost his home, his wife, his son, and with them also his reason. He stretched out his hand to me begging for a kopeck (a cent), not recognizing me although for two years I had been a tutor to his now-dead son.
It was sad to hear the story of hunger amidst plenty, my wife's constant fear for herself and the children. It was heartbreaking to witness the misery, death, and ruin caused by the robber bands. A great blow to my wife was the death of her parents--presumably dead from natural causes but actually caused by lack of proper food and medical care. She worried first and foremost about the children and their safety but also the impossibility of giving them a proper education.
My son, now nine years old, was a very bright boy, quick of perception, with a good memory and an enormous capacity for learning. He absorbed all my wife could teach him. He was a voracious reader, but with no playmates and no real schooling, he became unruly and sarcastic.
There was the tragicomic incident of the “pillow.” When the “Greens” entered the town, the older Greenberg girl, who lived alone in the central Jewish quarter, took refuge with my wife who lived in a street with non-Jewish inhabitants. The room occupied by my family was furnished with a single iron bed where my wife and little girl slept. There was a thinly upholstered cot occupied at night by my son, and two little pillows were at his disposal. The Greenberg girl slept on the floor. My wife urged my son to give her one of the pillows which he refused to do simply because he took a dislike to her. One time while conversing with my wife, the Greenberg girl remarked that her sister was beautiful, a statement which my boy challenged by saying, “You are ugly and so is your sister!” It was the first time that my wife slapped him. “But Mother,” he said through tears, “this is true, is it not?” (and so it actually was).
In contrast to the boy, my little daughter was docile, fiercely attached to Mother and smart, too. There was another girl her age who lived in the same house, the daughter of a Polish family. Once when this girl's father took her on his lap and patted her, my little one said, “I have a father, too, and he is a big man.” She was also very beautiful. My wife made her a coat from the bright upholstery material, and when I walked with her in the street, all eyes were on her with unmistaken admiration.
Of the Linetski family, there remained in Belaya Tserkov one brother, Grisha. He was a cashier in the local bank. When the “Greens” entered the bank, he was prudent enough not to antagonize them and readily showed them the places where money was kept. While they were occupied in transferring the money, he gave them the slip and went into hiding. Later, it was held against him by the Bolshevik administration, and he was arrested. However, it was so obvious that he could not have done otherwise that he was exonerated and again given the same post. Without his counsel and help, my family would perhaps not have survived at all. Now he was busily engaged in finding some transportation for us after I had spent nearly two weeks with my family.
Grisha knew of two young fellows who were trying to make their way to Kiev. Again we formed a “look-out,” and time after time we went to the train on false information and had to go back to Grisha’s apartment. Finally, we decided to wait at the depot in hopes of boarding some train. It was about midnight when an overcrowded train arrived and with the help of the young men, we managed to board it. I was so tired that I dozed off in a standing position. The train stopped all of a sudden, and I awoke with a jolt. There was a great commotion. Heated words, curses, and choice abuses were heard. At first, I thought that some band had attacked the train. What actually had happened was that the forward motion of the train was blocked by a train going in the opposite direction on the same track.
One uniformed and heavily armed man from each train was threatening the other and cursing in the best Russian style. Both claimed the right-of-way. Finally, it was decided that the opposite train should push ours back to a side track and then we would let the other pass. After a few hours of forward travel, we were back at the starting point. The train moved forward again at a snail-like pace, and it was nearly evening of the second day when we were in sight of Kiev. It seemed like the end of the trail, but this was not the case. The train stopped because of lack of fuel or, at any rate, this was what the engineer claimed. The men in the know guessed the real reason: a bribe was expected from the passengers.
A delegation carrying money and food talked the matter over with the headman, and the fuel miraculously appeared. When we arrived in Kiev, it was again nearly midnight. We had completed a three-hour ride in 24 hours. The station was deserted, and no vehicle of any kind was in sight. The streets were dark and by no means safe. Anyway, we could hardly walk and carry all the bundles. The two fellows from Belaya Tserkov who had no luggage at all volunteered to carry our precious food cargo and see us to our intended lodging for the night. It was to be with our closest friends, a family we had lived with during most of my student days. My brother-in-law, David, was married to one of this family's girls.
It was awkward to barge in on them in the middle of the night and impose on their hospitality, but there was no other way. We were met with cordiality and rested the remainder of the night. I was not really rested because the matter of transportation was uppermost in my mind. I was confronted with a very difficult problem.
With my wife, children, and considerable luggage, I could not make my way back in the same fantastic way I had come. My leave of absence had expired, and my money was nearly gone. It was spring in the Ukraine, and walking in my boots was annoying to say the least. It was also unthinkable to impose much longer on this friendly family. In the morning when we began to discuss the problem, the family's older daughter declared that she had a plan. She knew that a delegation of newspapermen was going to Leningrad for a press conference. The arrangements were being made by a close friend of hers named David Zaslovsky. Under the Tsarist regime he had been assistant editor of an influential liberal paper in Kiev. After the October revolution, he turned Communist. He became the editor-in-chief, and the paper was converted into a Communist mouthpiece in the Ukraine. In later years, he transferred his activities to Leningrad and became the editorial writer of the official Communist paper, “Pravda,” (The Truth). His name was repeatedly mentioned in the American press because of his vehement attack on the U.S. military after surrender of Manila.
At this time, Zaslovsky was in Kiev, and the family's daughter went to see him. My name was not unfamiliar to him because in my student days my wife had worked in the same school as his sister and had visited her a few times at their home. I was skeptical about the outcome of this plan because I knew him as an arrogant man--as a neophyte, he was most likely more zealous than the old Bolsheviks. However, she must have put on her charm--and I suspected that she was more than just a friend to him. The result was that I was allowed a seat in the train’s delegation car and, most important, the train was going directly to Leningrad.
It was the best break I had had in a long time. There was nothing luxurious about the car; it was a regulation cattle car fitted with bunks for sleeping and sitting purposes. The car was not even half filled at a time when people were riding on the roofs of trains, clinging to the engine or any place where they could get a precarious hold. There was another advantage in traveling with a semi-official organization. At that time, guards were posted at strategic points leading north from the Ukraine to prevent the smuggling of food for speculation on the black market in hungry cities. Travelers, by train or any other vehicle, were searched and all excessive food--a vague term--was confiscated. It was unlikely that our car would be searched, but we took precautions all the same.
The flour sack covered with some white cloth simulated a pillow on which my wife was to rest. My little daughter was to sit on a box where other foodstuffs were kept. At one station, a guard appeared. The chief of the delegation showed him some papers. The guard apologized and left. No search was made although the guard had looked with suspicion at the delegation's trunks, which were hardly filled with clothes or books. At first, we, as outsiders, kept to ourselves, but through the companionship of our children with a few of the delegate's children, not yet aware of class distinction, we began to mix with the crowd. All in all, it was a pleasant trip, at least comparatively.
The weather in Leningrad was a great disappointment to my wife and children after having spent considerable time in the sunny Ukraine, and entrance into the “Village” was a great shock to my wife. She nearly fainted at the sight of the desolation. The apartment house with its gaping holes was especially terrifying to her and the children. During the two months of my absence, more houses had been demolished. The fences, lampposts, and trees were all gone. The streets were empty, and only here and there a few men and women were seen. They were walking skeletons, emaciated and mostly in rags. It was ghastly beyond description. The family who had lived in our apartment left it prior to our arrival, and it was dirty, unheated, and uncared for. It was all very depressing.
I went back to my duties. Conditions at the hospital were worse than ever. Surgical supplies were so scarce that bandages and cotton were used alternately on different patients without even being properly cleaned. Medical supplies were lacking altogether. The chief was more unpleasant than he used to be. Rations were reduced. The sanitary job was less remunerative than before because the warehouse contained little food, and the personnel was not too eager to share it with outsiders. And I now had a family to feed.
Then came the “NEP.” Under this system, the regime retained all political power and the change was purely economic. Heavy industry was managed by a state trust; small factories and shops were returned to the former owners. Free trade was declared, and the peasants were allowed to sell their surplus products on the free market. Under the NEP, the city recovered with surprising speed. The hoarder stores opened their doors and became well stocked with food, clothes, and household goods. The restaurants served all kinds of food at exorbitant prices. Hotels were crowded with visitors. The main streets were well lighted, and music could be heard in the fashionable restaurants and nightclubs. Well-dressed people appeared on the streets. A new aristocracy came into being, consisting of speculators, adventurers, and all kinds of shady characters. A friend of mine summed up the situation by saying, “The city is like a faded prostitute who got a shot in her arm and tries to lure men with her false smile, cheap finery, and imitation jewelry.” The newly born aristocracy feted and danced while workers, professionals, and common people who did not fit into the new scheme of things were confronted with misery, privation, and despair.
This was also my lot. The warehouse closed and with it my “sanitary” job. The hospital now paid in money, and although the currency was somewhat stabilized, the salary was not sufficient even for the bare necessities of life. We may not have survived except for the fact that my family in the States, being informed of my plight, began sending packages of food and cast-off clothes. It was also at this time that the Quakers established points in different cities, including Leningrad, where children were fed. With all this, it was a hard struggle for existence, with little hope for improvement. However, I rejected the idea of going to the States as suggested by the family. I realized that it would be hard for me, a man of middle age, to adapt to a new life in a country whose language I did not know and whose way of life was alien to me. My wife vigorously objected to moving for the same reasons and also because she naturally did not want to part with the remainder of her family which consisted of three devoted brothers. Still, the idea lingered with me, and at times when conditions were too black, I felt like accepting the family's suggestion.
In the winter of 1921, something happened which put an end to my hesitation. I was commandeered to the countryside some 100 miles from Leningrad to examine draftees. I went by train to the station nearest the village where the examination was to be held. At the station, a peasant waited for me with a sled. It was one of the most severely cold days I had ever witnessed. The peasant looked at my boots and said, “This will never do. You will freeze your legs, Doctor.” He handed me a pair of felt boots called “walenki.” He also considered the fur coat inadequate and gave me a Caucasian felt cloak (burka) to put on top of my fur coat. Even with these precautionary measures, I was not too warm and it was already dusk. The driver suggested that we stop for the night at his home that was about halfway between the station and the village of my destination. This gave me a chance to observe how the more prosperous peasant lived while the city dweller starved.
The house was a typical peasant hut (izba). It consisted of one big room, part of which was occupied by a large stove. The roof of the stove was extended to the wall, forming a kind of platform, which served as a bedroom. Usually, all the family slept here. The basic furnishings were the same in any peasant hut with this difference: Along with the icons on the wall were two uninspiring landscapes and a portrait of Pushkin. In a corner stood a hand sewing machine. I also noticed a meat grinder and some utensils not formerly found in a peasant's house. My host, noticing my surprise, remarked, “This is nothing. My brother has a piano in his house.” His wife added with some venom, “And Parasha [apparently referring to her sister-in-law] got herself a wig to cover her baldness.” We had a very satisfying dinner although the food was too rich for my stomach, which had not had a taste of such food for a long time. For the sake of politeness, I also tasted some of his homemade vodka. We all slept on the platform (known as polati), a situation that was largely exploited by itinerant salesmen.
In the early morning, we went to the village where the conscription was to be held. I stopped at the house of a local Jewish doctor who was to participate in the examination of the recruits. Before starting our work, the doctor warned me not to become too friendly with the commissar lest he use it to his advantage, the inference being that he might do some crooked work and put the blame on us.
The examination was done in a one-room house crowded with the draftees, their relatives, and friends. There were about 300 men to be examined in three days. No facilities for laboratory work were provided. The examination was of necessity hurried and more or less superficial. On the third day, the commissar, who had tried hard to ingratiate himself, showed me a list of the remaining draftees. One name was underlined. “This man,” he said, “is tuberculous and not fit for military service. He is a Bolshevik who feels that he ought to serve in the army, and he may either now or at some other time deny being sick.” “This is it,” I said to myself and took my colleague into confidence. He told me, “The father of this boy is a Kulak and believed to be related to the commissar. By no means should you reject this boy unless he is really sick, which I doubt. I cannot take him off your hands because I have to live with the commissar, and you are going back where he cannot harm you.” Of course, this advice was right, and I decided, commissar or no commissar, not to comply with this demand.
There were five other places in the district to visit. The commissar stayed home, and no other pressure was directly or indirectly put on me. Everywhere, I was well fed, and the peasant homes were about the same as the first one. All kinds of household goods gained by barter were to be found.
After two weeks in the country, I returned home refreshed and forgot the unpleasant incident. Then one day, I got a summons to appear at the office of the “Cheka.” I did not have any sense of guilt, but what with the circulating tales about the cruelty of this dreaded organization and its methods of getting a confession from one, whether guilty or not, I was dead-scared. I went with trepidation to the designated place, seeing myself in a chamber of horrors with a heavily armed man questioning and intimidating me. This was not the case at all. I was led to a small, neat room on the ground floor. A young woman of pleasant appearance was sitting at a desk. She was the interrogator. After some preliminary formalities, she showed me a letter from the commissar.
The accusation was that I had spent a night in the home of a local “kulak” who was a noted counter-revolutionary and that I had feasted and drunk within. Furthermore, I was accused of accepting a bribe from him--a pair of “walenkis.” In return, I rejected his brother who was a perfectly healthy boy. He also claimed that I favored the rich peasants and was hostile to the poor. I told her how I happened to spend the night at the driver' s home, and she remarked, “Yes, I remember, it was terribly cold that day in Leningrad, too.” “It is true,” I said, “that I accepted the walenkis as protection from the cold. I returned them when we arrived at my destination, and the doctor at whose house I stopped can testify to that. As far as rejecting his brother, I have not even a recollection of such a name.” However, I freely admitted that under the conditions in which conscriptions were going on, some mistake may have been made, but not a premeditated one. As to the biased accusation, I pointed out that being a stranger in those parts, spending not more than three days in any locality, I could hardly be aware of the status of the draftees, economically or otherwise.
I refrained from relating the incident regarding the quasi-tuberculous man lest I involve my colleague. It was evident that she did not attach much importance to the letter. However, she told me that she would have to report the case to her superior for further investigation. “Meanwhile,” she said, “you may go home, and be sure to appear again if need be.” She added ominously, “You know, this organization has long arms.” As if I did not know.