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Glossary of Words & Historical Terms
Zaide Autobiography — Final Reviewed Timestamped Archival Transcript
Cassette-side timestamps are retained so the original audio can be checked against the transcript. This September 2026 review incorporates the family-confirmed corrections from the final clean transcript. Clear speech-to-text errors and confidently identifiable Hebrew/Yiddish terms, place names, and speaker labels have been corrected conservatively; Zaide's distinctive English and phrasing are otherwise preserved. Uncertain words, names, and dates are not silently guessed. Timestamps are approximate and reset at the start of each cassette side.
CASSETTE SIDE 1
[0:00:03]ZAIDE:Being made in Washington, March 21st, 1974.
[0:00:09]ZAIDE:Zaide is going to speak on the tape.
[0:00:15]ZAIDE:I have not written biography of my family.
[0:00:22]ZAIDE:It was my destiny and the will of God
[0:00:24]ZAIDE:we shall travel from country to country.
[0:00:29]ZAIDE:In memories, I will relate.
[0:00:32]ZAIDE:It's simply either of my own memory
[0:00:35]ZAIDE:of what I have been told by my father and mother.
[0:00:50]ZAIDE:My father's writing from what he told me.
[0:00:55]ZAIDE:I found out that my father's grandfather,
[0:01:04]ZAIDE:whose name, if my memory serves me right, was Shabtai.
[0:01:09]ZAIDE:He was a rabbi in a small place, Kostiukovich,
[0:01:14]ZAIDE:which was in the state of Chernigov
[0:01:21]ZAIDE:at the end of the Pale of Settlement with Russia.
[0:01:27]ZAIDE:A few miles from there started the real Russia,
[0:01:34]ZAIDE:where Jews have been forbidden to live.
[0:01:41]ZAIDE:This was in these days where Jewish children
[0:01:46]ZAIDE:were caught at a very young age, from six to 12,
[0:01:52]ZAIDE:and have been sent away in the Ural, into Volga,
[0:01:58]ZAIDE:or in other remote places of the Russian Empire
[0:02:03]ZAIDE:to serve on a farm or any other place up to 18.
[0:02:08]ZAIDE:And then they had to serve to the king 25 years.
[0:02:14]ZAIDE:The Russians also had to serve 25 years.
[0:02:19]ZAIDE:But when a Russian went to serve,
[0:02:21]ZAIDE:he would take himself his wife, or he married in the army.
[0:02:26]ZAIDE:And the Jewish people have been at this disadvantage
[0:02:29]ZAIDE:because they couldn't observe their religious rights,
[0:02:34]ZAIDE:and the chances of getting married while in the army was nil.
[0:02:40]ZAIDE:The object of taking such a young children was in Russia
[0:02:45]ZAIDE:because they wanted them to be assimilated,
[0:02:48]ZAIDE:and it was one of the quickest way to assimilate them.
[0:02:54]ZAIDE:I really care if they were assimilated in Russia.
[0:02:57]ZAIDE:In other words, even in that time,
[0:02:58]CHANA POUPKO:the Tsar wanted them assimilated?
[0:03:03]ZAIDE:A member of the cabinet, if I'm not mistaken,
[0:03:07]ZAIDE:the inner minister, explained three objects of doing this.
[0:03:22]ZAIDE:In Russia, they're never permitted Jews to live.
[0:03:26]ZAIDE:However, when Poland was divided between the three powers,
[0:03:32]ZAIDE:Russia, Prussia, and Austria,
[0:03:40]ZAIDE:it came on the lot of Russia a million Jews
[0:03:45]ZAIDE:who lived before in the territory of Poland.
[0:03:49]ZAIDE:And now to let them go into Russia was impossible
[0:03:53]ZAIDE:because Russia didn't want them.
[0:03:55]ZAIDE:So they had to stay in Ukraine, or in Belarus,
[0:03:59]ZAIDE:or in Lithuania that used to belong to Poland,
[0:04:03]ZAIDE:and now they belong to Russia.
[0:04:07]ZAIDE:And the Russian government thought a very simple method.
[0:04:12]ZAIDE:A third of it should be assimilated,
[0:04:15]ZAIDE:a third of it should immigrate,
[0:04:18]ZAIDE:and a third of it will starve
[0:04:20]ZAIDE:because the economical conditions were very poor.
[0:04:24]CHANA POUPKO:Okay, go ahead.
[0:04:29]ZAIDE:So every community had to give several children,
[0:04:34]ZAIDE:three or five or eight,
[0:04:39]ZAIDE:and it was the duty of the heads of the Jewish communities
[0:04:42]ZAIDE:to provide these children, which was a very painful task.
[0:04:51]ZAIDE:Unfortunately, they always find Jewish hoodlums
[0:04:55]ZAIDE:who used to take a price, let's say 50 roubles or 100 roubles,
[0:05:00]ZAIDE:and snatch a Jewish child.
[0:05:03]ZAIDE:They couldn't snatch a rich child
[0:05:05]ZAIDE:because the rich man bought himself out from the hoodlums.
[0:05:10]ZAIDE:But mostly they got a poor child,
[0:05:12]ZAIDE:and once they snatched him, they kidnapped him,
[0:05:16]ZAIDE:he was lost to his parents.
[0:05:22]ZAIDE:In one summer day, the hoodlums came to that little town,
[0:05:27]ZAIDE:and they were roaming around to catch a child.
[0:05:31]ZAIDE:When the parents got wind,
[0:05:32]ZAIDE:they kept the children in the houses
[0:05:34]ZAIDE:because it was forbidden to take a child from the house.
[0:05:39]ZAIDE:So they looked in the streets.
[0:05:42]ZAIDE:Across the street from my grandfather's house,
[0:05:45]ZAIDE:my great-grandfather's, was a tailor by the name Schlame,
[0:05:51]ZAIDE:and he had one child,
[0:05:53]ZAIDE:and that child went to Hader,
[0:05:56]ZAIDE:to the Hebrew school that was in those days,
[0:05:59]ZAIDE:and coming back in the late afternoon,
[0:06:03]ZAIDE:the hoodlums noticed him, and they snatched him,
[0:06:05]ZAIDE:and they want to put him in the wagon.
[0:06:08]ZAIDE:The wagon was the kind that it was barred from all sides
[0:06:12]ZAIDE:like a dog catcher's wagon.
[0:06:15]ZAIDE:My great-grandmother, being the wife of the rabbi
[0:06:18]ZAIDE:and a Hosky woman, had in her mind, in her hand,
[0:06:23]ZAIDE:she had a big stick, and she chased the wagon,
[0:06:29]ZAIDE:and by force, she took out the child
[0:06:31]ZAIDE:and took him in her home.
[0:06:33]ZAIDE:And the law was that you cannot take a child from home,
[0:06:37]ZAIDE:and you can't take a child from a rabbi's house.
[0:06:42]ZAIDE:So the hoodlum lost his income of the few dollars,
[0:06:46]ZAIDE:and he didn't have the child.
[0:06:49]ZAIDE:But he told to the rabbi's wife,
[0:06:51]ZAIDE:all right, I'll get him with you,
[0:06:54]ZAIDE:and it wouldn't take long either.
[0:06:57]ZAIDE:A few months later, pace of night,
[0:07:01]ZAIDE:while the family was sitting at the Seder,
[0:07:04]ZAIDE:and the family consisted of the rabbi,
[0:07:07]ZAIDE:and his wife, and two boys.
[0:07:10]ZAIDE:One boy was called Dov Ber.
[0:07:14]CHANA POUPKO:What?
[0:07:15]ZAIDE:The other boy, if I'm not mistaken,
[0:07:17]ZAIDE:his name was Avroham Leib,
[0:07:20]ZAIDE:and these four had been sitting at the Seder,
[0:07:23]ZAIDE:and three masked men came in,
[0:07:26]ZAIDE:and they snatched both boys,
[0:07:29]ZAIDE:which was several violations,
[0:07:31]ZAIDE:even under the Russian cruel law.
[0:07:34]ZAIDE:It was forbidden to take children at night.
[0:07:40]ZAIDE:It was forbidden to take them on a holiday.
[0:07:42]ZAIDE:It was forbidden to take them from a rabbi's house.
[0:07:46]ZAIDE:It was forbidden to take more than one at a time,
[0:07:51]ZAIDE:and the age was supposed to be above six and below 12.
[0:07:56]ZAIDE:In this case, it was one below six,
[0:07:58]ZAIDE:and one was a little above 12.
[0:08:02]ZAIDE:Then the rabbi and his wife went out to cry for help
[0:08:07]ZAIDE:in the middle of the night.
[0:08:08]ZAIDE:There was nobody, and next morning,
[0:08:10]ZAIDE:when they came to the police,
[0:08:12]ZAIDE:the police said, well, we'll go, we will look,
[0:08:16]ZAIDE:and with their complacency,
[0:08:18]ZAIDE:they didn't look and the children were lost.
[0:08:23]ZAIDE:The rabbi and his wife didn't last too long,
[0:08:25]ZAIDE:and from aggravation, one died six months later,
[0:08:28]ZAIDE:the other one died 15 months later.
[0:08:33]CHANA POUPKO:Daddy, you know all this from your dad's memoirs?
[0:08:35]ZAIDE:From my father's memoirs.
[0:08:36]CHANA POUPKO:From your father's memoirs?
[0:08:37]ZAIDE:Yeah.
[0:08:38]CHANA POUPKO:He wrote them down?
[0:08:38]ZAIDE:Yeah.
[0:08:39]CHANA POUPKO:Where are they?
[0:08:41]ZAIDE:I will find it.
[0:08:41]CHANA POUPKO:Are they in Yiddish?
[0:08:43]ZAIDE:In Musnaki and Russia.
[0:08:44]ZAIDE:Yiddish, either Yiddish or Russian.
[0:08:53]ZAIDE:The younger brother that got lost, Avroham Leib,
[0:08:56]ZAIDE:was found out more than a century later
[0:09:00]ZAIDE:by my brother, Zalman Leib,
[0:09:03]ZAIDE:who calls himself Lev Kazachkov,
[0:09:08]ZAIDE:in the Ural section,
[0:09:11]ZAIDE:and they are already Russians,
[0:09:13]ZAIDE:and they don't know anything of their past history,
[0:09:17]ZAIDE:except their physical outlooks look similar to ours,
[0:09:21]ZAIDE:and the family name Kazachkov has never changed.
[0:09:26]ZAIDE:The day the grandfather...
[0:09:29]CHANA POUPKO:Who was Dov Ber?
[0:09:31]ZAIDE:Dov Ber was already 12,
[0:09:34]ZAIDE:that means he had a sufficient Jewish education
[0:09:38]ZAIDE:and Jewish consciousness.
[0:09:40]ZAIDE:He had been immediately sent away to a different town
[0:09:49]ZAIDE:and from town to town until he reached the Volga region.
[0:09:53]ZAIDE:The Volga region used to be lived many Germans
[0:09:57]ZAIDE:who came to settle in Russia
[0:09:59]ZAIDE:because the possibilities of agriculture
[0:10:05]ZAIDE:and of material conditions were much better than in Germany,
[0:10:12]ZAIDE:and he landed in a German farmhouse to tend geese,
[0:10:18]ZAIDE:and there he spent six years.
[0:10:24]ZAIDE:Since he, by that time, 12 years he was conscious,
[0:10:27]ZAIDE:he suffered tremendously,
[0:10:30]ZAIDE:and most of the time he lived on bread and water,
[0:10:34]ZAIDE:but he didn't want to eat treif.
[0:10:37]ZAIDE:At the age of 18, he was taken away from there
[0:10:41]ZAIDE:and was enlisted in the Russian army in cavalry,
[0:10:45]ZAIDE:that means a horseman.
[0:10:49]ZAIDE:By that time, it happened to be a series of wars
[0:10:53]ZAIDE:between the Turks and the Russians
[0:10:57]ZAIDE:in the Crimea-Penya Insula and in the Azov region,
[0:11:05]ZAIDE:and grandfather was an active soldier.
[0:11:09]ZAIDE:It came a time where he was an adjutant to a general,
[0:11:14]ZAIDE:and while the general was riding on his horse,
[0:11:18]ZAIDE:his horse was wounded and ran away wild,
[0:11:22]ZAIDE:and the general fell down,
[0:11:24]ZAIDE:was on the horse with his head down,
[0:11:27]ZAIDE:hitting it on the cobblestones,
[0:11:29]ZAIDE:and great-grandfather saved him.
[0:11:32]ZAIDE:He was presented to the higher authority for award
[0:11:39]ZAIDE:because he saved the general's life.
[0:11:42]ZAIDE:The general happens to be a distant relative
[0:11:47]ZAIDE:of the king's family.
[0:11:51]ZAIDE:Therefore, he was called before the general governor
[0:11:57]ZAIDE:of Moscow and was given an extra privilege
[0:12:01]ZAIDE:that he could live all over Russia
[0:12:03]ZAIDE:and Siberia wherever he chose.
[0:12:06]CHANA POUPKO:And that he could leave the army?
[0:12:08]ZAIDE:No, the army has to stay.
[0:12:11]ZAIDE:And he was also awarded some other privileges
[0:12:17]ZAIDE:that Jews were not awarded.
[0:12:21]ZAIDE:He completed his 25-year services,
[0:12:25]ZAIDE:and by that time, he was a man of 43,
[0:12:29]ZAIDE:because of the days of cannonade and tumult,
[0:12:34]ZAIDE:he lost his hearing.
[0:12:37]ZAIDE:And because he was not in touch for 30-some years
[0:12:43]ZAIDE:with Jewish people,
[0:12:44]ZAIDE:he forgot practically everything he learned.
[0:12:48]ZAIDE:He could hardly read in the cedar
[0:12:51]ZAIDE:and in the hummus with difficulties,
[0:12:56]ZAIDE:and his Jewish language was mixed
[0:12:59]ZAIDE:with the whole lot of Russian.
[0:13:02]ZAIDE:When he was relieved from the army,
[0:13:04]ZAIDE:he came back to his hometown,
[0:13:08]ZAIDE:and he found there nobody.
[0:13:10]ZAIDE:The previous generation has gone,
[0:13:13]ZAIDE:and several pogroms made the other people
[0:13:16]ZAIDE:move to various places.
[0:13:19]ZAIDE:And those who came were new people who didn't know him.
[0:13:25]ZAIDE:He found a distant relative, a girl of 14 years old,
[0:13:31]ZAIDE:who was a second cousin of his,
[0:13:34]ZAIDE:who came from a nearby town
[0:13:36]ZAIDE:and whose parents had been killed in a pogrom.
[0:13:39]ZAIDE:And she, a 14-year-old girl,
[0:13:43]ZAIDE:without father and mother, was very helpless.
[0:13:49]ZAIDE:Since he was a pharaoh of Minsk [unclear phrase],
[0:13:51]ZAIDE:he brought from the army some money,
[0:13:54]ZAIDE:so he married this girl.
[0:13:56]ZAIDE:And this happens to be my grandmother,
[0:13:59]ZAIDE:and her Jewish name was Enya.
[0:14:02]ZAIDE:I remember her distinctly
[0:14:03]ZAIDE:because she lived in a very long, ripe age.
[0:14:08]ZAIDE:A very sturdy woman, extraordinary clever.
[0:14:14]ZAIDE:She knew how to read in the siddur very fluently,
[0:14:20]ZAIDE:and she knew the Tanakh almost by heart,
[0:14:24]ZAIDE:but very slow to read inside.
[0:14:33]ZAIDE:I don't have exact records.
[0:14:36]ZAIDE:I never ask my father how long they spent there,
[0:14:39]ZAIDE:but apparently, with the conditions in the pale there,
[0:14:43]ZAIDE:he apparently couldn't find any ways of living.
[0:14:47]ZAIDE:And he took up the offer from the Russian government
[0:14:50]ZAIDE:to go away in the far away distance of Siberia,
[0:14:54]ZAIDE:near the Chinese border,
[0:14:57]ZAIDE:where the Russians have prison camps for criminals,
[0:15:02]ZAIDE:and more than for criminals, for political.
[0:15:05]ZAIDE:Russia was hit with revolution,
[0:15:07]ZAIDE:and anybody who was suspected of this reality
[0:15:10]ZAIDE:had been sent away in those remote camps.
[0:15:15]CHANA POUPKO:And he was gonna be what?
[0:15:16]ZAIDE:And there, he was appointed to things.
[0:15:20]ZAIDE:They used to take out gold sent from the river,
[0:15:26]ZAIDE:and it went through several sieves to clear it,
[0:15:30]ZAIDE:so he was to watch it should not be stolen.
[0:15:33]ZAIDE:And at the same time,
[0:15:35]ZAIDE:he should watch, be a warning for the prisoners.
[0:15:41]ZAIDE:The prisoners should not be understood
[0:15:43]ZAIDE:in the sense that an employee of the government,
[0:15:46]ZAIDE:but he was some sort of a representative
[0:15:51]ZAIDE:of the citizens of Russia
[0:15:53]ZAIDE:to watch for the protection of the prisoners.
[0:15:58]ZAIDE:Why would...
[0:16:06]ZAIDE:I have to explain what it means
[0:16:08]ZAIDE:a warning for the protection of citizens.
[0:16:13]ZAIDE:In 1882,
[0:16:18]ZAIDE:King Alexander II has been assassinated.
[0:16:24]ZAIDE:He was a liberal king by Russian standards,
[0:16:28]ZAIDE:since he freed the Serb in 1861.
[0:16:34]ZAIDE:However, after he was assassinated,
[0:16:38]ZAIDE:it came on the throne Alexander III,
[0:16:42]ZAIDE:a very reactionary king,
[0:16:45]ZAIDE:and it start repression against anyone
[0:16:50]ZAIDE:who was suspected of plotting against the throne
[0:16:58]ZAIDE:or asking for liberalization.
[0:17:01]ZAIDE:And anybody suspected was sent away in Siberia.
[0:17:07]ZAIDE:Sent away in Siberia what means doom.
[0:17:14]ZAIDE:However, like Kovach and Roshi was two streams,
[0:17:18]ZAIDE:one very reactionary and the other extremely liberal.
[0:17:23]ZAIDE:And there has been a pressure of the society
[0:17:29]ZAIDE:to give some protection to the prisoners
[0:17:32]ZAIDE:who are in Siberia under the veil of officials
[0:17:41]ZAIDE:who are merciless and cruel.
[0:17:45]ZAIDE:So therefore, it has been organized in each town,
[0:17:51]ZAIDE:committees of one or two or three
[0:17:54]ZAIDE:who should watch for the interests of these prisoners
[0:17:58]ZAIDE:as much as possible.
[0:18:00]ZAIDE:And grandfather was one of those who had another couple.
[0:18:06]ZAIDE:Now, there was no capital punishment in Russia at all,
[0:18:11]ZAIDE:not even for criminals,
[0:18:14]ZAIDE:but there was capital punishment for politically
[0:18:18]ZAIDE:if they murdered somebody who was in official duty.
[0:18:24]ZAIDE:Now those who were sent away in Siberia have not been killed,
[0:18:28]ZAIDE:but they have been given sometimes very hard labor
[0:18:33]ZAIDE:and many, many years of isolationism.
[0:18:39]ZAIDE:So grandfather settled there and in length of time,
[0:18:44]ZAIDE:he opened there a business, a drug business
[0:18:47]ZAIDE:and became extremely successful.
[0:18:50]ZAIDE:I mean, at the same time that he was watching
[0:18:52]CHANA POUPKO:over the prisoners?
[0:18:52]ZAIDE:He stayed at home,
[0:18:54]ZAIDE:but the prisoner is watching when I complain to him.
[0:18:58]ZAIDE:You see, I complain to him.
[0:18:59]ZAIDE:Now, in Joseph at that time,
[0:19:06]ZAIDE:that a Jewish man from the Pale of Settlement
[0:19:13]ZAIDE:was accused in two things.
[0:19:16]ZAIDE:He was accused in giving a night to sleep
[0:19:22]ZAIDE:for a political fugitive
[0:19:25]ZAIDE:and in arson of a house.
[0:19:28]ZAIDE:Both accusations were false,
[0:19:31]ZAIDE:but he didn't have the means to defend himself.
[0:19:35]ZAIDE:He was sent away for seven years in Siberia.
[0:19:41]ZAIDE:This man was very pious
[0:19:44]ZAIDE:and grandfather happened to know this man
[0:19:48]ZAIDE:and he extended him a hand of grace to help.
[0:19:56]ZAIDE:Wait, he knew him but from the prison.
[0:19:58]CHANA POUPKO:That's what he knew from prison?
[0:19:59]ZAIDE:That's right.
[0:20:02]ZAIDE:He offered it to the Russian authorities.
[0:20:04]ZAIDE:Something had been done all over Russia.
[0:20:07]ZAIDE:He will let the food, the allocation of food
[0:20:11]ZAIDE:for the officials to have
[0:20:13]ZAIDE:and he will feed him from his own pocket.
[0:20:17]ZAIDE:As long as he is allowed to eat,
[0:20:20]ZAIDE:the food is permissible for Jews to eat.
[0:20:24]ZAIDE:And of his own responsibility,
[0:20:27]ZAIDE:he took him home to sleep.
[0:20:32]ZAIDE:And even the amount of work he has to be done
[0:20:36]ZAIDE:was easy for him or he paid other prisoners to do it.
[0:20:42]ZAIDE:And this man spent a number of years in our house
[0:20:46]ZAIDE:and he served us as the man to slaughter kosher meat
[0:20:51]ZAIDE:and as a teacher.
[0:20:53]ZAIDE:He was a man of extremely high moral.
[0:20:56]ZAIDE:He left his whole country to buy from children
[0:20:59]ZAIDE:and he was compelled to divorce them
[0:21:03]ZAIDE:because there was no hopes ever united.
[0:21:09]ZAIDE:There were very few scattered Jews in that section
[0:21:17]ZAIDE:and the opportunities were tremendous.
[0:21:30]ZAIDE:After a few years, a son was born and this was my father.
[0:21:36]ZAIDE:And since it was a great joy, he was named Simcha.
[0:21:40]ZAIDE:And he was named, apparently,
[0:21:42]ZAIDE:after one of his grandmother's ancestors, Daniel,
[0:21:45]ZAIDE:Simcha Daniel.
[0:21:48]ZAIDE:When the child became at the age of five,
[0:21:50]ZAIDE:it became a big problem.
[0:21:53]CHANA POUPKO:How can we raise the child, one child in a Jewish way?
[0:21:59]ZAIDE:So decided to send him to Russia.
[0:22:01]CHANA POUPKO:What about that person?
[0:22:03]ZAIDE:One man, he can.
[0:22:05]ZAIDE:At the age of three, he learned them,
[0:22:07]ZAIDE:the aleph-bet, he learned them, he moved them down.
[0:22:11]ZAIDE:But grandfather, in spite of that,
[0:22:14]ZAIDE:that he had very little learning,
[0:22:16]ZAIDE:he had a great craving
[0:22:18]ZAIDE:that his posterity should remain Jewish.
[0:22:22]ZAIDE:And the influence of the rabbi, Sheikha, was tremendous.
[0:22:28]ZAIDE:You have to bear in mind
[0:22:29]ZAIDE:that the Siberian railroad did not exist in those days.
[0:22:33]ZAIDE:And the farthest people could go by rail,
[0:22:36]ZAIDE:by the primitive rail, is only up to the Ural Mountains.
[0:22:41]ZAIDE:And the Ural Mountains were Europe's borders with Asia.
[0:22:45]ZAIDE:That was considered the end of the world.
[0:22:47]ZAIDE:And then it start a journey by months, months, months
[0:22:53]ZAIDE:through the impenetrable taiga,
[0:22:55]ZAIDE:the heavy woods of Siberia, or the heavy winter.
[0:23:00]ZAIDE:But people who wanted to go to Siberia
[0:23:03]ZAIDE:used to go to Southern Russia, to the city of Odessa.
[0:23:07]ZAIDE:And then they boarded the ship in the Black Sea.
[0:23:12]ZAIDE:And the Black City ship used to go into Mediterranean
[0:23:16]ZAIDE:and see the Suez Canal already was in existence
[0:23:19]ZAIDE:in those days.
[0:23:21]ZAIDE:So they went through the Suez Canal into the Indian Ocean
[0:23:28]ZAIDE:and went to the city of Shanghai in China.
[0:23:31]ZAIDE:And from Shanghai, they came to Vladivostok.
[0:23:36]ZAIDE:Vladivostok.
[0:23:36]ZAIDE:And some of them turned to the extreme north
[0:23:39]ZAIDE:and they went to the Ahotsk River
[0:23:43]ZAIDE:close to the Kamchatka Peninsula.
[0:23:46]ZAIDE:A journey like that took several months,
[0:23:49]ZAIDE:but it was less dangerous and less tedious
[0:23:53]ZAIDE:than to go through the Siberian Way by horses.
[0:24:01]ZAIDE:So grandmother, who was already a woman about 19,
[0:24:09]ZAIDE:with the sanctioning of grandfather,
[0:24:14]ZAIDE:then took that boy and went away
[0:24:17]ZAIDE:to a tedious trip to Europe.
[0:24:20]ZAIDE:It took her four months and she brought him to Europe.
[0:24:26]ZAIDE:And if my memory serves me right,
[0:24:30]ZAIDE:that father was landed in a city of Brisk,
[0:24:34]ZAIDE:who was somewhere between Lithuania and Poland,
[0:24:37]ZAIDE:a city of scholars, in the house of a rabbi
[0:24:42]ZAIDE:to learn Torah.
[0:24:44]ZAIDE:And grandmother returned by herself and lived there.
[0:24:49]CHANA POUPKO:How could she part with them?
[0:24:50]ZAIDE:It's very hard.
[0:24:51]ZAIDE:No, it's a journey of the mind.
[0:24:57]ZAIDE:When grandmother returned back,
[0:24:59]ZAIDE:which the round trip took her nearly eight months,
[0:25:03]ZAIDE:she couldn't track her grandfather.
[0:25:06]ZAIDE:His nostalgia after his wife and his son
[0:25:12]ZAIDE:was so great that he became physically ill.
[0:25:18]ZAIDE:By that time, the sheikh had finished his term
[0:25:23]ZAIDE:and was ready to return back to Russia.
[0:25:28]ZAIDE:Two things happened.
[0:25:29]ZAIDE:In order for an ex-prisoner to come back to Russia,
[0:25:33]ZAIDE:they needed the permission of his town to let him in.
[0:25:37]ZAIDE:And the Russian anti-Semites didn't want to give him permit
[0:25:40]ZAIDE:to come to his town.
[0:25:42]ZAIDE:So finally, by help of friends,
[0:25:45]ZAIDE:he decided to be among the very early immigrants
[0:25:48]ZAIDE:to far away United States.
[0:25:52]ZAIDE:Then grandfather offered them a very lucrative amount
[0:25:58]ZAIDE:of money to pay monthly.
[0:26:01]ZAIDE:But he shall stay because by that time,
[0:26:04]ZAIDE:two girls have been born.
[0:26:06]ZAIDE:And grandfather want them too to give a Jewish education.
[0:26:11]ZAIDE:And grandfather want him to stay with us.
[0:26:14]ZAIDE:And there are a few more Jews,
[0:26:16]ZAIDE:and he is the one who used to be the connecting man
[0:26:19]ZAIDE:to make the minion of Russian young keeper.
[0:26:23]ZAIDE:So he stayed on with us for longer.
[0:26:28]ZAIDE:Father stayed there until he became almost 80 years old.
[0:26:34]ZAIDE:In Brest.
[0:26:36]ZAIDE:Where ever he was born.
[0:26:37]ZAIDE:In Brest, from time to time, he traveled to other towns.
[0:26:41]ZAIDE:And he learned Tehran.
[0:26:44]ZAIDE:All he learned is the entire Tanakh
[0:26:48]ZAIDE:and was very thoroughly versed in the Talmud.
[0:26:52]ZAIDE:In Russia, he was.
[0:26:54]ZAIDE:And then it came the time, during this time,
[0:26:58]ZAIDE:say the one time traveled to Russia
[0:27:01]ZAIDE:and visited him only one time.
[0:27:04]ZAIDE:And then it came a time he has to go in the Russian army.
[0:27:11]ZAIDE:And Zayde thought that the best way was to go in cavalry
[0:27:14]ZAIDE:because Zayde was in cavalry.
[0:27:17]ZAIDE:Now, it came a problem of marriage.
[0:27:21]ZAIDE:So Zayde remind himself
[0:27:23]ZAIDE:that there was another Jewish soldier with him
[0:27:26]ZAIDE:by the name Oshedierov.
[0:27:29]ZAIDE:And that Oshedierov also got a privilege
[0:27:32]ZAIDE:from Russian government that he could settle
[0:27:35]ZAIDE:in Russia proper, which was an extraordinary privilege.
[0:27:39]ZAIDE:And he acquired a small forest
[0:27:46]ZAIDE:in the vicinity of Oryol where he cleared up and had a farm.
[0:27:52]ZAIDE:And there he married a Jewish woman from somewhere.
[0:27:58]ZAIDE:Her name was Dwire.
[0:28:00]ZAIDE:So this was the friend who was in the army.
[0:28:03]CHANA POUPKO:The friend, this was your Zayde friend?
[0:28:05]ZAIDE:My Zayde friend.
[0:28:07]ZAIDE:And he settled there and became wealthy.
[0:28:09]ZAIDE:And he had 10 sons and four daughters.
[0:28:19]ZAIDE:Then Zayde came to him and says,
[0:28:23]CHANA POUPKO:how old is your older daughter, Malki?
[0:28:26]ZAIDE:She's about 16.
[0:28:28]ZAIDE:He says, I have a son
[0:28:30]ZAIDE:and you have slim chance to get married.
[0:28:33]ZAIDE:And this girl was destined to be my mother.
[0:28:38]ZAIDE:It was a very hard job for that rich man Oshedierov
[0:28:42]ZAIDE:to depart with his older daughter,
[0:28:44]ZAIDE:but he finally agreed.
[0:28:47]ZAIDE:And father married her and she even there.
[0:28:52]ZAIDE:And he served in cavalry not very far from our hometown
[0:28:58]ZAIDE:on the Amur River near the Chinese border.
[0:29:08]ZAIDE:We came at that time already closer to the 20th century.
[0:29:15]ZAIDE:And another brother was born, another son.
[0:29:19]CHANA POUPKO:To whom?
[0:29:20]ZAIDE:To my father, the first son.
[0:29:22]CHANA POUPKO:Oh, the first son?
[0:29:23]ZAIDE:The first son.
[0:29:25]ZAIDE:And finally the Rebbe left us.
[0:29:28]ZAIDE:The Rebbe left and the Rebbe left.
[0:29:32]CHANA POUPKO:Did your father ever wanted to go back to the pale?
[0:29:36]ZAIDE:Oh, so then father decided,
[0:29:39]ZAIDE:since nobody would take away our land and everything,
[0:29:42]ZAIDE:he would go back to the pale.
[0:29:45]ZAIDE:He came back to the pale
[0:29:46]ZAIDE:and he settled in a city of Klintsy
[0:29:49]ZAIDE:where my great-grandfather lived there many, many years ago.
[0:29:54]ZAIDE:He found a fine Jewish community
[0:29:56]ZAIDE:with factories across the roads.
[0:29:58]ZAIDE:And he opened a business and we settled there.
[0:30:02]ZAIDE:And there-
[0:30:03]ZAIDE:So Klintsy is in the pale.
[0:30:05]ZAIDE:Klintsy is hardly in the pale.
[0:30:07]CHANA POUPKO:What's in the pale?
[0:30:09]CHANA POUPKO:Near what?
[0:30:10]ZAIDE:Near Bryansk.
[0:30:11]ZAIDE:Bryansk already not in the pale.
[0:30:14]ZAIDE:Maybe a childhood.
[0:30:18]ZAIDE:Then on October 18, 1898, a day after Mckipper,
[0:30:23]ZAIDE:here where I was born, the fourth child in a family.
[0:30:31]CHANA POUPKO:Okay?
[0:30:32]ZAIDE:Yeah.
[0:30:34]ZAIDE:As I told you before,
[0:30:37]ZAIDE:my mother's father lived in the village of Nivna.
CASSETTE SIDE 2
[0:00:09]ZAIDE:He had 10 sons. He had a son, Isaac Leib, which was my mother's brother.
[0:00:18]ZAIDE:And this uncle, Isaac Leib, has 10 sons, which was my mother's nephew, in my
[0:00:27]ZAIDE:question.
[0:00:33]ZAIDE:My mother kept very close to her family, and her family were close to us.
[0:00:39]ZAIDE:Although they lived out of the pale.
[0:00:43]ZAIDE:But it was only a few hundred kilometers, and trains used to go.
[0:00:54]ZAIDE:So, they visited very often, and the family ties were very close.
[0:01:00]ZAIDE:Meanwhile, the old teacher who was with us in Siberia, apparently finding
[0:01:06]ZAIDE:difficulties in making a Hebrew school.
[0:01:12]ZAIDE:And oh, our children went to his school.
[0:01:16]ZAIDE:He was the best teacher I could ever imagine, since he knew perfectly the Russian
[0:01:28]ZAIDE:as well as the Hebrew language.
[0:01:33]ZAIDE:He learned with us thoroughly the entire Bible and the prophets.
[0:01:40]ZAIDE:In the evenings, he told us the tales and legends and Jewish folklore.
[0:01:51]CHANA POUPKO:Did you go to Russian school?
[0:01:54]ZAIDE:Yeah.
[0:01:56]ZAIDE:Now, Russian Jewish children in Russia could not go to school because Shabbos, they
[0:02:06]ZAIDE:had to work and to write.
[0:02:08]ZAIDE:And this, again, the Jewish law.
[0:02:10]ZAIDE:Besides, she was already in the pale, a very strict norm for the Jewish children.
[0:02:20]ZAIDE:The norm was in accordance with the Jewish population.
[0:02:24]ZAIDE:In universities, for example, no more than one or two percent.
[0:02:29]ZAIDE:In high school, sometimes 10 percent.
[0:02:32]ZAIDE:And this has to be given to the most excellent students.
[0:02:36]ZAIDE:There was no even taught for me to go to a regular school because of Shabbos.
[0:02:44]ZAIDE:However, we had private tutoring and the private tutoring followed the program of
[0:02:56]ZAIDE:the official schools.
[0:02:58]ZAIDE:And at any time, anybody could give up exams.
[0:03:04]ZAIDE:And this was called externa.
[0:03:07]ZAIDE:That means people who had private education and the same time they could get a matriculation.
[0:03:19]ZAIDE:So we had Russian teachers.
[0:03:22]ZAIDE:I was lucky to have a woman by the name Snarskaya.
[0:03:30]ZAIDE:She was a very high educated woman and came from about the same section of Oryol
[0:03:37]ZAIDE:where my mother comes from.
[0:03:39]ZAIDE:And when my mother was young, they both had one private teacher woman.
[0:03:48]ZAIDE:By the way, my mother was very well versed in Russian poetry and practically at
[0:03:54]ZAIDE:home in the entire Russian literature.
[0:04:01]ZAIDE:Now we approach the 20th century.
[0:04:04]ZAIDE:The country was sitting with revolution.
[0:04:07]ZAIDE:Alexander III, the king, was a tyrant and he tried to suppress it, but it was
[0:04:15]ZAIDE:unsuccessful.
[0:04:17]ZAIDE:The underground got stronger and stronger.
[0:04:20]ZAIDE:In 1903, Russia was embroiled in a war with Japan.
[0:04:29]ZAIDE:And when the war was finished with a defeat for Russia, the Russian government, to
[0:04:35]ZAIDE:divert their attention to the public,
[0:04:38]ZAIDE:encouraged pogroms and there was a wave of pogroms all over Russia.
[0:04:43]ZAIDE:And even in Klintsy, where the population was very small, was also a pogrom in
[0:04:48]ZAIDE:September 1905.
[0:04:52]ZAIDE:Father decided he will go and see what is going on in Israel, then called Palestine.
[0:05:00]ZAIDE:He went away there.
[0:05:02]ZAIDE:Unfortunately, he got sick with malaria and eye sickness.
[0:05:09]ZAIDE:Nevertheless, he would stay there, but it came a call for him in reserve and he had
[0:05:15]ZAIDE:to return to Russia to stay a while in reserve.
[0:05:19]ZAIDE:When he came back, the children were small and the business grew very big and he
[0:05:26]ZAIDE:couldn't go away.
[0:05:27]ZAIDE:And he, sadly, in Palestine was postponed from year to year.
[0:05:31]ZAIDE:Of course, his prosperity in the country grew and so his business grew and we
[0:05:39]ZAIDE:approached the year 1911.
[0:05:45]ZAIDE:My father wanted me to have some more Jewish education,
[0:05:51]ZAIDE:but the Lithuanian is very far and my knowledge of Yiddish language was very poor.
[0:06:01]CHANA POUPKO:But didn't you speak Yiddish in the house?
[0:06:04]ZAIDE:I'll read it closer.
[0:06:05]ZAIDE:I want to think.
[0:06:06]ZAIDE:Our Yiddish was so much mixed with Russian, so just like your Yiddish would be much
[0:06:13]ZAIDE:better.
[0:06:13]CHANA POUPKO:Okay.
[0:06:18]ZAIDE:There were in our city few people who prayed in the style of the Ari, the what we
[0:06:27]ZAIDE:call Hasidim.
[0:06:29]ZAIDE:And we were told that in the city of Lubavitch, which is in the region of Vitebsk,
[0:06:36]ZAIDE:the other side of the Pale,
[0:06:40]ZAIDE:there is a shiva where I could go and advance my studies.
[0:06:47]ZAIDE:To go far away in the Lithuania would be too far and Poland was still farther away
[0:06:54]ZAIDE:and we are not used to that living.
[0:06:58]ZAIDE:So father went with me to that Lubavitch yeshiva, which was a very, very far distance
[0:07:06]ZAIDE:from the city of Klintsy.
[0:07:09]ZAIDE:We came there and we found 700 boys in a yeshiva from the ages from 8 to the ages to
[0:07:19]ZAIDE:20.
[0:07:24]ZAIDE:The people at the office in the administration, I showed my father that I would
[0:07:29]ZAIDE:feel myself at home.
[0:07:30]CHANA POUPKO:How many miles away from home was it?
[0:07:34]ZAIDE:This was approximately 1500 kilometers, which by that standards when no airplanes
[0:07:42]ZAIDE:were and trains very poor was considered very, very far away.
[0:07:48]ZAIDE:Well, my father hired me a room in one of the richest houses since money was no
[0:07:56]ZAIDE:object.
[0:07:57]CHANA POUPKO:Let me ask you something, what happened to Lev?
[0:08:00]ZAIDE:Lev landed only after 12 years in Haider and that's all.
[0:08:02]CHANA POUPKO:He didn't want to go on?
[0:08:04]ZAIDE:No, it wasn't. At that time, father didn't know about Lubavitch, but when he
[0:08:09]ZAIDE:noticed that his education got short, so he was...
[0:08:14]CHANA POUPKO:Are you the second?
[0:08:16]ZAIDE:Yeah, I'm the second.
[0:08:21]ZAIDE:So they assured my father I would feel myself at home.
[0:08:26]ZAIDE:And really in trolley, they showed so much tolerance to me and they were so patient
[0:08:32]ZAIDE:with me.
[0:08:33]ZAIDE:So after a few months, I talked Yiddish language like any one of them.
[0:08:40]ZAIDE:The main learning was in Talmud.
[0:08:43]ZAIDE:They spend sometimes, in my opinion, too much time to learn Chassidus mystics, which
[0:08:54]ZAIDE:never appear to be too much.
[0:08:56]ZAIDE:But in general, I like their ways and their methods, their attitudes, and I spend
[0:09:04]ZAIDE:there a year and a half.
[0:09:07]ZAIDE:When I came back home after a year and a half, my father decided it's too far to go.
[0:09:13]ZAIDE:And he sent me to another town, Vietca, which has a Shivae, and I learned there
[0:09:19]ZAIDE:half a year.
[0:09:21]ZAIDE:When I came back home, we found in our own town a very learned man who was willing
[0:09:29]ZAIDE:to give me private tutoring.
[0:09:31]ZAIDE:So I should have enough time to further my Russian studies.
[0:09:37]ZAIDE:Since there was a danger, I fell backward in my Russian studies in accordance with
[0:09:43]ZAIDE:my age.
[0:09:47]ZAIDE:Before we looked around, the year 1914 approached and the World War I broke out.
[0:09:55]ZAIDE:And father was called into cavalry.
[0:10:06]ZAIDE:Father was not sent away from Klintsy.
[0:10:11]ZAIDE:He was in the reserve to stay at home and to be by the Codin Roche on the ready.
[0:10:18]ZAIDE:Although the war was far away in Poland and over a thousand miles from our city,
[0:10:27]ZAIDE:nevertheless, the retreat of the Russian army, the defeats on the front, start to
[0:10:35]ZAIDE:felt itself.
[0:10:36]ZAIDE:And pretty soon, the Russians start to mobilize young men of 19, 18, 17, and 16 to
[0:10:47]ZAIDE:prepare for war.
[0:10:50]ZAIDE:Well, while father was not revolutionary, he had very little desire to go to war.
[0:10:58]ZAIDE:My older brother was already at the age where he had to go to the army.
[0:11:03]ZAIDE:As for myself, I was still young and father decided to let me go away from Russia.
[0:11:11]ZAIDE:And if possible, to escape to the United States.
[0:11:15]CHANA POUPKO:Wait a minute, why were you supposed to escape again now?
[0:11:17]ZAIDE:Because the Russians took children, 14 and 15, they sent them away a few hundred
[0:11:27]ZAIDE:miles
[0:11:28]ZAIDE:to the south and made them dig trenches to prepare for the army.
[0:11:31]CHANA POUPKO:Where was uncle Ed?
[0:11:33]ZAIDE:Uncle Lev was in the place and he already was enlisted.
[0:11:37]CHANA POUPKO:Okay, go ahead.
[0:11:37]ZAIDE:So now they're going to try to get you out of Russia.
[0:11:41]ZAIDE:The only way to get out of Russia was to go away through Siberia to Manchuria,
[0:11:49]ZAIDE:which was ruled by Russia and China together.
[0:11:54]ZAIDE:And the border there was not very street guarded.
[0:11:59]ZAIDE:And from China to go to Japan and from Japan to United States.
[0:12:05]ZAIDE:It was a very long and risky trip.
[0:12:08]CHANA POUPKO:Wait a minute, your father rather wanted you to leave the country than to dig
[0:12:11]CHANA POUPKO:trenches?
[0:12:12]ZAIDE:No, not to dig trenches, that means once I am in Russia,
[0:12:17]ZAIDE:they wouldn't let me out and I would be in the war.
[0:12:20]CHANA POUPKO:You'd be fighting?
[0:12:21]ZAIDE:Sure.
[0:12:22]ZAIDE:My father gave me 600 rubles, which was in that time a big fortune.
[0:12:31]ZAIDE:And bought me tickets and packed my little section and I went away
[0:12:37]ZAIDE:to Manchuria with the intention to go to Japan and to go to the United States.
[0:12:44]CHANA POUPKO:Okay, so you were going by yourself or with Santa Sarah?
[0:12:49]ZAIDE:Man, on January the 19th and 1916, I started my trip to Manchuria.
[0:13:03]ZAIDE:It was a three-weeks trip by railroad.
[0:13:06]ZAIDE:I have to change 10 or 11 trains on the way.
[0:13:14]ZAIDE:And for Shabbos, of course, I stopped over in a railroad station.
[0:13:19]ZAIDE:I stayed for 24 hours.
[0:13:21]ZAIDE:At the end of three weeks, in the early days of February,
[0:13:30]ZAIDE:I crossed the borderline of Manchuria with not too many difficulties
[0:13:37]ZAIDE:and I came to the city of Harbin.
[0:13:40]ZAIDE:I do recall the day, it was Tuesday, and it was a 50 below zero frost.
[0:13:50]ZAIDE:It was very cold.
[0:13:53]ZAIDE:And I had an address to go to a fellow who lived many years ago in Klintsy.
[0:14:01]ZAIDE:And as a revolutionary, he escaped.
[0:14:04]ZAIDE:And under a different name, he lived in Harbin.
[0:14:07]ZAIDE:And I came over there.
[0:14:09]ZAIDE:And after I noticed that Harbin is a heaven for refugees,
[0:14:15]ZAIDE:for all those who wanted to desert the Russian army,
[0:14:20]ZAIDE:and the Russians were not very strict,
[0:14:22]ZAIDE:I have decided not to go in a hurry to the United States,
[0:14:27]ZAIDE:but stay on for a while in Manchuria.
[0:14:30]ZAIDE:I found myself a job in a stationary store which gave me 25 rubles a week
[0:14:40]ZAIDE:and a chance to learn a little bit of Chinese language,
[0:14:43]ZAIDE:which I wanted very much.
[0:14:45]ZAIDE:Came the summer, I got me some friends,
[0:14:53]ZAIDE:and I start to like the town of Harbin.
[0:14:56]ZAIDE:And while I have with me plenty of money,
[0:15:00]ZAIDE:I start to send merchandise from Harbin to Russia
[0:15:04]ZAIDE:that at that time was starving for merchandise in the war went on and on.
[0:15:10]ZAIDE:It proved to be a very profitable thing to send merchandise from Harbin to Russia.
[0:15:21]ZAIDE:And I engaged in this business over a year and a half.
[0:15:26]ZAIDE:Father used to send me money and I used to send him merchandise.
[0:15:33]ZAIDE:After a year and a half, the Germans took a great chunk of Russia,
[0:15:42]ZAIDE:and Russia was in a very, very bad shape,
[0:15:48]ZAIDE:and they start to haunt those who escaped in Harbin.
[0:15:53]ZAIDE:I found out that it is not safe anymore in Harbin,
[0:16:00]ZAIDE:and I made an attempt to go to Japan.
[0:16:06]ZAIDE:However, the borders were already patched, not as before.
[0:16:16]ZAIDE:One day late in December, I got with another group of boys,
[0:16:21]ZAIDE:and we decided that since the train is being patched very much,
[0:16:26]ZAIDE:to hire a Chinese man, and he shall take us with the horse and bogie
[0:16:32]ZAIDE:225 miles to the southern Manchurian border,
[0:16:37]ZAIDE:which was under Japanese control.
[0:16:40]ZAIDE:We traveled for six days in very cold days.
[0:16:44]ZAIDE:We traveled mostly in the daytime,
[0:16:47]ZAIDE:and overnight we stopped in a Chinese house.
[0:16:49]ZAIDE:And 14 miles before we reached the Japanese border,
[0:16:54]ZAIDE:a group of Russian gendarmes, police, were waiting for us.
[0:17:00]ZAIDE:Apparently they had been tipped off, and we were arrested,
[0:17:03]ZAIDE:and they'd been brought back in the city of Harbin.
[0:17:09]ZAIDE:There we were all jailed, and there was a danger
[0:17:12]ZAIDE:that we would all be tried like military deserters,
[0:17:17]ZAIDE:although we have never been listed in the army.
[0:17:21]ZAIDE:After spending over three or four days in jail,
[0:17:32]ZAIDE:some Jewish people outside tried for us and succeeded to take us out.
[0:17:40]ZAIDE:Up to the present day, I don't know who they are and who they were,
[0:17:45]ZAIDE:but it looks that all these who were with me,
[0:17:49]ZAIDE:practically every one of us, came out,
[0:17:53]ZAIDE:and some of them were really those who deserted from the front.
[0:17:56]ZAIDE:Well, I couldn't stay anymore in Harbin,
[0:18:00]ZAIDE:and I went away to the small places in Mongolia.
[0:18:05]ZAIDE:For a while in Khaylar, Tsitsigar, Tel Ajo.
[0:18:09]ZAIDE:But I used to come very often in Harbin,
[0:18:13]ZAIDE:and after two, three months, I decided to make another attempt,
[0:18:19]ZAIDE:and this time I went to the maritime Russian province
[0:18:24]ZAIDE:of Nikolsk-Syrych, and from there to Vladivostok,
[0:18:28]ZAIDE:in order to get a boat to go to Japan.
[0:18:34]ZAIDE:In the city of Vladivostok, I stayed in a sailor house
[0:18:39]ZAIDE:where many revolutionaries stayed there and many sailors,
[0:18:45]ZAIDE:and the Russian government were so busy with the work
[0:18:49]ZAIDE:that they didn't have a chance to look after us.
[0:18:53]ZAIDE:And finally, one afternoon, while going to the boat,
[0:18:58]ZAIDE:in the section called the Gershelt, I was apprehended by a Russian Shandar
[0:19:05]ZAIDE:who asked me for my passport, and I had a passport
[0:19:10]ZAIDE:whom I obtained at the sailor house from a Finnish sailor who was drowned,
[0:19:16]ZAIDE:under the name Eli Marjama Haukipudas.
[0:19:21]ZAIDE:And this Shandar happened to know Swedish and Finnish,
[0:19:25]ZAIDE:and he right away caught on that I am not telling the truth.
[0:19:29]ZAIDE:So he tied me with a leather strap one end to the horse
[0:19:36]ZAIDE:and the other end to my shoulder, and he drove me
[0:19:41]ZAIDE:for 14 kilometers, which I made in less than two and a half hours.
[0:19:47]ZAIDE:If not for my younger days and good health, I wouldn't make it.
[0:19:52]ZAIDE:Then he brought me to the city jail. He made one foolish mischief.
[0:19:58]ZAIDE:He bent down the horse and put with his left hand
[0:20:03]ZAIDE:behind the gate to open the gate. I utilized that very second,
[0:20:08]ZAIDE:and with great force I tore up my hand from the strap
[0:20:12]ZAIDE:and I ran away. In the darkness of the night he gave two, three shots and missed.
[0:20:19]ZAIDE:And I ran away, and I had hidden myself among the freight trains,
[0:20:25]ZAIDE:and tomorrow morning I was again in the sailor house
[0:20:29]ZAIDE:in hiding, and a few days later I found another boat
[0:20:35]ZAIDE:that ran away to Tsuruga, to Japan, and there they let me in on the very
[0:20:45]ZAIDE:bottom of the boat, near the machinery, and I escaped to Japan.
[0:20:50]ZAIDE:In the lower end of the deck I spent 28 days.
[0:21:09]ZAIDE:The heat was over 100 at all times. It was water
[0:21:15]ZAIDE:and plenty of insects, humid, and the stench was
[0:21:24]ZAIDE:impossible, unbearable. I got a terrible seasickness.
[0:21:31]ZAIDE:I didn't keep for days, but apparently that
[0:21:36]ZAIDE:my good constitution, my younger days helped me to survive.
[0:21:41]ZAIDE:I landed in Tsuruga, and two days later I felt well. I didn't have any trouble to
[0:21:52]ZAIDE:land in Japan. I came there and I looked for European
[0:21:58]ZAIDE:families. I found a Jewish family by the name of
[0:22:01]ZAIDE:Shariro, and I told him I'm a fugitive from Russia,
[0:22:06]ZAIDE:and it made me feel that I'm not lost. I got myself a job at an Australian firm
[0:22:16]ZAIDE:Crawford to unpack dishes. I've worked for a few
[0:22:21]ZAIDE:days, and then by that I found out that
[0:22:26]ZAIDE:goes on a good export business from there to Russia,
[0:22:30]ZAIDE:and one morning I got up and I found out a revolution stroke in Russia,
[0:22:36]ZAIDE:and the whole government and the Tsar are gone, and to my amazement I found out
[0:22:44]ZAIDE:that in southern Manchuria were hundreds,
[0:22:48]ZAIDE:maybe thousands of Russian refugees who escaped
[0:22:52]ZAIDE:during the past 25 years from Russia. They were revolutionaries,
[0:22:57]ZAIDE:and now they are ready to go home. In two weeks time we found many
[0:23:03]ZAIDE:Russian revolutionaries who for years lived in California,
[0:23:08]ZAIDE:in other parts of the states, and now they are returning home,
[0:23:12]ZAIDE:and we start to get the Russian papers where they promised a new era.
[0:23:18]ZAIDE:I wanted right away to go back to Russia, but received a letter from my father
[0:23:25]ZAIDE:that he indicate me stay for a while, let the storm go over,
[0:23:30]ZAIDE:and he wrote me in Hebrew word, Chaveikim atrega ad yav er zoa.
[0:23:37]ZAIDE:That is from Isaiah chapter 27. I started to be interested in doing some
[0:23:45]ZAIDE:export business to Russia. I got acquainted with a Japanese
[0:23:52]ZAIDE:family by the name Utako. They befriended me very much.
[0:23:58]ZAIDE:I start very diligently to learn the Japanese language.
[0:24:03]ZAIDE:Got acquainted with the son and the daughter. The father
[0:24:08]ZAIDE:was a high official in the Ministry of Agriculture,
[0:24:12]ZAIDE:and the son was in the export business, the daughter was in the custom house,
[0:24:17]ZAIDE:and I started to do export business, and the home of those people
[0:24:22]ZAIDE:was actually my second home. I hired myself a room
[0:24:29]ZAIDE:in the city of Tarumi, which is not very far from the port city of Kobe.
[0:24:37]ZAIDE:By that time came in a number of people who escaped from United States because
[0:24:46]ZAIDE:United States also joined the First World War, and they didn't want to go in the
[0:24:50]ZAIDE:Russian army. So there have been three boys from the
[0:24:54]ZAIDE:states, one from Australia, and three from Russia, seven white fellows,
[0:25:00]ZAIDE:and since I was the only one who spoke Japanese, who made money,
[0:25:03]ZAIDE:so we rented the house, we coded the commune of eight,
[0:25:08]ZAIDE:and in that day, they led a communist life, but I was the only
[0:25:14]ZAIDE:one who was engaged in the export business,
[0:25:17]ZAIDE:and earned enough to support the whole gang. After a year or so,
[0:25:24]ZAIDE:it looked that the Bolsheviks little by little overtook
[0:25:30]ZAIDE:the Russian Empire, and I decided to go home. I was longing very much to my
[0:25:35]ZAIDE:parents. I went to Korea, and from there I came
[0:25:41]ZAIDE:to the city where many, many years ago
[0:25:45]ZAIDE:my grandfather lived. Of course, I didn't find anybody,
[0:25:49]ZAIDE:but I wrote to my brother, my older brother, and to my sister, to my father,
[0:25:53]ZAIDE:and my sister, my brother came there, and there we found out that the export
[0:26:01]ZAIDE:business from Russia to Russia is very bad, because the Civil War
[0:26:06]ZAIDE:just started, and Russia was torn up in many, many
[0:26:10]ZAIDE:small pieces, and every region with a separate
[0:26:13]ZAIDE:government. After struggling there for a while, my
[0:26:17]ZAIDE:brother left back to Russia, and I and my sister decided to join
[0:26:21]ZAIDE:our parents in Klinchi. We started to the tedious journey
[0:26:30]ZAIDE:right before Hanukkah, and it took us 100 days.
[0:26:33]ZAIDE:We changed 15 trains, and finally we reached home
[0:26:37]ZAIDE:for Pesach. Shortly after Pesach, as a result of the Civil War,
[0:26:46]ZAIDE:the Reds won't start back to come to our town, the town that was
[0:26:51]ZAIDE:governed before by independent Ukrainian government.
[0:26:56]ZAIDE:Was it still Klinchi? Father felt that his life is not very safe
[0:27:05]ZAIDE:under the Bolsheviks, so he started to make plans to go abroad,
[0:27:12]ZAIDE:the time was short, he went to the city of Gomel, and from there he escaped
[0:27:16]ZAIDE:in Bolin, and mother remained in Klinchi with...
[0:27:21]ZAIDE:Two, three days later I was arrested in the street.
[0:27:27]ZAIDE:They accused me that I helped the white ones, that means the
[0:27:33]ZAIDE:those who were against the Red, and counter-revolution.
[0:27:40]ZAIDE:Well, we were 11 arrested, but next morning two of us were remained, the other
[0:27:45]ZAIDE:nine had been shot. By justice I was arrested with no reason,
[0:27:51]CHANA POUPKO:I was freed without a reason. How old were you?
[0:27:59]ZAIDE:Eight and a half [unclear; this age does not fit the surrounding chronology], and then I decided to... I will go away.
[0:28:06]ZAIDE:A miracle happened, one day they took me for interrogation,
[0:28:11]ZAIDE:I met there a man whom I met two years ago
[0:28:18]ZAIDE:in Harbin, under very peculiar circumstances.
[0:28:22]ZAIDE:I roomed with a family of Karajts, who consider themselves partly Jewish,
[0:28:30]ZAIDE:in Harbin, and one time while I was eating in a Jewish restaurant,
[0:28:36]ZAIDE:a fellow came in and said to me, I'm a student and I'm hungry,
[0:28:41]ZAIDE:would you pay for my meal? I said sure, and I paid for his meal,
[0:28:46]ZAIDE:then he came to my room and told me that he has nowhere to sleep, he's afraid for
[0:28:53]ZAIDE:the police, and I let him sleep, and he came to me
[0:29:00]ZAIDE:dressed like a woman, with a big shawl, and then before
[0:29:07]ZAIDE:midnight he ran away, and an hour later the police
[0:29:12]ZAIDE:came and told me that he was a murderer, who killed two guards
[0:29:18]ZAIDE:in the University of Tomsk, three thousand miles away,
[0:29:23]ZAIDE:and they were looking for him, but they found out that he escaped through the
[0:29:28]ZAIDE:windows, using his steps
[0:29:32]ZAIDE:backwards, so they couldn't find out where he came from.
[0:29:36]ZAIDE:The police kept me for a day and let me go, and now
[0:29:41]ZAIDE:I found that the chief interrogator was the same man,
[0:29:44]CHANA POUPKO:and after he let me free, he says to me, what can I do for you?
[0:29:50]ZAIDE:I have not forgotten you, I said all you can do for me, let me go out of the
[0:29:55]ZAIDE:country. He gave me documents assuring that I'm in the
[0:30:01]ZAIDE:intelligence secret services for the communist,
[0:30:05]ZAIDE:and he let me go out of the country. I wanted to reach the city of Rovno, where
[0:30:16]ZAIDE:my father is. Was your father with your mother? No,
[0:30:19]ZAIDE:my mother was alone. I reached up to the city of Luninets.
[0:30:24]ZAIDE:In Luninets I found out that goes on it a mile from there,
[0:30:30]ZAIDE:a front between the Russians and Ukrainians, and while I was walking in the street,
[0:30:37]ZAIDE:two Russians stopped me and asked me how come at this age
[0:30:41]ZAIDE:I am not in the war, and before they let me finish my sentence,
[0:30:46]ZAIDE:they took me and put
CASSETTE SIDE 3
[0:00:11]ZAIDE:Before they let me finish my sentence, they took me and put me in a train to send
[0:00:16]ZAIDE:me away
[0:00:16]ZAIDE:in the city of Odessa.
[0:00:17]ZAIDE:Less than 24 hours I was sitting in Odessa and they enlisted me in the army.
[0:00:30]ZAIDE:I had the coincident that placed me in the cavalry.
[0:00:32]ZAIDE:They sent me to the Ukrainian front in the riot-quelling squad.
[0:00:37]ZAIDE:There I came in and the first time in my life I came in the particularly Jewish
[0:00:45]ZAIDE:tale.
[0:00:46]ZAIDE:I found out that the Ukrainians and the Galicians and partly the Russians destroyed
[0:00:52]ZAIDE:hundreds
[0:00:52]ZAIDE:of communities and thousands, ten thousands of Jews had been slaughtered.
[0:00:57]ZAIDE:I found actually cities devastated and the first time in my life I came with a big
[0:01:04]ZAIDE:comp
[0:01:04]ZAIDE:of Jewish masses.
[0:01:05]ZAIDE:After being there a few months I was thrown to the Persian border in the city of
[0:01:14]ZAIDE:Armavir,
[0:01:16]ZAIDE:not far from Baku.
[0:01:17]ZAIDE:There again we quelled the resistance and they sent me away to the northern front
[0:01:25]ZAIDE:around
[0:01:26]ZAIDE:Leningrad.
[0:01:27]ZAIDE:There again I was taken part in the cleanup and it came to the main fight, Siberia,
[0:01:33]ZAIDE:which
[0:01:34]ZAIDE:was occupied by Admiral Kolchak.
[0:01:36]ZAIDE:They put us in a train to send me away on the Siberian front to Admiral Kolchak.
[0:01:47]ZAIDE:Jordan was very hard on, the fight was going on ceaselessly.
[0:01:52]ZAIDE:Every town put up a resistance, but they kept on moving eastward and eastward.
[0:01:58]ZAIDE:After a few months we reached the city of Krasnoyarsk, we proceeded to go to Irkutsk.
[0:02:04]ZAIDE:At that time, of course, I left my horse in the Ural, they gave me new ones and
[0:02:12]ZAIDE:before
[0:02:13]ZAIDE:long we were stationed at the Nigerian border and I was put in charge on the border
[0:02:24]ZAIDE:guard.
[0:02:25]ZAIDE:At that time I made up my mind that I would try to cross the border.
[0:02:31]ZAIDE:Unfortunately, they sent me back to Turkestan, I spent some time in Tashkent, in
[0:02:40]ZAIDE:Markanda,
[0:02:41]ZAIDE:the Afghanistan border and by luck they sent me again to Manchuria.
[0:02:47]ZAIDE:Partly because I knew Chinese and I knew Japanese and I spoke a few words of Mongolian.
[0:02:53]ZAIDE:When I came there I looked for an opportunity to cross the border, the opportunity
[0:02:58]ZAIDE:didn't
[0:02:59]ZAIDE:let itself to wait long.
[0:03:02]ZAIDE:Late in November, on a very cold, frosty day, I was going on my horse toward the
[0:03:17]ZAIDE:border
[0:03:18]ZAIDE:and I noticed a patrol coming toward me, border controllers.
[0:03:35]ZAIDE:Instead of waiting to be asked, I gave one shot in the air and I stopped the first
[0:03:41]ZAIDE:one
[0:03:41]ZAIDE:asking for identification, he showed me his identification and I motioned with my
[0:03:50]ZAIDE:hand
[0:03:51]ZAIDE:he can go on.
[0:03:53]ZAIDE:In the next few minutes, other three and instead of asking, they should ask me, I
[0:03:58]ZAIDE:asked them
[0:03:59]ZAIDE:and I motioned them to go on and I proceeded another six miles and I came to the
[0:04:07]ZAIDE:city of
[0:04:08]ZAIDE:Chanchu which was four and a half miles on the other side of Kuanchanchi, the
[0:04:14]ZAIDE:Japanese
[0:04:15]ZAIDE:station.
[0:04:16]ZAIDE:I came in and the Japanese guard noticed me, so I came in the police station, I
[0:04:23]ZAIDE:took off
[0:04:24]ZAIDE:my rifle, my two handguns, my revolver and put my hands on my head and I said I'm
[0:04:31]ZAIDE:yours,
[0:04:31]ZAIDE:I surrendered.
[0:04:32]ZAIDE:Japanese authorities are very kind to me, they sent me the right way to Tokyo,
[0:04:47]ZAIDE:Tokyo
[0:04:48]ZAIDE:interrogated me for no more than 45 minutes, I told them that I have two gold coins
[0:04:56]ZAIDE:in
[0:04:57]ZAIDE:my coat and I gave my short brothers what I did and all I ask is for asylum.
[0:05:05]ZAIDE:I found out that things have been changed in Japan too, I couldn't go any more in
[0:05:18]ZAIDE:the
[0:05:18]ZAIDE:act for business, so I hired myself as a helping hand on boats.
[0:05:23]ZAIDE:They always need a hand on boats, I hired myself mostly with Dutch companies and we
[0:05:36]ZAIDE:travelled to Indonesia in the Indian Ocean, many times visited India, asylum,
[0:05:44]ZAIDE:loading
[0:05:45]ZAIDE:heights, loading elephants, ivory, loading coffee, prices, most of those on the
[0:05:52]ZAIDE:boats
[0:05:52]ZAIDE:were Malayans, some Chinese, travelled extensively, many times across the Pacific,
[0:06:03]ZAIDE:unfortunately
[0:06:03]ZAIDE:nowhere to land because I had no papers, and finally I landed in Brisbane,
[0:06:12]ZAIDE:Australia and
[0:06:13]ZAIDE:from there I made my way to Wellington, New Zealand and back to Melbourne.
[0:06:20]ZAIDE:Melbourne, Australia, I was told that there is a Jewish organization by the name HIAS,
[0:06:28]ZAIDE:Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, who is trying to connect close families, I felt that
[0:06:37]ZAIDE:my
[0:06:38]ZAIDE:parents had sometimes might have escaped from Russia, I didn't know for sure, and
[0:06:48]ZAIDE:so I
[0:06:49]ZAIDE:asked Melbourne, Australia, I found a lady by the name Sposi, and I told her that I
[0:06:58]ZAIDE:lost
[0:06:59]ZAIDE:my family, I'd like to find somebody who is living, and I told her my name, she
[0:07:06]ZAIDE:said
[0:07:06]ZAIDE:to me, your name rings very much in my ears, I was in Sydney, Australia and
[0:07:12]ZAIDE:somebody told
[0:07:14]ZAIDE:me that somebody is looking for relations, she advised me to come a few days, I
[0:07:23]ZAIDE:went
[0:07:24]ZAIDE:to Perth, Western Australia, other places to look whether I can settle, and I came
[0:07:28]ZAIDE:back
[0:07:29]ZAIDE:to Wellington, to Melbourne, I was told that my parents succeeded to go from Russia
[0:07:36]ZAIDE:and
[0:07:36]ZAIDE:they succeeded through Latvia to come to England and they are interned by the
[0:07:41]ZAIDE:British, since
[0:07:43]ZAIDE:all Russian citizens are suspected in Russianism, so they are in an intern camp in
[0:07:51]ZAIDE:Eastling
[0:07:52]ZAIDE:around Southampton and she advised me to go in England and join them, fortunately I
[0:08:07]ZAIDE:found
[0:08:07]ZAIDE:there a Danish boat, I used to live for the past couple of years at the end, and
[0:08:20]ZAIDE:the boat
[0:08:21]ZAIDE:went to Rio de Janeiro to Brazil and from there to Dakar, Africa, stopped in more
[0:08:30]ZAIDE:places,
[0:08:31]ZAIDE:and finally I came to Southampton after 64 days, 2 o'clock in the morning, 6 in the
[0:08:41]ZAIDE:morning
[0:08:41]ZAIDE:I rushed to Southampton and I found that 4 hours before 2 o'clock at midnight, my
[0:08:47]ZAIDE:parents
[0:08:48]ZAIDE:sailed to Palestine, I found out that together with my father and mother were my
[0:09:00]ZAIDE:older sister
[0:09:01]ZAIDE:Devorah and my very younger brother Asriel, by my very older brother Lev and my
[0:09:08]ZAIDE:middle
[0:09:09]ZAIDE:brother Swinok and remained in Russia, another sister in the beginning of the
[0:09:14]ZAIDE:revolution
[0:09:15]ZAIDE:with her husband Memo and her name Ossera escaped to the United States, I spent a
[0:09:23]ZAIDE:couple
[0:09:24]ZAIDE:days upon another Denmark boat in the hopes of reaching Palestine, the gates of
[0:09:36]ZAIDE:Palestine
[0:09:37]ZAIDE:were tightly closed, we needed 1,500 pounds, which was an enormous amount of money
[0:09:44]ZAIDE:and
[0:09:45]ZAIDE:beyond even thinking I could raise it, so this boat went to Vojerovo which is a
[0:09:51]ZAIDE:port
[0:09:51]ZAIDE:near Danzig, Danzig I found a good Jewish community and I was advised that maybe I
[0:10:00]ZAIDE:can
[0:10:01]ZAIDE:go from Palestine to the Berlin Zionist office, I came to Berlin, from Berlin I was
[0:10:08]ZAIDE:directed
[0:10:09]ZAIDE:to Vienna, from Vienna to Prague, from Prague to Yugoslavia, back to Vienna all
[0:10:17]ZAIDE:without
[0:10:18]ZAIDE:success, my money is gone and finally I came to Galicia and I landed in the city of
[0:10:27]ZAIDE:Rogno
[0:10:27]ZAIDE:which is in Volhyn, a place where my father went after he escaped from Russia, in
[0:10:34]ZAIDE:Rogno
[0:10:34]ZAIDE:I found a big Jewish community and I settled there for a while and I engaged myself
[0:10:40]ZAIDE:in
[0:10:40]ZAIDE:a little business, my main business was I bought and I sold merchandise but
[0:10:48]ZAIDE:secretly
[0:10:49]ZAIDE:I helped to smuggle out Jewish people who escaped from Russia, so I helped them to
[0:10:55]ZAIDE:go
[0:10:55]ZAIDE:over through Poland to the United States and mostly to Palestine, being an ex- Russian
[0:11:04]ZAIDE:soldier
[0:11:05]ZAIDE:I knew the ins and outs, being an ex-cavalryman I was handy on the horse, so very
[0:11:10]ZAIDE:often I
[0:11:10]ZAIDE:made trips through the Russian border and I was successful in transferring many
[0:11:16]ZAIDE:many
[0:11:17]ZAIDE:refugees who escaped from Russia through Poland, the Romani proper which was a part
[0:11:23]ZAIDE:of Poland
[0:11:24]ZAIDE:was very easy to make false legitimation in other count of it, a passport and to
[0:11:32]ZAIDE:send
[0:11:32]ZAIDE:them away, I spent a considerable time, the Polish government closed their eyes
[0:11:39]ZAIDE:since
[0:11:40]ZAIDE:the people did not remain there and of course I was very careful not to step over
[0:11:45]ZAIDE:into Russian
[0:11:46]ZAIDE:territory, I did it a couple of times at the risk of life, but finally I succeeded
[0:11:53]ZAIDE:to get
[0:11:54]ZAIDE:my younger brother out, you know him, and I got me a vision and I went away to
[0:11:59]ZAIDE:Athens
[0:12:00]ZAIDE:Creek from there to Cairo, from Cairo to Alexandria and from Alexandria I came to Jaffa
[0:12:06]ZAIDE:and after
[0:12:07]ZAIDE:many many years I found my parents aged, poor, Greek but in a safe land in
[0:12:14]ZAIDE:Palestine
[0:12:15]CHANA POUPKO:How old were you when you came to Palestine?
[0:12:17]ZAIDE:Twenty-five
[0:12:17]CHANA POUPKO:You were twenty-five, what year was it?
[0:12:27]ZAIDE:I came to Israel in the beginning of February 1926, while I found my parents aged I
[0:12:35]ZAIDE:didn't
[0:12:36]ZAIDE:find them brought me spirit, father repeated very often that I came thirty years
[0:12:45]ZAIDE:too late
[0:12:46]ZAIDE:and after I came here after the Russian Revolution I should have stayed, but
[0:12:50]ZAIDE:apparently this
[0:12:51]ZAIDE:was in the view of God, now here we are going to stay, he engaged in a very little
[0:12:58]ZAIDE:business
[0:12:59]ZAIDE:in Jaffa, but shortly he bought for 65 pounds a small farm in Naback, he bought a
[0:13:08]ZAIDE:few cows
[0:13:08]ZAIDE:he planted vegetables and father suggested that I, my younger brother, go to learn
[0:13:15]ZAIDE:theater
[0:13:16]ZAIDE:and we went back to the Lubavitcher yeshiva that was in Givat, Shaul, a suburb of
[0:13:23]ZAIDE:Jerusalem
[0:13:25]ZAIDE:shortly afterwards I went over and I found out Kuksi yeshiva and I spent there three
[0:13:32]ZAIDE:and
[0:13:32]ZAIDE:a half years
[0:13:33]CHANA POUPKO:With your brother?
[0:13:34]ZAIDE:With my brother, yeah, in these three and a half years I learned a year and a half
[0:13:41]ZAIDE:I
[0:13:41]ZAIDE:learned Talmud only, the other two years I learned Yoreh De'ah, I learned Law of Hashemishvot
[0:13:47]ZAIDE:and after three and a half years, for many many hours in the day, I was ordained
[0:13:54]ZAIDE:legitimate
[0:13:55]ZAIDE:as a rabbi with Yere Yore Yodim Yodim
[0:13:58]ZAIDE:Our conversation yesterday, I of course deeply, since childhood, father believed
[0:14:32]ZAIDE:that the future
[0:14:33]ZAIDE:of Jews is only in learning theater, especially in the great way of Russification,
[0:14:45]ZAIDE:therefore
[0:14:46]ZAIDE:any spare minutes he had he learned with us, besides that we learned with the
[0:14:53]ZAIDE:teacher
[0:14:54]ZAIDE:and he himself, being a wealthy man, inevitably every evening and every morning he
[0:15:00]ZAIDE:devoted
[0:15:01]ZAIDE:time to learn, especially tomorrow
[0:15:05]ZAIDE:When I came from the Jerusalem, father was struggling with his small farm, raising
[0:15:16]ZAIDE:vegetables
[0:15:16]ZAIDE:and selling milk, I had to give him a hand of help, I bought a bicycle and he used
[0:15:24]ZAIDE:to
[0:15:24]ZAIDE:deliver the milk every morning
[0:15:26]ZAIDE:At the same time, it started to flow in the country, the unrest from the Arabs and
[0:15:35]ZAIDE:I had
[0:15:35]ZAIDE:to do a little work for the Haganah that in that time came over from the Shambrin
[0:15:46]ZAIDE:to Haganah
[0:15:46]ZAIDE:In other words, the Haganah was in the stage of embryology and it was more some
[0:15:52]ZAIDE:sort of
[0:15:54]ZAIDE:illegal organization
[0:16:01]ZAIDE:I stayed in Iraq till the beginning of 1929
[0:16:12]ZAIDE:I tell you that in 1947 I spent a year in Hebron, Ereshivet, where in Hebron I
[0:16:23]ZAIDE:learned
[0:16:24]ZAIDE:mostly Choshen Mishpat and Rambam
[0:16:30]ZAIDE:In 1949 the depression was in Ereshivet very, very hard and he decided that I would
[0:16:40]ZAIDE:go for
[0:16:40]ZAIDE:a year or two abroad, maybe I would make a little money to come to Ereshivet and to
[0:16:46]ZAIDE:have
[0:16:47]ZAIDE:a little better foundation
[0:16:49]ZAIDE:Unemployment in Ereshivet reached a terrific proportion
[0:16:54]ZAIDE:In June 1949 I got a contract from a congregation from Baltimore and I went to the
[0:17:04]ZAIDE:United States
[0:17:05]ZAIDE:where I arrived on July 8th of 1929
[0:17:10]ZAIDE:The congregation that came with the contract were one of the finest people, however
[0:17:21]ZAIDE:their
[0:17:21]ZAIDE:main object was to bring a teacher to teach their children
[0:17:29]ZAIDE:and one had to learn the English language more perfectly than I did
[0:17:36]ZAIDE:Although they wanted me to stay, I found out that it would be better for me if I
[0:17:45]ZAIDE:would
[0:17:45]ZAIDE:perfect myself in the English language
[0:17:49]ZAIDE:So therefore they relieved me from the contract and I took a position with the Tharmodical
[0:17:56]ZAIDE:Academy in Baltimore, simultaneously taking intensive courses in English
[0:18:05]ZAIDE:The government of the United States provided free schooling for immigrants and I
[0:18:14]ZAIDE:attended
[0:18:15]ZAIDE:one in the middle of the day, one in the evening
[0:18:18]ZAIDE:In addition to that, I used to attend private courses by a teacher, Mrs. Schumann,
[0:18:28]ZAIDE:where
[0:18:28]ZAIDE:I made tremendous progress in the English language
[0:18:33]ZAIDE:During this time, I wrote a couple articles about the life of Narcissus Rao in the
[0:18:42]ZAIDE:English paper The Morgen Journal
[0:18:45]ZAIDE:Apparently my articles impressed there somebody and I received a letter to come
[0:18:52]ZAIDE:there
[0:18:52]ZAIDE:When I came there, they offered me a job
[0:18:55]ZAIDE:The job was to travel all over the United States and to give description my
[0:19:04]ZAIDE:impression
[0:19:04]ZAIDE:of the life of the Jewish communities in the United States and Canada
[0:19:11]ZAIDE:I loved the job very much. I took it immediately and I traveled in 31 states,
[0:19:19]ZAIDE:including Alaska
[0:19:20]CHANA POUPKO:How long did you have this job?
[0:19:24]ZAIDE:A year and a half
[0:19:25]ZAIDE:After a year and a half, I was offered to go to South America, which I went, visit
[0:19:32]ZAIDE:Cuba,
[0:19:33]ZAIDE:Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, and many of
[0:19:42]ZAIDE:the small
[0:19:43]ZAIDE:countries
[0:19:47]ZAIDE:After two years, I returned to the states and while I was in the city of Atlanta,
[0:19:53]ZAIDE:Georgia,
[0:19:54]ZAIDE:I received a letter, I received a telegram that my younger brother Finoja was with
[0:20:01]ZAIDE:me
[0:20:01]ZAIDE:in the states and that Robin came to Iowa best of way
[0:20:05]ZAIDE:I was sitting in Jacksonville, Florida, and during the days of Shiva, I learned
[0:20:21]ZAIDE:before
[0:20:21]ZAIDE:the people
[0:20:22]ZAIDE:The delegation came to my hotel and offered me the position of Rabbi in Jacksonville
[0:20:30]ZAIDE:By that time, I knew fairly well the English language and I knew a good amount of
[0:20:35]ZAIDE:Ladino
[0:20:36]ZAIDE:This is the Spanish jargon. So the Jewish people in Jacksonville, Florida at that
[0:20:42]ZAIDE:time
[0:20:43]ZAIDE:were mostly those who came in the end of the 19th century during the Spanish- American
[0:20:51]ZAIDE:War
[0:20:52]ZAIDE:and I accepted the job in Jacksonville, Florida as a rabbi
[0:20:58]CHANA POUPKO:And how long were you in Jacksonville?
[0:21:00]ZAIDE:31, 5 years
[0:21:04]CHANA POUPKO:Till when?
[0:21:05]ZAIDE:36
[0:21:06]CHANA POUPKO:Till 36?
[0:21:07]ZAIDE:While teaching the Hebrew at the Talmudical Academy in Baltimore, I used to come
[0:21:20]ZAIDE:for Shabbos
[0:21:21]ZAIDE:and Sunday to the city of Annapolis, the state capital of Maryland
[0:21:26]ZAIDE:There I conducted foreign services and Sunday I gave lectures and I started to be
[0:21:34]ZAIDE:acquainted
[0:21:34]ZAIDE:with the rabbinical problems in the United States
[0:21:38]ZAIDE:Although Annapolis was a very small town and mostly where there were sailors and
[0:21:46]ZAIDE:marines
[0:21:47]ZAIDE:from the Navy, it gave me a real idea of the problems that exist in American Jewish
[0:21:54]ZAIDE:life
[0:21:55]ZAIDE:Now, second in Jacksonville, I was confronted with all these problems that a rabbi
[0:22:04]ZAIDE:is meeting
[0:22:05]ZAIDE:in American Jewish lives
[0:22:07]ZAIDE:Fortunately for me, the administration was very, very cooperative
[0:22:18]ZAIDE:There was a husband by the name Mr. Edgar Malthus Lorraine, who was with me a
[0:22:25]ZAIDE:number of years
[0:22:27]ZAIDE:Very learned man
[0:22:29]ZAIDE:There was a tiny town in Tere and there were shochtu in town
[0:22:36]ZAIDE:and it took me only a couple months to get entrenched in that community as a rabbi
[0:22:43]ZAIDE:and they even gave me the privilege to visit the Gainesville University
[0:22:48]ZAIDE:for my own improvements every single day
[0:22:53]CHANA POUPKO:Let me ask you a question
[0:22:55]CHANA POUPKO:How long did you teach at the Talmudical Academy here?
[0:22:58]ZAIDE:About half a year
[0:23:01]ZAIDE:Oh, yeah
[0:23:02]CHANA POUPKO:Is that where you met Rabbi Feldman?
[0:23:04]ZAIDE:Yeah
[0:23:05]ZAIDE:Jacksonville has only one Jewish congregation besides a very small reform
[0:23:13]ZAIDE:congregation
[0:23:15]ZAIDE:In this congregation, I mean the one that I took, was a rabbi by the name Rabbi
[0:23:29]ZAIDE:Benjamin
[0:23:30]ZAIDE:A very able fellow, but apparently he was not devoted to the rabbinate because he
[0:23:37]ZAIDE:also had some sort of a government job
[0:23:40]ZAIDE:and he quit after a few years and went away to Israel
[0:23:48]ZAIDE:So when I came there, I was confronted with so many problems of waiting in Mikveh
[0:24:04]ZAIDE:to organize in the town of Tere
[0:24:05]ZAIDE:of making clubs for the young people
[0:24:08]ZAIDE:We established every day a shiur, a lecture in Gemara, Talmud
[0:24:19]ZAIDE:This lecture was from seven to nine in the evening every single day except Friday
[0:24:27]ZAIDE:night
[0:24:28]ZAIDE:and Saturday we made when the time permitted
[0:24:31]ZAIDE:So in the morning, I give lectures in history
[0:24:36]ZAIDE:There was a number of Jewish organizations that I had to address in the middle of
[0:24:43]ZAIDE:the week
[0:24:44]ZAIDE:and since I attended a school where they taught me the art of speaking
[0:24:53]ZAIDE:so it took me a few hours to perfect myself
[0:24:58]ZAIDE:But I improved myself to the extent that the congregation liked the way I presented
[0:25:05]ZAIDE:things very, very much
[0:25:07]ZAIDE:Proud to say that I was beloved in my congregation
[0:25:12]ZAIDE:I made an exception to all rules
[0:25:17]ZAIDE:The congregation offered me my first job $1200 and income
[0:25:24]ZAIDE:They told me the income is about $600
[0:25:27]ZAIDE:I told them I would take $1500, I didn't want any income
[0:25:30]ZAIDE:I was the only rabbi in the United States as far as I know that had not taken any
[0:25:38]ZAIDE:income from anybody
[0:25:40]ZAIDE:and all the income went to the shul
[0:25:42]ZAIDE:Therefore the shul boasted that they had a rabbi that cost them nothing
[0:25:49]ZAIDE:because the income they had was much more than my salary
[0:25:53]ZAIDE:and the fourth year they paid my salary was $4000
[0:25:59]ZAIDE:and income from them was over $500 so they bought me a Chevrolet car for $560 as a
[0:26:07]ZAIDE:present
[0:26:07]ZAIDE:Since I did not take any salary I felt myself independent
[0:26:15]ZAIDE:I was very nice and polite to my community
[0:26:19]ZAIDE:but I did not have to bow my head to anybody since I was completely independent
[0:26:32]ZAIDE:I served them until 1936 and my father wrote me letters and begged me to come home
[0:26:39]ZAIDE:and as you saw I started to unrest in the Arabs and I decided to come home
[0:26:47]ZAIDE:In the summer of 1936 I came to Eretz Yisrael
[0:27:01]ZAIDE:and I was immediately offered the position to take hand in the Jerusalem daily
[0:27:12]ZAIDE:paper Doar Hayom
[0:27:13]ZAIDE:This daily paper was inclined toward the revisionist party
[0:27:20]ZAIDE:That was a rightist party, not believe much in socialism
[0:27:44]ZAIDE:but in the other hand they thought that the Jewish people should strengthen their
[0:27:49]ZAIDE:defense
[0:27:50]ZAIDE:and should deal with the foreign hands in the Arabs
[0:27:53]ZAIDE:I didn't agree fully with their policies but I wanted the Doar Hayom to exist
[0:28:02]ZAIDE:and after working with them for a couple months they offered me to take over the
[0:28:10]ZAIDE:paper
[0:28:10]ZAIDE:I invested 2,000 pounds which was in that time 10,000 dollars
[0:28:15]ZAIDE:and I became the owner of the Jerusalem daily
[0:28:18]ZAIDE:It was a very hard job but I liked it
[0:28:27]ZAIDE:This paper revealed that the Palestinian administration was inside of the Arabs
[0:28:39]ZAIDE:on the side of the terrorist Arabs, on the side of the mufti
[0:28:43]ZAIDE:and since I had enough Arab friends and Jewish reporters in you I printed in the
[0:28:50]ZAIDE:paper
[0:28:51]ZAIDE:and the British censor kept on taking me down from the paper
[0:28:56]ZAIDE:The result was that the paper came out white
[0:28:59]ZAIDE:and the deficit grew from day to day because the advertisers didn't want any
[0:29:05]ZAIDE:advertisement
[0:29:06]ZAIDE:in a paper with nothing to read
[0:29:08]ZAIDE:Then happened a few things that I had to do certain things for the Haganah
[0:29:14]ZAIDE:that the British people went after my hide
[0:29:21]ZAIDE:Too many times I needed very little ammunition
[0:29:24]ZAIDE:The only way to get ammunition was from Sarafand where the British soldiers had
[0:29:32]ZAIDE:their warehouses
[0:29:36]ZAIDE:and it was needed a few people from English, Arabic, something military affairs
[0:29:56]ZAIDE:and although reluctantly I had to join the gate
[0:30:02]ZAIDE:He had many strokes with us in that time.
CASSETTE SIDE 4
[0:00:13]ZAIDE:of us, though reluctantly, I had to join the gang. They had many strokes with us at
[0:00:24]ZAIDE:that time,
[0:00:25]ZAIDE:that all we need is ten uniforms and a certain amount of ammunition, but strict
[0:00:32]ZAIDE:orders, not to
[0:00:34]ZAIDE:commit any violence, not to injure any British, not to go into an open fight. It
[0:00:46]ZAIDE:was a very,
[0:00:47]ZAIDE:very delicate mission, but we fulfilled it. But on one week later, the British got
[0:00:55]ZAIDE:on our tracks,
[0:00:56]ZAIDE:and they came to our house to look for me. Fortunately, I was in the home, but our
[0:01:03]ZAIDE:yard
[0:01:03]ZAIDE:was a cache for that one. And then, upon advice from father, I had to leave the
[0:01:10]ZAIDE:country right away.
[0:01:11]ZAIDE:I left for Cairo, and for Cairo from Cairo, I left for the States. We came back in
[0:01:21]ZAIDE:the city of
[0:01:22]ZAIDE:Baltimore. Coming back into the United States, later part of August 1936, September
[0:01:47]ZAIDE:1936, exactly
[0:01:50]ZAIDE:on the 27th day, which was the day after Yom Kippur, I married the girl to whom I
[0:01:56]ZAIDE:was engaged a year
[0:01:57]ZAIDE:before, a girl from Kistum, West Virginia, which is my wife. My wife was a school
[0:02:11]ZAIDE:teacher. At the
[0:02:14]ZAIDE:time of our marriage, she took a postgraduate course in Columbia University, New
[0:02:22]ZAIDE:York, and because of
[0:02:24]ZAIDE:that, the Jewish National Fund asked me to make trips around the country,
[0:02:42]ZAIDE:especially in the State
[0:02:44]ZAIDE:of New York, New England, to try to get money enough to buy a land in the United
[0:02:53]ZAIDE:States Royal.
[0:02:54]ZAIDE:I spent with them about a year's time. But that time, my wife finished her course
[0:03:03]ZAIDE:in university,
[0:03:04]ZAIDE:and came to the town of Cincinnati, where I bought a grocery store. The grocery
[0:03:14]ZAIDE:store was
[0:03:15]ZAIDE:pretty successful, but always you have a job, of course, of closing shabbos. So
[0:03:21]ZAIDE:after a year's time,
[0:03:24]ZAIDE:I sold it with a reasonable profit, and I accepted a job as a rabbi in the province
[0:03:34]ZAIDE:of Saskatchewan,
[0:03:36]ZAIDE:in western Canada, in the Edenbridge, which was one of the colonies that
[0:03:42]ZAIDE:Baron Hirsch
[0:03:42]ZAIDE:established in the 1895 or around the 20th century. I was there for a while, and I
[0:03:54]ZAIDE:think I did good
[0:03:55]ZAIDE:for the community, but since my wife and a real child remained in the States, I
[0:04:01]ZAIDE:didn't want to
[0:04:04]ZAIDE:drag her in the wilderness. I came back to the States, and I undertook a new
[0:04:11]ZAIDE:enterprise. I went
[0:04:13]ZAIDE:into the wholesale paper and notion business, with my younger brother, Azriel,
[0:04:18]ZAIDE:and we settled in
[0:04:19]ZAIDE:the city in Washington, where we lived for the past 40-some years. Coming to
[0:04:28]ZAIDE:Washington, we
[0:04:31]ZAIDE:found a Jewish community, not as big as Baltimore, but still a fine Jewish
[0:04:36]ZAIDE:community. And I got a
[0:04:41]ZAIDE:quintinence of the rabbis and a few Jews who worked in the government, and we
[0:04:48]ZAIDE:established a club called
[0:04:48]ZAIDE:Chavrusa. The purpose of this club was to promote Hebrew culture and Hebrew language,
[0:04:56]ZAIDE:and to help
[0:04:56]ZAIDE:to enrich Israel. And pretty soon, I got the idea of establishing in Washington a
[0:05:05]ZAIDE:day school. We
[0:05:09]ZAIDE:had the entire United States about a dozen day schools, and these were the only
[0:05:17]ZAIDE:schools where a child could
[0:05:19]ZAIDE:get a third of education. The afternoon schools that had been all over the United
[0:05:25]ZAIDE:States proved to
[0:05:26]ZAIDE:be a failure. The child came from school 3 o'clock, he was tired and exhausted, and
[0:05:34]ZAIDE:he never was too
[0:05:37]ZAIDE:keen to go to the Hebrew school. But the days proved a success. I spoke to several
[0:05:44]ZAIDE:of the rabbis,
[0:05:45]ZAIDE:and finally, in the early part of 1942, we decided to organize this school, and we
[0:05:55]ZAIDE:organized it under
[0:05:57]ZAIDE:the name Hebrew Academy of Washington, which name I originated, and lately it
[0:06:03]ZAIDE:spread all over the
[0:06:04]ZAIDE:United States. The first president were the gentlemen, Mr. Weitz, and I became the
[0:06:17]ZAIDE:first
[0:06:17]ZAIDE:vice president and the chairman of the Board of Education. It was a very hard task.
[0:06:24]ZAIDE:We had much
[0:06:25]ZAIDE:opposition. More than anything else is from the fellow Jews who thought that the
[0:06:32]ZAIDE:Hebrew Academy
[0:06:34]ZAIDE:will put a wall between us, now Christian neighbors, and the children will never
[0:06:40]ZAIDE:know good English.
[0:06:42]ZAIDE:But it turned out that the Hebrew Academy children are practically all of them,
[0:06:48]ZAIDE:honor students,
[0:06:49]ZAIDE:and ten later of this moment it exists already 32 years, and we have, Baruch Hashem,
[0:06:57]ZAIDE:close to 450
[0:06:59]ZAIDE:children. And it's right now the accepted school all over the United States.
[0:07:06]ZAIDE:Shortly to Washington,
[0:07:11]ZAIDE:I became a member, one of the biggest children, founder, a rabbi, a very fine
[0:07:19]ZAIDE:gentleman, Rabbi
[0:07:20]ZAIDE:Levinson. We became very friendly, and we established a blatt Gemara daily, which
[0:07:27]ZAIDE:I conducted
[0:07:28]ZAIDE:for many, many years. We also have recently a Hebrew club. We established a daily
[0:07:34]ZAIDE:blatt Gemara.
[0:07:35]ZAIDE:We used to conduct in my house, once a week, attended by not many, four, five,
[0:07:41]ZAIDE:sometimes eight.
[0:07:42]ZAIDE:In the Hebrew Academy we also established a blatt Gemara that I lectured for 24
[0:07:52]ZAIDE:years, every Sunday
[0:07:54]ZAIDE:for teachers, for fathers, parents of the children, and for the principal and other
[0:08:03]ZAIDE:rabbis. All I can
[0:08:07]ZAIDE:say is, during this time I made a number of trips to Israel, which during this time
[0:08:16]ZAIDE:became the state
[0:08:17]ZAIDE:of Israel, and I hope to meet Hashem shortly to settle in Israel permanently.