Translated
by Nikki Halpern
In the summer of 1912, we received a letter from Warsaw,
from A. Goldberg, who was writing to tell us he would be coming to
Switzerland...and would like to call on us.... We thought he would be coming
for a rest, like all others, or as a tourist. It turned out, however, that he
wanted to visit Maxim Gorky and Alexander Amfiteatrov in Italy, for the purpose
of interviewing them for Haynt.
The situation in Russia was very repressive. They were preparing the ugly false murder trial against Beylis in Kiev....The reactionary, anti-Semitic mood was increasing. One point of light was the attitude of the better Russian intelligentsia and the Russian literary establishment. They built up a movement of great moral strength, which has become a very important social and psychological factor.
Amfiteatrov had a great influence over the intelligentsia, but Maxim Gorky was its "high Priest." Gorky was at that time the "master of souls." Every word he uttered was listened to with the greatest attention and at once commented widely. For the persecuted Jewish masses and for the Jewish intelligentsia, the stand of the Russian writers was therefore of the utmost importance....Our first visit was to Amfiteatrov...He was a political exile and in his time he had become famous for his novel "The Family Obmanov." (It was known that the novel was based on the Tsar’s Romanov family)
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Amfiteatrov was a great friend to Jews, and he always had the courage to come out sharply and actively against the Tsarist persecutions and against the anti-Semitism which at that time began to spread among the intelligentsia....
When we arrived at his house and he found out the reason for our visit, he received us with his special Russian intellectual warm welcome, and with broad Russian hospitality and open-heartedness....And it so happened that another esteemed guest came in, one of the most magnificent personalities that Russia has had, the well-known freedom fighter Herman Lopatin...
Few names have elicited such admiration in progressive circles as that of Herman Lopatin....After the leaders of "Narodnaya Volya (Will of the People)" (who had carried out the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in the year 1881), Andrei Zhelyabov and Sofia Perovskaya, were hanged by the Tsarist regime, Lopatin was elected leader of the organization at Narodnaya Volya’s meeting in Paris in 1884. He was arrested in 1884 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was immured in the Petropavlovskaya Fortress for 21 years, a most cruel living entombment that elicited the greatest shudder in all of Europe. For 21 years he saw no other human beings and heard no human words except those of his prison warders. After the 1905 amnesty, he was freed, already an aged man...
His eyes filled with sorrow when we told him about the new anti-Semitic bacchanalia. "What can be said that is new about anti-Semitism?" he said. "Even in 1884 I wrote strongly in our organ, ‘Narodnaya Volya,’ about anti-Semitism and the Tzarist incitement to Jew-hatred. The government is still inciting hatred toward the unfortunate Jews."
Lopatin related to us that already in 1870 he had met and befriended Jewish revolutionaries in the earliest gatherings within illegal circles. He told us with great emotion about his friend Aaron Lieberman, the editor of the first Jewish socialist periodical in Hebrew, Haemeth (The Truth). In good spirits, laughing and with a sparkle in his youthful eyes, he told us a very interesting episode in his life. Having been forced to live illegally under an assumed name, he lived for a certain time using the passport of a close Jewish friend.
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"Everything was in order, except I was afraid of one thing. What would I do if the police came, and to verify who I am, insisted that I read from right to left?"
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Amfiteatrov, on the other hand, was totally immersed in the present, in its concerns and sorrows, in all the Russian problems....Strolling around the room, he said, "A person gets a certain strange feeling when he signs up to step out publicly in defense of the Jews. Whatever one says is not enough, and besides, do the Jews need to be defended by those who would defend them? It seems that a bitter feeling overtakes the Jews themselves when they read the articles and speeches defending them. Yes, that is understandable, but we, Russian writers, need to free ourselves, however, from this heavy guilt, we need to free our consciences."
Amfiteatrov let us know how he is helping organize the collective protest of Russian writers, scientists, and known progressive activists against the blood-accusation of Mendel Bellis....He told us that he was a friend of many Jewish writers, was well-acquainted with many other Jews with whom he corresponded, and was not just a friend to Jews but was also knowledgeable about Jewish concerns ans in Yiddish literature. He even understood Yiddish and could read it to a certain extent. "Naturally," he complained, "I have to work hard at it." He was acquainted with Yiddish literature through the Russian translations, and esteemed it highly. He talked with us about Peretz, Sholem Aleichem, Mendele, Bialik, Frishman. He was very impressed by Sholem Aleichem, whom he had met personally.
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(From Amfiteatrov, Dr. Kruk traveled with Goldberg to Maxim Gorky’s on the Isle of Capri. She relates.......)
Gorky was in a very depressed mood. This was one of his bad days. Early in the morning, he would read the Russian newspapers he received, and this day’s news had particularly disturbed him greatly. He spoke in brief, curt sentences: "Russia, Russia, what is going to become of her?" he asked painfully.
...Gorky slowly becomes animated, begins to show interest on various subjects, ..
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asks us a number of questions, replies with more spirit to our questions. He is very interested in Hebrew and Yiddish literature and actually knows quire a bit about it.
He also knows the Jewish writers personally, and particularly speaks warmly and very admiringly about Sholem Aleichem:
"How is our ‘gospodin’ (Mr.) Aleichem? Is he well?" he asks, thinking that Aleichem is his last name and Sholem his given name.
And Gorky tells us that....he wanted to know how Yiddish sounds. He asked an acquaintance of his, a Russian Jewish dentist who lives on Capri, to read Yiddish to him: "Since Mendele Mocher Sforim is the grandfather of Yiddish literature, I asked my friend to read to me some of his work also. I wanted to hear the rhythm and music of the language....I am reading Peretz now in the Russian translation. He is a great talent. It’s a pity that Dovid Frishman’s work is not translated into Russian! I esteem Gomberg and Asch very highly; and Bialik! A majestic poet! We didn’t know him at all until now. Only the Russian translation has allowed us to become acquainted with his great poetry.
Gorky asks about the development of Hebrew and Yiddish. He is also interested in the Jewish press. When Goldberg told him about the Yiddish press, and said that Haynt is printed in 100,000 copies, he was amazed.
Gorky called his wife from another room, where she had gone to prepare tea for us, and said, "Listen to this, their newspaper is called Haynt, meaning ‘sevodnya (today),’ what a fitting name!. There are various Yiddish daily publications, and theirs has 100,000 readers already. This is a people of culture whom others may envy!"
Moving over to the Jewish question, Gorky said, "Russia belongs to all nationalities and all peoples, and every people has a right to its existence, to the full development of its national idiosyncrasies, to an autonomous life of its own. No one has the right to deprive a people of this elementary right! The most important thing right now is to have an effect on stopping the spread of this poison that is anti-Semitism, that has lately caught on among some Russian intellectuals, and could spread to the young people of Russia. I don’t forget about this. I am always warning our progressive and better readers."
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He told us he has plans to put out a special periodical, where representatives of different nationalities might collaborate, and which would be dedicated to the rapprochement of one culture to another..., one nation to another. "This will create a fertile base of mutual understanding and mutual respect, which are so necessary to cultural life." And Gorky adds, "Oh, if Jews could lead normal lives, and if Yiddish literature could develop normally!"
Translated
by Nikki Halpern
The story is concise, a telling anecdote. It is typical of the German regime in war-time
Poland. And it is worth recounting on
the present occasion of Haynt’s
20-year jubilee. It is, so to speak,
topical.
Hindenburg — by which I mean His Excellency, Paul von
Hindenburg — was, as is well-known, almost like family for us Jewish journalists,
especially in Lodz, during the Occupation . . . . For four years, he checked our thoughts, scrabbled in our souls .
. . . It would be easy to imagine how
things went when it came to the newspapers with which he was in “contact” in
the cities that had already been occupied.
But who would have thought that he had also already worried over Haynt, and had even recommended taking
“strong measures” against this very newspaper months earlier, before he had
taken Warsaw, and also before any of the Germans had seen an issue of Haynt with his own eyes. And yet, it is a fact. Authentic documents exist regarding this
matter, which can be found in the Lodz City Archives.
But let us relate this story in an orderly manner: Your humble servant, the undersigned, as many people know, was the first Jewish newspaperman in Poland, whose fate it was to be the first to “cross swords” with Hindenburg . . . . Lodz was the first major city the Germans occupied,
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soon after their triumphal march into Poland. As the editor-in-chief of the Lodzer Tageblat, I was immediately placed “at the disposal” of the press administration . . . .
Our Grand Inquisitor, the head of
the Press Committee, was the “famous” Geheimrat (Privy Councillor) Kleinov,
Hindenburg’s right-hand man . . . . One
sunny morning — this was in early Spring, 1915 — he summoned me and suggested a
“trifle.”
“Herr Editor,” he said, with affected courtesy and a cynical
smile, “you will be so good as to write an article about Kalish. I mean about the alleged pogrom in
Kalish. You know how many lies were
spread about this incident. This is
deeply insulting to our military forces and for our brave Major Preisker (the
hero of the Kalish pogrom). German
majors do not engage in pogroms. You
must rehabilitate them, exonerate them.
This is in our interest and in yours as well . . . .”
I felt the blood mounting in my veins.
“I mean,” my voice shook as I replied, “how can you ask me
to do this? In Lodz there are dozens of
homeless refugees from Kalish, whole families, widows and orphans, who have
lost their dearest relatives. Innocent
people were shot to death, their belongings ransacked, their houses burned down
. . . . How could I even contemplate
denying the truth? . . . . It would be a crime . . . . Everyone knows . . . .”
“What do they know?” he interrupted me, “they know nothing .
. . . And let me add that this is a
request from the military Oberkommando . . . .”
My objections and arguments were for naught. I left with the firm resolution to write not
one single word about Kalish, even if this would result in my being
punished. I acted accordingly. A couple of days later Klenov summoned me
again.
“Herr Editor,” he said to me harshly, “let me save you some
trouble . . . . Here is an article
about Kalish. Translate it carefully
into Yiddish and run it in one of the next issues of your newspaper. But make sure that the translation is
faithful . . . .”
I started to stammer something about “neutrality” and “national rights” and all at once I gathered my courage and answered, “Herr Geheimrat, I see that you treat us
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like a provincial rag.
Naturally, with a provincial paper you can do what you
want . . . . But allow me to ask you this: would you have made the same request of a
big newspaper in Warsaw, let’s say Haynt?”
“Haynt? What kind of newspaper is that?”
I explained to him that it was a big and influential Yiddish
newspaper with a circulation of 100,000 copies. “The whole of Jewish society is behind this newspaper!” I
exclaimed.
He burst out laughing.
“Some kind of Jewish Times?”
he suggested, ironically. “But my dear
Editor, we do not recognize any “class”-distinctions: Times or Tageblat — it’s all the same to us. We are waging a war, and we take no one into
account.” Without pausing, he asked me,
“Who are the editors of Haynt? Can you give me any precise information
regarding this newspaper?”
With which he took a pencil in hand and prepared to take
notes. I was afraid that I might let
slip a word too many; I answered, “Sadly, no. . . . I know the editor-in-chief and a few contributors, but I am
unable to supply you with any more information than that . . . .”
“That will not be necessary,” he replied, looking at me
sharply, “I understand that you cannot . . . .
I will shortly find someone else who will inform me.” Whereupon our discussion ended.
A couple of weeks later, I happened to go to the Press
Administration office on a “mission.”
They had targeted me in throwing out half of the material for our Friday
issue. I went to ask for mercy. One of the censors (a Jew) told me
confidentially that Kleinov had procured a bundle of issues of Haynt, had had some of the articles
translated, and had sent Hindenburg a long, and of course unfavorable, report
concerning Haynt.
That was the last I heard of this episode until the end of
the war.
In November 1918, immediately after the Germans left Lodz, the Polish Authority invited us to a press conference in the offices of the former German Press Administration. There I learned that in their haste to flee Lodz, the German censors
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had left behind a number of records and documents. The current staraste (district manager) of Lodz, Herr Rozinski, allowed me to
look through and copy some of this material.
Of course I was interested only in those documents and “secret”
correspondence that concerned me or the Lodzer
Tageblat. Rummaging in the files, I
also found a copy of Kleinov’s report on Haynt,
and an answer from the Press Supervisor, from Hindenburg’s headquarters, which
amounts to its being from Hindenburg himself.
In his lengthy report, Kleinov furnished such dates and
details about Haynt that it seemed as
if he had been personally familiar with the newspaper for many years. He characterized Haynt as a “nationalist” paper, and claimed that it was due to Haynt that a Socialist from Warsaw was
named to the Russian parliament.
Thereafter he mentioned the Lithuanian Jews, who allegedly run the
Jewish press, describing them as “untrustworthy.” In closing, he referred to the articles from Haynt he had enclosed, observing that this Warsaw paper “had not
shrunk from publishing vicious lies and calumnies about German troops.”
Hindenburg’s answer of May 1915 was brief. He suggested measures to take “under the
circumstances,” and in case it should prove necessary, to employ harsh means
against Haynt (“shtreng fortsugehen”—
to proceed with rigor). He thought that
the best course would be for the Germans to found their own Jewish newspaper in
Warsaw, and “to establish the widest distribution possible.”
Thus Hindenburg “got his hands on” Haynt even before he arrived in Warsaw. And as soon as he arrived in Warsaw, he let Haynt have the full impact of his “iron fist” but that deserves
another chapter . . . .