by Joanna Gruda
As the communist party was outlawed in Poland, Emil led a clandestine life: meetings, distribution of tracts, discussions with potential recruits, demonstrations, strikes, but also literary evenings and the presentation of plays with a political flavor. He noticed that often when he left his house or his work there was someone following closely on his heels. He began taking more precautions. One day when he was speaking unguardedly with a few soldiers whom he was trying to persuade to attend the next Communist Youth meeting, a man in an overcoat appeared out of nowhere and ordered him to go with him. Emil hesitated, noticed two men in the middle of the street attentively observing the scene, and complied. A few hours later, he was in prison.
Let’s leave Emil Demke alone in his cell at Pawiak prison in Warsaw, because he would soon be meeting my mother, and it would be better for me to introduce her to you before I go thrusting her into my father’s arms without warning.
My mother began her life as Guitele Rappoport. If I had set out to create a character with clearly recognizable Jewish origins, I could not have chosen a better name. Rappoport is as Jewish a name as they come. And Guitele isn’t exactly Christian, either.
Guitele Rappoport—Gui to her friends and family—was born in Nowy Dwór, a little village located fifty kilometers from Warsaw, but the exact day and year of birth are unknown. According to her birth certificate she was born on March 3, 1903 (third day of the third month of the third year), but her father was waiting to have at least three children to declare before embarking on the journey into town, and so he chose birth dates at random for each child. My mother always made the most of this approximation to err on the side of youth and say that she was surely two or three years younger than what it said on her papers—until she turned eighty, and then from one day to the next she began to claim she’d been born at the turn of the century and was actually eighty-three. As she was in great condition for an eighty-year-old, people were stunned to find out her age.
Guitele’s family was very pious. Her father was a kosher butcher, and a strict man, who took everything that had to do with religion very seriously. Guitele, like the three other children from her father’s second marriage, had misguidedly chosen to be born a girl, so she was not given the opportunity to learn to read or write. At home they spoke Yiddish. Gui wanted to go to school, to speak Polish, to live a different life. The older she got, the more she hated her rigid father, and she dreamt of getting away.
At the age of ten she was sent to work at a dressmaker’s. Although it was difficult work, Guitele was delighted to leave the house and meet people from other backgrounds. All the workers were Jewish, but most of them were from less pious families than her own. Gui listened to girls of fifteen or sixteen telling of their encounters with boys, or the parties they went to. She thought of Tobcia, her elder sister, who had never been allowed out in the evening and who had left home with the first man to give her a smile. And she began waiting for her turn.
Guitele was thirteen when she joined the seamstresses’ union. The union leaders were her first heroes. She viewed them as models of uprightness, determination, and courage. Whenever there was a demonstration, she was in the front row, shouting louder than all the others; whenever there was a strike somewhere, she would be outside the gates every morning to stop the bosses going in, support the morale of the troops and ladle out hot soup. But in those days, that sort of militant behavior led straight to prison.
From the age of sixteen on, my mother was sent to prison several times over. If I’d had more of a chance to know what a mother’s love is, I would surely have been very proud of her. She was a brave woman. A woman who created a new family for herself among the unions and, later on, in the Communist Party. A family for whom she was ready to make every sacrifice.
Prison played an important role in my mother’s life. It is where she made her first goy friends and where she broke her ties with Judaism for good. To mark the break, she took a Polish name: Helena. She became known everywhere as little Lena. It was also in prison that she learned to speak Polish and then to read and write, and she developed a habit she would maintain all through life, that of doing regular gymnastics, which is surely why she was in such good shape right up to the time of her death. My mother spent just over four years in the Pawiak prison.
One gray morning in the spring of 1925 Helena was set free. And that same morning, under the same gray sky, a prison guard opened the gate and said goodbye to Emil Demke, who had just finished his sentence.
Emil saw a young woman sitting on a bench on Pawiak Square. Her face was vaguely familiar. Very timidly—she had just seen him leave the prison, he mustn’t frighten her—he went up to her.
“Good morning, Miss. I don’t mean to bother you, but I think I’ve seen you somewhere before . . . ”
“Yes, yes, I remember you,” answered the young woman with a strong Yiddish accent. “It was at a party at Magda Spychalska’s. I think I’ve also seen you at a Party meeting. Maybe five years ago, before I went to prison.”
Emil looked at her, stunned.
“Yes, I’ve just been released,” she said, pointing to her suitcase.
I had just entered the realm of the possible.
The man who would become my father, who was scarcely taller than five foot two, was instantly charmed by this tiny little woman with her long braids. Oh, my mother’s braids . . . She didn’t cut them until the summer of 1940, shortly after France surrendered to the Germans. For years afterwards she would speak of them so nostalgically, as if, by cutting them, she had put an end to her youth, to a certain carefree time.
As neither one of them had anywhere to go, Emil invited Helena for a walk in the Bielany woods to see the trees in bloom. My father often told me of his meeting with my mother. This was how his story always ended: “And we went for a walk in the Bielany woods.” Obviously, you might wonder what two people straight out of prison might do in a beautiful park on a gray day in spring . . . Since they were my future parents, I’d rather not venture an opinion on the subject.
From that moment on, Comrades Helena Rappoport and Emil Demke were comrades-in-arms. They were recognized for their commitment and their unshakeable faith in the communist model. To study the important role they would no doubt have to play in a post-revolutionary Poland, they were invited to spend a few months in Moscow, at a school run by the Comintern, to “perfect their communism.” Emil Demke, as a militant communist, was once again being sought by the police, so the first thing he had to do was change his name. In the train that took him to Moscow he locked himself in the toilet holding a passport that had been duly filled out and bore all the necessary stamps and signatures, with a blank line for the first and last name. After careful reflection, he chose a name that corresponded to his peasant origins: Michał Gruda (in Polish gruda means “a hard, frozen clump of earth”).
In Moscow, in the month of March, 1929, Helena Rappoport discovered that she was pregnant. Before even telling Emil—whom she would never be able to call Michał—she informed Comrade Goldman, the secretary of her Party cell. Not batting an eyelash, Comrade Goldman gave her the name and address of a doctor who would be able to provide an easy solution to the problem. Lena went home, relieved. That evening, Emil came to fetch her, and they went out for a stroll through the Moscow streets, now covered in a thick blanket of snow.
“I have to discuss something with you. In fact, everything’s been arranged, so you’re not to worry, but I wanted you to know . . . I’m pregnant.”
“What?”
“It’s all right. I’ve already got an appointment with a doctor who practices abortions, there’s nothing to worry about, everything will go fine.”
“What are you talking about? Why do you want to have an abortion?”
“What do you mean, why? We can’t possibly keep the child!”
“We could at least talk about it, don’t you think? It’s not a decision to b
e taken lightly.”
“Look, Emil. When we go back to Poland, we’ll have to go underground again. Can you picture us with a baby?”
“I understand, but I’d just like to have some time to think about it. It might be worthwhile to see if there isn’t another solution, no? Besides, abortions are dangerous, I don’t like the idea one bit.”
“And anyway, from what I gathered from Comrade Goldman, the Party will never agree to let me keep the baby.”
“I need to think about all this. When is your appointment?”
“In two weeks.”
“Give me a day or two. Please, you think about it too, and we’ll talk about it again, all right?”
“If you want.”
That was my first victory.
The next day, Emil convinced Lena to raise the issue again with Comrade Goldman. Emil was present at the meeting, and refuted every one of the young woman’s arguments. Which led, eventually, to the meeting on the 17th of March . . . But I already told you all about that.
CHAPTER 2
At Home with the Kryda Family
We were in Moscow. I had just been born and registered at the public records office by a certain Michał Gruda, who was in a particularly joyful mood at the time.
The Party granted my parents permission to look after me until the end of their stay in the USSR. In the spring of 1930, the Comintern—the Communist International, the organization responsible for exporting Soviet communism to other countries—decreed that Comrade Helena Rappoport and Comrade Michał Gruda had completed their training, and they were sent back to Poland so that they could resume the bitter struggle on the path to revolution. The moment they arrived in Warsaw, they were reminded of their pledge not to keep little Julian. And thus I became Julian Kryda, the son of Fruzia and Hugo Kryda, who were the sister and brother-in-law of Michał Gruda, formerly my father.
I was not aware of these events that so discombobulated my life, because I was only ten months old when I landed with my aunt and uncle, not long after their youngest daughter had left home. Hugo and Fruzia happily agreed to take in a new child, this miniature version of Emil who reminded Fruzia of the difficult years of her youth, when she had found consolation for the loss of her mother by cuddling her beloved little brother.
My earliest memories date from this period in my life when I believed I was like everyone else, and I lived with the perfectly ordinary certainty that the people I called Papa and Mama were indeed my mother and father; those years have remained etched on my memory.
There were occasional visits from a fat lady who smelled bad and spoke a language I couldn’t understand. Every time they would tell me, “A nice lady is coming to see you this afternoon, she’s going to bring you a lovely surprise.” For starters, she wasn’t nice, she always crushed me against her fat stomach and burst into tears, and then the presents she brought were anything but lovely: tasteless pancakes, sad, dark clothes that I refused to wear; I remember in particular a little round thing in black cloth that she wanted me to put on my head—it was a kippa, but I didn’t know that at the time, and I never saw anyone wearing one—and Fruzia begged me to take it out whenever she knew the fat lady was coming. Much later I would find out that this was my maternal grandmother, Helena’s mother, and she spoke only Yiddish. Her husband had said Kaddish—the prayer for the dead—for his daughter when he found out that she had had a child out of wedlock and, what was even worse, with a goy, so my grandmother came to see me in secret, under the pretext that she was visiting one of her sisters in Warsaw.
There was also a gang of kids there with whom I had a lot of fun. Fifteen or more boys, all under the age of ten, living in Colony 5, one of the eight housing co-operative complexes in ˚oliborz set up by a left-wing association. Our colony was made up of a series of identical four-story white buildings, surrounding a big shady garden where there was an immense sandbox. From the age of three, I was one of the leaders of the younger group. When the big boys refused to include us in their games, I was often the one who came up with an idea for a game for the little ones, or for a prank. Hugo, who had daughters—daughters who, moreover, were well-behaved—took his role as father and educator very seriously. I wasn’t a difficult or turbulent child, but I had a very, shall we say, inventive mind. So I spent many an hour at home being punished, and from time to time my bottom was subjected to a painful reminder of certain rules that I had failed to respect. I remember one particular spanking, one of the biggest I ever got, that I thought was clearly unjustified, because Hugo administered it in response to an idea that to me, for all that I was only five years old, seemed absolutely brilliant.
One summer’s day, there were ten or more of us kids squabbling over some business to do with stolen chestnuts. Tadeusz was about to assume his role as referee when we heard someone in the street call out, “Photographs! Photographs for everyone! Memories, bargain price! Come and see me, you won’t be disappointed!” I took off at a run out of the courtyard and through the door that gave onto Krasinski Street. A few minutes later I came back accompanied by a young man who was pulling all sorts of photographic equipment on a cart. “He’ll take our photo and give it to us afterwards!”
These few words were enough to put an end to our quarrel. In compliance with the photographer’s orders, we assembled in a group, some of us on our knees, others standing behind. It didn’t take long for pandemonium to break out; no one listened to anyone else; the big boys pulled off the little boys’ caps and threw them away, which made them burst into tears; and then there were those who absolutely had to be next to their best friend . . . Finally, the photographer shouted for everyone to shut up, and he warned, “I’m counting to ten, if you are still moving at the count of ten, I’ll pack my things and I’ll be gone. Do you understand?” A few minutes later, the session was over, and the photographer asked for his fee. Which I hadn’t taken into consideration . . . All the children turned to look at me.
“It’s my parents who wanted a photo, you’ll have to go and see them for your fee. It’s not hard to find: you see that door there, the one on the left? Go up to the fourth floor and to number 23. My papa is called Hugo, just say you’re the photographer and he’ll give you the money.”
“Are you sure about that, kid?”
“Yes, don’t worry, my dad is someone you can trust.”
I don’t know if, in my five-year-old mind, I really believed that I had just solved the problem. In fact, the problem was only finally solved with a dozen lashes of the belt and my being grounded for several days.
Parents are not always easy to understand: they have their own particular logic for determining what’s good and what’s evil. There was another matter that puzzled me concerning the approach that adults took to rearing their children.
I developed an acute political consciousness at a very early age. There was a lot of talk about politics at home for a start. Although they weren’t committed communists, Hugo and Fruzia were sympathizers. I spent many a long evening with my ear glued to my bedroom door, or simply hiding under the table, listening to discussions between my parents and their friends. In Hugo’s opinion people were always either too radical or too soft, so he loved getting his guests all worked up.
When Karolka, Fruzia’s youngest sister, was arrested, there was talk of little else at home; she was a confirmed spinster who took part in every demonstration, in every militant action. We even went to visit her in prison once. Obviously, at my age, this was a big event. And Karolka’s manner, both sad and proud at the same time, made a great impression on me, as if she were saying, “We will never give up.” I was five years old at the time of that visit, and my aunt was a heroine to me, no doubt because I often heard Fruzia and Hugo praising her courage and tenacity. The communist gene was very strong in the family.
My first taste of class warfare dates to that period. One evening, Fruzia had already asked me at least five times to go t
o bed when there came a knock on the door. My parents were a bit surprised because they weren’t expecting anyone, but they went to open the door. A giant wearing a policeman’s uniform stood in the doorframe. Before he’d even said a word I was under the table. He spoke with Hugo and Fruzia for a long time; I think it was something to do with some thefts in our building. After a few minutes Fruzia had remembered her duties as a hostess and asked the policeman to have a seat at the kitchen table, and she offered him some tea.
I can clearly recall the policeman’s legs beneath the flowered tablecloth, his perfectly polished black shoes. And the hatred that rose in me as I imagined those same feet kicking my Aunt Karolka as she lay in the street and growled, full of conviction, “We will never give up.” And the feeling that it was time for me, too, to make a gesture on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. I looked at those two legs offered so candidly to me. I could see beneath the right trouser leg a muscular, hairy calf. Listening only to my courage, I crept closer, opened my mouth, and bit deep into that tough chunk of meat.
You can imagine the rest: the policeman leapt to his feet with a yell. Fruzia was aghast, the policeman caught me by the scruff of the neck and sent me flying to the other end of the kitchen, then Fruzia brought him a damp towel, apologizing profusely. Hugo watched the scene without batting an eyelid. Once things had calmed down, he looked at the policeman contritely and said, “I’m so sorry, Officer, my son loves to hide under the table and play dog. This is the first time he’s ever bitten someone, I am truly sorry. He’s in for one hell of a spanking once you’re gone.”
Once the policeman was gone, I tried to disappear beneath the blankets on my bed. Hugo came in the room.
“Papa, I wanted to punish him for what he did to Karolka. He’s an enemy of communism!”
Long afterwards, from my room, I could still hear Hugo and Fruzia’s peals of laughter as they told each other the story. And I never got the spanking he’d promised the policeman was in store for me. I concluded that in life it is better to do what seems right without worrying about how your parents might react, because in any case, adults are unpredictable creatures.
