Miss Hayter said I might as well take the pieces home, and Ma says she’ll sew it for me. She’ll make it look so beautiful. It’s going to be a beautiful sundress, even if it is backless and sleeveless. Well, at least I won’t look like a boy in it.
Myrtle MacDonald got an A in sewing as well as everything else, so she got to be top girl. The prize was a Mama Doll. That’s a pretty good prize, I guess, if you like playing with baby things. Although I have to admit it’s a very beautiful doll.
July 1933
July 5
What a terrible day! I was looking after Molly and Hindl this aft while Ma was over visiting Auntie Rayzel. They were playing with Hindl’s paper doll in the backyard, and instead of being the maid again, I was sitting up in the pear tree reading a wonderful book that I got from St. Chris called The Secret Garden and I guess I must have got completely caught up in it, because when I came to the end of a chapter and looked around, Molly was playing by herself. We looked all over the house and up and down the street but Hindl wasn’t anywhere and I was really, really worried and I felt so awful and Molly couldn’t stop crying. That was when Ma came home from Uncle Bertzik and Auntie Rayzel’s house. She got hysterical and I started to cry, too, and say it was all my fault and everyone was in a panic.
And then Hindl came toddling up the street all by herself, happy as a clam. Ma grabbed her and hugged her and everyone was screaming and shrieking at her and crying and of course Hindl started to cry, too.
After we all calmed down, Hindl handed Ma a piece a paper. It was a note. It was from the playroom ladies at St. Chris and it said, Dear Mrs. Hindell: Your daughter would like to be a member of our club. We’ll be so pleased if you let her. Yours sincerely, Miss Jones and Miss Macintosh.
I guess Hindl got bored with her dolly and went down to St. Chris all by herself to play with all the toys they have there in the playroom, like she did last week when I took her with me while I changed my book. Imagine!
Ma was really embarrassed by the note. She said Miss Jones and Miss Macintosh must think she’s a terrible mother, because what sort of mother would let a four-year-old wander in the streets all by herself? I reminded Ma that Hindl is five now. But I feel so bad, because it wasn’t Ma’s fault, it was mine, and I told her so, too, and she told me it wasn’t. I love Ma.
Well, at least the playroom ladies don’t really know who Ma is, because when Hindl told the ladies her name they must have thought it was her last name and not her first. I guess they’ve never heard of anyone called Hindl. Maybe I should teach her to use her English name. The playroom ladies wouldn’t think Helen was a last name.
Ma told Hindl she was never to go back to St. Chris ever again. That way they’ll never find out what our last name really is. She can’t even go to the library. Poor Hindl.
July 9
Benny says if I want to show people like that nasty lady at Balmy Beach last month, then I have to come with him to a rally. It’s going to be this Tuesday and it’s a protest against Hitler. I told him I’d go. I want to go, but I’m really scared.
Benny said it’s going to be like a parade and we’re going to march with the Cloakmakers Union and nothing bad will happen. But I’m not sure I believe him, not after what happened at that last rally he told me about. That’s why I said I’d go. I figure that if fighting or anything awful happens, then maybe Benny won’t get mixed up in it if I’m there because he’ll have to look after me and that’ll keep him out of it. I hope.
Of course it’s much too hot for my reefer coat now. Benny told me that if I wear a pair of his pants instead of a skirt and hide my hair under a cap, I’ll still look just like a boy. It made me so mad I almost decided to let him go by himself. But I really am worried what he might do if I’m not there. And I really do want to show that nasty woman in the park. So I guess I’ll go, even if it is scary.
July 10
Pa says I have to go with Sophie and Syd to Belle Ewart next week, and he’s going to send Hindl with me, so Ma can have a bit of a rest. Sophie and Syd are already paying for the cottage — that really means that Ma and Pa are paying for Sophie out of Sophie’s work money — and they say the people who own the cottage will put in a cot for Hindl and me and let us stay for free. I’m supposed to look after Hindl all day while Sophie and Syd are having fun. I guess it’s a punishment for losing track of Hindl the other day, but I’m kind of glad because it means Pa still trusts me enough to look after her. Pa is really nice inside even if he hides it sometimes.
Sophie and Syd are going to Belle Ewart because Ma and Pa said they wouldn’t let Sophie go anywhere like Wasaga Beach where she’ll meet shaygetzes. Sophie got mad and said she didn’t want to go to Wasaga Beach and she didn’t want to have anything to do with shaygetzes. She sure won’t at Belle Ewart, because only Jewish people go there.
July 11
Benny brought some pants and a cap over. I told Ma we were going for a walk and then I snuck in the cellar door and put them on while Benny waited outside. Pants feel very strange. I kind of like them. Isn’t that awful?
We walked down Spadina past Uncle Bertzik’s factory to Clarence Square where the little park is, where the march was starting. There were hundreds and hundreds of people there in all sorts of different groups — Jewish groups and unions and even communists and people like that, and they all had big banners to march behind and signs for people to carry. Our banner said Cloakmakers Protest Against Pogroms in Germany. Benny told me that a pogrom is when people come into a place and try to kill all the Jews there just for being Jewish. It happened in Russia a while back, and now it’s beginning to happen in Germany. How can people be so evil?
A man handed me a sign to carry that said Cloakmakers Protest Against Destruction of Trade Unions in Germany. I didn’t want to carry it, because Pa and Uncle Bertzik are always saying trade unions are bad for everybody. But Benny reminded me that we were marching with the Cloakmakers, which is a union, after all, and I remembered what it was like in the factory that day Mr. Tulchinsky yelled at me — and anyway, I was in disguise, so I took the sign.
I sure hope nobody I know saw me. What would Uncle Bertzik think? What would Rivka Goldstein think?
We marched up Spadina and over to Queen’s Park where the big government building is, and then there were all kinds of speeches, and lots of people shouting “Down with Hitler” and things like that. It made me feel so good to see so many people standing up for Jews. There were also some people who got mad at all the rest of us and they were shouting that Hitler is a great man and good for everybody and who did we think we were anyway? It made lots of people in the protest angry, but nobody hit anybody else, thank goodness. At least I didn’t see anybody hit anyone else. There were lots of police around, which is probably why.
It was very, very exciting. It was so exciting that I let Benny talk me into putting on the pants again and going to watch the Orange Parade tomorrow. I must be completely meshugge.
July 13
Benny and I walked down to Queen and Bathurst yesterday to watch the Orange Parade. I thought there were lots of people marching in the protest, but there were thousands and thousands more in the Orange Parade. It took almost three whole hours for the parade to go by us. There were cars with people waving and band after band after band and there were hundreds and hundreds of policemen and firemen and others marching and singing songs like “The Maple Leaf Forever.” It made me proud to be part of a British country and a British citizen.
But then one of the marchers going by in a really fancy uniform and a hat with feathers saw me looking at his hat and he gave me a nasty look and said, “What ya staring at, ya little runt kike? Go back where ya come from.” It made me feel awful. It was worse than that lady at Balmy Beach.
Benny said he wasn’t surprised. He says the people in the Orange lodges are all anti-semits. They are people who are proud of being Irish and they think that anyone who isn’t Irish is nobody. The worst thing is, they run the whole city — the pol
ice department and the fire department and the streetcars and everything. Even the mayor is an Orangeman.
Yesterday I felt so good about the protest, but now I’m not so sure. If there are so many Orangemen and they run everything and they’re all like that man in the parade and that lady at the beach, then what difference can some people marching make? And why are they so worried about Hitler in Germany when things are so bad right here in Toronto? How can the world be so awful?
I really didn’t have to wear Benny’s pants yesterday — there were even girls marching in the parade, Orange girls in white dresses. But I guess I’m glad Benny made me wear them, because what if someone told Pa or Ma or Sophie I was there?
July 24
I decided not to take my scribbler to Belle Ewart since we were all sleeping in the same room. I certainly don’t want Sophie or Syd snooping around in it. If Sophie saw what I wrote about her she’d kill me. Maybe I should find a better hiding place.
Anyway, I’m back now. And I don’t have anything to write. Nothing interesting happened at Belle Ewart. Bupkis. Nothing at all. Me and Hindl were the only young girls around. Everyone in the cabins near us was at least as old as Sophie, and the girls she and Syd talked to were busy impressing each other with the names and jobs of their boyfriends and their makeup and things and they had no time for me ever. I spent the whole time making sure that Hindl didn’t drown or get lost in the woods. Syd brought some cherries with her, which I think was very cruel. Doesn’t she remember what happened last year? Anyway, I didn’t eat a single one. I am never eating cherries ever again. And I nearly died from the heat. It’s been so hot all summer, and I wore my new sundress all the time. I started out wearing a blouse over it, but then I remembered Gert wasn’t there so I took it off. No one there said a single thing about my arms. But maybe that’s because nobody ever even looked at me. I am so glad to be back home.
July 25
Now I’m really worried about Benny, even more than I was before. He told me he went up to Christie Pits last week to watch his friend Harvey Tischler, Harvey the Horseballer, play in a softball game. Harvey is the catcher for the Harbord Playground Juvenile team, which is mostly Jewish boys, and they were playing against a team of mostly goyishe boys from a church on Bloor. After the game, he and Harvey were walking down to Bloor through the park and they heard a bunch of people shouting “Hail Hitler.” It was a gang of boys, and they surrounded Benny and Harvey, and Benny and Harvey had to push some of them down and take off and run like crazy to save their lives.
Benny says those boys call themselves the Pit Gang. A Jewish boy he knows who lives near there told him they hang out in that park every night and they hate Jews and they think the park and the whole neighbourhood belongs to them.
Benny got so mad that he went and told this man he knows named Al Kaufman all about it. He says Al is a really tough guy from Winnipeg or somewhere. And guess what! He’s a hobo! Imagine my own cousin Benny knowing a hobo! Who even knew there are hoboes who are Jewish?
Well, I guess Pa’s cousin Yankl is a hobo, sort of, or at least he was the last time we heard from him, so maybe it’s not so surprising.
But Al Kaufman is really a hobo. He has been riding the rails for years, Benny says — ever since the Depression started. He calls himself the King of the Hoboes and he’s been hanging out in the Eppes Essen deli on College with a bunch of other Jewish guys who call themselves the Up-town Gang. Now the King of the Hoboes and the Up-town Gang are planning to go up to the Pits and do something about the Pit Gang, and Benny is planning to be there when it happens.
I tried to get him to say he wouldn’t go, but I couldn’t. I hope he just stays close to home.
July 28
Benny says the Up-town Gang have put off going up to the Pits because now even worse things are happening at Balmy Beach. He says there’s a rumour that a bunch of the boys who live out there have been walking up and down the boardwalk insulting Jews and trying to pick fights with boys or men who look Jewish. They think the Beach belongs to them. A couple of guys have come back with black eyes and bruises.
Ma wants me to get the table ready for Shabbes dinner. I have to go.
August 1933
August 1
Benny came here yesterday all excited and said he wanted me to look after his money while he went somewhere. I wouldn’t take it until he told me where he was going.
He was going to Balmy Beach. He said things have got even worse there. Now the goyim have started a club. It’s called the Swastika Club. They’ve been painting swastikas, like the Nazis use in Germany, on rocks all along the boardwalk. They even put a huge swastika sign up in front of the Canoe Club out there at the beach, with Hail Hitler on it. Benny says they’re such idiots they don’t even know how to spell the German word Heil.
Benny says Al Kaufman showed his gang a copy of a notice the Swastikas put up on the Canoe Club bulletin board and were putting up around the neighbourhood. Someone, a Jewish man named Abe Nodelman who owns a little store out there, stole one and brought it to him. It said that they wanted to do something about the undesirable visitors coming into their neighbourhood, so they were selling a badge with a swastika on it for 25¢. They want people to wear it on the beach to show how they feel about Jews.
Even worse, yesterday afternoon a bunch of them marched down the boardwalk wearing the badges and singing a song to the tune of “Home on the Range” about how they wanted a home where the Gentiles could roam without hearing any loud Yiddish words. As soon as the Up-towns heard about it they decided to drive out to the beach to do something about it. And Benny wanted to go, too.
I tried to talk him out of it. I even tried to get him to let me wear the pants and come along like I did last time, so I could keep him out of the fighting. But he refused. He said it was no place for a girl, and he started pulling coins and bills out of all his pockets and handing them to me.
I was astonished! It was a small fortune! I asked him where he got it because I was afraid he was gambling or something else bad again. But he said not to worry, it’s just his money from the belt factory. His ma makes him keep it for her because if he gives it to her his pa just makes her give it to him and then he goes out and gets drunk. Benny has nowhere safe to keep it except on himself, and he didn’t want to get into a fight while he had it.
I took the money. I really didn’t have a choice. But now I can’t decide if I’m more worried about losing it or having Gert find it or about what might happen to Benny.
August 2
Benny came to get his money and he told me what happened. It’s scary, but somehow, I always feel better after I write it all down.
There were about sixty or seventy Jewish boys and men, and they all crammed into some poultry trucks from the market. A lot of them had pipes and boards, and when they got out to Balmy Beach they went right up to the Canoe Club. There was no Hail Hitler sign out front anymore. The Swastika Gang must have heard they were coming and got rid of it.
Anyway, Al Kaufman had a large dog with him, and he marched right past the refreshment stand and onto the club grounds looking for other swastikas. He couldn’t find any, thank goodness, but the Canoe Club was full of goyim with broom handles and lacrosse sticks and other weapons, because they heard the Jews were coming. For a while, everyone just stood around looking mad and waiting for someone to make the first move. Then the police showed up and cleared the grounds of the Canoe Club. There was a dance going on inside, but the police told everyone there to go home. The goyim all left, but the Jewish guys went wandering up and down the boardwalk and up and down the streets close to the shore looking for swastikas. There weren’t any, so they got in their trucks and came back home. But Benny says they’re planning to go back again.
I wish they wouldn’t. If Benny and the other Jewish boys start fighting, who knows what might happen? I am very, very scared, and I can’t tell Ma or Dora or anybody. They’d just say it’s none of our business and not to worry. They wouldn’t und
erstand.
August 3
I took Molly and Hindl for a walk over to Bellevue Park, and I found a Tely newspaper that someone left on a bench. One of the hoboes must have been using it for a blanket. Anyway, there was a picture of the swastika and the big Hail Hitler on the Canoe Club and other pictures of swastikas on people’s shirts, right there on the front page. Seeing it in the paper made it seem so real. It’s so hard to believe that this is happening right here in Toronto, right where I live.
August 4
Benny says the Swastika Gang keep saying they aren’t anti-Semitic, just people who want to keep the beaches clean, and they’re only using the swastika because it’s an ancient symbol that means brotherhood and good luck. Benny says it just proves that all the goyim are anti-semits, but I don’t know. Maybe they’re right about the swastika. I remember looking at The Just-So Stories by Kipling at the St. Chris library one day last winter — I used to love those stories when I was little. Anyway, there was something that looked a lot like one of those swastikas on the cover, and that book has nothing to do with Nazis or Jews. It’s just about cute animals. I told that to Benny and he said maybe so, but the boys in the Swastika Gang sure hate Jews, or why else would they put up a Hail Hitler sign? I guess he’s right.
A lot of Jewish unions and clubs and things are planning to have their picnics for the long weekend at Balmy Beach, just to show the Swastikas, and Benny says the mayor got Bert Ganter, the boy who’s the leader of the Swastika Club, to promise that there won’t be any marches or swastikas. I’m so glad the mayor wants to keep things calm even though he’s an Orangeman. But Benny thinks that a lot of the boys from the east end will be on the Beach on Sunday wearing swastikas anyway. Al Kaufman and a bunch of other Jewish guys are definitely planning to be there, and so is Benny. He even gave me all his money again.
Not a Nickel to Spare Page 10
