Beginnings
My mother and her family resided in the Pale of Settlement, which is the area that Jews were sent to in the hinterland of Russia to keep them as separate and apart from contaminating Russian society at large as possible. My mother always denied the existence of the Pale of Settlement. She was a committed socialist and always flew to the defence of Russia.
Her father was a schoolteacher in the town they lived in. There were three girls in the family and one son. The son was active politically. At the time there was a White Russian group and a Red Russian group; the whites defended imperialist Russia; the reds were communists. My mother's brother was a communist. Both sides were equally fervent, equally convinced of their invulnerability and correct reading of history and course of action; equally violent.
One day a bomb was thrown into my mother's parents' home - by white Russians because of course it was general knowledge that her brother was a red. The bomb killed her brother; shrapnel hit one of my mother's eyes, one of her sister's legs. Their parents were injured, but survived. Both women suffered all their lives as a result of their injuries, but not badly.
Suffice it to say, although neither spoke about their experiences, one would imagine the psychic damage to have been far greater, but they didn't dwell on it. My aunt, unlike my mother, never became political, and their sister, the third girl of the family had no interests either in politics. The three girls, in fact, couldn't have been more different one to the other.
Theirs had been a secular household, but my mother's older sister became an observant Jew, while my mother remained staunchly secular, and the third sister married a Ukrainian peasant - how much further removed can one get? Eventually, all three girls came to Canada; the oldest with her then-husband, as a young wife, followed by the other two; wealthy uncles who lived in Atlanta helped to finance their emigration.
My mother was very careful to pay back every penny of that expense; even when I was a young girl approaching my teens I can recall hearing my mother talk about sending on monies owed - in small increments, until the debt was paid.
Her father was a schoolteacher in the town they lived in. There were three girls in the family and one son. The son was active politically. At the time there was a White Russian group and a Red Russian group; the whites defended imperialist Russia; the reds were communists. My mother's brother was a communist. Both sides were equally fervent, equally convinced of their invulnerability and correct reading of history and course of action; equally violent.
One day a bomb was thrown into my mother's parents' home - by white Russians because of course it was general knowledge that her brother was a red. The bomb killed her brother; shrapnel hit one of my mother's eyes, one of her sister's legs. Their parents were injured, but survived. Both women suffered all their lives as a result of their injuries, but not badly.
Suffice it to say, although neither spoke about their experiences, one would imagine the psychic damage to have been far greater, but they didn't dwell on it. My aunt, unlike my mother, never became political, and their sister, the third girl of the family had no interests either in politics. The three girls, in fact, couldn't have been more different one to the other.
Theirs had been a secular household, but my mother's older sister became an observant Jew, while my mother remained staunchly secular, and the third sister married a Ukrainian peasant - how much further removed can one get? Eventually, all three girls came to Canada; the oldest with her then-husband, as a young wife, followed by the other two; wealthy uncles who lived in Atlanta helped to finance their emigration.
My mother was very careful to pay back every penny of that expense; even when I was a young girl approaching my teens I can recall hearing my mother talk about sending on monies owed - in small increments, until the debt was paid.
My father lived in another little town, a shtetel in Poland, called Mezrich. He came from a very poor family, although I had the impression his father had been a learned man. But my father's parents died when he was quite young, likely before he was ten years of age. He had a brother who had long ago gone to Warsaw to find a life for himself there; my father scarcely knew his brother.
On the death of his parents, an orphan and alone, he was placed by the town council in the town's poorhouse. He was a rebellious young boy and fled the poorhouse and eventually made his way, walking and hitch-hiking to Warsaw, where he planned to look for his brother. He never did find his brother, and like many other orphaned children at the time he lived on the streets of the city, begging.
A Jewish philanthropical society gathered the intent and the funds to pluck these children off the streets and send them to Canada, through an arrangement with the Canadian immigration authorities (this would have been during the early 1920s). My father and a few other orphans whom he knew from his old home town, along with other homeless children came to Canada and worked as indentured farm hands.
My father ended up working on a farm just outside Toronto, near a small town called Georgetown. We had an old photograph of him as a thirteen-year-old standing among some other young boys, taken at the farm.
On the death of his parents, an orphan and alone, he was placed by the town council in the town's poorhouse. He was a rebellious young boy and fled the poorhouse and eventually made his way, walking and hitch-hiking to Warsaw, where he planned to look for his brother. He never did find his brother, and like many other orphaned children at the time he lived on the streets of the city, begging.
A Jewish philanthropical society gathered the intent and the funds to pluck these children off the streets and send them to Canada, through an arrangement with the Canadian immigration authorities (this would have been during the early 1920s). My father and a few other orphans whom he knew from his old home town, along with other homeless children came to Canada and worked as indentured farm hands.
My father ended up working on a farm just outside Toronto, near a small town called Georgetown. We had an old photograph of him as a thirteen-year-old standing among some other young boys, taken at the farm.
Both my parents adjusted well to life in Canada. My mother spoke Yiddish, Russian, Polish and Ukrainian. My father felt an urgent need to educate himself and devoured books.
They made a life for themselves together. They had the good fortune to remain friends with other children who had come over with my father and these grown people were my father's family, while my mother had the comfort of knowing her two sisters had also settled nearby, one in Toronto the other in Hamilton, an hour's drive from Toronto.
They made a life for themselves together. They had the good fortune to remain friends with other children who had come over with my father and these grown people were my father's family, while my mother had the comfort of knowing her two sisters had also settled nearby, one in Toronto the other in Hamilton, an hour's drive from Toronto.
People do manage. There is always hope.
posted by Pieface @ 4:11 PM
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