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Manya Auster Feldman - August 11, 1998

Is—was there any Zionist movement in your. . .

Oh, yes, a big Zionist movement. We belonged to organizations.And uh, our dream was to go to Israel. That was our dream.

Your parents too?

My—the parents in particular, sure. My father couldn't emigrateanyplace because he was an invalid. They wouldn't have let him in. But hesaid no matter what the circumstances, he's going to send away his children.

And did he think about Palestine?

Uh, a lot, yeah. We had people that were—that emigrate—thatwere emigrating in those days to Palestine. Although, some of them returnedback and they said that the life was horrible. It was very hard. You know,they had to work the, the, the farm the land and and fight with the Arabs.We had the all the way around.

Even then they were talking about fighting with the Arabs?

Well, they were fighting. Do you know Trumpeldor? The leader.. .

Yeah.

of the Zionist movement? He was, he was—he had one arm andhe was—and he—when he went out to work the, the land he had a riflebecause they always had to, to be uh, in, in fights with the Arabs.

Did, did anybody in your family go? I mean, you had 150 inthe family, did anybody make it?

Yeah. My cousin, the one that was in Israel, my older cousin,he came from a—they were uh, uh, very poor. So he decided rather thanto stay in such circumstances, he went to a Kibbutz, which was in, in, inuh, around Vilna. And at that time, they could—it was already that theyin 1940, so they could go through Japan, they went. A whole group of Zionistswent to—through Japan, they went to Israel. And he was one of them.

And was this the Ha. . . Hashomer Ha-Tsa'ir?

That's right. Hashomwe Ha-Tsa'ir, Haluts, There was Betar, withthe, the Revisionists. You know about that, yeah?

Well, tell me about the Revisionists.

Well, we belonged to Haluts. There were, there were Haluts. Therewere Shomer, there was Betat. There was uh, um, was the they w. . . the Mizra.. . the, the Mizrachis. Uh, yes. They were, they were the religious, uh, uh.. .

Mizrachi?

Yeah. They lived the religious part. They, they're motto wasum, to work and to, to, to wait for God's help, whereas the, the—ourZionistic uh, organization was always um, in tune of working, working theland but also be on guard of having to fight the Arabs. And we were—we,we always had read literature and we—our spare time was spent in theday with the Zionist organization.

Were there meetings?

Meetings. There were meetings and talking about the Zionist movementand talking about the Palestine at that time that was called and and instillingin the, in the children a Zionistic uh, uh, desire.

How?

By talking, by reading literature, by singing songs, by, by—Iwas—I grew up with that from ever since I remember, we were singing songsabout going uh, uh, um, settling in Israel in our own homeland.

Do you remember the songs?

Sure do. Bialyk wrote a lot of songs.

Sing me a song.

[laughs] sing you a song. [sings] Shalom Rav Shuvech TziporimNech Medet Meartzot Hacho Mel Chalonee. It's a song about a bird that is,that is on your windowsill and how she is going—she would be able tofly and go to Israel and be free and and be there. Very, very patriotic songs.

Uh, you had a happy childhood?

Extremely happy.

Even though it was poor?

Extremely happy. We didn't have much but we had a family, wehad our religion, we had our, had our organizations. We didn't, we didn'tassociate with anybody else. We were very happy children. As a matter of fact,I, I'd like to think because I, I had such a happy childhood that helped meto overcome the difficulty that I later uh, encountered. The—all of thiscame to an end. In 1939, Poland was divided into, into two, you know, oneuh, one-half went to the Germans and the other half went to uh, Russia. Sowe were already under the Russian regime in '39.