|
|
Michael Zimmermann
How I Survived the Wars and
Peace:
My Life in the Gulag
Chapter I. The Early Years
I
do not remember being born. Nobody does. I do remember the midwife who
assisted my mother in giving birth to me. Her name was Mindla, she had
rabbit’s teeth and was ugly enough to make the tiny human newcomer
wish to go back where he came from. No, I did not observe all this during
our brief encounter at the moment of my birth. When I was about four,
my mother gave birth to twin boys, and Mindla officiated again. Then
it was pointed to me who she is and what she does for living. The twin
boys survived for a day or two, and thus, I was deprived of knowing
what it means having a brother.
I
was born to a family of five: father, mother and three sisters. I will
describe them separately.
FATHER:
His given name at birth was Meir but later he changed it to Max. He
did it apparently before he met mother because she called him Max. I
do not know how old he was when we first met and, amazingly, when I
was already grown up I never inquired what was his date of birth. The
same concerns my mother, I never ever tried to find out how old she
was at a certain point in time. My assumption is that certain feelings
of tact force the children to avoid asking the parents about their respective
age. But back to father. in 1907, his occupation was a commi-voyageur.
This means that he was working as a buyer and, at the same time, as
a travelling salesman for his employer. The merchandise he handled consisted
of laces and ribbons which in those days formed a major part of women’s
apparel, also artificial flowers, fruits as well as feathers and, indeed,
entire stuffed birds which covered the enormous hats of elegant women.
Father was travelling all over western and central Europe visiting various
factories using the only means of transportation available then, that
is, railways. Early in this century, trains moved at a speed that was
only a fraction of that of the contemporary rail traffic and each sortie
took father weeks.
In
his capacity of a travelling salesman, father visited the clientele
with samples of the merchandise. The clients were scattered all over
the European and Asiatic part of Russia, an enormous territory.
With
several colleagues, father founded an Association of Commi-Voyageurs
which, over the years developed into a very respectable organization
with a loan bank, club premises and a richly endowed lending library
for the members’ families.
We,
the family, were used to father’s protracted absence, in fact,
his presence interrupted our routine life. At home we had a mountain
of glossy post-cards he used to mail from various countries he visited
at the time. On the day of his expected return, we, the children were
dressed in our fineries, all excited in expectation of the gifts father
used to bring from his peregrinations. We were also warned to behave
nicely, not to make noise so that father could rest after the tiresome
trip. The greetings were not too emotional, we children behaved with
respect towards the stranger in our midst, no jumping or squeaking.
Father was a jolly fellow in the company of grownups, with his children
he behaved with reserve, playing a ‘pater familias’. He never
petted any of us, and that reserve lasted as long as we were together,
until I was 32. Let me mention the joke about ‘naslednick’
which is a Russian word for ‘heir’. it so happened that at
the time I was born, the wife of the then reigning Tsar Nicolas ll,
after a succession of four daughters gave birth to a male child. The
boy was automatically heir to the throne - ‘naslednick’ -
and the entire population of Russia (yes, Warsaw was in Russia) rejoiced.
My father saw a similarity in his family, after a succession of three
girls, an heir to the Zimmermann throne was born. When guests were coming,
and our parents entertained frequently, we, the children were called
in to say a few words of greetings, my father put his hand on my head
and proudly announced ‘naslednick’ after which we children
withdrew to our room. Sometimes, the guests brought their children with
them and the kids joined us in our room. I don’t remember our parents
ever taking us children when visiting their friends, we were too much
of a crowd.
When I was about four (1911), father established his own wholesale business
dealing with merchandise he was so familiar with. The premises occupied
the entire second floor of a commercial building on a corner of two
busy streets. About twenty employees formed the staff. Some were commi-voyageurs
working for father.The clientele in Russia knew father from the time
he visited them as a salesman, they liked him and gladly brought their
business to father’s company. in a short time the business prospered
and father became quite wealthy. in August, 1914, World War I started.
The first few months, Warsaw was far away from the Russian-German front,
all we saw were units of soldiers marching through the city streets.
Early in 1915, the situation changed and it was obvious that the Germans
would occupy Warsaw. Fearing that his business would be cut off from
the Russian market, father decided to transfer his place of operation
to Moscow and to take the family along. One of father’s trusted
employees moved to our apartment to keep it available when we came back.
Likewise, the business premises were left with all the furnishings intact,
only the merchandise was sent to Moscow. Father went directly to Moscow,
the rest of the family, this being already spring, went for a long vacation
to a town of Ostrog, quite a distance east from Warsaw, the place where
father was born and where his mother lived at that time.
Let
us continue with the other members of the family.
MOTHER.
Her name was Maria, her parents and siblings called her Masha, my father
called her Mania. mother was a beauty. A classic profile, delicate nose,
elegant figure. When she was a teenager, reportedly, a noted sculptor
asked her to pose for him, he wanted to model the intended statue of
some goddess on the face of my mother. Being shy, she refused but the
fact was not forgotten and was repeated to us children often. Mother
was gentle, kind, emotional but not demonstrative, with aristocratic
behaviour. We children felt very close to her, after all, for most of
the time, she was our only parent. She was always elegantly dressed,
following the up-to-date fashion and father was very proud to be her
escort. When she was dressing to go out for the evening, or to be a
hostess at home, we children liked to watch . The coiffure alone took
an hour or so, the dress and trimmings took hours keeping in mind what
women wore in those days.
LOLA
and GENIA. They come together because they were born together on July
2, 1902. Sometimes, a term ‘identical’ is being applied to
twins. I don’t think there were ever any more ‘un-identical’
twins anywhere on the globe than my two sisters. It is sufficient to
look at the picture of the two as babies (the picture is in my collection)
to see what I mean. Lola (she later changed her name to Lili) was very
beautiful and aware of it, self-assured, demanding, capricious, self-centered,
domineering and did not feel even close to her twin sister. Genia was
not a striking beauty, as a child she had some kind of disease (smallpox
?) and her hair was cut short (see the picture). She was very gentle,
obedient, good-hearted and readily accepted her place as a second-class
member of the twin-hood. Again, pictures of my twin sisters are available
to the reader.
ROLA.
Born on May 12, 1905. Although she was only two years old when I was
born, she considered herself to be my mother. Instead of a doll she
preferred to play with me. All my life she remained closest to me; I
asked her advice, discussed my problems with her. When I had to go to
a store to buy some attire like material for a suit (nobody wore ready-made
clothes in our country, they were being bought only for burials) or
for visits at the tailor or to buy a tie, I took Rola along, having
confidence in her judgement.
Remember,
I am now at the early years, I will return to every member of my immediate
family as the story proceeds.
Let
me digress for a while. Not long ago, in one of the popular magazines,
I have read an article about naming the newborn children. The author
of the article maintains that it is unfair to burden the new individual
for his/her entire life with a name he/she might hate and, quite often,
does. A temporary moniker should be given the newborn to serve for identification
solely until the individual reaches the age of majority (18) and let
him/her select a permanent first name to serve for life. I could not
agree more with the author.
If I had any say in selection of my name I would do the following. I
would prostrate myself (the skill of standing or sitting was yet unknown
to me, I was only one day old) and I will holler: ‘Are you two
out of your mind? Going to handicap your own and only son with a name
that will serve as a millstone hung on his neck in his climb up the
ladder of career? Don’t do that to me, your own flesh and blood!’
However, I did not have any say in selection of name. My dear parents,
elated with the appearance of a male descendant decided to give me a
grandiose name. Please, keep in mind that the language was Russian and
the alphabet Cyrillic. Anyway, phonetically the name sounded like ‘Moysey’
which was equivalent to Moses. For domestic use, the defeated boy got
a name of ‘Munik’ (pronounced ‘Moonick’, no relation
to the moon). And so it went.
The
picture of the household would not be complete if I did not mention
the following people who played a major role in our lives:
‘PANNA’
ROZALIA - ‘Panna’ is a Polish word for ‘Miss’. Nobody
ever called her by her name even my parents, her employers. Always,
‘panna Rozalia’. I assume this was for the purpose of enhancing
her prestige among the children. Panna Rozalia was a governess. I don’t
know her age at the time, from the available photograph, I assume she
was in her mid- twenties. I am not sure if she joined our family before
or after I was born. Anyway, she firmly announced that she was taking
care of the girls only, I was outside of her jurisdiction. She stuck
to the rule until I was maybe three or four because I remember trudging
along to the quite distant park on our daily walks. Panna Rozalia was
with us children from early morning till bed-time when she disappeared
into her own room.
To
complement the picture: there was a sleep-in maid and a female cook.
The latter’s name was Amalia (just to impress you with my memory!)
and she was German.
It
is important that I mention one more person who played a role in our
early years:
"BIG"
GRANDMA - we called her "big" although she was of an average
height or weight, to differentiate her from our maternal grandmother
who was rather short and tiny and was called by us the "little"
grandma. The "big" grandma had five children, two sons and
three daughters. Her husband, my grandfather, died before I was born.
My father was the oldest child. Late in the nineteenth century, two
of the daughters and the other son emigrated to America. In those days
it meant that they were gone for ever, and she never saw them again.
The youngest child, her name was Fanya, was a very colourful person
, and I will write about her elsewhere. Fanya never had children, so
my three sisters and myself were the only grandchildren our grandmother
had contact with. Her apartment was about ten minutes walk and she visited
our family often, also during my father’s absence. Quite often
she took the entire brood to her house and we children loved it because
she always had special cookies prepared for us.
In
my capacity of a family chronicler I should not ignore the maternal
side of relatives.
GRANDPARENTS
- Philip and Sarah (the "little Grandma") Nadelman. Philip
was a jeweller by occupation and a philosopher by vocation. Two rooms
of his apartment served as a jewelry display store and a repair shop,
he had a very quiet, uneventful life and he lived to be 96, and that
was at the time when man’s life expectancy was 55. His longevity
inspired one of the local reporters to write a brief article in the
Warsaw newspaper giving it a headline :"Philip Nadelman, jeweller,
dead at 106", adding 10 years for effect. We children were told
to show our respect to him by kissing his hand when coming or leaving.
I did it duly until he died and I was in my twenties. Neither of these
grandparents endeared themselves to us children, in fact I cannot recall
an instance that they ever visited us in our apartment. Granted, they
lived quite a distance from our place but this was not an excuse. I
do remember mother on her visit to her parents and me, at an age of
three or four, trudging along and holding her hand.
Listed
here are mother’s siblings:
Robert
Nadelman and his wife Penia, had three children: Leonia, Ludwig and
Hanna.
Maurice
Nadelman and his wife Mary, with two children: Irene and Alexander.
Rose and Samuel Typograf with daughter Adele.
Cecille
, widowed, with her son Alexander.
There were two more of mother’s siblings whom I never met. A girl who married before I was born and moved to a quite distant city. I somehow cannot recall her name. And there was the youngest brother, Eli Nadelman who reached quite a renown as one of the most famous American sculptors. As a youngster, Eli showed a big talent for painting. He graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Arts and wished to go to Paris to continue his study. However, the family was not wealthy enough to finance his trip and they appealed to my father who was considered sufficiently rich to sponsor his young brother-in-law. Father complied, and Eli, who later diverted his talent to sculpting, was set on his way to fame and fortune.
Funny
thing, none of the above played any role in my early years, in fact,
I cannot recall any of them visiting us or me going to visit them. Again,
they lived quite a distance from our place but they were young and,
I assume, mobile. Let me explain, that contrary to the lifestyle practised
on this continent, we did not have family get-togethers for anniversaries,
birthdays or similar occasions. Even within our closest family, a birthday
was no occasion for celebration, congratulations, birthday present or
birthday cake. Just another day passing by. This situation remained
also in later years.
Let
me explain about the school situation in those days. At the end of the
period I am describing in this chapter - "The Early Years"
- I was seven-and-a half- years old and I have not mentioned anything
about formal education. My sisters attended school with Russian as the
official language. I did not qualify, the minimum age of the applicant
for class 1 being eight (there were 8 grades of the school and the next
step was the university). As an applicant to class one I was expected
to know how to read and write, and the basic arithmetic. My parents
engaged a succession of private tutors who introduced me to the aforesaid
basic education, besides having older siblings facilitated my absorption
of the required knowledge.
At
home, we were speaking only Polish. Father who grew up in Russian culture
and used this language also in his professional life, was more comfortable
in that tongue and used it in conversation with mother. Incidentally,
mother spoke to her parents in German, as the Nadelman family moved
to Warsaw from the part of Europe where the German language was prevalent.
We
were a musical family. Mother played piano (in those days, every well-bred
girl was introduced to piano), father liked to play, too, but badly.
However, he was very good with a miniature accordion and liked to display
his talent when guests were visiting. Lola inherited the talent, learned
piano from a visiting piano teacher. She continued it over the years
and graduated from the Warsaw Conservatory of Music. We had first an
upright piano but later father bought a grand piano and the upright
was moved to a secondary place where it could be used by the less accomplished
musicians in the family, including your obedient servant.
The
idyllic style of life came to the end with World War I. As I mentioned
before, the sources of merchandise for father’s business were cut
off and he decided to move with the entire family to Moscow. Our apartment
was recently furnished with custom-made furniture: living room, bedroom,
dining room, a grand piano, everything was left in place intact in anticipation
of the family’s return in some unclear future. A trusted man (single)
was to move into our place and was supposed to keep the entire setup
in good shape. Let me describe briefly what really happened. Soon after
our departure, the Germans entered Warsaw. A year, or maybe two later,
the man came to the conclusion that the boss would never come back and
he started gradually selling pieces of the apartment contents. He started
with the upright piano, then the carpets, etc. Mother’s siblings,
who all stayed in Warsaw somehow learned what was going on. Uncle Robert
who was a dentist just at that time rented an eight-room apartment of
which one room was his office, another a waiting room. Robert came to
our apartment, chased away the dishonest guy and took all the furniture
to his so far empty rooms. The story has a sequel but I will tell about
it in due time.
When
I started this Chapter and called it "The Early Years" I somehow
meant the period I spent in the apartment I was born in. As everybody
in those days, I was born at home, 6 Karmelicka street, apartment 11.
Maybe, there is a certain analogy with the world of birds, the moment
the hatcheling leaves the nest, it is considered entering the next phase
of life. At the time of the family’s departure I was at a "ripe"
age of seven-and-a half, and for me the "early years" were
over.
It was May, 1915, and the entire family, including panna Rozalia, travelled to a small town, far from the war front, where my father was born and the "big" grandma lived. A villa was rented, and we spent a quite uneventful vacation while father left for Moscow to prepare everything for our arrival in September.
|
© Concordia University |