More About Zyama – After the War

CHAPTER 6

Zyama liked a joke and a prank always and everywhere. He even liked to make funny pictures. Here in the left picture made in the spring of 1947, I am with Tusya at the Esplanade Park in Riga, where I found a dark spot so that she could "make pooh-pooh". Zyama just had to make a picture of that! Also on the left is my dear Leibaleh fast asleep at our dacha in Lielupe in 1950.

On the right it is him again coming home from the market with Tusya marching away in front of him (her back is seen in front of him; she is wearing a dress with a white apron). So many years passed since then. Zyama has since then joked with my grandchildren, letting them to sit on his knee and singing them "the little kitten Mary"…

Zyama travelled a lot over the years, he saw a lot and wrote not only an endless number of articles, but also quite a few books. Soon another of his books will be published and this time it is a book for teenagers about the war. Today, on the eve of my birthday, I received a telegram from him from a very distant place:

"To: Futlik, Apt. 63, No. 27 Revoluzias St. , Riga.

From: Khoroga 201 18 21 0645 (Pamir Mountains)

MUBORKBOD IN PAMIRIAN LANGUAGE MEANS 'CONGRATULATIONS'. SENDING YOU BEST WISHES FROM THE ROOF OF THE WORLD. ZYAMA"

Here are some more of Zyama's jokes: on the left is a picture of him as an old man and on the right is Zyama dressed as a woman. He made thousands of such funny appearances. At least of few of them should be kept here.

And here is a cover of one of Zyama's books: "1418 Days of Fire". He gave me a copy of it as a present with a dedication: "To the little girl. Her brother. 30 October 1971. "

Zyama and Gunta, his daughter, in 1974

Zyama at the editorial office of the German newspaper "Ostsee Zeitung" in 1967. Zyama visited East Germany during his work as a journalist in Riga.

Zyama died on the 22nd of September 1984. In 1988 one of the Young Pioneers' units in a high-school in the Tukums region of Latvia decided to call itself "Zalmans Eidus'-named unit". Hugo Ginters, a teacher in that school, sent me a picture of the school and requested that I write something about Zyama's childhood for the children. I duly did and received a reply thanking me.

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