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High-school - Year 1
CHAPTER 7 The summer was gone and a new life in a new school had begun. The school was on Gertrudes St. (now No. 18, Karl Marx St.). Jewish students who attended the four of the basic (intermediary) Jewish schools in Riga came to continue their studies in two first-year high-school classes, one that had an extra Latin class, and another that had an English one. I joined the one where they taught English. Our head teacher was Mr. Lifshits, the History teacher. His wife, Regina Moiseevna (daughter of Moisey) Lifshits, taught German. At that time they had a little girl called Rutin'ka (Ruth) and later they had another girl, Mirin'ka (Mira). Let me tell here briefly about their fate. Mr. Y. Lifshits taught German at the Riga University after the war and I even remember sitting for an examination for him in 1953, while Regina Moiseevna's life ended tragically: in a psychiatric hospital. This happened a few years after Mr. Lifshits's death. Ruth is teaching German at the University and she is probably a Candidate of Science by now. Her daughter Ada is not just a capable girl, but a really talented one: she writes poetry, she learned a number of languages, etc. Her surname is now Wolpert. The other daughter, Mira, or as she is now know, Mira Yakovlevna Kleinshtein, became a geographer. She has been teaching for many years in School No. 12 in Riga. … I remember visiting the Lifshits' family twice: the first time it was at their summer house, after the completion of first year of high-school. I went there with Hanze Slovin and Mr. Lifshits asked us all sorts of questions about our classmates, who was in love with whom, etc., but we just kept making jokes and refused "to divulge" any information. He made a few guesses and they were sometimes correct, but we still did not tell him anything. My second visit was after the war. Ruta and Mira were still living with their parents. We all sat and shared our memories about our past. During the first year of high-school I made my acquaintance with many new classmates who came from other schools, with new teachers and new rules and customs. I shared a desk with Hanze Slovin, during that year we were still friends. We both "suffered", she had also gone through an unsuccessful love affair. Harry Finkelshtein also attended our class. He did poorly in his studies, it was clear that he was busy with other matters. His attitude towards me was friendly and once or twice I even explained something to him either in Physics or Mathematics, but it did not do any good. Towards the end of the first six months at school I decided "to put an end to all this" and to get Harry off my mind. Following Hanze's advice I decided to focus my attention on someone else. "Look at him, - said Hanze, - he is the most handsome boy of all in the second-year class, and his name is Leibeleh Futlik!" I looked at the "most handsome boy" and saw a confident demeanor, pretty full lips and fine dark hair that fell on his forehead. Leibeleh Futlik wore nice white shirts, there was a group of boys he hang around with and he also participated in the school drama group. So, I decided to keep looking at him. And I did look at him - for many, many years…
The spring of 1929 went on. I did very well in my studies and was the "top student" in class. A Lyrical Digression …Many years passed: the years before the war, the war years that I spent in Russia, and then I came back to Riga. I worked in the Editor's Office of "Sovetskaya Molodezh" ("Soviet Youth"), a Russian-language newspaper published in Soviet Latvia. On the 30th of June 1945 I was sitting at the railway station before boarding a train to go on a business trip when someone called my name: "Lyuba!" Leibeleh Futlik was standing there, wearing his army uniform and a war medal on his chest. It seemed that our 12-years' long parting never happened. What happened was something they write about in books. We started meeting again but I shall write about it at the end of my memoirs. The Summer of 1929, After First-Year in High-School At the beginning of summer we lived in town and then in the middle of July we suddenly moved to Edinburg I, to a house in Kara St. Zyama lived with us during that summer, he was free. We kept playing with other kids outside for hours. This was the summer we first learned to play ping-pong. There was also a fascinating card game we started to play, it was called "Michigan". We did not play for money, we just played the game, but there was something complicated in it and this made it interesting. (I asked many people later about this game, but no-one remembered it.) … Our parents obviously wanted us all to put on weight and during that summer we got to eat cream and sour cream and different kinds of berries, but all this was bought on credit in the local shop and was recorded in special notebooks. Once a week Mother used to check her records with those of the shop owner (he was the father of Sonya Solomon-Pinus). After doing that she used to sit at the table for a long time, thinking, and one could hear her heavy sighs. There were too many debts and it was hard to pay them. It was not easy for our parents to provide us with this good food and we did not always realize that, we just enjoyed ourselves at the sea-side. There was another incident I remember about this summer. I had arranged to meet Leibeleh Futlik in Riga on a certain date. All of a sudden a sty appeared on my eye. It was terrible! I therefore resorted to a drastic step: I took a train to Riga in the morning and went to a homeopathic drugstore, where they gave me something to put on my eye. I sat the whole day with this thing on my eye and by evening-time there was no sign of my sty. Thus, I appeared at my "rendezvous" very much satisfied with my own self, as I had succeeded in "tricking" my fate. (Mother did not want to let me go to Riga, but she must have understood how important it was for me.) Another Short Trip Into My Childhood
On the 21st of August 1972 I went to the sea-side, to the places where we once rented summer houses, in order to find if they still existed. I found only a few. One of them was in Kara St., now No. 51, Gagarin St. Second Year of High-School This year was special and the reason for that was the fact that there was much more cohesion in the class and we all acquired many common interests and did lots of things together. During this year we started preparing papers independently. Our head teacher and History teacher, Mr. Lifshits, told me to prepare an almost philosophical paper on "Laughter" based on Bergson's book. This was followed by a paper about Michelangelo's life and work. I worked very hard on the paper about Michelangelo and it came out very well. My presentation was accompanied by a demonstration of reproductions of his works and other pictures (the school had the special equipment for showing them). Our head teacher was always inventing something interesting for us to do. Thus, for example, we organized a special evening dedicated to Wagner and his music. A whole orchestra played, providing musical illustrations for the proceedings. I recited poetry in German and it was accompanied by music too. This year was special for me also because I "went into politics" (more about that later). The two favorite things I wore that year were a pleated navy skirt and a red "sailor's" blouse. I had nice long plaits and I found everything around very interesting….
On the 1st of April 1930 we all ran away from school: this was our "April's Fools' Day's" joke. Not a very clever one, but still… We all went to Viesturdarzs (the Czar's Garden, as it was called in Russian) and had our picture taken there. Our bags and hats were specially placed on the ground in front of us, to form the date: 1.IV. I am in the center of the second row and Hanze is on my right. The next morning Mr. Lifshits told us all off a little and he also said to me: "Ay, ay, ay, Eidus, and you too!" He did not know that I was one of the "leaders"… Second Year Literature Lessons I did well at school in all the subjects but, except for gymnastics lessons, I did not have a favorite subject. Mr. Fridlender did not teach us at the drawing studio anymore, he left, and nothing of interest took place in those lessons. However, during second year something like a "world discovery" suddenly took place during our Literature lessons. Mr. Harlash, our Literature teacher, was sometimes jokingly called "The Kettle" because he wore a long grey coat that was wide at the bottom. This made him look like one of the tall kettles which were then used for boiling water. He was also called a "guinea pig" because he had light-red hair, his eyelids were slightly red and he looked as if he did not have any eyelashes or eyebrows (they were there, of course, but they were very light-colored). This man, who did not look interesting at all, showed me a totally new way of looking at literature. His lessons were full of passion and zeal, he very much disliked people who could not or would not think. He asked questions which today would be called "problematic" and one was under constant pressure to provide solutions to moral problems raised in connection with different literary works. Afterwards Mr. Harlash used to sum up the results of our discussions. He sometimes raised his voice while deriding someone or he made sarcastic fun of something. He always kept the class in suspense, guiding us towards new thoughts or feelings. I shall always remember the lesson we had on Sholom-Aleichem's "Tevyeh The Milkman". Loudly proclaiming his conclusions, Mr. Harlash stated: "There are people who only think of themselves, about their own petty concerns!" - one could hear scorn in his voice - "Yet, one has to learn to look beyond one's own nose! There are matters which influence the fate of humanity! Our own emotions and concerns should not make us blind to questions concerning millions of people! You should learn to see the relationship between the personal and the general!" These were not, of course, his exact words heard at the lesson, but this was their general meaning. Suddenly, after hearing what Mr. Harlash had said, it seemed to me that the walls of the class became wider and my "unhappy love story" became much less important. I hungrily absorbed every word and thought intently about everything that was said. Mr. Harlash recommended that we should make notes about the books we read. I was reading Rabindranat Tagore's "Home and World" and the book impressed me very much. I started making notes about it and they came to some seven pages. I used the same notebook for comments on some other books as well. Then, one day, as I was sitting at the large dining table writing, I was distracted by something. Raya Gelfand, my second cousin, was staying with us at that time. Raya was two years' younger, but a head taller than I was. She was thin, very serious and had an interesting face. She could have been taken for a16 years' old instead of a13 years' old that she was. I, on the other hand, looked like a13 years' old despite my real age of 15! Benno was living at home then. I think it was the time after his arrest, when he was released on bail before his trial. Sitting next to Raya across the table from me he was having a lively discussion with her about something. Suddenly I felt strangely insulted, I felt something like envy because he never showed any such interest in discussing things with me. Here he was so nice, so funny. Raya was much younger, did not seem all that clever and yet she managed to draw his attention. I felt so badly hurt that right there, next to my notes on the book I had read, I described my thoughts and my feelings. At one of the next lessons Mr. Harlash asked whether we have been making notes about the books we read and said that he would like to read them. Some notebooks were handed to him and mine was among them. Some time had passed and he asked me to come and see him. During a school interval we stood near one of the windows in the school corridor and he said: "Your notes about the books you have read are very interesting and informative. But you see, you have confused two different kinds of notes. There are notes that can be read by everyone, such as notes on books. Yet, there are other notes, personal ones, that contain one's feelings and impressions, and they should not be read by everyone. I thank you for your trust, but I advise you to keep different notebooks for your comments on books and your personal notes. " He asked me whether he could keep my notebook. I agreed, of course, and my mood improved immensely: he praised me. That was quite a lot! There was also something else: quite unobtrusively he freed me from the inner discomfort I had felt about Benno and Raya. I just stopped worrying about it. In his conversation with me Mr. Harlash touched on that subject indirectly and, while speaking about completely different matters, he managed to show me that all those emotions I felt that evening were a trifle. I should not give them any thought because a person's inner worth is measured by completely different factors. Mr. Harlash probably did not even suspect how much his lessons had influenced my thoughts. The second year of high-school ended on the 15th of May 1930. Here is a picture of another of our outings, a very nice one, together with our head teacher, Mr. Lifshits. I am in the first row, in the centre, and Lyuba Fishberg is on my left. Shulamis Giligich is standing next to her. Hanze Slovin (Marik Yoffe's mother) is standing next to her. The first on the right is Fima Liven. Yura Blumberg is standing next to him. Yura passed away soon afterwards.
The Summer of 1930 We lived in Mayori again that summer. We rented a two-storey house where Mother and Aunt Sonya kept a "pension" or a boarding house: rooms were rented to vacationers with or without meals. This arrangement made it possible to feed the family during the summer. Mother worked very hard, of course, but we were not aware of it then. I did not remain without work either: my head teacher recommended me for a governess' job in a family of a dentist after Mother had requested his help in finding work for me during the summer. The dentist had three daughters, two of them were problematic: the eldest, Nora, did not speak at all in the presence of strangers, the middle sister, Lida, copied her big sister and stopped talking too, and only the youngest, Emmy, behaved normally. The two older girls did not reply to teachers at school verbally, (only in writing). The eldest girl was 13 while I was nearly 16 at the time. Following Mr. Lifshits' recommendation the parents decided that a girl governess would be preferable for their daughters and maybe they will start speaking normally. The family lived in Karlsbad II (Melluzhi) and every day after lunch I had to go there to stay with the girls. I usually travelled by bicycle. As a "bonus", there was also the girls' 6 years'-old cousin, a sweet boy called Felix. I took the four children for walks, played with them and talked to them. The two older girls started talking normally and that was considered a "miracle". Later, during the winter, I continued to look after the eldest girl and she even started answering to her teachers' questions at school. However, I found this work very difficult: the long trip to Melluzhi and back, the tension and everything else usually meant that I came home exhausted. Yet, they paid me 30 Latts which was a lot of money and I did not even think of leaving. Relief came by chance. There was a family in our "boarding house" called the Vainbergs and they had two boys, Nika, aged 6, and Yola, aged 8. Their mother suggested that I should start taking care of the boys after lunch, playing with them and taking them around to walks,etc. and she also said that she would not mind if our Sashen'ka, then aged 7 and a half, would also come with me and the boys. She offered to pay me 40 Latts. Mother went to the dentist's family in Karlsbad II and explained the situation and after that I became a governess to Nika, Yola and Sasha. This job was, of course, much less tiring as I did not have to make those long bicycle trips and also the boys were much easier to look after. (Yola Vainberg is now a historian, a lecturer at the Pedagogical Institute in Daugavpils. His wife, Luba Gilevich, is the aunt of Erica Berman. I last saw Yola Vainberg a year ago, when I went to Daugavpils on business in connection with the 25th anniversary of the Institute. The money I had earned during that summer came up to a considerable sum. Mother suggested that I should buy myself some clothes and it was also decided that I should get a wristwatch. One day Father came back from Riga and brought a watch he bought for me with some of my money, 25 Latts. Here it is now, my 42 years' old watch. I wore it when I was leaving Riga and I wore it through all the years of the war. When I started wearing a "Zvezda" watch, my old "Kenisur" was passed on to my daughter Tusya. I think she was in Form 5 then. The watch worked well and fine for many years, it was taken to the watchmaker to be fixed a few times and it still works now after you wind it up, but it does not seem to be able to keep up with modern times after all…Let it be! It is not a golden heirloom, but it is a fine memento: a watch bought with one's first salary. ("Kenisur" was a locally made watch. The firm making them belonged to the Rusinek family, a Jewish family residing in Libau. "Kenisur" is the family name read backwards. - Tr.) Apart from my work, life was full of action. A new crowd of friends somehow came into being. We used to meet at the beach during the day and also later in the evenings. The boys were Yosif Zelikman, Sasha Pirozhkov and Isaak Kagan, who were all one year older than I. There was also their friend, Godik Nadelman. Aunt Sonya called the boys my "admirers" even though only Sasha Pirozhkov (also known as "Pira") was supposed to be "in love" with me. The girls included Etta Ginzburg, Hanze Slovin, Fanya and Lyalya Vinograd (who was sick then and we all came to visit her when she was lying in the garden).
Sometimes we arranged to meet at 6 o'clock in the morning. The boys used to wake me. I slept in a small room on the second floor and I used to tie a long rope to my leg and let it down through the window. The boys came in the morning, pulled at the rope and woke me. I got up quickly, got washed and dressed and came down. We all walked somewhere quite far and I used to come back by breakfast time, always very happy about these early expeditions. The boys used to steal apples from the gardens of some rich people. They climbed up the apple trees and threw their "catch" down. In the 50'ies and the 60'ies, when I used to meet Godik (the father of Samik Nadelman) and Isaak (the uncle of Vitochka Futlik; Isaak's sister, Rosa, is Vitochka's mother), we always went back to the memories of that summer and our morning adventures. Zelikman, Pirozhkov and Etta Ginzburg perished in the war. Hanze died of cancer in the spring or summer of 1945. Lyalya Vinograd went abroad after the illegal printing shop "fell through". This picture still reminds me of that happy summer…
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This picture was taken by Yoka in the garden of our
summer-house. I am nearly 16 here. The people around me are (from
left to right): Fanya, Pira, Godik, Etta and Hanze.
