KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
also considered the many poor people in our town to be underpriv- ileged, and thus more ideologically reliable. Under the previous Polish government, seeing a Jew walking around with a rifle or pistol had been very rare. But the Russians trained the Jews for a few days, gave them rifles, showed them how to use them, and deputized them as the temporary militia. The townspeople were very proud to see young Jewish men, armed with rifles, patrolling the streets. We felt secure and happy. The Russians pronounced that all races were equal and made no distinction be- tween Jews and non-Jews. For a while, there was an atmosphere of euphoria. But gradually, the Russians established themselves. They brought in their own policemen as a permanent force and the local militia was gradually phased out. One negative aspect of the occupation was that from the instant they arrived, the Russians mandated that the Jews had to speak Yiddish, rather than Hebrew. Jews were a recognized minority in Russia. In Russia, every ethnic group had its own state — the Uzbeks, Kazakhstanis, Ukrainians, and Byelorussians all had their own republics, albeit under Russian dominance. They even tried to create a republic for the Jews called Birobidzhan, except that it did not work. The Jews did not want to be confined there. They wanted to be free birds. Theoretically, the Russians wanted to treat the Jews as equal to other ethnic groups. But they were against Zionism and did not believe that the Jews should go to Israel, so they forbade Zionism and did not allow the speaking of Hebrew. They wanted the Jews to speak and read in Russian and Yiddish. I already knew how to speak both languages, but from 1939 to 1941, when the Russians occupied our town, we went to Russian schools and learned to read and write in Russian and Yiddish. Officially, the Tarbut School became a Russian school where the teachers were ordered to teach us in Yiddish and Russian. Though the Russians did not arrest anyone for disobedience, the school’s entire library of Hebrew books was sent to the paper
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