by BORIS ZUBRY
June 24, 2004

It was in October or November of 1956 and I was five and a half years old, and I thought that it was the peak of my life. I had everything one could desire. I had both parents, sister, a living-with-us aunt, a cat and a dog, good neighbors, many friends, TV, plenty of food, good clothes, and a few toys. What else did I need? In short, I was a happy child growing up in a country regaining its temporarily-lost conscience after the tragedy of World War II. The country was getting stronger and stronger with every passing day but still it had not fully emerged from the darkness of the bloodiest war yet. People and things were in short supply. More time was needed for a full recovery.

In reality war never ended - only one form of it replaced the other form and some places around the world were still hot. People were still killing other people, as if some required quota of death was not yet reached. What was the quota back then? Do we know what is it now? I don't think those numbers were ever published. No one knew the quota and, therefore, no one really knew how close the world came to meeting it.

The cold war front was a huge and unbreakable barrier that no one could penetrate - and many tried, and many died. Ignorant, but yet very arrogant, Nikita Khruschev and his "yes-men" cronies were managing the leftover-after-Stalin show and the country, and they had no warm feeling towards anyone except the Party and themselves. Well, mostly for themselves. They wanted to project a tough image of themselves and the regime, and they wanted the whole world to listen to them, to follow them, to obey them. They liked to rattle old sabers preferring attack as the best defense. They wanted to scare the Western opposition off, so the world would not see the weakness of the Soviet Union and the shortcomings of the Communist Party and the socialist system. The world was shocked, hypnotized by the boldness of lies coming from behind the iron curtain. The world thought that every lie was only partly a lie and there must be a some truth there as well. If even a little part of what Khruschev was bulling the world with was true, it was scary.

And the world often shied away under the pressure of a big bully. The whole Soviet economy and the economies of all their satellite countries were dedicated to feeding the Soviet bully and keeping the fat capitalists at check. And it worked. The war between the West and the East was very cold, freezing, but still only cold. Thousands of cannons faced each other throughout the world impatiently waiting for orders. Rust was building up, consuming the toughness and dulling the sharp edges, but orders never came. Even the biggest bully could not force himself to push the button. The world did not sleep well but still it was waking up every morning and it was alive.

On the internal front every political and social situation was exploited to take the people's collective mind away from the socialist reality: shortage of food, apartments, jobs, consumer goods, and freedom. Freedom was in big demand but in short supply. Freedom lovers were indiscriminately imprisoned and often executed by Lenin, Stalin and Khruschev. That would set you free. Freedom was only a state of mind. Do you really want freedom? How can you want something you don't know and you have never seen or experienced? After all, freedom was just a pie in the sky but the labor camps were plentiful. Labor camps were conveniently located throughout the country in the most remote areas. The areas were so remote that camps often had only a skeleton guard. Even if you escaped, you would not get anywhere. Wild and very hungry animals and hundreds of never-measured miles of unpopulated tundra made it impossible to survive. So escape did not offer or mean freedom - unless death could be considered and accepted as the best alternative and the only substitute. So, what was freedom? Just a myth. You want it but, if you did not get it, there was nothing amiss. One could not miss what one never had. One could not forget what one never knew.

The Middle East and international Jewry were old and extremely comfortable - like old shoes - ways to make people to look away from the shortages and problems and, therefore, they were on the front page of every magazine and newspaper in the country. Every organization in the country, small or large, conducted "must attend" political classes for all employees outlining the position of the Party on capitalism, imperialism, the USA and the West, the Middle East, and Jews in general.

Jews always stuck their oversized noses out and, therefore, made themselves an easy target. Anti-Semitism happily inherited from the Stalin's times was ripening in the shadows of the Khruschev self-proclaimed socialism waiting for the right moment to burst out. The government was in a hurry. They needed more and somewhat heavier excuses to move to the Middle East and to start influencing the Arabs. Nikita Khruschev dreamed of kicking the imperialistic British and French completely out of there, and preventing the Americans from ever entering the region. He wanted to be right in the midst of it and Egypt looked just right. Revolutions and corruption made it suitable for the picking. That was the aim and that was the goal. The Party apparatus was straining to define and to coordinate the aim and the KGB complex wheels were turning to accomplish the goal. They were so close.

I did not know any of that back then and I did not care. My scope of interests was lying in a somewhat different plane. I happily dreamed my dreams and played my games. The whole world was right where I was. To me, I was the world and the rest of it was there just for me to play with.

We lived in Leningrad, USSR, and it was only eleven years after the war was over. The city was not totally restored yet and the unhealed war scars were clearly seen on every building. Nine hundred days of the siege left more dead than alive and that went for buildings, parks and trees as well. Even we, little children, knew of the war and that was the main theme of our wild games. We all wanted to be soldiers and fight for the motherland. The problem was that all of us wanted to be the Red Army soldiers or the Partisans and no one wanted to be the German soldiers. So, we invented games where everyone was in the Red Army, Germans were either coming or leaving already, and we could not see them, so no one had to be one. With our fantastic imagination running fast, wild, and in all directions at the same time, it worked quite well. We could imagine anything. We could imagine the unimaginable and, while the whole country was living in a gray color, we were living in multiple colors.

At the time, we lived in a very small two-family communal apartment. All together there were eight people and three of them were children. We had one kitchen with one stove, a small countertop and a tiny table, and one bathroom with an old iron tub. Well, the tub was an added on part of the kitchen. Everything was a tight squeeze, but we managed to survive and without any big conflicts. The key to success was in trying to live together as one family. I think the adults had to ignore differences and to round out as many sharp corners as possible. Then you could get somewhere. I think it was tough for them but we children were just fine. We went to the same school and played the same games. All parts of the apartment were as our own and we ate whose ever food we liked. We felt more related than with real relatives. That was how Communism was supposed to be but it worked only in a few apartments, and the rest of the country was choking in the communal apartments being averaged and denied privacy.

The building we lived in was old but heroic. It survived the revolution, civil war, collectivization, purges, this war, and it was surviving socialism on top of everything else. It almost was not damaged and, therefore, it was overloaded with people. Everyone needed a place to live. For many of these people even a communal apartment was an improvement compared to what they were left with after the war. I don't really know but I don't think too many people complained. After all, the war was over and they were alive while some thirty million good people were not. Everyone had a job and enough money to survive, and the Party promised a shining future in no time.

You had differences with a neighbor from the room at the end of the corridor? A few drinks and anything pickled on payday and you were pals again or enemies until a few paydays later. A bottle of vodka, boiled potatoes, dark heavy bread and pickled herring with onions can go far as a diplomatic solution to many domestic problems. You drink, you eat, and you tell your neighbor how much you love him. You also tell him that you would love him even more if only he did not piss on the floor in the bathroom or if he turned the lights off when he leaves, or if he beat the crap out of his wife and children somewhat more quietly or in the middle of the day instead of the middle of the night. You both laugh, you drink some more, you hug and kiss and peace is restored until the next problem comes along. Diplomacy worked but force was always in reserve and was used without hesitation when diplomacy failed or the vodka ran out before an agreement was reached. Sometimes too much vodka clouded the otherwise cool brains and fighting would prematurely end the almost successful negotiations. Well, there is time for talks and there is time for action. Who can tell when one should end and the other start? We all tried to follow the social rules and we thought them normal. Who knew anything different?

There was a little courtyard inside the perimeter of the building and we children used to play there all the time. The place had very little: a crudely built sand box, a couple of barely living trees, a few tough bushes, two wooden benches, a swing and a sometimes working fountain. The courtyard was well isolated from the outside world and all apartments had at least one window facing it so mothers and grandmothers felt comfortable letting children play there without supervision. There was an iron gate to the street but it was always fastened with a heavy chain and a padlock. It was considered a safe place for the kids of our building. After all, at least one of parents would be looking out the window at any given time. That was a fact. So, we kids - and there were not too many of us - spent all the available time there, even during the winter. It was regarded as good because we city children could use some fresh air in the city of rains, dirt and factory chimneys. Well it was fresher than the air inside the old apartments with no air conditioning or any ventilation system. Everything was polluted but some places were polluted less than others. The little courtyard was one of these places.

One morning, two teenagers about fourteen or fifteen years old came over to the little girl I was playing with and me. Her name was Alla and she was a daughter of our neighbors. I mean the next-door neighbors from the communal apartment we lived in. They were Russians and they had lived in the same apartment with my family for about ten years. I think the war was not over yet when they moved in. Alla and I were of the same age and my mother nursed both of us at the same time because Alla's mother had no milk and formula was not really yet known in the Soviet Union. Alla and I were like brother and sister, and very close. We were good friends and I still remember her with warmest feelings.

One of teenagers stopped, looked at all of us in the sandbox and by the fountain, lighted a rough Russian papirosa "Sever" and proudly addressed the sandbox.

"These are Jews, children." He pointed at me and at another very skinny boy of six or seven. "You should not play with the Jews. The Jews, the British and the French just attacked our brothers Arabs in Egypt. They are aggressors. Jews are not good and should not be trusted. The Communist Party teaches that the hard working Arabs are our friends and brothers and we should always help them in their struggle with imperialism. Jews are the international imperialists and they provoked the war so they could kill our brothers Arabs. This was all because of the Jews. My father said that the Great Patriotic War was because of the Jews and it was too bad that Germans did not kill all of them when they had a chance. You know my father works in the regional party office. He is a leader, a teacher, and he knows the truth."

The other teenager supported him by shouting, "Hey you, little dirty Jews. Hey, you, Zhids. (That's Polish and Ukrainian for a Jew and is commonly used in Eastern Europe as an insult.) Why don't you go to Israel where we keep all Jews before killing them?"

"Leave us alone. Go away. Mama!" screamed my little friend and milk sister Alla.

The first teenager shut her up by knocking her over with a powerful kick. She fell down crying and I tried to jump on him but two smaller boys that were played by the fountain had begun hitting me. The other Jewish boy and Alla went for help calling for anyone to come down and help. I thought of fighting back but it seemed useless so I just lay there and tried to present as small a target as possible, covering my face and taking hits from four or five boys. They were older and bigger than I was and they hit me heavily. I was bleeding and in pain, and my spirit - never mind my self-esteem - was low.

I don't know how long it took but a building superintendent stopped the fight. Let's call what it was - a massacre. He was a good man even if he was always drunk. Being drunk was and still is fashionable in Russia. But back then it was a must, especially for an apartment building super. Russians constantly used two descriptive examples of being really drunk - drunk as a super and drunk as a shoemaker. It seemed to me that these two professions drove people of good character to a state of perpetual drunkenness. Was it a work-related condition? A professional hazard? I wonder.

Anyway, he stopped the fight screaming, "Stop it. Stop it, you idiots! What are you doing? Don't you know? Don't you learn anything in school? They are our Jews and our Jews are good. They are almost as good as the Gypsies. Leave them alone. Our Jews are better than any other Jews. Don't you see, they are our Jews and that makes them better? Our Jews are better Jews. Go away, punks. Get lost or I'll call the militiaman. He'll rip your ears off."

He picked me up and helped me home. He knew where and how everyone lived. That was his business to know and to inform. He helped me because I was badly beaten and bleeding from my nose and mouth and one of my ribs was badly bruised. He took me home and got from my mother his ruble for vodka. A good deed had to be rewarded at all times or there would be no motivation in the future for good deeds. The super knew it, my mother knew it and the whole Soviet country knew it and kept the tradition up.

In the evening my father came home from work, and my mother told him the story. He sat me on his lap and told me who the Jews and the Americans, the French, the British, the Gypsies and the Germans were. He told me about the war and the Holocaust of the Jews. He told me about hatred and about tolerance. He told me about Israel and what was going on there. He told me what he knew but I could not understand much. All I could really remember was that Jews in Israel were fighting back and I was a Jew as well. That's what the boys in the courtyard said and that's what my father had just now confirmed. If the Jews in Israel fought back, I also had to fight back. My father said that Jews would not submit to the enemy and die without fighting anymore. He said that Jews would not go to the slaughter quietly, as sheep, without resistance again. He said: "Never again. Remember, son, never again."

Next morning I saw my enemies in the courtyard. All of them were sitting there on the bench and the teenagers were sharing papirosas with the young ones. I went downstairs ready to face them. I had a long stick, a handle from the old shovel, which I had found a few days earlier and kept for good use in the future. This was a good use.

"Hey, Zhid, what have you got there? Come over a show it to us," yelled one of teenagers, laughing.

I came over looking at their faces with curiosity. My stick was in my right hand ready for anything.

"You, Zhid!"

I was swinging already. I did not care where my blows landed. As far as I was concerned, any part of the body was good. Did they care about their blows? It did not take long and all four of them were crowding in the corner by the bush crying and pleading for mercy. The building super showed up in time. He took my stick away from me and dragged me home. My father was home and he was going to tell my father.

"Ivan, did you say that these four boys were the same boys who attacked him yesterday?" my father asked and shifted his eyes from scared me to the righteous super.

"Yes, comrade." I think Ivan was a fair man. My father thanked him and gave him a ruble for a drink.

"Why did you do it?"

I had to answer that question. My father was waiting. "Because they started it and because what you told me. You said, 'Never again.'" I was ready for the punishment, whatever it should be. I knew my father did not approve of fighting.

"So, there were four of them?"

"Yes, papa." I did not know where it was going to and I was not comfortable at all.

"You must be hungry. Do you want a sandwich?" He did not look or sounded angry.

"No, thank you. I can wait for dinner." I was a little confused. I was not certain that I did the right thing but they started it and they beat my friends and me. "Are you angry with me, papa?"

"No. But listen. You should never reserve fighting as your first choice. No matter what the insult was, walk away from a fight if you can. Turn the other cheek. But if you can't, don't hesitate to defend yourself and the ones you love and, if it's necessary, strike first. Make sure to learn when to walk away and when to fight and never bend your head to someone undeserving. Learn right from wrong. Be proud of being a Jew. It is not a shame; it's an honor. This is an honor we have to carry throughout our lives generation after generation. Stay proud but be fair to everyone regardless of who they are." He smiled and went back to the book he was reading.

That was my first lesson in politics and my first political experience.