A Chosen Few - Mark Kurlansky [113]
Joanna Wiszniewicz was a Warsaw student at the time. She knew that the government would have to react to the demonstration. She didn't know what they would do, but she felt that she had to demonstrate. She couldn't act afraid. What could they do? “I felt safe in this country with its socialist ideals.” The first shock came when she found herself with hundreds of others fleeing from policemen who were mowing through the demonstrators with clubs. A bigger shock came two days later, when she bought a newspaper and read that the entire protest had been carried out by Jews.
This was astounding. She didn't recall anything ever being said about Jews. She was Jewish, though she only learned that when she was ten years old, and she had never even been to a synagogue. Suddenly, Zionists were supposedly everywhere, and the newspapers were full of warnings. Comic slogans were being used with deadly seriousness. She read phrases such as “Moishe, go to Israel!” and “Zionists, go to Dayan!” Now Jews were being expelled not only from the party but from their jobs and even schools. Well-established careers ended abruptly, with a quick message that their services were no longer needed.
Konstanty Gebert was 15 when he was expelled from his school as a “political security risk.” His father was an old-time Communist labor organizer in Detroit who had been one of the founders of the Communist Party of America and had returned to Poland after the war. Konstanty had grown up in elite circles and lived much of his childhood abroad while his father served in diplomatic posts. His mother was Jewish. By escaping to the Soviet Union, she became one of four people in her family to survive the war. His parents had met through their common Communist ideology, and that was the family religion. Then suddenly, at the age of 15, Konstanty's long, sixties-style hair was clipped off in front of the school with the pronouncement, “This is not a Jewish school. We don't wear long hair.” A yellow star of David was painted on his desk. It was all so silly, he thought, the way grown-ups acted. He couldn't believe this was all happening.
Even grown-ups could see this purge was not without its comic aspects. An insignificant factory engineer with a Jewish name was dismissed as a Zionist. He went to the government with his World War II Latvian certificate, which had established to Nazi satisfaction that he was of good “Aryan” stock. The government apologized and reinstated him.
It was both a thrilling and confusing time for a fifteen-year-old boy. Once Konstanty was thrown out of school, he was free to demonstrate. Coming home from his first demonstration, although he arrived home three hours late, he felt triumphant. This was a Communist household, and he had been on the streets fighting the cops for freedom and equality. Breathlessly, he told his father, the veteran Detroit organizer, about his day. Now he, too, had a story like his father's stories, and his father would be proud. But instead, his father was angry and made him stay in the house for three days. The old veteran was also a father and did not want his son to be beaten up on the street.
Then something even more confusing happened. Konstanty was walking in his neighborhood, not far from the Polonia Hotel, in an area where enough