A Chosen Few - Mark Kurlansky [121]
Viktor Feuerlicht now led the services in the Old-New Synagogue. But he, too, had been contemplating leaving. He only wore a yarmulke indoors and did not make an outward display of his Orthodoxy. Still, he was the cantor and was seen regularly at the synagogue. No new apartment or opportunity was ever available for him. He still lived in a shabby postwar apartment with his wife and two sons who could not expect to have many career possibilities. With the “normalization” they would probably have even fewer choices. One of his sons had gone to England to study mathematics, and after the occupation he decided not to come back. But Viktor still had trouble with his arm, injured during the war; and Czechoslovakia had a good, free health-care system that looked after hirn.
Under “normalization,” even apolitical people were worried about what they told their children. If children heard something different at home than at school, they might say the wrong thing at school. The Skalas did not talk very much about Jewish affairs and said even less about political affairs in front of their daughters.
Czechoslovakia's only teacher of modern Hebrew had to leave the country because of articles written by her journalist husband. As they left for Vienna, she asked BedrTch Nosek to take over the course. Nosek called it “a miracle” that all during the long hard “normalization” years, he was able to teach modern Hebrew to regular classes of up to eighty students. Of course, some of his students were called in to official offices and politely interrogated about why they were studying Hebrew. Nosek was also periodically questioned about his materials. The regime had to make certain he was not using Zionist books. But since his books were in Hebrew, they could only guess at their contents. Nosek would always assure them that they were normal language books. This response worked until an influential man from the Soviet Union, a director of adult language programs, arrived in 1982. Meeting with the heads of the school board, he simply asked, “How can you be teaching modern Hebrew? Isn't it Zionist propaganda?” After he left Czechoslovakia, Nosek's course was quietly canceled.
In the early years of “normalization,” many people were being questioned. The Krauses had hesitated too long in West Berlin before returning, and they had some explaining to do. Even Karol Wassermann was called in, the art-collecting apolitical pharmacist. That was the way Wassermann thought of himself, but another view was that he was a nonparty member, seen regularly not only at the Old-New Synagogue but at rehearsals for theater pieces that were now banned. He decided not to tell his wife when he was called in. She was a Protestant and had not been through the experiences he had. To him, it seemed nothing that terrible could happen now. If it went very badly, he could lose his job. He hated his job.
After more than an hour of questioning—normally such sessions lasted fifteen minutes—Wassermann started to get that taut, ironic look to his face that was always a prelude to losing his temper. He told the three men questioning him what he really thought of the Russians and the occupation. After two hours he was sent home. Later, he was informed to his complete astonishment that while he had been very critical, he had criticized with “a Marxist vocabulary.” He was removed from his job but was sent to direct another pharmacy, one that he was convinced was the smallest pharmacy in Prague.
ZUZANA SIMKO had been to Israel three years earlier and had met her half-sister, who had told her the stories their mother never spoke about: how Slovaks had hidden them during the war and an informer had turned them in. Zuzana's half-sister was hidden in corn husks, the father was beaten to death, and their mother escaped. After two months in Israel, Zuzana went back to Slovakia to her parents and her home in Nitra in the building full of Jewish families where they kept kosher and observed the Sabbath and every holiday. In Zuzana's