A Chosen Few - Mark Kurlansky [19]
ICCHOK FINKELSZTAJN'S cERTAINTY about his decision to move from Lodz to Paris was a little shaken when he finally arrived at the Gare du Nord. After days of bumping across Europe, as he made his way from the high-roofed ironwork railroad station and out into his first Parisian day, his first thought was, “This is what they call the city of light?”
There had been more light back in Lddz, with its wide streets and ornate buildings. Even in the smaller ghetto streets there had been more light. It was 1931, and the buildings of Paris had n6t been cleaned for centuries. Everywhere he walked he looked up at blackened buildings.
Still, Finkelsztajn had not had many choices. He was a cabinetmaker, but there was no more work in Lodz. No one had money anymore. Paris was alive, even if it was coated with the color of mourning. The markets were full of food—fruit and vegetables and meat. In Paris, when a man wanted to smoke a cigarette, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack and took one out. When the pack was empty, he would go to any corner store and buy another. In Poland, if a man wanted a cigarette and he had the money for one, he would go to the store and buy a single cigarette to smoke. Sometimes he might buy two or three cigarettes.
As Poland got poorer, moves were made to exclude Jews from universities and to force shops to stay open on Saturdays, which meant that practicing Jews could no longer be shopkeepers. Finkelsztajn had had no intention of going to a university: nor did he observe the Sabbath—or for that matter, any other religious practice. He did not really believe in religion. He believed that the future was socialism, a kind of social justice that would do more to improve the lives of working Jewish people than religion ever had. But he had also heard about an increasing number of Jews who for no apparent reason could not get a license to operate a shop. The old nightmare of Russian times returned—pogroms, those sudden unexplainable violent attacks against whole Jewish communities. Shortly before he left Poland, Kielce, the town of his girlfriend, Dwojra Zylbersztajn, had a pogrom.
Icchok was a small sturdy man, with black hair that was combed back from his square forehead and handsome Semitic features that made him look almost debonair, despite his thick worker's build. Dwojra had a soft fleshy look, a kind of generous maternal bearing, and a warm melon-shaped face and thick hair that strained in waves and frizzes against the pulled-back style of the period. They decided that before they got married, they would leave Poland, The Hasidim were offering vocational training in preparation for aliyah— the return to Israel—and many were moving to Palestine. David Ben-Gurion had visited Poland —under heavy armed guard—in 1933. But Palestine was not for Icchok and Dwojra. They had come from a leftist tradition that considered France the home of liberty. True, France had also been the home of Dreyfus; all Jews knew that. But they also knew that in the end Dreyfus had won, had been returned from Devil's Island and reinstated in the French army.
The plan was for Icchok to go to France first and for Dwojra to follow once he had secured an income. Icchok's sister, Leah, had already moved to Paris and was married to a baker, Korcarz, who was also from Poland. In 1932 the Korcarzes had opened their own bakery. But Icchok rejoiced in hard physical work, fresh air—and light. He did not want to be cooped up in a bakery.
He decided to leave Paris, this dark “city of light,” and went south to the Alps region of France, where there was work even during the Depression. He got a job in an aluminum foundry, applied for his work papers, and thrived on hard labor in the mountain air. He liked the French workers, not only for their way of smoking and their lunch breaks of sour red wine and crusty bread, but also for their camaraderie.