• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2498 0

of Odessa sabotage. The local officials proved the worst shirkers we had ever come across in Russia. From the highest commissar to the last barishnya (young woman) typist they made it a habit of coming to work two hours late and quitting an hour earlier than closing time. Often the clerk’s window would be shut right in the face of an applicant who had spent hours waiting his turn, only to be told that it was “too late” and to come tomorrow. We received almost no assistance in our work from the Soviet authorities. “Too busy, without a minute to spare,” they would assure us. Yet most of them stood about smoking cigarettes and talking by the hour, while the “young ladies” were engaged in polishing their nails and rouging their lips. It was the most open and shameless official parasitism.

The Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, created specially to fight this kind of sabotage, seemed to take little interest in the purpose of their existence. Most of them were notorious speculators, and if anyone wanted tsarist or Kerensky money changed, though the practice was strictly forbidden, he would be advised to go to some well-known official to have the transaction attended to. “Ordinary citizens are shot for such speculation,” a well-known Bundistb commented to us, “but who can touch these officials? They all work hand in glove.” The corruption and autocracy of the highest Soviet circles were an open secret in the city, the man related. The Cheka in particular was nothing more than a gang of cut-throats. Extortion, bribery, and indiscriminate shooting of victims who could not pay were its common practices. It was a frequent occurrence that big speculators, sentenced to die, were set free by the Cheka for the payment of exorbitant ransom. Another practice was to notify the relatives of some prominent prisoner that he had been executed. While the family would be plunged in grief, a Cheka emissary would arrive to inform them that it had been a mistake. The condemned man was still alive, but only a certain sum, invariably very large, could save his life. Family and friends would divest themselves of everything to secure the necessary amount, and the money was always accepted. There would come no more emissaries to explain that the alleged mistake had been no mistake at all. If anyone dared show signs of protest, he would be arrested and shot for “attempting to corrupt” the Cheka. Almost every morning at dawn a truckload of those that were to die would clatter down “Cheka Street” at a furious pace towards the outskirts of the city. The doomed ones were forced to lie in the wagon face down, their hands and feet tied, armed guards standing over them. Chekists on horseback accompanied the truck, shooting at anyone who showed himself at an open window along their route. A narrow strip of red in the path of the returning truck would be all that was left to tell the story of those taken on their last ride to be razmenyat (destroyed).

The Bundist called again a few days later in the company of a friend whom he introduced as Dr. Landesman, a Zionist and member of a circle that included the famous Jewish poet Byalek and other public-spirited men.36 No doubt we knew, the doctor said, that Rosh Hashona was at hand, and he would be happy to have us celebrate the great day together in the company of his family. We confessed that we had not been aware of the approach of the Jewish New Year, but we were Jews enough to want to spend the holiday with him.

The home of the Landesman family, adjoining his former private clinic, now turned into a Soviet sanatorium, was beautifully situated. Perched on a high elevation, it was buried amidst a profusion of trees and shrubbery on one side, while the other faced the Black Sea, its waters beating against the foot of the hill. [ ... ]

We were sitting on the terrace, the samovar before us, the sky streaked with blue and amethyst, the sun a ball of fire slowly sinking into the Black Sea. The city with all its terror and suffering seemed far off, and the green bowered nook an idyll. If it would last awhile longer,