Letters from Lida - 7, 71

Translated by Lena Gorina-Black

Translator’s note: This letter is, from the vocabulary and style, written by a well-educated person, probably a member of the Bund. The “war and revolution” which made him and possibly his family return to Lida were either World War I, the Russian Revolution in 1917, or the increase in antisemitic pogroms which occurred during the civil war in the nascent Soviet Union (1918-1921), when "kill the Jews and Bolsheviks" became a motto of some groups. He also may have wished to avoid fighting on some side of the civil war or/and returned to Lida to be on the Polish side of the Polish-Russian border (during the Polish-Russian war of February 1919 – March 1921, the Red Army and Polish Army entered and left Lida, and after the 1921 peace treaty, Lida officially belonged to Poland).

This letter was accidentally split into two parts at some time.

Lida, December 8. 1926

My dear and lovely Fanichka!

With true joy and deep satisfaction I received your nice letter, for which I thank you from all my heart, and will be immensely happy to keep our corresponding regularly. It seems to me that nobody besides me is capable to understand so deeply what a pleasure is to receive a letter from your homeland, where you grew up and where all your childhood memories are. I am saying “nobody besides me” because I have had a period in my life similar to what you are going through now. It was my fate to leave behind the loving nest of my parents at 14 years of age and go to Odessa. That was 30 years ago. Odessa is a “former” southern beauty, and although it let me find myself very soon, I was nostalgic for a rather long time <“former”: to belong to the tsar’s Russia, used ironically here >. But time does not stop, it writes its own story, and at some point not only did I stop missing Lida but I even could not understand how people could be satisfied with life in the city where the climate is rather severe, not even knowing what the sea or other attractions that distinguish Odessa are; thus my relations <in Lida> started seeming pitful to me, while I considered myself lucky, and without doubt I and my offspring would be still happy <there> if it had not be for the war and revolution that forced me to return to my homeland. But my story was written at a time when the old “Israel” was sleeping quietly, and we, the Israelites, were not living for ourselves, but without dreams and without expectations. But your story, my dear Fanechka, is being written at a completely different, blissful time, full of hopes and expectations. A time when grandfather “Israel” finally woke up from his deep sleep, when he is filled with dreams and energy and with strong belief in himself. I name you, and you deserve it, a daughter of Israel whose destiny is not only witnessing a rebirth of our country –homeland of Israel’s people and their ancestors, but even active participation in this rebirth, this sacred idea.

My dearest! I know, this particular period of your young life is hard and not filled with roses, but the holy sense why you took on yourself this heavy burden, why you decided to part from your relatives and sacrifice everything that you were capable of, will give you strength and energy to work and to fight for the benefit of our people and our holy wanderer<probably means Jewish people>. I am sure that in this hard work and struggle you will also find your personal happiness.

Most importantly, my dearest, do not be sad about leaving your motherland, here <not clear> life is hard and not happy at all. Of course, I am not talking about little bourgeois mammy’s girls who, absorbed in their personal interests, do not care about the future of their own people.

The first page of the letter

Page 5

absolutely any job, every work that you happened to do, perform with love and devotion and only by doing that you will bring a colossal goodness to the idea to which you are faithful, and also to yourself.

So, finishing the foreword to this letter I will get to the subject, that is, to the substance.

From your letter I made a conclusion that you, thank God, are used now to your circumstances and that makes me happy, but I know of many occasions when young people with unstable views were ready to change their positions too often. As an old Russian proverb says: “Endure, kazak, and you will be a chief.” In whatever conditions you live over there, I assure you that it is better than in Lida., where youth cannot find a place because of nothing to do and the surrounding stupidity. In your letter you described for me your looks at this time and from this description I make a conclusion that your personality is even more interesting than it was here, and if to add attractiveness of your Arabic-looking eyes I am surprised that you still don’t have any “captive,” or maybe you already have? Yesterday, I was at your parents with your aunt, and everything is the same over there, as it was. I personally don’t have any news, one day resembles another, and that is how we lead our prosaic life <golus ?> in Lida, and to me it is even doubly prosaic because, although I was born in Lida, I love Odessa more, and even more I love Palestine. My health is as it was before, without changes, your aunt also misses Odessa, and especially the children missed it. We did not have any letters from Odessa for a long time, and God knows what happened to Benyamin. (1) Ida, as previously, is doing her duty in the theater (2); Frida is in the VI-th grade of the city Gymnasium, and Arkasha – “the Pole” is in the II-nd grade of Panskovaya Gymnasium (3). He is wonderfully a nice “guy”. In Lida itself there is no news. Everybody is doing nothing, as they did before, fooling around and idling. By the way, I heard that Girsh (4) married the second time the daughter of Ilutovich (<Yiddish or Hebrew>. I have not seen Girsh yet, so don’t know any details. Have you met Wolf, how is he doing? I am surprised that all this time I did not receive a single word from him, and I counted him as a best friend and pleasant conversationalist. I think we talked about everything, enough for this time, and if you will be interested we can exchange letters often. Kiss you with love and send you my best wishes. Your devoted and loving uncle Lev.

Dear Fanichka! With heartfelt regards and kisses, your aunt Anisa.

Hug and kiss you with love, Your Ida

Arkadiush <star of David symbol>

I am sending to you my best wishes and wish you all the best. Frida.

Middle portion of the letter, with Uncle Lev's signature and note from Aunt "Anisa" at the bottom right

Last page of the letter with notes from Ida, Arkadiush, and Frida

This is the end of letter 7. Lev is her paternal uncle, married to Channah Tsigelnitsky – “Anisa”.

(1) Benyamin – Possibly a brother-in-law? The name does not appear in the Pupko family at this time.
(2) Besides the obvious movie theater position of cashier, Ida might have sung before or between shows, or she might have been the accompanist for silent films. -- That is what we'd think from an American perspective. However, this era was the Golden Age of Yiddish theater in the Soviet Union, so she might have been involved in any of a number of positions in a live theater, as well. This link, to a review of the exhibtion, might be more permanent.
(3) Lev and Channah’s children were Frida, Ida, and Aharon – Arkadiush, Arkasha. The entire family was murdered in the Holocaust.
(4) Girsh Pupko, son of Abraham Pupko, one of Lev’s brothers. His wife’s name was Lena.

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