The Stars Bear Witness by Bernard Goldstein hcdj wolf mem x library - libri usati

THE STARS BEAR WITNESS by BERNARD GOLDSTEIN TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY LEONARD SHATZKIN The Viking Press New York 1949 TO MY BELOVED AND UNFORGETTABLE COMRADE, FRIEND, AND TEACHER, SHLOIME MENDELSOHN MAY I. ABOUT THE AUTHOR H VER since I was a boy I have heard about Comrade Ber nard. - 1 To me he was always an almost legendary hero, a sort of Robin Hood or Jesse James. To the hundreds of thousands of Jews of Poland he has for many years been a real champion, fighting against very near and very unromantic enemies. My father left Poland at the end of the First World War to avoid military service against the young revolutionary regime in Russia. He brought with him to America the spirit of the Jewish Socialist movement which had been his life in the old country. In the evenings he and his fellow immigrants would gather to sing the old revolutionary songs, to talk about the old days, the illegal political activity, the narrow escapes from the Czarist police. The name of Comrade Bernard always figured in their conversations. The interest of the Jewish Socialist immigrants was not entirely nostalgic. They kept very well informed of events in their former homeland, and especially of the activities of the General Jewish Socialist Labor Union the Bund. From time to time the Bund would send a delegate to the United States, usually to raise money for a new printing plant, for equipping a theater, for expanding the Medem Sanatorium for children, or for some other of the organizations many projects. These visits were always holidays l Much of the information, in this preface is taken from the short bio graphical sketch by J. S. Herz in the Yiddish edition of this work, Fmf Yor in Warshaver Ghetto.ABOUT THE AUTHOR for me. I was allowed to stay up late and to sit at the feet of our guest as he told about the Jews of Poland. Again and again the talk would turn to Comrade Bernard, and I would listen in wide-eyed wonder to the stories of the wonderful things he did. For me they were glimpses into an exciting world the most lurid tales of cowboys and Indians paled before them. And they were also glimpses into a real world, where real people struggled for their lives. Bernard Goldstein was born in Shedltze, just three hours from Warsaw, in 1889, His was a generation destined to contribute its best sons to the mounting revolutionary tide in Eastern Europe, and he joined the stream early. At the age of thirteen his imagina tion was already fired by stories of anti-Czarist agitation in War saw brought home by his two older brothers. He began to read forbidden revolutionary literature and attend the meetings of underground youth groups. At sixteen he had his baptism of fire. In May 1905, during Russias war against Japan, four hundred people gathered secretly in the Yugan Forest near Bernards home. The meeting was organized by the Bund, at that time a young Jewish political party. Suddenly the group was surrounded by a large contingent of cavalry and foot-soldiers, Who is the speaker the commander, Officer Kosakov, de manded angrily. No one answered. Give him up he shouted. The crowd maintained its stub born silence. Swords out Kosakov ordered. The people moved closer together, locked arms, and defiantly began to sing revolutionary songs. The horses plowed into the crowd. Swords and bayonets were wielded without mercy. When Kosakov finally called a halt, eighty people lay wounded. Theentire assemblage was then arrested. At the Shedltze jail ABOUT THE AUTHOR they were made to run between two rows of soldiers who beat them as they passed. For the rest of his life Bernard was to wear the scar of a saber cut on his chin. He, a sixteen-year-old boy, ran the gauntlet and was sent to the hospital with the badly wounded. Almost immediately he escaped. Under his bloody clothing, wrapped tightly around his body, was the red flag of the Bund, which must never fall into the hands of the enemy...