Fiddler on the Roof

(NOTICE: Look for new blogs daily May 24 to 31. My 21-year-old grandson, Doug Schumann, will be visiting June 1 to 7, and I will not be posting during his visit.)

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Texans jumped up out of their seats and clapped their hands in deafening applause, giving Topol a standing ovation at the end of “Fiddler on the Roof.” To them the musical about of a poor Jewish family in 19th Century Russia was great entertainment. I wondered if any in that audience had grandparents who came to America after a pogrom, as Tevye’s family does at the end of show we saw on stage in Dallas.

“Wasn’t that great! Wasn’t that great!” our leader kept repeating as he herded my friend and me, along with other members of the group from Garland’s First Baptist Church, onto the bus. This was the same minister who, in introducing our bus driver, stumbled over the man’s Polish name, then, as he called the role to check that all us old people were on board, joked about us having “American names,” like Clark, Hays, and Williams. Sounds like a law firm, but those typical Texas names were all on the bus.

As a writer, I use my maiden name. But in my “social” life, my name is Polish. My husband’s father was born in Poland when it was part of Russia. He came to America before World War I to escape being conscripted into the czar’s army. His four sons all proudly served the U.S. in World War II. John was with the U.S. Army when it met the Russians at the Elbe. He hated the Russians.

In New York years ago, in a corridor outside the General Assembly of the United Nations, a friend presented me to a Polish diplomat. At that time Poland was under the domination of the Soviet Union, so I was surprised when this Communist “comrade,” kissed my hand. I introduced him to my teenage son and daughter, saying, “These children were born in one of the largest Polish cities in the World.”

“Chicago or Milwaukee?” said the diplomat.

At the beginning of the 19th Century, Chicago burgeoned with immigrants from many countries. The biggest group came from Poland, all searching for The American Dream. Michael Durkalski’s grandsons are millionaires. They live in the suburbs. The majority of the people in Chicago today are blacks, immigrants from the South, like Michelle Obama’s family.

Most of Chicago’s “Pollocks” are Roman Catholics, like the Durkalskis, but as a young bride I knew Laura, and 45 years later met Ralph. Both were Chicago Jews whose grandparents came from Russia, like Tevye’s family, to escape persecution. In Albuquerque a good friend was Abe, a former New Yorker, who gave me a Christmas present with a card to “Darling Ilene.” His mother came from Poland, his father from Russia. All he knew about his ancestors was that they were Jews and they were poor.

The dearest of my Jewish friends was Etta, also from Chicago. She was born in Russia, at Odessa on the Black Sea. We met as roommates at an Elderhostel in China. I was in my mid-60's. Etta was much older – she did not tell me her exact age – and when I was ill, with diarrhea and coughing as if my lungs were coming out my throat (all but two of our group became ill in China), Etta fussed over me like the stereotype of a Jewish mother tending a sick child.

Each time I visited my daughter in Naperville, I went into Chicago to see Etta, once at the Art Institute. She always insisted on paying for my lunch and invited me to come stay with her at her beautiful apartment with a view of Lake Michigan. A kind, generous friend.

On the wall in Etta’s bedroom she showed me a large framed photograph, made in Russia at the celebration of her grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. Her grandmother, prim in high-button shoes and ankle-length black dress, and her grandfather, with long, gray beard and yamaka on his head, surrounded by their large extended family. Sitting on the floor in front was Etta with other small children. Etta pointed out her cousins, herself, aunts and uncles with their spouses (Etta named them all), and on the back row, her parents.

“See that little girl holding a doll,” she said. “That’s my cousin. She was fussing, so they gave her my doll to hold. But that’s MY doll.”

Then she added, “I’m the only one left.”

Soon after the photo was made, her mother died, and her father brought Etta and her brother to America. Now her father and brother also are dead. Etta has children and grandchildren. As for the others in the old photo and their descendants, “All were lost during World War II,” Etta said. “We don’t know whether it was Germans or Russians, but all are gone.”

A few years ago, on a cruise of the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea, the ship stopped at Odessa. Etta went ashore and found the apartment house where the family lived when she was a child. No one there knew anything about anyone in her family; no one remembered their name.

Is that the subject for a musical comedy?