selkie: (raissa)
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Based largely on the fact that there is an Ani diFranco version of 'l'Internationale', I am writing about May Day in the Ghetto. There is a Geto-Yedies for 05/01/42, I think, and a Kruk entry for... let us haul out the enormous cross-referenced pencil-defiled Kruk... the same day. Kruk was, after all, a flaming Bundist. (Wait, I seem to remember the Soviets hates the Bund, my precious... but whatever. History is so confusing when you start picking sides.)

I imagine my ancestress got a little drunk, wore a red carnation until somebody smacked her around for it, and participated in an act of civil disobedience, to the tune of the following:

"Today began with most of the Judenrat employees coming to work half an hour late... In some departments, that demonstration was 100 per cent, for example, in the Department of Health, Provisions, Library, etc. In the schools, classes were interrupted an hour before the fixed [dismissal] time." *

Little enough to say on paper, but what it means is that they ground the Ghetto to a half-hour screeching halt because everyone rolled over and hit the snooze. :) The Department of Provisions ain't here yet! Sorry about that soup kitchen ruckus!

*Kruk, Hermann. The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania. New Haven: Yale University Press/YIVO, 2002.

edited: Raissa's entry for 05/01/42 is "The horse and rider He has cast into the sea." No idea! But it gives me an idea...
Music:: "L'Internationale"
Mood:: 'geeky' geeky
There is 1 comment on this entry. (Reply.)
ext_27060: Sumer is icomen in; llude sing cucu! (Default)
posted by [identity profile] rymenhild.livejournal.com at 02:43pm on 28/03/2004
Just in case you needed the background info, "The horse and rider..." comes from Exodus 15:21. It's read in January or February, so no connection to the parsha of the week in May. I suppose you could make a case for Raissa using a reference to Pharaoh's overthrow/drowning/etc to comment on the injustice of ghetto government, but that's pure speculation.

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