The Rabbi Who Tricked Stalin Read online

There was a woman in the POMDAT social work office, who had slandered about Natalya. She was called Davidovna, and heard from her husband that recently ‘Stalin’s people’ or ‘Our men’ have been chasing Trotskists. She recollected, that once she had listened to Natalya’s talk in the Department’s corridor: “An equal opportunity should be given to each individual in the communist State,” she told her collegue, another social worker, “We all agree to that, don’t we? But only the leader Lev Davidovitch Trotsky had brought this Equality principle to practice: Yes, in the Red Army, that he had established. Trotsky’s Socialistic theory is true and pure . .. Stalin is only an Administrator of Lenin. What matters to him - is only that the communists will remain in power, and rule us, the simple citizens. No matter what society really need. For Stalin – communism is only a word.”

  Well, now- this ‘evidence’ of Davidovna, who believed that a characteristic Trotskist could be identified by his ‘Jidov-Jewish face, eagle nose and so on‘- had been enough for Gepau chaps to trace Natalya and attack her. But they still had no ‘written evidence’ from Natalya herself, that she had been long conspiring. Therefore two gangs penetrated her ‘corner seat’ in the POMDAT office. They were seated there, checking file after file that Natalya had opened for the poor families under her control. In each one there were written details of the children and teenagers and their troubles. Quite at the beginning of their search, these Gepaus found ‘something suspicious’ in her desk’s drawer. It was her black copybook, which was her diary. She used to write there a ‘monthly visits’ schedule’ as any ordinary, organized and disciplined person would do.

  As we know, in the previous day Natalya was very confused and frustrated, due to her quarrel with Elya. She had forgotten the black copybook in her office. Worse then that: in the internal surface of the diary’s hard cover - there was a postcard. The searchers had raised the said copybook to look what it was exactly, and that postcard fell down on the floor.

  Comrade Kuragin from Gepau saw that, and raised it by his fingers. He was looking and wondering how lucky he was, because it had a foreign stamp on it. That matter should bring him fame, as it will be handled by the highest hierarchy of the secret police, comrade Antonov.. . On the stamp there had been a portray of some capitalist, and though the latin letters were not well known to him, Kuragin understood the word AMERICA on it. He brought the letter very quickly to Gepau’s main office. The Jewish interpreter and chief clerk of Antonov was summarizing its contents, while simultaneously reading it loudly to his boss:

  “It seems like this letter is full of mysterious secret codes,” he said to Antonov, when he submitted to him the Russian written postcard. Antonov read it too, and looked again at the stamp. He roared at the poor obedient man:

  “Don’t be lazy, carcass! Write me a note- what words may be codes or secrets signs, that we can make use of. Even try to guess what the censor had erased there by his dark ink! ”

  The clerk humbly nodded. He soon concentrated in his re-reading the postcard, and wrote some words on a neat white page. Then he read again, in whisper, the following remarkable literary piece of art, written in tiny Kyril Russian letters:

  “To my dear brother and to my sister-in-law Estherl, many kisses and best wishes from Gittel Wasserman–Hittin in America...Years have passed since we departed in the forest somewhere. After that - you sent me the invitation to your wedding. It is the fifth time since then - that I try to write to you, but I have not received any answers. I hope that you are well, and that hard time of civil war and economic difficulties in Russia- had passed, and that no more communication and post deterioration will happen in ********** (it seems that here was written ‘the Soviet Post’, but the tight censor cancelled these words by smearing thick black ink on them). I bless you again. Have a good luck and find happiness and health in your life, hopefully you have already wonderfull children. I would like to know how they feel, and please enclose some photos in you revert letter. As for myself, I was married four years ago to my fiance Mennes (Here he is : Mandy). He is a salesman, and works a lot to make a living for us. I am a mother to two young boys, Zalman and Michel,(here they’ll be called Solomon and Mike). Write me very soon. . .”

  CHAPTER 14