A Lost World: the Galician Shtetl and Siberia

The lost world of East European Jews meets the lost world of life under the Soviet rule. From the Galician shtetl of Mos ́ciska (Mostyska)―now in Ukraine near the Polish border―the memoir follows a Jewish family through two World Wars, deportation to a labour settlement under the Soviet regime, through Central Asia, the Middle East, to America. These are the lost worlds that the author vividly brings to life. Holding onto Jewish tradition, surviving mass human rights violations. The vast majority of Polish Jews, who survived the Second World War, did so as refugees and deportees in the Soviet Union. Meier Landau and his family escaped the Germans from Kraków, but were deported by the Soviets from Lviv, along with thousands of other Polish―Catholic and Jewish―families. This text is a testament to the power of remembering―a poignant reading when war and refugees are present again where this real-life story unfolds. “Expertly annotated and edited by Lidia Zessin-Jurek, Meier Landau’s painstakingly detailed memoir reconstructs an extraordinary odyssey of Polish Jewish life, death, and survival from the First World War through the Second. The collaboration between historian Zessin-Jurek, language editor Laura Garland and George Landau who lived this story as a child offers us a history still too little known: a complex evocative portrait of Jewish family life and communal organization from a Galician shtetl to harsh refuge from National Socialism in the Soviet Union and the extended transit experience in wartime Iran. We need more accounts like this one; we are lucky to now have this volume.” Atina Grossmann Professor of History, Cooper Union, New York City Table of Contents Foreword Introduction: Long Jewish Roads to Safety – Meier Landau’s Life as a Refugee Notes on Editing Meier Landau A Lost World: The Galician Shtetl and Siberia Dedication Part I My Early Childhood Grandfather Meier’s Business Mościska Mother – A Progressive Woman in the Shtetl My Parents’ Marriage Father’s Business: A Flour Mill My Education Other Members of My Family My Boyhood The Holidays and the Impressions They Left on Me in My Youth Father’s Struggle for Our Sustenance Problems With My Education Gimnazjum Leaving Home for My Third Grade at the Gimnazjum Sister Lusia’s Marriage and Wedding On Marriages and Wedding Customs Sister Adela’s Marriage As Refugees in Vienna Drafted Into the Austrian Army Officer’s School Occupation Forces in Russia Return to Vienna My Family’s Return to Poland My Life in Vienna Visits Home to My Family Doctoral Thesis and the Interwar Years Part II The Russians Are Coming What Happened to the Trade? American Dollar Under Russian Occupation Changes in the Employment Market Nationalization of Private Industry Nationalization of Stores and Houses The militsiya and the Secret Police Daily Life The Refugee Problem: Crossing the Border Daily Routine Again The First Deportations The Soviet-German “Repatriation Plan” The Second Deportation Arriving at the Station On Our Way to Soviet Russia Siberian Destination The Big Lie Families Torn Apart Arrival at the Labor Camp Lumberjacks in the Woods of Ural Working Conditions Religion in the Labor Camp Food and Supplies Clothing The First Winter in the Woods Medical Care and Sanitation Being a Patient Our Wages and Our Payment Life in the Posiolok The Russian Way of Life Reunited Posiolok Topliovka Informing, Reporting, and Denunciation The Soviet Idea of Responsibility The Outbreak of the German-Soviet War Liberation From Our Deportee Status On Our Way to Sarapul Along the Kama River Arrival in Sarapul Sailing South Along the Volga Inmates From Corrective Labor Camps Arrival in Astrakhan On Our Way to Guryev and Uzbekistan (Central Asia) Our Arrival in Bukhara About Bukhara and Uzbekistan Changes in Our Situation, June 1942 Death by Typhus, Death by Hunger Runek The Russian Army The Polish Army and Welfare Organization in the USSR Typhus in My Family Polish Exodus From the USSR, August 1942 After the Polish Evacuation Kermine The Soviet Ars Vivendi Passportization Selling Our Last Possessions Leaving Kermine and Uzbekistan Starting Our Journey to Ashkhabad Leaving Ashkhabad for the Iranian Border Crossing the Russian-Iranian Border At the Iranian Border Arrival in Meshed Teheran The Jewish Agency and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee The Joint Our Private Life in Teheran Life in Teheran During Our Stay in Occupied Iran My Family’s Departure for America My Departure From Teheran Afterword Image Section Index