The Accidental Anarchist
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Authors: Bryna Kranzler
Bryna Kranzler
The Accidental Anarchist
From the Diaries of Jacob Marateck
Translated by Shimon Wincelberg and Anita Marateck Wincelberg
Portions of this book appeared in a slightly different form in: The Samurai of Vishigrod: The Notebooks of Jacob Marateck, Retold by Shimon and Anita Wincelberg, © 1976, 1st ed., Published by the Jewish Publication Society of America, Philadelphia, PA;
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Published by Crosswalk Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Bryna Kranzler
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http://www.TheAccidentalAnarchist.com
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my mother, Anita Marateck Wincelberg, who never
gave up her father’s dream of seeing his story told. By sharing her personal
memories of him, as well as his diaries, she has given his voice an ever-lasting resonance while making sure that his unique sense of humor was never lost.
It is also in loving memory of my late father, Shimon Wincelberg, who
spent many years working on his father-in-law's diaries, and published the first portion of them, but sadly was unable to see the project through to completion.
Above all, this book is my gift to Jacob Marateck, the grandfather I never met,
and an individual I wish I had known. His story is proof that it is not the circumstances of our lives that determine who we are, but rather the way we
choose to interpret them that defines our personalities and, to some extent, our destinies.
For Jay, who made it possible for me to write this book
And for Mike and Jesse, who amaze and inspire me daily. I hope you will cherish your legacy and, some day, share it with future generations
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1 --
In The Beginning
Chapter 2 --
How to Become the Czar’s Son-in-Law
Chapter 3 --
A Small Cheer for Corruption
Chapter 4 --
The Fall of ‘Haman’
Chapter 5 --
Ministry of Misinformation
Chapter 6 --
The Lost and Found Battlefield
Chapter 7 --
The Phantom Synagogue
Chapter 8 --
Banzai!
Chapter 9 --
This Way to the Firing Squad
Chapter 10 --
The Second Road to the Left
Chapter 11 --
Walking Wounded
Chapter 12 --
The Loneliest Place on Earth
Chapter 13 --
The Great City of Harbin
Chapter 14 --
The Siberian ‘Queen Esther’
Chapter 15 --
A Bachelor in Vishigrod
Chapter 16 --
A Mess of Matchmakers
Chapter 17 --
An Amateur’s Guide to the Revolution
Chapter 18 --
The Interrogation
Chapter 19 --
Three
Two Days Till the Firing Squad
Chapter 20 --
Farewell to Warsaw
Chapter 21 --
The “King of Thieves”
Chapter 22 --
A Gold Mine at the End of the Earth
Chapter 23 --
Which Way to the North Pole
?
Chapter 24 --
Into the Woods
Chapter 25 --
Down and Out in Chelyabinsk
Chapter 26 --
Everyone Comes to Café Łódź
Chapter 27 --
Osip’s Table
Chapter 28 --
The ‘Paris’ of Siberia
Chapter 29 --
The Irkutsk Jewish Benevolent Society
Chapter 30 --
“BROTHER, WE ARE SAVED!”
Chapter 31 --
Lingering in the Lap of Luxury
Chapter 32 --
An Angel in Siberia
Chapter 33 --
The Price of Paper
Chapter 34 --
The Cost of Money
Chapter 35 --
Return to Warsaw
Chapter 36 --
The Redhead
Chapter 37 --
A Reformed Revolutionary
Epilogue
: by Anita Marateck Wincelberg
Author’s Note
by Bryna Kranzler
THE ACCIDENTAL ANARCHIST
From the Diaries of Jacob Marateck
Chapter 1: In the Beginning
I have no excuse, save for the ignorance of youth and a desire for grand adventure, which may have been one and the same thing. Consequently, the seemingly minor decision I made to end my education before the age of thirteen led me down a path from which each future choice was misdirected by the previous foolish one.
Not that I didn’t have a loving family to guide me, particularly my older brother, Mordechai, who had seen me risk my life repeatedly but was unable to convince me to make at least one sensible decision. There was simply too much fun to be had.
The result was that, in a little over ten years, I went from being a
yeshiva
student, a baker’s assistant, and labor organizer, to a corporal in the Russian army during the war in Manchuria (in which the men under my command wanted to kill me, simply for being a Jew, as much as the enemy did, simply for being in the way), to a revolutionary. For my efforts, I earned my first two death sentences, which was a little more excitement than I needed.
This limited my curiosity as to whether my end would come from freezing or starvation, from Japanese artillery or Chinese bandits, and whether it would be today or tomorrow. From my experiences with the comically inept Russian army (at least, it would have been comical had our lives not been at stake), I learned that, no matter how terrible it was for anyone to be in the midst of a war, it was a hundred times worse being on the losing side.
Still, I was slow to put into practice the lessons from my youth and, following the war, became a revolutionary who wanted to overthrow the Czar. This got me involved in amateur spy missions that would have gotten a Hollywood screenwriter fired, but got me sentenced to death for the third time.
As a result, I travelled the width of Russia, from
Petersburg
to Siberia, where my adventures were to have come to an end. But even if my record wasn’t clean, my conscience was; everything I did was done with the most honorable intentions.
And ultimately provided enough excitement to last a lifetime.
I grew up at a time when most of Russian-occupied Poland was living in poverty. Hence, it was not unusual for a child to leave home at the age of twelve to get a job to support the family. The only alternative was studying in a
yeshiva
.
Spending one’s days indoors, rocking over a book of the
Talmud
and arguing about the minutiae of Jewish law was never a profitable occupation, but it was the only “trade” in the Jewish community that really mattered. It also wasn’t entirely impractical. There were rich Jews who wanted their sons to study with learned men, and were willing to pay good salaries to have one as a private tutor. Sometimes, one even heard that the tutor had gotten to marry a rich man’s daughter.
When it was my turn, I looked at the professions being learned by my friends. None exactly made my mouth water. And since I wasn’t a fan of hard work, I decided to follow in my brother, Chayim’s, footsteps. He hadn’t been interested in learning a trade, either, but became possessed by the crazy idea that he would become a great scholar. Since our parents could not support him, he went off to another village where the boys survived on the generosity of the equally poor householders who had been shamed into providing meals for the boys. Under those circumstances, as you can imagine, some hosts ‘forgot’ their obligations.
I, too, wanted to become a scholar, but unlike Chayim, I was unable to adjust to eating only every other day; starving I could do from the comfort of home.
Which was why I ran away from the
yeshiva
after barely a week. Unfortunately, I had neglected to tell anyone about my plan to return home, which resulted in no small amount of confusion.
Shortly after I was discovered ‘missing’ from the
yeshiva
, a boy about my age was found to have drowned. Using good Polish logic, the authorities put the missing boy together with the dead boy, and wiped their hands of both cases with remarkable efficiency. Consequently, my parents were notified of my death, and they sat
shiva
for me for the first, but not the last, time.
One would think that, after my return from the dead, my parents would have been overjoyed to have me home. But it wasn’t long before they reminded me that, having closed the book on the life of the mind, I needed to find a job.
But the limited exposure I’d had to the outside world when I ventured beyond my small, provincial town of Vishogrod made me realize that there was a bigger world out there just waiting to be discovered.
Even at thirteen, the great world drew me like a magnet with its promise of new experiences. I wanted to go far away, perhaps as far as
Warsaw
, which I pictured as a vast, modern metropolis, glittering with golden opportunities. Conveniently, Warsaw was where my older brother, Mordechai, worked as a baker. When I told him that I was sick to death of Vishogrod, he said he could get me a job as a baker’s assistant. Coming from a state of perpetual hunger, the prospect of spending my days in a large, modern bakery, with its delectable smells and the unceasing availability of something to eat, gripped my imagination and wouldn’t let go.