My maternal grandparents were from Ukraine. Probably Odessa, but I’ve also been told Kiev. They left that part of the world during the Revolution. My grandfather had been in the Bolshevik army, one of very few Jews, they always said. This is the story my grandfather told me one Thanksgiving – I was probably 12 or 13 – about why they left:
As an army soldier, probably in his late
teens or early twenties, he had been assigned to the unit responsible for
guarding the palace after Czar Nicholas and his family were captured. My
grandfather in particular had some responsibility for guarding Nicholas’
youngest daughter, Anastasia.
At some point, she asked him to get her
a drink because she was very thirsty. He knew he shouldn’t, but he felt bad
that she should be thirsty.
When he went to fetch her a drink, he
accidentally left the door unlatched and she escaped. This would make him the
person responsible for the fact that for most of the 20th century, there were
nearly a dozen women all claiming to be Anastasia.
Fearing for his life, as he explained
it, both because he had let her go and he was a Jew, he headed for the woods,
firing at the soldiers chasing him. Somewhere in this, he managed to grab my
grandmother and head for the mountains.
They walked through the mountains for
some period of time. During this trek, my grandmother gave birth to her first
son, my Uncle ___. There’s another story in here that my grandfather used to
tell – half in English, half in Yiddish – about how my grandmother kept my
uncle swaddled close to her bosom. But they had so many clothes on and were
traveling so hard that somewhere along the way, he popped out and they didn’t
realize it.
They had to go back down the mountain to
find him. Anyway, somehow they managed to get to a coast – I’m not sure where –
and board a boat bound, I believe, for Canada. At a stop in Belgium, my Aunt ____
was born. After coming through Canada, they settled in Brighton Beach, NY, a
haven for immigrants from Odessa.
Informant was a Jewish American female
in her early thirties from the American South
"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski
Interview #1
"Poles are Inherently Comic
Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2
"My Father Began to Conceal His
Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3
They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives
Bieganski Interview # 4
"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw
Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5
"They Always Kept One Token
Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6
"White Privilege? I Laugh"
Bieganski Interview # 7
"Stalin Died and I Was Set
Free" #8
"The Jew is Clever. The Pole is Obnoxious, Loud, and Stupid." #9
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Bieganski the Blog exists to further explore the themes of the book Bieganski the Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture.
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