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To Wear the Dust of War This page intentionally left blank To Wear the Dust of War From Bialystok to Shanghai to the Promised Land An Oral History by Samuel Iwry Edited by L. J. H. Kelley TO WEAR THE DUST OF WAR Copyright © Samuel Iwry, 2004. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-6575-2 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-4039-6576-9 ISBN 978-1-4039-8120-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781403981202 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Iwry, Samuel. To wear the dust of war : from Bialystok to Shanghai to the Promised Land : an oral history / by Samuel Iwry ; edited by L.J.H. Kelley. p. cm. -- (Palgrave studies in oral history) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4039-6576-9 (pbk.) 1. Iwry, Samuel. 2. Jews--Poland--Biography. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939- 1945)--Poland--Personal narratives. 4. Refugees, Jewish--China--Shanghai- -Biography. 5. Refugees, Jewish--Maryland--Biography. I. Kelley, L.J.H. II. Title. III. Series. DS135.P63I895 2004 940.53’18’092--dc22 [B] 2004040005 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by planettheo.com First edition: August 2004 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Series Editors’ Foreword . vi Foreword: Samuel Iwry, My Father . viii by J. Mark Iwry Foreword: Samuel Iwry, Scholar . .xv by Kyle McCarter Acknowledgments. .xvii Introduction . xix Chronology . xxiii ONE Three Worlds, Three Lives . 1 TW O Into the Dark Tunnel . 21 THREE The Japanese Diplomat in Lithuania . 43 FOUR Across Russia to Japan . 67 FIVE Shanghai Ghetto . 89 SIX 20,000 Refugees, Two Visas . 117 SEVEN Coming to America . 139 EIGHT The Master and the Scrolls . 157 NINE Teacher, Scholar, Grandfather . 175 EPILOGUE Nina Rochman Iwry by J. Mark Iwry . 197 Suggestions for Additional Reading . 203 Notes . 205 Index . 213 Series Editors’ Foreword Oral history usually is defined as an interactive process. An interviewer asks questions and the person being interviewed, the interviewee, responds. Ideally, the questions are open-ended and the answers are lengthy and complete. The interview, however, is shaped by the interaction between the two participants. On the other hand, some practitioners who conduct life histories may begin by asking their subject to tell about their life and then refrain from intervening in the remainder of the interview or do so very infrequently. This oral history of Samuel Iwry combines both approaches with a greater emphasis on the latter. As described by Leslie Kelley, Dr. Iwry would hold forth and set the agenda for discussion. Her intervention emerges as an editor more than an interviewer. She shaped Iwry’s story once it was transcribed, placed it in chronological order, checked facts, and filled in historical gaps. In many respects, this is the life story of Sam Iwry as told to Leslie Kelley. While this raises certain methodological questions for oral historians related to the purity of the interview and the desire to capture a verbatim and true account, it does not detract from the very dramatic and compelling tale that Sam Iwry tells. The substance of the story, its particular emphases and shadings, the unique voice—all are Iwry’s, the result of hours and hours of interviews. Many of the critical issues of twentieth-century history erupt on the pages that follow, which tell the story of one man’s resilience in the face of world peril. Pre–World War II Eastern European Jewish life, the tragedy of the Holocaust, the world of uprooted refugees, the humanitarian act of courage by a Japanese diplomat, the community as well as the danger and brutality of Shanghai under Japanese rule, the birth of the state of Israel, and immigration to the United States all are a part of Sam Iwry’s sojourn through the twentieth century. Less dramatic, but of great historical significance, is his life as a scholar of Hebrew and Near Eastern Studies and his contribution to our understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Iwry’s coming to America completed a life that met its full potential at the Series Editors’ Foreword / VII Baltimore Hebrew College and the Johns Hopkins University, where his teaching and research excelled. One of the great values of oral history is its ability to humanize the story being told. Leslie Kelley’s presentation of Sam Iwry’s account does just that and accomplishes another important purpose. It offers a contextual frame- work for the narrative that is offered. In this sense also, it fits well with the Palgrave Studies in Oral History series, which is designed to make history accessible to the general reader as well as to students and accomplished scholars. Linda Shopes Pennsylvania Historical Museum Commission Bruce M. Stave University of Connecticut FOREWORD Samuel Iwry, My Father by J. Mark Iwry The truth is, my father never was eager to write this book. Probably the prospect of reliving the Holocaust was too wrenching. He has never lost sight of the bitter reality: For every grateful survivor with a story of miraculous escape, there were 100 innocents, including his parents and sisters, and his wife’s parents and sisters, whose lives were cut off (as he describes in his narrative) in a manner that was—for him, quite literally— unspeakable. My father has always felt acutely the absence of the six million and their would-be offspring: how much more robust and creative our people, Israel and the world would be today had they not been cut down. At the same time, no one was more alive to the miracle of Israel’s birth from the ashes of the Holocaust. In fact, he never made peace with the fate that took him to “the other Promised Land,” America instead of Israel, where he felt he really belonged. And yet, as a new American, Sam became profoundly loyal to his new homeland. Bemused by what he viewed as many Americans’ naiveté, and put off by the hype and commercialism he sometimes saw here, my father nonetheless became an admirer and champion of the American spirit and character. He treasured America’s freedoms and values as only one who lived so much of his life without them could. In contrast, his graphic narrative bears witness to the hollowness and mendacity of Soviet Communism, including its dispiriting effects on ordinary people, its impoverishment, Samuel Iwry, My Father / IX and, more broadly, the evils of overbearing bureaucracy. My parents’ experience (my mother’s story is briefly recounted in the epilogue) explains their hard-won skepticism of politicians and governing authority and its potentially heavy hand under any system. My father never could (or would) have put the Holocaust behind him; in his words, he would always “wear the dust of war.” As the book describes, during his work in the underground he narrowly escaped death several times in Europe and Russia and endured physical torture in the Shanghai prison camp. (My mother saved his life on that occasion.) But his sharpest pain was self-inflicted. He never stopped torturing himself over his inability to save his parents—or his sisters and their families—from their horrifying fate, even as he was able to save many others. After all four parents and most of their siblings were murdered for being Jewish, my parents hesitated to bring another child into this world, especially a Jewish child. And after deciding to have just one, they always sought to protect me from the horrors their families had suffered in the Old World. But they themselves never left those horrors behind: at age 93, my father’s sleep was still disturbed by nightmares of his parents’ fate and of the Shanghai prison camp. Already a product of the European and Jewish enlightenment, experi- encing the Holocaust made it harder for him to maintain a simple unquestioning faith in a providential Supreme Being. As a hard-headed but by no means hard-hearted rationalist, my father’s identity was bound up in the unique character, history, and contributions of the Jewish nation, “walking in history under G-d,” as he put it. His teaching stressed the centrality of learning, study, and questioning in the Jewish tradition. At the same time, his bitter wartime experience convinced him of the ultimate importance of what he called “simple decency.” His teaching brought out how decency and respect for human life and dignity have been integral Jewish values since the Hebrew people originally rejected polythe- ism and paganism in favor of monotheism and the single, absolute moral order. And he was vigilant against modern forms of idol worship and paganism--totalitarianism, political fanaticism, materialism, or a losing of self in the frivolous or ephemeral. Deeply learned in Bible, Hebrew, classical and modern Hebrew literature, and Jewish history and culture, my father was devoted to his people, their unique civilization, and their new, hard-won national home in Israel. Accordingly, when he prayed, it was not so much to, as with—not to an anthropomorphic deity, but with his people, as an act of humility and a X / To Wear the Dust of War collective expression of gratitude, awe, fear, pain, hope, and rededication to the highest values of our tradition.