Sidney I. Lezak: An Oral History i ii Sidney I. Lezak An Oral History FOREWORD BY JUDGE OWEN PANNER US District Court of Oregon Historical Society Oral History Project Portland, Oregon iii Copyright © 2013 United States District Court of Oregon Historical Society Printed in the United States of America PROJECT STAFF Janice Dilg, Editor & Production Manager Jack Collins, Interviewer Brongaene M. Griffin, Transcriber Muriel Lezak, Auditor & Editor iv CONTENTS Foreword..................................................................................................................vi Tape One, August 16, 1988....................................................................................1 Tape Two, August 16, 1988...................................................................................16 Tape Three, December 14, 1988............................................................................27 Tape Four, December 14, 1988..............................................................................41 Tape Five, September 7, 1989................................................................................49 Tape Six, June 6, 1990............................................................................................65 Tape Seven, June 6, 1990.......................................................................................77 Tape Eight, June 6, 1990........................................................................................95 v FOREWORD The Oral History Project of the District Court of Oregon Historical Society began in 1983. Through the efforts of Judge James Burns and his wife Helen, a gathering of lawyers, judges, and historians took place at the Society’s inception. The Honorable Robert F. Peckham, District Judge for the Northern District of California, discussed the Northern District Historical Society and the inspiration was born for Oregon’s District Court Historical Society, the second such organization in the country. The original Board of Directors of the Society was composed of twenty-one members with bylaws including the Presiding Judge of the Court, the Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, and the President and a representative of the Oregon State Bar. The original officers and directors included outstanding judges and lawyers – Judge John Kilkenny, Honorary Chair, Judge James Burns, Chairman, Randall Kester, President, Manley Strayer, Vice President, Elizabeth Buehler, Treasurer, Susan Graber, Corporate Secretary, and Robert M. Christ, Executive Secretary, along with many other top names in Oregon’s legal history. The Society decided to collect, study, preserve, analyze, and disseminate information concerning the history, development, character, operations, and accomplishments of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. It was therefore logical that the Oral History Project should be established to preserve the histories of the judges, law firms, and lawyers who actively practice in the Court. With the assistance of Rick Harmon and James Strassmaier, the Oregon Historical Society held seminars to educate volunteers in taking oral histories with a biographical and Court-oriented focus. The Oregon Historical Society has been most vi cooperative in agreeing to maintain these histories in their permanent collection for study by scholars and other interested parties. These oral history interviews have been taken by recording devices, and are either transcribed or transcription is underway. A transcript reproduces, as faithfully as possible, the original sound recording that reflects the special value of oral history, namely its free and personal expressiveness. Most of the transcripts in the District Court Collection have been lightly edited and reviewed for clarity and accuracy by the narrators. That process continues. It is through these wonderful oral histories that the story of the Court is told. We now have recorded nearly 120 individuals since the project began. The goal is to record the individual histories of all the judges of the Court, as well as those of participating lawyers. The Court has a rich tradition reflected in the activities of the judges and lawyers of the Court. The recording has been done not only by professional historians, but also by dedicated volunteers. As one such volunteer said, “The opportunity to interview someone that you always admired is truly an exciting experience.” The history of the Court is being created by the men and women who have participated in its collection and activities. The Society’s goals are to collect as much of that history as possible, because is it the history of the law and those who make it that constitutes the moral development of humanity. All of us who are students of the law venerate it. We are also interested in the people who make it. Judge Owen Panner February 28, 2006 vii viii SL: Okay. Alright. I have every confidence Tape One in the Historical Society in meeting that JC: This is the oral history project of the commitment and on that understanding United States District Court for the District I’m willing to go ahead. I have nothing at of Oregon. We’re going to be talking this the moment that I specifically can think afternoon with Sidney I. Lezak the former of but something may come up; and I do United States Attorney for the District of have a feeling that on some stuff that may Oregon, to cover at least an earlier period be delicate that I nonetheless would like of his life up until and including his to have the whole story out but I may not appointment as United States Attorney want it to be public right now. for the District of Oregon. Sidney is that right? SL: Well let’s see—born November 8, 1924, and I assume you’d like to know SL: It certainly is. It’s certainly an a little about my ancestry. Mother and appropriate aspiration. father both were born in the same small city which was in, what was called the JC: The way we’d like to proceed this Pale of Settlement in Czarist Russia, the afternoon is in a narrative fashion, city is called Vasylkiv [or Vasylkov, which beginning back and ending in the question: was how Sid’s family pronounced it. How did you get to be United States MDL]. It’s about 30 miles outside of the Attorney? But, that began much earlier city of Kiev. I recall that they had to have in Chicago, Illinois. Give us some of the a special pass to go into the city of Kiev. biographical details that take you back to My parents came over at—let’s see, my Chicago before you came to Oregon. mother was 10, came over about 1910 on the Lusitania. My father came over in 1911 SL: At this point I don’t have any problem and at that time he was 14 years old. with having anything that I say be made There’s a story or two from that era public. I just want to know at some point, that made a difference in my life. Perhaps in the event that I get on territory that a digression might be worthwhile. My might be difficult—particularly in terms of father told me about getting a pass about anything I may have to say about people the age of eight to go in with his family who are still living—whether or not there’s to Kiev and remembers having his first ice any control that I have over this. cream cone. At about that time a group of drunks came through, in a kind of what JC: Yes. In that event we can mark those might be called a “mini” pogrom, through portions of the tape and simply say that the Jewish quarter, breaking windows those will not be disclosed during the lives and beating up on people around. He of any persons or during your life. remembered running into the back of a Lezak, Tape One 1 butcher’s shop where they were killing they had minimal amounts of money, chickens and hiding amidst all the blood just enough to pay their passage. I think and guts and sawdust of the chickens my father came with just a few cents in and enjoying his ice cream. I’ve always his pocket, for example, when he arrived taken that as a sort of measuring point in this country. They were poor people. from which to measure any success My mother’s father was a blacksmith. that I’ve had in my career and have My father’s father was a butcher in the marveled at the progress which has been old country and that was the trade that possible in this country within the space all of the brothers ultimately followed. of one generation. It just seemed to me Each one ultimately had his own meat a particularly poignant memory of my market on the south side of Chicago in father’s past. the Black neighborhood. My father was no exception. JC: Did your mother and father at young ages come with their parents? JC: They came through Ellis Island? SL: My mother came with her parents and SL: Through Ellis Island, yes, and they her younger sister and brother; I think had contacts in Gary, Indiana which, at her family came intact. My father came that time, was a town that had just been with his father and four or five of his founded maybe 15 years before for the brothers. My father had seven brothers steel mills. And my father’s family came and one sister [living to adulthood; his to Gary. My mother’s family came to grandmother, his father’s second wife, Chicago. One of my uncles remained in had 21 births], and I think that two Gary and had a meat market in Gary until brothers and one younger sister were WWII. left behind with the grandmother. They did not come over until after WWI and JC: Was there any change in the spelling after the revolution. I think in the early of the family name of Lezak? 1920’s there was a distinct lapse and it— it was indicated by different colorations SL: Well, the family spelling would have of political viewpoints between the older either been in Yiddish or Cyrillic and not brothers and the younger brothers. in the characters that we now know and accept. But the pronunciation was, “Lay- JC: Did your parents give you any shock,” and it might more appropriately explanation of their coming? have been LEZHAK or something like that, a softer Z.