Revolution Baby Read Free

everything about the enemy camped on the far side of the Vistula was evil. Since he spoke better Russian than most of the Polish soldiers, he was often called on to act as an interpreter with the prisoners of war. Sometimes he would go back to see them again after the interrogation was over and ask them about the situation in their country, and about the Bolshevik revolution. When the Soviets withdrew from Poland, Emil no longer knew what to think. He was deeply dismayed by the extreme poverty of the Polish peasants and workers. He convinced himself that there was a system where people were equal, and he was prepared to fight to see it triumph in Poland, at the cost of his life if need be. And he was increasingly convinced that only communism could lead to the liberation of the people and to class equality. So not long after he was demobilized, he set off for the office of the Polish Communist Youth, the KZMP, to request a membership card. Which he immediately took to show proudly to his friend Alek, one of the rare communist partisans he had met in the army: together they would celebrate this “historical moment” until the early hours of the morning.
Na zdrowie
, comrade!
    Emil soon became a fervent member of the Communist Youth. To earn a living, he unearthed a little job with a horticulturist in the Praga quarter in Warsaw, but he then chose a more noble and revolutionary profession: metallurgist. He now officially belonged to the working class, and he devoted every spare moment to the struggle for the cause.
    As the communist party was outlawed in Poland, Emil led a clandestine life: meetings, distribution of tracts, discussions with potential recruits, demonstrations, strikes, but also literary evenings and the presentation of plays with a political flavor. He noticed that often when he left his house or his work there was someone following closely on his heels. He began taking more precautions. One day when he was speaking unguardedly with a few soldiers whom he was trying to persuade to attend the next Communist Youth meeting, a man in an overcoat appeared out of nowhere and ordered him to go with him. Emil hesitated, noticed two men in the middle of the street attentively observing the scene, and complied. A few hours later, he was in prison.
    Let’s leave Emil Demke alone in his cell at Pawiak prison in Warsaw, because he would soon be meeting my mother, and it would be better for me to introduce her to you before I go thrusting her into my father’s arms without warning.
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    My mother began her life as Guitele Rappoport. If I had set out to create a character with clearly recognizable Jewish origins, I could not have chosen a better name. Rappoport is as Jewish a name as they come. And Guitele isn’t exactly Chris­tian, either.
    Guitele Rappoport—Gui to her friends and family—was born in Nowy Dwór, a little village located fifty kilometers from Warsaw, but the exact day and year of birth are unknown. According to her birth certificate she was born on March 3, 1903 (third day of the third month of the third year), but her father was waiting to have at least three children to declare before embarking on the journey into town, and so he chose birth dates at random for each child. My mother always made the most of this approximation to err on the side of youth and say that she was surely two or three years younger than what it said on her papers—until she turned eighty, and then from one day to the next she began to claim she’d been born at the turn of the century and was actually eighty-three. As she was in great condition for an eighty-year-old, people were stunned to find out her age.
    Guitele’s family was very pious. Her father was a kosher butcher, and a strict man, who took everything that had to do with religion very seriously. Guitele, like the three other children from her father’s second marriage, had misguidedly chosen to be born a girl, so she was