| Len's uncle
Bribing an official
Well, we came every morning. Then they decided they were going to teach us drill. So, they took us out drilling. So the first thing I heard the officers, [inaudible words] man. “Well,” he says, “dirty bunch of Jews. Stand at attention!”
Well, I heard the words, “dirty Jews,” I decided this is the only time I will ever come to the drill. We were told, “All right, march back to the court of the Voynsky Nacharnik,” that Army master, a great big lot, a great big court. We marched there, and they told us we could go home and come tomorrow again, for drill at 8 o’clock.
I told the boys, we were all standing together, there must have been about 100 of us, maybe a few more, so I said to them, “Listen, folks.” I said that very quietly. “Look here. Why should we come here every day? Why should we come here and monkey around and listen to those vicious dogs calling us names and so forth? You know that they take graft, every one of them. Let us put out, if we can, those that can’t shall not do it, a ruble a day, a dollar a day. And we will walk in, talk to the clerk, the chief clerk of this Army master, and we will offer him so much every day, a hundred rubles every day, or whatever we collect, 80 rubles, and tell him he should free us of the draft. And we are leaving him the money.
We will pay him every day that much money. “We won’t offer it as a graft, that’s a terrible thing. We will tell him, the Army in a uniform, a captain. A great [words inaudible] the money for a wire, to wire us when to report to him. “Can you imagine? That sounds ridiculous, because how many times is he going to wire you, but you pay him a dollar a day each one. If it will take 5 days he will get 500 rubles or whatever there was,” I don’t remember exactly. They all agreed with me.
And they elected me as a delegate to go and talk to him. One of them told me in Hebrew — I’ll never forget. He knew the Talmud quite well — He says, “I see that you have studied,” he says. “Kraine degarta he-eray peranke,” the one who reads the message shall be the messenger. In other words, since I suggested it, I should go and carry it out. I told him, “You come with me, just because you spoke up, so there will be two of us.” So the two of us went in, and that’s what we told them.
Each one, everyone practically, had a ruble in his pocket. So, I recall, there were close to 100 rubles or over 100, I don’t remember exactly. He didn’t say boo. He says, “This is a very fine proposition.” So I didn’t have to report. So, the next day, we told him, that one will come and bring him the money. I gave this friend of mine five rubles. I said, “Give it to them, collect from them, and one of you will report to them every day and give them the 100 rubles. |
