| Len's uncle
Inductees take the oath
to the Czar
By the way, I forgot to mention one thing. I will go back and mention one thing. Before you, when you were inducted into the army, you had to take the oath of loyalty to the king. So, who came to give us the oath? The kanzione rabin, the government Rabbi. My father was that for some time. My home city had a very learned man, Dr. Chapkin. He was the Rabbi.
So, the Jewish boys are standing together, and we were supposed to repeat after him. He says a word and we repeat it to him. So, he says, “I,” for instance, “now give your name.”
“Ba, Yehuda Leib bar Nisan Wolfson,” my name.
“Swear that I will be.”
So we say “Ponye ganif ponye kwask. Ge mitn kop in der erd. A ruach in dein taten’s stapen arein. Bagorben zollen die hallah shaden.” And we got through taking this oath, the Voynsky Nacharnik, the master, says, “Bravo radiatar.” Great, young men, great, you did a marvellous job. We took the oath.
“Thief, criminal. Go with your head in the earth. etc.”
Ju: Why don’t you translate the oath?
J: The oath, to serve the king. We said, “You may go plumb to the devil. May the devil take you. May all evils devour you, and so on and so forth. Whatever we could say. Every one of us had a different curse. And this the oath we took to needle [?] us.
Can you blame us for it? In other words, the persecution of Jews? Being driven from pillar to post, abused, humiliated, and insulted. Naturally, we didn’t have much love for it, even though we loved the country very, very much. And normally so, because we were born there. We loved everything there.
Well, so I will return to where I left off before.
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