When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry by Gal Beckerman Read Free Book Online Page B

started arriving on Sundays. The more extremist activists had a difficult time deciding how to respond, whether to participate in the revitalization of Rumbuli or protest it for being government sanctioned. Conflict emerged more than once, as when Boris Slovin and Mark Blum made a giant Star of David out of willow branches and placed it strategically at the site so that passengers on every train going from Riga to Moscow could see it. This angered the older activists, who tried to avoid needless provocation, and they forced the young men to take it down. By the time the annual commemoration of the massacre took place, in the fall of 1963, five long ditches had been planted with flowers, and about eight hundred people showed up.
    While in other cities small groups of Zionists were just beginning to stir with an interest in Jewish heritage, the Riga Jews were now assembling at Rumbuli formally as a community at least twice a year—on the anniversaries of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the Rumbuli massacre. And the Sunday gatherings continued, giving hope to the older generation that young Jews might meet this way and marry one another. The ground they stood on covered bones, but Rumbuli was more about revival, about growing a new generation who would view their Jewish identity with pride and not simply as a word entered on the fifth line of their passports.

    At first, Mendelevich stayed on the margins of this growing but still quite small group of families who organized the Zionist activities. He went every week to Rumbuli, took part in the ceremonies, and read the Jewish samizdat that his cousin Mendel brought him. But as the months went by, he became more and more active, helping to watch over the Rumbuli tools during the week, organizing some of the other young people. The older activists began to see him as trustworthy.
    And Mendelevich was becoming bolder. In 1965, as part of a cultural exchange with Israel, which only became possible in the years after the thaw, an Israeli all-star women's basketball team was allowed to tour the Soviet Union. Eventually it came to Riga. Mendelevich was ecstatic. This was unheard-of, and he wasn't going to miss the chance to finally see Israelis—Israeli women, no less—up close. But the Soviets wanted to make sure the event was no more than symbolic, and they gave out the majority of the tickets to Party members. On the day of the game, Jews swarmed around the stadium where the Israeli women were practicing. When the women's bus left to take them back to the hotel, the young Jews started to sing, and through the window Mendelevich could see one woman crying.
    That evening the Israeli team lost by dozens of points, but the Jews were thrilled just to have heard the "Hatikvah" played before the Soviet national anthem. After the game, Mendelevich, along with his sister, Rivka, decided to go to the hotel where the women were staying. This was a dangerous move. During Stalin's time, any person who had contact with foreigners was immediately under suspicion. Also, Mendelevich was painfully shy; even at eighteen, despite his ability to speak in front of audiences, he felt uncomfortable talking to strangers. But he forced himself up the stairs and through the front door of the hotel. Once they were in the lobby, a tanned man came up to the two scared-looking teenagers. Mendelevich sensed immediately that he was Israeli. The man said something in Hebrew that the boy didn't understand. Then he handed him two big envelopes. Mendelevich looked and saw that in each one was a Star of David pendant. He could hardly contain his excitement, and he nearly ran off without thanking the man. From then on, even though his father warned him that it was reckless to draw attention to himself at work, Mendelevich never took the necklace off.
    At the Rumbuli memorial ceremony in the winter of 1965, hundreds of people attended, read poetry, and spoke about the history of the place. But Mendelevich felt