Communism

Making Roots

For a while, a few years now I have had the privilege of being able to visit some of the places where my ancestors came from, and where my parents grew up. As a white English woman I was perhaps late in life to identify as a second generation migrant, after all, three of my grandparents lived in England. Yet when I submitted a script of a play I’d written about my family (a very different play) in 2009 to the writers’ department of Soho Theatre, the feedback I received was to make more of my cultural background, and to connect with the diaspora of my people. This was not what I had expected, however I realised that a few lines had been misinterpreted as indicating my perceived Jewishness. It was an eye-opener that served to illuminate further to me how unusual my background was, and also to be aware of how I may be read so that I could then be more in control of that.

I had lots of research to do on the places and people I actually come from, and various pieces of the story emerged at different times. Some were already known to me. In 2008 I can’t remember why I decided to start reading the memoirs of my maternal grandfather (known as Gramp), and as well to type some of them up so that we would have a digital copy. The copy we already had was faintly typed on very thin, yellowing East German paper. We’d had it for years, since my childhood and for some reason as I approached my 31st birthday I gained an interest in the papers. Gramp was still alive and nearing his 97th.  Then suddenly a few months later, out of the blue he died, and we travelled to Berlin for his funeral. It amazed me that he’d died just as I was getting interested in his story – which was long and I had only tackled a small part of it. Well, he had been very frail for years, in fact I had visited him 10 years before in 1998, sent by my Mother to be her ambassador as she was too unwell to visit him. On that occasion it took him a while to determine who I was. Hearing my voice he asked in his American accent, “Are you from London?”

His memoirs cover most of his life, from birth including what he knew of his ancestors, up until his early 70s when with long hours alone he wrote them. There were passages which did not really interest me, but then it was like striking gold when a cluster of paragraphs stood out describing childhood scenes on a farm, or being on the run from conservative agencies during the McCarthy era. It was fascinating social history and information about some of the forces that even shaped my life. Unfortunately my pursuit of the long typing needed faltered and I only recorded a few sections that year, but nevertheless I knew the material was waiting and my appetite had been whet.

Pictures of Moletai in May 2018

Last year my partner Steve and I visited Lithuania, and spent time in the town which had been a village, where one of my great grandmothers came from. Moletai (pronounced Molyati) had been about 85% Jewish in those days, including this branch of my family at the turn of the last century. We have no family or connections there now, as my family left in 1911. The fear of pogroms was very real, and Jews who did stay were rounded up the following year by the Soviets. Some were later freed, but in years to come the situation worsened, culminating in the Nazis finishing off all Jews in the area in 1941. I had not known all this prior to visiting, however the town is blessed with a cultural centre and local history books tell the people’s story.


Rivkah Notlevich in Lithuania, 1908

There were old photographs which reminded me of the style of photograph we have of Rivkah, my great grandmother. There was also a letter printed, by a man bearing Rivkah’s same surname, albeit with one letter different. She was née Rivkah Notlevich, and he was Yudel Nutlevich; and I thought having seen all the graves inscribed with Hebrew, that there may easily have been inconsistencies in translation, also from Russian/Lithuanian. Yudel wrote shortly before he was to be shot in 1941, and entrusted the letter addressed to his family with a Christian neighbour. To say it moved me is an understatement. It described how everyone they knew had been murdered, he himself had hidden for 16 weeks in a pit before being found.

“This is my last letter, one of farewell, I am writing to you from prison, condemned to death. Barbaric murderers have condemned me, a victim who is innocent of any crime. Thousands and thousands of people have perished. The blood of those slain will not be silenced. It hurts to leave this wonderful world… you won’t know where our bodies will end up.”

Imagining him as a distant relative I suddenly felt connected with a deep lost strand of my history, and for the first time in my life felt some Jewish identity, or rather it weighed on me what that could be like. Rivkah herself was not interested in religion, instead politics drew her and she became a committed socialist from an early age, whilst in Lithuania. Judaism was not passed on by her as she married out and only had sons.


Jewish cemetery at Moletai

There were many memorials to the thousands of Jews killed and I learnt just how large an area they had been eradicated from, throughout many parts of Eastern Europe. I have always felt critical of Israel’s anti-Palestinian policy and still do, but a change occured in how I felt like approaching the subject. I was overcome with compassion as I understood to what extent Jews had lost their lives and homes in several countries, and it would have been very difficult for them to feel safe.

Rivkah’s family eventually settled in Johannesburg, South Africa which I have not been able to visit yet. It is high on my list as there are many places there I would like to go to as that’s where my Dad was born, and his Father’s family had had a presence there for almost 200 years. A missionary called Jabez set out to preach Methodism, and a mission named after him – Old Bunting, later Buntingville – was established in 1830 on the Eastern Cape of South Africa. This character was known to me by a plaque unveiling I attended as a child, in a square in Angel, London where he’d lived, as well as a severe if smiling portrait of him at my grandparents’ and later my parents’ house. A further detail was revealed when during an English A Level class his name appeared in the introduction to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights! A strict and unkind priest was based on him.

As if to redeem the family from this authoritarian presence, some generations later when the family had already become more liberal, his great grandson called Sidney went a few steps further, and became a radical black rights activist and politician in South Africa during the 1920s. He succeeded in shifting the South African Communist Party’s policy and focus to being led by black South Africans (it had been all white and not keen to embrace the native population), however this was an extremely tough battle which ultimately cost him his career; life even. It is a sad story yet Allison Drew’s ‘Between Empire and Revolution‘  beautifully shines a light on all aspects of his life and tells the whole story in detail. This book had been in my possession since my Dad gifted me it when it was published, though I only read all of it last year when my trip to Lithuania ignited my interest in any information about Rivkah – who became Rebecca. The only documents about her relate to her husband, Sidney and there were a few sections that were pertinent in the book, as well as in Sidney’s ‘Letters to Rebecca‘, which also includes one letter by her. Theirs was a most extraordinary and inspiring tale, and I feel enormous pride when I think of Sidney and Rivkah.

The Roots play follows the stories of Rivkah and Sidney from my Father’s family, and of John and Mary who were my maternal grandparents. All the sources of writing were fascinating, it is just unfortunate that neither woman left writing in her own right. That is only partly because of the time they were in; with Sidney and Rivkah it is true that women at that time and place were not in such prominent positions yet. For John and Mary however in the socialist world a generation later, she had just as many if not more opportunities than him, career-wise. It was rather that he lived longer and was more alone in those years so had time to record his memories. I think he also had more reason to, since his journey was more dramatic, living in exile from the age of 37. Without his words, his descendents would not have knowledge of their ancestral past, since the cold war climate had separated us long ago from his living family in America.

Mary was an artist and fashion designer when she moved back to London, and left many embroideries, tapestries, drawings, clothes and jewellery. Reading between the lines and sometimes directly from Gramp’s memoirs, as well as what I remember of her, I identify a great deal with Mary’s vitality, creativity and strong spirit of independence. She was also a socialist feminist! It therefore seems odd perhaps that she doesn’t have her own voice in the play, unlike Rivkah whom I had penned a monologue for shortly after my visit to Lithuania. Writing the play was partly piecing together sections of text I’d written and collated over several years in fact, and rereading all the letters. There may be unfinished business, but in a way, my own voice may be closest to Mary’s which may account for the absence.

Here I am dressed as Mary, and drawing the audience

Coincidentally both families partly moved to London in 1963, to the same unique part of Highgate – Holly Lodge Estate. It is through this connection that my parents met, and I believe that the stories contained in the play may partly explain their attraction; on some level recognising shared and unusual family pasts of extreme left dimensions and political persecution. It is also true that both my parents, coming from these activist origins, did not feel drawn to continue such a path. Growing up in families where politics may have been more important than family, and where you’re on the losing side even if righteous, may sometimes be a strong antidote to choosing that oneself.

a seed to become a tree (no suitcase for the first show)
Drawing by Frances Felgate. Here I emerge from a suitcase, as if growing like a tree

Presenting the play with my usual life drawing formula was a stretch with subject matter not remotely relating. I used some costumes but also opted for nudity quite a lot. It is my natural medium, however a few audience members rejected the approach as inappropriate. Others appreciated the art interpretation, and perhaps that my own passion for nude liberation is in some way borne of this earlier family idealism. The life drawing did also fit well with much of the text being audio based; static tableaux could be drawn whilst the audience listened.

I performed most of the show solo, and as well for a few scenes invited friends and audience members to join in whether nude or not to create group tableaux. It was very helpful to have a man posing to represent my Grandfather, whilst at other times scenes were illustrated by enactments of famous paintings from the time. We recreated ‘American Gothic‘, and I posed alongside works by Chagall and Popova.

During the first scene, about Rivka’s life in Moletai, I played a video I had made there of myself performing a menstrual ritual in one of the nearby lakes. Pouring my own blood into the water of my once Motherland was a way to connect with a place now lost to us. This practice has been part of my work for a few years, such as a time I was on the trail of a Grandmother not included in this show, when she lived in Tanzania.

Finding the voices for the male characters didn’t come straight off. I was fairly quick to pick up on Dad making an excellent Sidney, but the American voice was harder. I searched and people answered, but I wanted personal connection, feeling a little precious of my project. There were a couple of guys who nearly did it, then didn’t, and as time was running out I wasn’t sure what to do. At short notice I asked my brother, and to my very pleasant relief he came good and we discovered a previously unknown (to me) talent! Recordings were crafted and I selected music to add in the mix. Steve kindly created these with great care and fine tuning. I fell in love with those recordings! Like a movie soundtrack or a radio play I wanted to keep listening to. Which was lucky as I had to rehearse fast and the lines weren’t coming quick enough.

a family tree
performing my great grandmother Rivkah

I had overstretched myself and foolishly gotten Steve booked for another gig the same evening as my first performance. So I was on my own and this was a very technical show – projector, sound and visuals to coordinate with live action cues. I was a bit stuck but luckily my friend Anastasia agreed to help. She was at first unkeen, being unfamiliar with these things, but I was desperate and the main thing was having a mate there. On the night it was a bit chaotic, but we did it and had an amazing audience. The show was part of a festival of events and an exhibition called ‘We Grow into the Forest‘, as curated and organised by my friend Judit.

3 drawings by Lily Lemaire
a scene from rural early 20th century America; volunteer Adrian and I are ‘American Gothic’
at the end of the play I am an old woman!

For the second performance at Telegraph Hill Festival, it was a smoother flow and it was great to have the opportunity to see that version of the play grow through the duration. I think there is much I would like to add to it, from the voices already included but also more about the women, and other characters and narratives that didn’t make this cut.

Why Roots now?

Judit asked me about a year ago to make a life model based performance and workshop for this event. I had suggested myself as the model since it was unknown if there would be funding, and besides I have a few images of myself with trees, or nude in natural surroundings, which related to the theme of trees and nature that ‘We Grow into the Forest’ was about.

When we returned from Lithuania in late May last year, Mum was in hospital and died ten days later. This shook my world, our family’s world, and grief is a long unfolding. While this is still so raw, and in fact she has been the subject of much of my art over the years, it felt easier to go back further into the past this time and untangle some of the knots. I mean, on the one hand Mum has been very much on my mind and with me these last months, but on the other I am not ready to make her the subject directly again.

I have learnt a lot from this gathering of information and still there is much more to do.

Here is an audio version of the Roots play.

European Mother

She was born in Paris in 1950 but not long after, a new right wing government forced the HQ of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) where my grandparents both worked, to move abroad. My family moved to Geneva for a few months, now working temporarily as WFTU representatives to the International Labour Office (an agency of the UN) while their offices were moved to the Soviet sector of Vienna. Between ’51 and ’55 my Mother was raised in Austria until there was a change of government – it became independent after the 4 way rule (between UK, France, USSR and USA) came to an end. A condition was that it had to be neutral, so the Communist WFTU moved to Prague in ’56. My family did also but decided ultimately to move to a German speaking country, instead of having to learn Czech. They found jobs in a member organisation of the WFTU, an affiliate in East Berlin. Their 6 week period in Prague was basically for the purposes of being under observation by the East German government, as if in a holding pen. Once in East Berlin my Grandparents were employed by the Trades Union International (TUI) for Public Employees (a TUI was a Communist idea, a global collective of trade unions for a particular sector.)

When my Mother was finally brought to live in London in 1963, it was because of the break up of my Grandparents’ marriage. My English Grandmother had retained her British passport throughout, so moving back was possible. My Mother cites walking up the steps to board the aeroplane for London as the biggest turning point in her life. She had to give up the life she’d grown comfortable with, and be thrown into a new system – politically and culturally. Her Father would not be allowed to visit (until later in life) and she felt forever like a foreigner in her actual Motherland. The divisive political borders in place during the Cold War made travel and connection much harder; so far from the free flowing passage to which many of us have become accustomed. I got to thinking about this after last June’s referendum on Britain’s EU membership, as the UK plunged back to the 1980s (and earlier) in terms of overt racism. Trump’s presidency just added to this sense of regressing, of a fortress around richer more developed places, and poverty being enclosed in a prison.

Many of my European friends living in London can’t help but feel unsettled, even if they have lived here more than 20 years, and even if they have married a Brit. Theresa May refuses to guarantee their right to remain here. However much I find it hard to believe they may be deported, I do not currently face any threat of deportation myself. My life continues largely as before. Yet my life has been shaped not only by the threat of, but the actual deportation of my Mother’s family throughout her childhood. My life would have been very different (or probably not existed) had my Mother never journeyed to the political East early on. She even cites the move back to the West during her puberty, as the catalyst for triggering her multiple schlerosis (MS). A few months after moving to London, she first experienced the disease. For a month she was unable to walk properly and for a year could not take part in sport. The doctors knew what it was and told her Mother, but as my Mum was under 16 they were not obliged to tell her. The crucial thing was, the doctors warned that while at this stage the disease was only temporary, it would most likely return later in her life, around her late 30s, when it would reappear with a vengeance. This is exactly what happened, but my Grandmother died without telling her daughter that she knew. It was a Great Aunt who subsequently revealed the truth.

While it may seem unlikely that moving to a more affluent and liberal city such as London would bring on a disease, the point is that my Mother had grown very comfortable and self confident in East Berlin. Not what we always hear about the Communist states, but that was her experience. To be wrenched from that world at her Mother’s instigation at a time in a girl’s life when many hormonal shifts are jolting, thrown into a new system more driven by greed and competition, unable to maintain easy contact with left behind loved ones, was a psychic disturbance.

When I was about 19 and my Mother’s MS was well underway I got in touch with the MS Society and started reading their literature. One article stated that there was a relatively high incidence of MS occurring among people who moved from a warmer climate to a significantly cooler place during puberty. I couldn’t help but imagine a link. What if it wasn’t just about physical temperature, but also concerned energetic shifts, say in socio-economic climate, combined with emotional state. It might not apply to a girl escaping from the East to find a better life in the West as was not uncommon, but in my Mother’s case, her parents had unusually chosen to live behind the Iron Curtain because of their political beliefs. More than that her American Father would not have been able to marry his British Communist wife and remain in the US at the time. His choice to move to Europe was political, and also of the heart.

During a recent visit to my parents, I found my Dad sat at the kitchen table. He declared bleakly, “It’s like an unfolding nightmare here. Let’s move to Germany.” Mum however was less keen. After living in London for over 50 years she has finally settled. Besides which, being massively disabled makes any sort of moving or travelling far harder. Their home has been fully adapted with hoists, ramps, a lift, special shower unit for wheelchair, a hospital bed… and after a good 15 years of employing carers and personal assistants, they are now in a more confident place in that respect. It takes time to know what you need and how to ask for it, often of people who don’t speak English so well. They have had assistants of many nationalities – African, middle eastern, far eastern, northern European… and the current team are a mix of Polish, Czech Republic and Slovakian. In the event that these women had to leave the UK, perhaps Mum would feel differently about staying.

Mum aged 11 or 12, in East Berlin, 1962

Mum aged 16 or 17, in London, 1967

Getting Back to my own Life

Years of taking my clothes off for artists has brought me to a point of wanting to change roles, to find my own model to work out poses with, and then take my time finding his essence and bringing that out.

Just over a month ago I found an artist I wanted to work with individually as his muse, and grow with him in a new artistic relationship. This is proving mutually beneficial and he has honoured our dialogue by getting undressed for me too.

In the Summer of ’89, my Grandfather, John Wolfard, had saved up enough money for a visit to his homeland. He had left the United States in 1948 when on attempting to marry an English woman and bring her to live with him, the FBI intervened. Both John and my Grandmother-to-be were members of the Communist party, and in his case, the only people who knew (in the US) were his ex-wife, and the friend who had signed him up. These were cagey times, and after Mary’s entry was denied on this count, and there had been some interrogation, John knew the only thing was to quit his home and head for Europe. He couldn’t get more than a travel visa, but he was hopeful. As it happened, Mary and her Communist connections were able to find him basic work, and later, when no renewal was afforded, migration became the modus operandi.

Gramp, as we called him, said that this one and only visit home after all those years, was the best thing that he had ever done. He stayed with his brother Hilton and spent time catching up with his 1st wife (there had been 5 in all) Olga. They had married young, but meeting in their 70s, it was sad to feel how bonds were still there, and yet, by then it seemed too late to go back for good. East Berlin was his home and would be the place where he died, if only physically still part of the East.

He left the US for love – of a woman. Political beliefs came into it massively, but without the promise of her it could have been more tempting to remain as many did, and lie low during the witch-hunt season.

He also left an academic career which could not be grafted on to the East German system or indeed any in the 2nd world which was his oyster. Sure he could translate materials bound to leave the East, but this jolting move was not one he had planned on.

To me it seems a shame to never fully settle after so many years; due to lack of choice, so that when that option finally came when Gramp was a pensioner, he was no longer able to wholly appreciate it. In order to just visit the old country he had saved money by each year crossing the Berlin Wall (which pensioners were allowed to make a day trip doing annually) and receiving the sum which the West Germans had put aside for the souls who braved the crossing; a welcome gift. This had been stashed for a few years until enough was made for the plane fare. Ironically this all culminated in the same year that East Germany ceased to exist.

From this tale my Mother’s life began, and in her migration to London I also find parallels in my own life. Time seems to  quicken. With the speed of communication now, repeated family patterns may emerge sooner.

I felt I was exiled from life a while, removed from my natural group and stuck in a limbo, unable to settle. To be able to reconnect now with a vital development of my self from bygone days makes me feel more whole. The man I model for and who also poses for me, is part of an old friendship group. It feels like coming home. Such a joyful feeling to achieve that. Even the room he lives in carries old energies that remind me so strongly of our youth – he has lived in it (and so have some others) since the time that I too had a room like that. A room with narcotics bouncing off the walls, freaks at every turn and sex coming up from the floor! A den of such proclivity. It excites me. How sorry I was when I had to leave my room like that, my underground flat, 12 years ago. But at least this remaining one has daylight. And although everything seems more fragmented than I imagined, people are still there – sparks in the air waiting to fly.

Aaron England