EP4: A Red Cover

Episode 4: A Red Cover

Secrets, Spies, and Soviets: Episode 4 focuses on a pivotal time in world history, from the 1930s to the 1950s, which encompasses the struggles of the Second World War and the resulting political turmoil of the Cold War.

Thank you to our featured guests, in order of appearance:  Aaron Krishtalka, Pierre Anctil, Eddie Paul, Moishe Dolman, Melanie Leavitt, Sam Bick, and Ester Reiter.

Get caught up on the happenings in today's Jewish Community--check out Bonjour Chai with hosts Avi Finegold and Phoebe Maltz Bovy, available through the Canadian Jewish News network. Find out more at https://thecjn.ca/.

recollections with the JPL is a production of the Jewish Public Library Archives and Special Collections.

Thank you to all of our guests: Pierre Anctil, Sam Bick, Moishe Dolman, Shannon Hodge, Aaron Krishtalka, Melanie Leavitt, Eddie Paul, and Ester Reiter.

Visit JPL Curates to see licensing info, guest bios, related materials from the JPL Archives and Special Collections, and our further reading guide featuring works from JPL's catalogue.

Info:

Donate to the Jewish Public Library

Follow @jplarchives and @jpl_montreal on Instagram

JPLArchives.org

JewishPublicLibrary.org

Production and editing by Ezell Carter and Ellen Belshaw

Research support by Leah Graham, Sam Pappas, Maya Pasternak, and Eddie Paul

Mastering by Josh Boguski

Theme song and music by Danijel Zambo

Sound effects provided by Pixabay and the JPL Archives

Thank you to our sponsors, the Azrieli Foundation and Federation CJA

Transcript

recollections with the JPL S01E04

Aaron Krishtalka: [00:00:00] So, uh. To be on the left was, from childhood, a risky sort of condition, which I always felt was somehow fictional. It didn't really sit on my shoulders. It's a coat that kept slipping off. 

Ellen Belshaw: I'm Ellen

Belshaw. 

Ezell Carter: And I'm Ezell Carter. And you're listening to episode four of Recollections with the JPL. The Jewish Public Library Archives and Special Collections Podcast. 

Ellen Belshaw: If this is your first time joining us, ReCollections with the JPL is a weaving of several interviews to tell the stories of the Jewish left in Montreal.

In [00:01:00] today's episode, we're focusing on a pivotal time in world history from the 1930s to the 1950s, which encompasses the struggles of the Second World War and the resulting political turmoil of the Cold War. Welcome to ReCollections!

Okay, Ezell, episode four. Episode four, it's finally here. We've been a little nervous about making and dropping this one, haven't we? 

Ezell Carter: We have been so nervous about making and dropping this one, yes. Um, I can honestly say, full disclosure, that when we started dreaming up the podcast, this was the episode, um, that gave us the most balls.

Because it is such a hard period to try to encompass. There's good, there's bad. There's a little bit of everything in here. The 30s to the 50s, you have World War [00:02:00] II, you have the Cold War, you have the atrocities in the Soviet Union, you have atrocities across the globe, but then you have the 60s and the 70s here and the Quiet Revolution and an economic upturn and it's so much information.

Ellen Belshaw: And so many things are tied to numerous other things in the history that there isn't one. linear way to tell the story that makes sense. Like there, we had to, we had to spend a lot of time figuring out what path made the most sense that the information would be clearest to our listeners, which was difficult.

Ezell Carter: It was incredibly difficult. And I think at one point you made the comment that we had our own little red scare, which I absolutely loved and felt deeply within my soul. Um, but because of that, something that we ended up doing, which we actually kind of weren't expecting to do or to need to do was we created a timeline.

Um, because we realized when we were put in the role of the researcher, um, how incredibly confusing and how many [00:03:00] things were happening all at once, right? And so, uh, we did craft a little timeline. Obviously it's not all encompassing, but it is incredibly helpful and you can find it on JPL dash curates, um, on the podcast section.

Um, so we encourage you for your own future research endeavors to go and check that out. Um, but one thing I think that, uh, uh, Ellen and I especially found. In doing that research is how much the fears and the anxieties from the Cold War never really left us. And I know Ellen, you found a story in your research that kind of reflected that.

Ellen Belshaw: Yeah, just this week, um, I've been reading about an ongoing developing story, uh, of increased police presence in Montreal's Chinatown. which is in response to the reported harassment of Chinese Canadians by the Chinese government. So that means that the RCMP have had a greater presence and have been handing out information, setting up hotlines, uh, so that people can report suspected [00:04:00] either interference from or collaboration with the, the PRC.

So, um, yeah, this is, it's, it's all relevant, right? 

Yeah, 

it ties in with the research we were doing for this, this episode. 

Ezell Carter: Yeah, and, um, that research actually led us outside of our archive. Most of what we've been doing up to this point, if not all, has been, um, from documentation held here at the Jewish Public Library archives.

Um, but for this one, we actually had to. to branch out. So we visited the Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives in Montreal, um, and Eddie and Ellen actually took a trip all the way out to Ottawa to see the Library and Archives Canada. Um, and, uh, you had a, uh, trouble even finding some of the stuff there.

Ellen Belshaw: Yeah, I mean, a lot of what we were looking at, because we're looking at Soviet spy espionage cases, right? Like a lot of that stuff's confidential. Some of it we couldn't see because of ATIP, which is, um, what is that acronym again? [00:05:00] Access to information and privacy, right? So that would have taken over a year for us to be able to see, and we don't have that timeline on this podcast, unfortunately.

Um, and some things, you know, there's a folder that says it contains a letter by a certain someone, but you'll, okay, I'm not going to give too much away, but. Sometimes the letter is not where it says it is. 

Ezell Carter: Kind of what Ellen's alluding to here is that you're going to get to hear some of us scrambling, trying to find things for you.

In this episode, it's kind of interspersed throughout some of the findings that we didn't have here at our archives, but we just felt really, really needed to get into the episode. Um, so I think with that, we're actually starting with one of those clips, so are you ready to go? 

Ellen Belshaw: Let's do it.

Ezell Carter: So here I have a letter from August 1937 and it's for, um, Mr. F. White from the Montreal Joint Board and it's from an H. M. Kasserman says, Dear Mr. [00:06:00] White, on Saturday, August 21st, the Nazi leaders of Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces met in Toronto. At the meeting, Adrian Arcond, it's hard to read the name here, the Supreme Chief of the Fascist Party of Canada informed the conference that Catholic unions here are affiliated with the National Christian Party, otherwise known as the Nazi Party.

This admission coincides with a report which we have submitted to the Jewish Daily Eagle about 10 days ago, namely that meetings of the striking textile workers were regularly addressed by Adrian, the Nazi leader, and Dr. G Lambert, the secretary of the party. 

Pierre Anctil: Yes, it's a, it's a very, uh, complex and difficult subject.

Um, let me say first that antisemitism doesn't define what's Jewish and what isn't. It's what others say of Jews. So in itself, it's not a study of the Jewish community. It's a study of the [00:07:00] prejudice that people against, have against it. 

Aaron Krishtalka: The source of modern antisemitism as distinct from older forms of it, uh, comes out of those European empires, Russia, Austria, Hungary, Germany, France.

In Canada, this was, um, Uh, furthered by the influence of antisemites in the United States. And during the 1920s and 30s, that probably was, outside of Quebec, uh, that was probably one of the main sources of, uh, antisemitic ideas. Um, in Quebec, it, uh, it expressed itself, [00:08:00] uh, uh, largely through the, what you might call the radical Catholic right.

And, um, this was a movement that began in France in, in the, uh, Before the First World War, the Action Francaise and, uh, quite a few of the leading intellectuals and clerics, a few, in Quebec were members of the Action Francaise, and in fact, uh, they were, of course, embarrassed, but not at all put out. When the papacy, in the middle 1930s, Uh, by a papal bull, uh, threatened the members of the Action Francaise with excommunication and ordered them to dissolve.

Um, but the [00:09:00] Action Francaise, uh, was, uh, was welcome here, uh, because it coincided with, sort of, say, an intellectual like Lionel Groot. It coincided with the growth of French Canadian nationalism. 

Pierre Anctil: Had there not been harsh economic conditions in the 30s, I do believe that these notions would have been milder, applied less drastically than they were in certain circumstances.

The university, McGill University, put a cap on Jewish enrollments. That's, that's what we call silent antisemitism. You just do something and you don't declare it. French Canadians tended to be more vocal. They would publish newspapers, they would write articles or editorials. And so it was more frightening in [00:10:00] terms of the statement.

But I think the more damaging form was the British Protestant racial form, which barred Jews from universities, banks, social clubs, and economic positions of power. Which was something which Anglo Protestant did against French Canadians as well. But in a different form. Um, There was no violence involved in this form of anti Semitism, unlike the Polish variety or the, in the interwar period, or Of course, the German variety, but I'm speaking of Poland because it's also a Catholic country.

Uh, the, the treatment of, of Jews in Poland between the two wars was much harsher than here. It involved specific laws against the Jews. It involved specific environments. It involved physical [00:11:00] violence, which we did not see here. And by the end of the war, Things improved enormously as, as the economic conditions became much better and the church made its, as we say, mea culpa, it, it admitted that it had erred and it urged a rapprochement, which immediately a number of people here in Quebec after the war ceased to begin a process of healing and a process of goodwill.

But the, um, The interwar period was difficult because Jews didn't know how far it would go.

Eddie Paul: August 1939 was a pivotal moment for Jews in the diaspora. It was the, it was in August that the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact was signed between Germany and the Soviet Union. [00:12:00] And one of the lesser known aspects of this agreement was that both countries secretly The countries that lay between them amongst one another, and it really became a milestone event because Jews in North America and in Europe, who had previously felt very strongly about the Soviet Union and it, it became a milestone event.

Its role as a kind of bulwark against capitalism and social injustice really, really changed the way that these Jews felt about, uh, their own, uh, leftist sentiments. And, you know, in particular, you know, they were thinking, how could a nation claim to be free of racism, free of anti Semitism, make a pact?

But 

Moishe Dolman: I mean, one thing that I, I will think of is in terms of like the nature of anti Semitism, which [00:13:00] makes it different, doesn't necessarily make it worse, but it makes it different is the, Degree to which there's this conception that not that the Jews represent a threat, but that they are already secretly in power.

So that when governments make a decision, it's basically the real, as they used to say, the string pullers are Jews. In the Dreyfus case, that was a big deal. L'Affrent juive. It's not that the Jews are threatening French society. They control French society. You see it like in contemporaneously with the idea of the Zod, you know, the Zionist occupation.

But there are connections. But the idea with the Jews is that they're already in power. They're controlling things. Who's everything is at the service of them. But they control the unions. They control. That's why in the 1930s, when you had big strikes, people used to say it'd be when you [00:14:00] had the Catholic trade unions who are even in the needle trades where it was mostly Jews, but some Catholic French Canadian Catholic workers as well.

The Catholic, uh, very prominent commentators would say that the workers, they have the choice either. Be taken advantage of by the Jewish bosses or taken advantage of by the Jewish mutants. It's all the same.

Ellen Belshaw (2): These people were arrested. And 

the home 

was padlocked. It's the pamphlet, the Padlock Law Threatens You pamphlet. It's talking about what happened to John and Iris Switzman on the night of January 27th, 1949. 

Ezell Carter: Okay, so we're looking at it. Padlock Law Threatens You by [00:15:00] Paul Normandin. It's a blue pamphlet with a chain and a padlock attached to it, and, um, it's full of articles about what's going on in Montreal at this time.

Um, it's 1941 is the date on here. Padlock law must go. Um, it means union busting. Um, the only good union is a dead one is one of the threats that's, um, referred to here. It says it destroys the right of free speech and free elections, and there's, it's full of images of, um, strikers, of, um, what looks like abuse on strikers.

Um, so this, this is a good one.

Aaron Krishtalka: My first recollection of being consciously [00:16:00] on the left was when My sister, my older sister, uh, asked my father to remove the portraits of Yud Lamed Peretz and Shalm Aleichem from the dining room wall because they looked just like Stalin and they

Be noticed by a sudden raid of the police who could padlock our home. And it was, that sounded so outlandish to me, this couldn't possibly be true. And yet it was treated as a very serious, uh, uh, suggestion. And my sister, uh, was quite scared. I was too [00:17:00] young to be scared. 

Pierre Anctil: Uh, Duplessis, um, in March 1937, passed the Padlock, it's not called the Padlock Law, it's just how it's described by historians and journalists.

Um, he could, um, put an end, To the distribution of communist literature or any, he could, he could bar or, or forcibly expel anyone from a given locality or place or building if it could be proven that they were printing communist literature, they were teaching communism, they were discussing communism.

Aaron Krishtalka: You might say, By now, of course, we can say this. It was something rather typical of the, of the sorts of powers that a Quebec government, [00:18:00] whatever its outlook, can take on a certain issue of immediate interest, both electoral and ideological. The Padlock Act was designed, and it said so, to permit, uh, the authorities acting under the powers of the Attorney General of Quebec to, uh, inspect, to raid any premises suspected of serving as a quarter of, um, as a haven for communist activity, and that, uh, if this were found to be true, then, uh, um, On the authority of the, of the officer in charge, the premises would be padlocked.

Hence, it's called the Padlock Act. And it could be padlocked for one year. Of course, you could go to a judge after [00:19:00] one year and show that it was no longer being used for this purpose and apply to have the padlock removed. 

Pierre Anctil: It, it affected, it was not an anti Jewish law. Obviously there could be communists, and there were French Canadian communists, and other origins.

But it did affect the Jewish community disproportionately. Because it's not hard to see that when you look at, uh, for instance, um, The election of Fred Rose in 43, who was an avowed communist. It's not hard to see that in the Jewish community, there was a proportion. It's hard to give a percentage, but there was a reasonable proportion of people, not the majority, but a sizable minority who felt that communism was something to be examined and should be promoted.

So it hit them on the head. [00:20:00] 

Melanie Leavvitt: The climate of fear and paranoia that the padlock law created, and the chilling effect that it had in the, in the labour movement, um, regularly being under the scrutiny of law enforcement, and being used to having the police come in and rifle through their personal collections of books.

The Red Squad, or the police squad that was in charge of going and raiding locations that would be padlocked, oftentimes not even able to recognize what was happening. It's actually communist propaganda, but simply going after anything that had a red cover or anything that was written in another language.

Pierre Anctil: How harsh the measure was, uh, if you make comparisons with the dictatorial regimes of the time, it's very mild. He would, he would seize books. He would question people. Most didn't go to jail. Most were left alone, but the [00:21:00] dissemination of places where books were disseminated. Or, or publications such as Clarty were, were, uh, made unavailable.

Melanie Leavvitt: So, Leah Roback would talk about the fact that while her mother, Fanny, was not a very political person, she was absolutely outraged at the violation. Of their rights of having these police, uh, you know, police men come into their homes and go through their objects that she would sometimes say, you know, present a Jewish religious book that was actually written in Yiddish and say, here, why don't you take this?

This is communist propaganda. And so the. Like other people in the movement at the time, you just had to adapt and, and kind of live under this constant threat or this potential threat. And so some of the ways that this would be done, even within the, the extended families, my, my grandfather was well aware that any documents that he [00:22:00] picked up from Leah, when he would visit her, that, you know, If there, under any circumstance, there should ever be a risk of a, of a, of a, of a raid from the police that you knew to toss it out the window, I don't know if it was actually had any legal legitimacy as a strategy, but the idea was, is that at least you would not be putting your family at risk.

of having their home padlocked. And so, um, you know, the padlock law was one of the most repressive laws in Canadian legal history. And it, you know, it was a way in which, under the guise of fighting the real or imagined threat of communism, it really was used as a tool of repression against the left as a whole.

And as a way to try to silence and, and, and, uh, weaken the left. Um, any voices of opposition. So[00:23:00] 

Ezell Carter: I have a really short one here from the Herald. It's January 22nd, 1952. It says, Du Plessis assures jury no anti Semitism here. Um, he said that recent anti Semitic statements reported to have been made in legislature do not represent Quebec government. Um, apparently at a recent session, it says that Agriculture Minister Barr was quoted as saying that even if goods were offered at a bargain price, he would not purchase from a Jew.

Um, but de Plessis responded that the province of Quebec is traditionally just and fair to the minorities, and the present government and Prime Minister will always unsurpassed traditions. 

Pierre Anctil: It was a measure, as we say in French, pour la galerie. It was something, it was a political statement, more than anything else.

You [00:24:00] also, um, had a, a law to prevent, um, Jehovah's Witnesses from disseminating propaganda, which cannot be called communist propaganda by any means. So, um, so you have this way of dealing with certain types of, uh, political enemies, which he felt, uh, deserved harsh, harsh punishment. But, um, it went largely unnoticed because the sentiment in Canada and both French and English was, was very strong against communism.

Aaron Krishtalka: It's the use of the act, um, that I experienced. And one day in 1952, in the, in the springtime, the school I went to, which was An institution founded by the UJPO, Morris Vinchefsky School. It was a Jewish day school. I was in grade five. [00:25:00] Uh, we were raided by the police, and they tromped in, and um, and we all had to go home.

And my only experience of this is that I'd forgotten a book that I needed for my homework. And so after we were out there, After we were out almost on the street, I remembered and I dashed back up the stairs. Uh, I was, I seemed, I don't know why, but I did. I, and there was a great big policeman there, and he, he made a noise and I said, I need my book.

And I went and got the book and, and I left. The school was not padlocked, but the United Jewish People's Orders Center. on the corner of Laurier and, um, uh, John Mance, I think it is, was padlocked. Uh, there they have found communist propaganda. [00:26:00] Um, the school apparently almost was padlocked according to the stories we were told right after because They found guns in the, uh, in the basement.

The guns, of course, were wooden or cardboard cutouts that were used for, uh, school plays. And so, um, we went on, uh, it had a terrible effect on the school because enrollments fell. 

Ezell Carter: Yeah, so Eddie found an article here that looks pretty interesting about one of the raids from the padlock law. 

Eddie Paul: There was um, an article printed in several Canadian newspapers.

This one is from the June 19th, 1950 issue of the Montreal Gazette, when provincial police raided the headquarters of the United Jewish People's Order and found what they claimed was a submachine gun. Uh, [00:27:00] and the premises were subsequently padlocked under the province's padlock law for one year. Uh, so they claim, the police claim that they found a submachine gun, heavy portable type wrapped in rags, in good mechanical condition with the barrel sawed off.

But, uh, no ammunition had been found, uh, and apparently, uh, the Secretary of the United Jewish People's Order said that what the police found was a wooden prop that was being used in a play by Erwin Shaw, Bury the Dead, that was being rehearsed by the students at the time. 

Ezell Carter: Yeah, so this was the school that tied to the Lucewski Center?

Eddie Paul: That's right. Yeah, this was the Morris, yes, this was tied, this was, uh, Morris Lucewski School. 

Ezell Carter: Okay. And we had another article, too. That I think might tie to this. It's about, it's about a Son of a detective lieutenant, um, in the fifties, who it looks like was spying for them. 

Eddie Paul: [00:28:00] Yes. This was a strange story. Um, the son of a police lieutenant who was 19 had been working undercover for four years prior to that.

Um, spying on. Um. 

Ezell Carter: Yeah, he said it's described the leader of the National Federation of Labor Youth, um, and the UJPO. That's right. Yeah. 

Eddie Paul: Yeah. He was, uh, he'd become a member of some left liberal organizations, young communist organizations to do undercover work for his father. Uh, so, you know, four years, he was very young at the time.

And I was reading this, I was reminded this was 1984 all over again. 

Ezell Carter: Yeah, he was 15 when he started, it looks like. 

Aaron Krishtalka: That did not close the school. But closing schools is something that happened, uh, in Soviet policy towards Jews. And that coincided with [00:29:00] the period in which, starting in 1948, the Anti Fascist Committee was, uh, uh, dissolved.

Its members were arrested in 1952. They and others, uh, all of them Jewish, were executed. And, um, so, the support of a communist fellow traveling institution for a Yiddish nationalist minded school had to stop. And it did.

Sam Bick: The post 1920s and 30s, the real binary that that gets created between the communist and anti communist perspectives on the Jewish left really shapes All the history that's written. Um, you squish a lot [00:30:00] of disparate political groups into the social democratic arbiter ring zone. Um, and then you get very rigid communist or anti communist historiographies from the communist side of things.

So there's definitely a way that, uh, uh, the shadow of the Soviet anti Soviet or communist anti communist split in, in the Jewish left is still very clear in, uh,

Eddie Paul: McCarthyism is usually associated with the United States, but it happened in Canada as well. In fact, one could argue it probably started here. It's defined as the paranoia that, uh, spearheaded by Joseph McCarthy, Senator Joseph McCarthy, that there were pockets of communist influence in government, Hollywood, and other segments of society.

He claimed to have a list of card carrying communists that were employed by the U. S. Department of State [00:31:00] and led to a crusade of accusations of disloyalty and subversion. People who were in positions of power in Hollywood lost their jobs overnight, and it ostensibly drew on guilt by association, and really led to an atmosphere of suspicion in many aspects of society.

It also paved the way for a lot of the student protests and the nude left that it characterized by the 1960s. 

Moishe Dolman: Okay, we haven't, I'll tell you what hasn't been discussed at all is the connection between antisemitism and the Jewish left from the time of the pogroms and the czars and even in North America and the connection, let's say, of McCarthyism, which came in the 1950s to antisemitism, how the two things were [00:32:00] extremely close.

And that in the, in the, um, period, for example, where young Jews in the 50s who were more conservative, let's say in the United States and wanted to join the Youth for Ike movement to elect White Eisenhower, converted out of Judaism because they felt that being Jewish was so much associated with, um, With the um, With being, being Jewish was associated with leftism and they didn't want that.

All these name changes We haven't talked at all about the role of assimilation even among Jewish communists. How it gave them, many of them, the chance to assimilate.

Ellen Belshaw: Here I have a picture with a caption from the Canadian Tribune in Toronto, February 1st, 1947 that says Uh, the title is Miss [00:33:00] Fred Rose Buys 50 Certificate. Um, the caption reads, Fred and I know the campaign must succeed. Mrs. Fred Rose told Mrs. Doris Nielsen as she bought a 50 Daily Tribune Certificate.

Here we see Mrs. Rose, who is fighting for her husband's freedom, saying,

It's interesting that they refer to him as the popular member of parliament in 1947 when most other publications are referring to him as either a communist or as having just been charged.

Eddie Paul: Fred Rose was elected to the House of Commons, uh, in a 1943 by election in Montreal's Cartier riding. Uh, it was, um, he ran as the representative of the Labour Progressive Party, which was re minted from, uh, What was previously known [00:34:00] as the Communist Party, which was outlawed. He beat out David Lewis of the CCF, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.

That was the precursor of the NDP, the New Democratic Party. And Rose remains the only Communist MP ever elected to Canadian Parliament. 

Moishe Dolman: Their candidate was Fred Grose, a well known electrician in the area. David Lewis was from a Bundist family, and the Bundists and Communists hate each other like poison.

Lost! He became, he was a very prominent person, but the image of his party, the Socialist Party, the CCF, was a party that was dominated by Protestant clergymen. In other words, they seemed very goyish. Whereas even though Fred Roel, David Lewis himself, was a brilliant orator in Yiddish, people heard him in English, they thought he was terrific and people say you should hear him in Yiddish.

But the image of his [00:35:00] party was very Protestant, very Goyish. Whereas the image of the Communist Party. was very Jewish. 

Aaron Krishtalka: Well, Fred, Fred Rose, his full name was Rosenberg and his, uh, his brother, Abe, Aby, was one of the leaders, often the president, the secretary, but always, uh, the general secretary of the UJPO in, in Montreal.

The election of Fred, of Fred Rose itself, it came at a time when Public admiration of things Russian, uh, was at its highest. This is just after the Second World War. Everyone understood the huge share that the Red Army had in the [00:36:00] defeat of Hitler. And, um, the reaction of the Soviet Union to, um, to Zionism, and that had not yet.

emerged, there was still that idea that they were the liberators, just as the British Army and the Canadians and the Americans were from the West. So, uh, that brought a vote in Cartier, uh, um, which included A huge number of Jewish voters had nothing to do with it. The JUJPO were not JUJPO members. In fact, the majority were not.

Uh, that was the wave that carried him, I think, uh, into Parliament.[00:37:00] 

Ellen Belshaw: Okay, so we're currently looking at a Department of Justice file, which is labeled confidential. So And coming into this, this was something we thought was going to be a letter written by Igor Grisenko, but all that's contained within the file is a series of follow up letters between some of the staff members of the Prime Minister at the time, talking about the fact that the letter was actually read by Mackenzie King, and it was asked that it be returned to the special assistant to the Prime Minister, whose name I think is J.

W. Pickerscope. 

Eddie Paul: But there's no letter. There's no actual letter in the file. 

Ellen Belshaw: Yeah, exactly. We're not seeing a letter by Guzenko at all. We're just seeing a material about the letter we were looking for.

Eddie Paul: One of the iconic photos that I recall from school was of, um, a cypher clerk [00:38:00] from the Russian embassy in Ottawa, Igor Guzenko, wearing a bag over his head. And, uh, The context for this was that he was the one who had accused Fred Rose of communicating official secrets to the Soviet Union. Uh, Rose was arrested in what's usually recognized as the first Cold War spy trial.

Uh, he was accused of leading a ring of 20 Soviet spies who were targeting atomic weapons research from the Manhattan Project. He, um, was found guilty of conspiracy. He was sentenced to prison for a term just one day longer than was required to deprive him of his elected seat in Parliament. He served out his sentence and, uh, but his Canadian citizenship was revoked in absentia.

He is left for Poland [00:39:00] and was not allowed to return. And even though the Supreme Court of Canada amended the Canadian Citizenship Act in 58, he was not allowed to return to Canada and he remained in Poland until his death in 83. 

Aaron Krishtalka: When he was arrested and the charges were made public, what I remember is again, a domestic argument.

Where there wasn't so much an argument as a Um, and my, my parents agreed, but, but my father was, uh, I think in many ways much more deeply troubled about it than my mother. My mother was just outraged. How could a man, she would say, who is elected and he's a member of parliament, how could he do this? This being [00:40:00] spying for Russia.

And she went on to say, and how could they ask him to? And that's what was troubling.

Eddie Paul: Ellen and I are currently looking through a batch of photos, all entitled Spy Case. Labeled, many of them labeled March 1946, and many of them are Fred Rose. 

Ellen Belshaw: Yeah, here's Fred Rose in court. Here we have Fred Rose with his wife and daughter. This one's David Sugar. Um, I've heard that name. Is he another alleged spy?

Eddie Paul: He was also taken into custody. His was Nightingale, MMS Nightingale. 

Ellen Belshaw: Right, um, Sam Carr, that's another spy's name we've seen already, right? 

Eddie Paul: Suspected [00:41:00] spy Sam Carr. Okay, so I guess we should include that as well. Are all of these negatives? Yeah, I think so. 

Ester Reiter: You know what they're saying, what did he get stuck with?

Apparently there was some munitions thing, SDX, I don't exactly remember the name, and it was actually approved and it was on a list to be shared because we were allies with the Soviet Union. So Fred Rose, I don't know, he tells his, you know, he gets this from his friend, he hands it over to the Soviets.

And apparently, he didn't think he was doing anything illegal. And then, and then of course, boom, comes Gusenko and the Cold War, and it, and it ruined his life. You know, he spent four years in jail, he went to Poland, conditions there were horrible, eh, it was not a good story. 

Aaron Krishtalka: His arrest and conviction. was, [00:42:00] um, it was demoralizing in the sense that we've elected somebody and then lost him and there's no one to represent us.

That idea lasted for a while and then of course the the sitting liberals made sure that in the next election Karchi didn't exist anymore. So they divided it up. And, uh, the kind of majority that was available in 1946 was no longer available for that sort of communist sympathizing, uh, candidate. So, uh, now, of course, in hindsight, now we know that the Russian secret services, whichever one it was, [00:43:00] Uh, had a, had a fundamental policy.

They used people who were elected into, you know, by, by democratic means as agents when they could, and then they disavowed them utterly when they were caught. Uh, Fred Rose is an example. The Rosenbergs of course, are an example. 

Ester Reiter: The Fred Rose thing really hit me on the, over the head. And that's because.

You know, like the people who I grew up with would think of, you know, what happened to the Rosenbergs and what happened to their kids. That could happen to anybody, to any of them. 

Eddie Paul: The trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was, um, a case that made its way into popular culture in the United States and the rest of the world.

They were a married couple from New York and they were convicted of [00:44:00] spying for the Soviet Union. It the first civilians to be executed on such charges, and the first to be executed during peacetime. Julius Rosenberg had worked for the U. S. Army Corps as an engineer, but was dismissed when it came to light that he was involved in the communist movement.

He found an engineering company, the G& R Engineering Company, with Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, who had been assigned to work on the Manhattan Project. Ethel was a trained secretary and had been tasked with typing out the notes that her husband passed to the Soviet Union on the bomb project. And both the Rosenbergs were tried and convicted in 51.

Uh, even though there were protests that took place across the world to stop their executions, they were finally executed in 1953.

Ester Reiter: But I mean, all of us, [00:45:00] Canada, U. S., we were completely caught up in the, in the incredible justice around the Rosenberg trial, the Rosenberg trial and execution. And I still am. I mean, I've read so many things, certainly met the kids. I don't really know them, know them, but, you know. I mean that's, that's a legacy and that comes from when I'm pretty young, like I'm 10 years old, huh?

Like 53, well I was old, excuse me, well when they were arrested I was like 10 years old, but I knew about that. That's the one thing that my mother would schlep me to would be demos for the Rosemarks, you know? Um, I was a child just knowing that this is wrong. And, uh, this is wrong, and these people are being picked on.

And of course, as we read more and more and more and more, we know that actually, so what? He was a courier, big deal. He was not carrying secrets. This, this we know, and there's been a lot of stuff [00:46:00] written about that. And, and his question is, She was guilty of typing and actually the city of New York actually issued an apology to her I think on the 100th anniversary of her birth.

Aaron Krishtalka: My father always said to us, it happened often, uh, this is the best country in the world. You can walk down the street and, uh, and a policeman is not anyone to be afraid of. He's never going to ask you for your papers. You don't have to carry a passport. It's a free country. It's wonderful. But on the other hand, There was the sense that, uh, here and there you might run across the personal animosity of someone who hates you.[00:47:00] 

Eddie Paul: The, the Cold War was, um, a very long period of time that began at the end of World War II. It lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. And it refers to the the hegemonic struggle between the United States and its allies on one side and the Soviet Union and its allies on the other. And, uh, it encompassed a period of struggle for political dominance using propaganda, espionage, uh, economic embargoes.

It even made its way into the Olympics, sports competitions, and the space race. The media had a field day with this. It was, I don't think that you could actually pick up a newspaper in that 50 year span without reading something about [00:48:00] an aspect of the Cold War. I remember, culminated, my awareness of this happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis when it was announced that, uh, There was, um, evidence that Russian missiles were, uh, being, uh, stationed in, in Cuba.

And a lot of people thought this was the beginning of the end of the world. And my mother, I recall, kept my sister home from school that day, who was furious because, as I recall, there was a school play going on, and I think there were rehearsals. Uh, but, um, it was, um, It was one of those times where You always felt like you were on the, always on the edge of the end of the world, depending on how the media reported it.

Ester Reiter: You know, everything the New York Times says is wrong, and because we know how much they lie. So sometimes they didn't lie, and then, like, that's the problem, right? You know, [00:49:00] some of the stuff about the Soviet Union was not a big secret, but we figured it was all lies. They lied about everything. Why wouldn't they lie about that?

Solomon Michoels - Soviet Anti-Fasc Committee, Moscow, August 1941: of the free Soviet Union, where Jews are equal builders of a new society and a new life. I appeal to you, Jews of the whole world. Today, when the anti armed Well, it's

Aaron Krishtalka: a very complicated question. Uh, the background to the complication is that the mission of Mikhoels and Pfeffer [00:50:00] was designed by Stalin, by, by official Soviet policy. And it was to cement further and encourage the, the supply, uh, of, uh, strategic and other goods to Russia during the war. Russian war relief was then a standing program, both in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, and in Palestine and Mexico.

And those are the places that they went. When, so when they were traveling, they're traveling as as emissaries of the Jewish Anti Fascist Committee. There were several such committees. One of them was Jewish, but there were a Ukrainian Anti Fascist Committee and so on and so forth. So their mission [00:51:00] was to press the advantage to increase the intensity, uh, uh, and the amounts of aid that were being shipped to, to Russia.

Eddie Paul: There was a moment, it was longer than a moment, but it was a decisive point in the unraveling of the Jewish progressive support of Soviet communism. It happened in 1943 When two renowned Yiddishists, poet Itzik Pfeffer and actor Solomon Mikhoels traveled as delegates of the Jewish Anti Fascist Committee, they traveled to North America and Palestine to bolster support for the Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany.

But the people Mikhoels and Pfeffer had encountered They began to question whether [00:52:00] Stalin really had the best interests of Jews in mind. 

Aaron Krishtalka: Uh, their unofficial mission, which they undertook on their own, because they were still, though members of the Communist Party, they were still, they were still independent minded for Jewish matters at any rate.

So, on their own, is my guess, they were there to reconcile the vast Yiddish cultural life of America, of North America, and of Palestine, the Hebrew and Yiddish life, with the Yiddish culture and its leaders, its activities, and its institutions in the Soviet Union. Because there had been, of course, an immense, uh, break between the two.

In both the Yiddish, [00:53:00] the Zionists, the non Zionists, there was a unity that that was created around this idea of helping the Red Army. And they had come at a time when the Red Army not only was going to survive, it had won at Stalingrad. And the timing of this vastly, you might say, uh, uh, encouraged this warmth, this This unity.

Eddie Paul: The Night of the Murdered Poets was, um, an event that happened in 1952, uh, when 13 Soviet Jews, mostly Yiddish poets, actors, and members of the Jewish Anti Fascist Committee, including Yitzhak Pfeffer, were executed after having been imprisoned for several years on false accusations of espionage and treason.

News of [00:54:00] these executions In addition to Solomon Mikhoel's 1948 assassination that was ordered by Stalin and not made public until 1955, um, really caused a rift in the diaspora in North America and, and in Europe. These were Jews who had admired Soviet Russia for its ideals of Jewish tolerance and acceptance.

And it really was formed the beginning of the realization that Stalin's regime was oppressive and, uh, anti Semitic.

Ester Reiter: I, I can't understand not staying the course. I mean, I do understand like what happened to the, to people who are in the communist party. They found out what Stalin was [00:55:00] doing and they said, Oh, that's it. I'm out of here. Period. And it became a Zionist or the, or they really did lose Their politics, it's social justice principles, and we thought they were realized over there.

We found that we were very wrong. 

Moishe Dolman: But by in the 1950s, because of basically the Soviet Union, McCarthyism in North America, And stories of incredible anti Semitism in the Soviet Union, including the murder of the leading Jewish cultural activists. The led to the destruction of the communist movement among Jews in, in Canada.

Pierre Anctil: You see, you paint a picture from, from where we are, of a society that was really plagued by serious economic and social ills. That's the landscape of the 30s, which was changed by the war, of course. [00:56:00] Um, suddenly, not for very good reasons, but suddenly, we came back, went back to full employment in the, uh, early forties because of the war.

A million Canadians went and were enrolled mostly on Canadian soil. And that changed everything. And, um, the war years were, uh, were moments when everything is suspended. You cannot discuss much, but. Because you're, you're confronted with a, an urgent struggle. And um, all these movements who, who claim to improve society, uh, were frozen.

for the duration of the war. So it's a new world after World War II in the late 40s. It's a world of television, uh, [00:57:00] much more accessible education, highly improved economic standard of living, and generally a more democratic environment. So that's, it's, it's, it's difficult. To go back to that period and not paint the black picture of that world between the two wars.

But it was, it was difficult. So, left leaning has many, many meanings. And, uh, until, until basically the 50s or 60s, these, these elements would remain vital in how people related to, um, to community organizations, to, uh, Militancy to, to becoming active generally, and even in the Jewish milieu. 

Moishe Dolman: Uh, there was even a big split.

Some of them formed a new organization that left the United Jewish People's Order and formed their own. And [00:58:00] their children were better off. Their children were making money. They were not interested. They were less interested in, in, uh, in proletarian struggle and Al Disk. 

Eddie Paul: Uh, an old friend of mine, uh, Ray Shankman, who was an English teacher of mine, wrote a three line poem and it went old, left, knew left, none, left in the 1950s.

I think this was the beginning of a time of prosperity. Relative prosperity in Quebec. And there were different priorities. People who were very much involved in the labor struggle. People who were very much involved in workers rights. Were the, their, I don't know if their ideals were ne necessarily, necessarily disappeared, but they were, [00:59:00] they were put off to the side.

They were bracketed. And, and of course, you know, the left, you know, as with any great ideological movement, the left had schisms, you know, from the very beginning. And I think these schisms finally came to a head. in the 50s and it was also the beginning of the quiet revolution and the social contract was changing.

Quebec was becoming a social welfare state and a lot of the a lot of the aid, a lot of the support the Jewish communities were trying to give to its own were being taken over by levels of government. So in a sense Uh, the left was, was, was being integrated, aspects of the left were being integrated into, um, the mainstream society.

And I don't think these ideals ever disappear altogether, but, um, as I said, they become bracketed. They, they, you find other, you find other ways of achieving social justice, and I think this is what's [01:00:00] happened, you know, since the, since the fifties here in Canada and in Montreal.

Ezell Carter: So normally by the end of the episode we like to tie it in a nice neat little bow, but this time we decided to walk you through it a little bit more hand in hand. 

Ellen Belshaw: So there's a few last minute facts we want to make sure are covered here. We have the end of the padlock law. It's deemed unconstitutional in 1957.

Two years later, Du Plessis dies and this marks the end of the Grand Monseur. And also the beginning of the quiet revolution. Um, the year after in 1960, uh, Jean Lesage, a liberal was, was voted in. And that's when we see the beginning of the secularization of government, the establishment of a welfare state, as well as the establishment of ministries of health and education, which we now take for granted, there's something.

Part of our everyday, [01:01:00] but before that, they were under the purview of the Roman Catholic Church. There was the nationalization of electricity with Hydro Quebec, and also a shift towards kind of two factions of Federalists and Separatists. 

Ezell Carter: Oh, can I say this next one? Yes, go for it. Okay, so the fact that Ellen found today that we thought was fascinating is that the term Québécois, which describes people from the region, was not adopted until the Quiet Revolution.

Ellen Belshaw: Yeah, so that kind of goes hand in hand with this nationalist, separatist, new terminology. It's very cool. I thought that went farther back into French Canadian history, but apparently not. 

Ezell Carter: And I had no idea.

Ellen Belshaw: Um, essentially though, the main point of this is that, uh, as Ellen had said earlier, 

most people start their story of leftist history in Quebec where this one ends.

Ezell Carter: A lot of leftist history actually comes from this incredibly small, incredibly motivated immigrant population. And [01:02:00] so that's who we're trying to raise up here. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for joining us.

Ellen Belshaw: ReCollections with the JPL is the production of the Jewish Public Library Archives and Special Collections. A special thank you to the archivists who made this episode possible, Janice and Melissa at the Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives and Benoit at Library and Archives Canada. 

Ezell Carter: And an extra special thank you to our speakers.

Who make every episode possible. Pierre Antille, Sam Bick, Moish Dolman, Shannon Hodge, Aaron Kraschalka, Melanie Liebet, Eddie Paul, and Esther Ryder. You can find their in depth bios in our show notes.

Ellen Belshaw: Additional production, editing, and operations by Ellen Belshaw and Ezell [01:03:00] Carter. Research support from Sam Papas and Eddie Paul.

Mixing by Ezell Carter and mastering by Josh Boguski. 

Musical 

Ezell Carter: score by Danielle Zambo. Sound effects provided by Pixabay. 

Ellen Belshaw: Thank you to our sponsors, the Azrielli Foundation and Federation CJA. You can find out more about this podcast and all of our other happenings at jpl curates. org or sign up for our archives and special collections newsletter, Der Zammler.

You've been listening to Recollections with the JPL. 

This is Ellen Belshaw 

Ezell Carter: and Ezell Carter 

Hosts: signing off in solidarity.

The whole thing? 

I mean, not the whole thing. 

It could be, but it could all be better. 

Is this true? Nope.[01:04:00] 

Good thing we checked.