HARBIN MEMORIES FROM
CHARLES (RUVIM) ISAAC CLURMAN
Click
on the photo for a larger view.
Born
October 31, 1918,
in Harbin
to Ethel Keilis Clurman and Isak Grigori Clurman
Married Miriam Grant (nee Grodsky) in 1946 in San
Francisco,
California
Died
July 7,
2001,
in Reno,
Nevada
The
following narrative is excerpted from an audiotape made by Charles Clurman on
October 29, 1982,
in Reno,
Nevada.
The interview, transcription and editing were done by Charles’ daughter Irene
Clurman.
Editing comments are in parentheses. A native Russian speaker, Charles did the
interview in English, and his grammar was left uncorrected.
DISCUSSING
THE MAP OF
HARBIN
So
here would be our city. This is the river
Sungari
(now
Songhua
). Then there would be an embarcadero
along the river. Then here would be the bridge across the river. The only way
that you could cross from here to here would be a bridge. This was almost a mile
wide river, very fast, fantastic current.
Amur River
was north of us. And this is the
railway bridge. When the ice would flow on the river in the fall, you could not
cross on a boat because the ice would crush the boats. So you could walk across
but you couldn’t drive across. During that time, no carts could go
across.
We
were on the main side (in) Pristan (now Daoli DIstrict). Pristan means like a
pier. And here was Chingche, a suburb. Here was Nahalovka, another suburb.
Nahalovka means “squatters,” taking advantage without rights.
And
here was the drive-over, and this was
Fifth Street
and here was our lumberyard. And here was Kitayskaya Ulitsa (now
Central Street
) , which means
Chinese Street
, and this was the main street of
Harbin
. Here on Komerchaskaya Ulitsa (
Commercial Street
) was the city jail. And here was the main police station and here was the
Russian church and here was a stadium, a big stadium. And here “Za Sungariu”
- on the other side of the
Sungari
(river)- were all the summer resorts and all kinds of … flimsy things for
summer only. Couldn’t live there in the winter time. It was too cold.
Right
here was the main railway station. And the railway went to
Russia
. Here was the old city. And here was
the racetrack, horse race track. And all these people with horses lived here.
And here on this side was a Chinese city. That’s where all the Chinese lived.
There were no Russians living there at all.
In the olden
days, by the river was a swamp. So the old city started here. Then Madyugo ( a
suburb). Then Novii Gorod. Then Pristan. It was called Pristan because it was
right on the (pier) of the river. And on this river (the Amur) were big river
boats. They used to go to
Russia
and all that. This Amur is the
boundary between
Manchuria
and
Soviet Union
. And forever they were fighting here,
because when Japanese took
Manchuria
, they put troops on the Amur. And they
were forever big skirmishes between the Russians and the Japanese. Practically a
war going on. Many, many Japanese were killed there, on the Amur.
DEVELOPMENT
OF HARBIN
Before the
Russians came, (
Harbin
) was a village…
Manchuria
was very sparsely populated... with
big chunks of land totally unpopulated. So
Harbin
was nothing. It was just a sleepy
village and swamps and everything until they put through the railway from
Russia
and to
Dairen
(now Dalien).
The Russians
when they were building the railway, they developed the entire country there.
They started to cut timber, ship lumber, and there were a lot of natural
resources. Lumber went south also to
China
. Lumber went to
Japan
. Then meat and hides and casings and
bristles. Manchurian bristles. Because it’s so cold, the prime export was hog
bristles, because bristles they grow 6-7 inches long and the best paintbrushes
and all kinds of brushes used to be made from Manchurian bristles, because pigs
in north
Manchuria
grow these bristles 7-8 inches long.
And these bristles were processed and packed and graded and shipped out. And
also pelts, all kind of pelts.
So
when we talk about
Harbin
, when my father came there (about
1904), it was absolutely nothing. There was nothing there. Then when the railway
came, the railway developed the country. As they developed the country, they
also developed their freight that they would ship. So they put in … a
university in Novii Gorod, a polytechnic, the Railway Polytechnic, for
engineering sciences. Then they brought opera. Then they brought high schools.
Then they brought the veterinary sciences. They brought in agricultural seeds.
They brought in breeding animals. They brought in everything, everything from
Russia
to develop
Manchuria
– agriculture, industries and
everything, from
Russia
. The whole country was revitalized.
The same effect that Southern Pacific had on the
United States
. (The railway) connected the
wilderness to the civilized world.
Harbin
was the biggest of all the (railway)
cities because it was the center, a railway hub, through which all of the
network of railways went south and north and west and east. That’s why it grew
up so big. The railway was owned 50 percent by the Russians and 50 percent by
the Chinese. Used to be called Chinese Eastern Railway. The Russians in the
olden days considered this country as their property. But all this, I’m
talking loosely, because in those days there were no such controls. It was a
wild open country, just like (in the Wild West). One sheriff for the whole state
of
Texas
.
So
the Russians had a small garrison of troops in
Harbin
and they maintained law and order and
collected some taxes …but basically they were guarding the railway. During
Czarist time, there was a general (in charge)
– Horvat. Usually the head of the railway was the Russian
representation in
Manchuria
because railway was so influential.
And then the garrison probably even reported to the head of the railway.
Along
the railway the Russians were able to maintain peace because the Chinese were
not armed properly. They were armed with spears and swords and bows and arrows
and things like that... But in 1918, when the Revolution came to
Russia
, these Imperial troops were cut off
from
Russia
because
Russia
became Soviet, and the Chinese took
advantage of that and disarmed the Russian garrison and took over
Manchuria
.
And
at that time to power rose a common bandit but a very astute person, Chang
Tso-lin, referred to as The Old Marshal. He was very successful. He was very
wily. And he was able to rule
Manchuria
. There was a Manchurian cavalry and
things like that and my father used to sell them horses for the generals and the
officers.
DOING BUSINESS
All
these Jews came there because it was such a booming city. Fortunes were made
overnight. It was like a boom town, exploding in all directions. My father came
to the
US
(from
Harbin
during WWI) and (brought back) indoor
plumbing and things they didn’t have in
Manchuria
. There was no indoor plumbing. He
brought in central heating – radiators and boilers – and he made himself a
fortune…He was very smart of course. Even how he designed buildings. He
learned many things from the States. He picked up a lot of things from the
States and brought them to
Manchuria
because it was innovation.
We wrecked
probably a hundred railway cars (for) scrap iron. And we used to sell scrap iron
to the Chinese foundries that used to smelter them… We used to winch up the
thing on the tripod like this, big tripod, then loosen it, drop it and break it
(to sell for scrap). The whole city shook, and all the buildings collapsed. We
had to move three times! (laughs)
When
we had a chance in ’38 to leave (during the Japanese occupation of
Manchuria
), my father wouldn’t leave, because
he said, “I built this whole country and I’m not going anywhere. Japanese
come, Japanese go, and the Japanese can never control
China
.”
(Al)
Maisin’s father (a baker) never left either. And he was baking bread for
Communists all the time until he died (in 1952). And they didn’t bother him.
They just let him bake the bread.
GROWING
UP IN
HARBIN
We
never had (private) cars. There was only one car, belonged to the cousin of
Tyotya Ria (wife of Nathan Clurman, Charles’ uncle). Chinese had some cars and
police had special trucks, and then fire department had fire engine and buses,
there were buses. Oh, and Alex Turk of course had a car, don’t worry about
that. His father had the Ford agency in
Harbin
. But really privately
owned cars, there was only one guy that I know of.
All other cars were taxis, and there were
jeepneys – cars that would take 5-6 passengers. And there were buses and there
were trucks. But there were no private cars. Gas was so expensive. And there was
no place to go because the roads were bumpy, paved with not asphalt but
cobblestones. We had beautiful horses. We could outrun a car on cobblestone
streets! We had very good horses.
(Maisin’s
bakery) always delivered on horses. Wagons driven by horses. There were whole
big stables. That’s why Al (Maisin) likes to ride horses, because he used to
ride those horses that used to deliver bread in the morning.
And
the man would come in with a big round bread like that, and say “How much
bread do you need today?”
You’d
say, “Give me one or two pounds.”
So
he’d cut from this steaming big bread…
Most
of our teachers in our school (
First
Harbin
Public
Commercial
High School
) were old Russian staff officers,
Imperial Russian Army officers that migrated out of
Russia
. We had a Russian education. We had a
very good school. Actually the
University
of
California
knows this because a lot of people
today are professors in
University
of
California
. There are several of them there.
All
our boys that came to the
United States
…We didn’t have one single person
that came from
Manchuria
that stepped out of the boundary of
the law. Not one. All of us were very law-abiding and all of us succeeded in
every field we chose…So everybody I don’t know, we just learned to survive
and we learned to live by our wits and pursue our goals and succeed in what
we’re doing. You can say there are some better people, some worse
people…There are people in
Australia
, the
U.S.
,
Canada
,
Brazil
,
Japan
…
Of
course we all had fun. We would go to the river. We would row. I used to row.
Sail. Swim. Play volleyball, basketball, We had our dances. We had our parties.
Then
there were the Trumpeldor (Betar) scouts. We had athletics. We had a skating
team. Boys and girls. We were preparing to go to
Israel
to fight for independence of
Israel
.
China
was not our country. We considered ourselves
Jewish. We did not even consider ourselves Russian. We were paramilitary. This
was in 1933 maybe, 1934. All these guys are in
Israel
now.
(Although
young people had many lighthearted times, kidnapping was an ongoing fear for
foreign families.)
The
bandits in
China
, they kidnapped for people for ransom.
Then they cut off an ear and they send the ear…I think kidnapping originated
in
China
, particularly in
Manchuria
. They were brutal, I mean, they cut
off fingers, ears, nose, send it to the family with the ransom note to prove
that they’re holding them.
Everybody used to laugh at me, because
I’d go to a party, then my father would come pick me up. He wouldn’t let me
go alone. It was dangerous.
(White
Russians fleeing the Bolsheviks brought anti-Semitism to
Harbin
, and Russian
hooligans began attacking Jews.)
I
never got beat up. I could beat anybody fighting. The one time I got beat up was
in a boxing match. But in the street, I never got beaten up.
My father
carried a gun. My father never went without a gun. I always carried this kind of
a stick like my father carried. I carried it right here, in my sleeve. When I
walk on the street, they never know, but I have this billy club here from
ironwood, piece of black ironwood. Something happens, I’m just ready to go and
I pick it up and I have it in one second. I always carried it in my sleeve. And
my books, I never carried them in my hands. My books were always in my belt, so
both arms were free.
Because
my job was to see that we did not get in the short end of a stick. So anybody
would pick up on the Jewish boys in school, I had to go and fight with them. But
then we would have challenges. This guy challenge this guy. So I had to go and
fight. But I never fought with a Jewish boy. I never hit a Jewish boy.
One
time both of us got beaten up, my best friend and me. And he wouldn’t tell his
mother what happened. So (the) mothers got together, and his mother said,
“They must have fought each other.”
And
my mother said, “No. He wouldn’t fight your son, because we don’t do that.
So they must have been together in some kind of fight.”
We
had a lot of these (fights) because a guy called me, “Dirty Jew.” And I
said, “Bang!” (and hit him). They used to bait me like that. One time, a guy
called me “Dirty Jew” and I didn’t see nothing, and right in front of the
teacher...(bang!).
HARBIN
JEWISH COMMUNITY
Most
Jews (in
Harbin
) were from mainland
Russia
and
Siberia
and
Ukraine
. Some were… from
Poland
, came through
Russia
and landed in
Manchuria
. And there were many Tartars, many
Greeks. There were all kinds of minorities like that. Armenians, Georgians.
There was a Georgian society, there was an Armenian society…even a Korean
society. All these people lived there in relative freedom. The Chinese never
bothered us. They were very nice people.
The
original Jews created a kitchen, like Salvation Army kitchen. Then during the
Russian Revolution, many people ran (to
Harbin
) from
Russia
. We came as settlers to build the
country. Then during the Revolution, all the dregs of the White Russian armies
defeated by the Soviets ran to
Manchuria
, to safety in
China
. So we received many, many bedraggled
people.
Also
many Jewish refugees came after the Revolution to escape the Soviets. And they
all came through
Harbin
and we helped them, because they were
destitute, all of them. So the original settlers helped them through.
We
had a special kitchen. We had special barracks where all these refugees lived
and were supported by donations. And we fed them and took care of them and then
they got visas and continued on. Some stayed but many continued on. They went to
Shanghai
,
Tientsin
, to other countries.
Harbin
was like a clearing point.
All
the Jews who were old-time settlers helped because the Jewish community in
China
was very philanthropic. They helped
all Jews. We collected money for
Israel
. We collected money for German
refugees. We collected money for everything. And we were forever collecting
money and sending all kinds of donations all over the world to support destitute
Jews everyplace. For tree planting
(in
Israel
) we donated, for buying land we
donated. We were forever donating money. And all these people were always taken
care of in
Harbin
by the old-time settlers who were well
off. We were very charitable.
JAPANESE
OCCUPATION OF MANCHURIA 1931-1945
Then
in 1931, the Japanese rigged up a provocation in
Mukden
and Japanese moved in to “make peace
and order and to save the populace.” And it wasn’t true. It was all
provocation.
We knew (Japanese) were in the south of
Harbin
. The newspapers and everything were announcing that they were going to march
into
Harbin
. And the (Chinese) troops were retreating through
Harbin
. So we knew, all these movements of troops and everything. Even in our school.
The Chinese cavalry occupied the school. We couldn’t go to school because they
requisitioned the whole school where we were and the cavalry would put horses in
the garden and everything else.
The Japanese Army marched into
Harbin
in 1932. I stood on the street and I
was watching the Japanese Army march into
Harbin
. They were riding Ford trucks,
Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and practically all their equipment was
American-made. Because
United States
was in Depression and was selling all
kinds of things to
Japan
. Also they (Japanese) didn’t have
any steel, they didn’t know how to do all those things. (The
U.S.
) sold them all kinds of stuff –
airplanes, everything.
They
landed airplanes on the race course, the horse track. Because we had no airfield
at all in
Harbin
. So we used to bicycle there to look
at the planes. We’d never seen an airplane.
There
was absolutely no resistance. Because the Chinese didn’t have arms. Nothing.
So they went all the way through
Harbin
and occupied
Harbin
, and then they went alongside the
railway. It took them some time to occupy the whole
Manchuria
. But they never never conquered
Manchuria
because til World War II there was
forever insurrection in Manchurian countryside.
Trains were
wrecked. Japanese were attacked. And came so bad that (the Japanese) would not
even allow sorghum to grow near the railway. Because sorghum grows in
Manchuria
about ten feet tall, eight, nine feet
tall. And the sorghum would be planted right near to the railway, miles and
miles of it. So the Chinese guerrillas –well, Japanese referred to them as
bandits, but nonetheless they were guerrillas, remnants of the army – they
would come close to the railway and blow up the railway and wreck the troop
trains of Japanese.
So
then Japanese made an edict that no sorghum could be planted, I think it was
four miles or fives miles near the railway on both sides so that they could see
the guerrillas coming there to blow up the trains. But these people fought with
spears – they were called “spear men” actually, because they didn’t even
have guns. They fought with spears and arrows and swords against Japanese.
When
the Japanese came (in 1932), they blocked the (Sungari/Songhua) river. They
didn’t understand it and flooded the whole city. During the flood we were
supplying the people that were stranded with food.
And
then, when the water receded, outbreak of cholera. Thousands of people died. And
you’d see corpses lying in the street (in the Chinese section of
Harbin
), and the flies. And even on the
garbage pile, they’d throw these cadavers there and wild dogs would go there
and eat.
Then
came the
League of Nations
. Lord Lytton of
England
came to investigate this, how
Japan
conquered
Manchuria
illegally and everything else. (This
was the Lytton Commission of the
League of Nations
.) And they came in, escorted by the
Japanese in cars off the railway, and they drove through town. They were
not allowed to get off the cars and they didn’t talk to anybody, and they left
without seeing anything or talking to anybody. And
League of Nations
at that time washed their hands of the
whole incident.
Japan
was condemned and everything, but they
really didn’t do a bloody thing about it. So we were left to the Japanese conquerors.
(
Japan
withdrew from the
League of Nations
after the negative Lytton Commission
report.)
So Japanese were trying to get an economic
hold of
Manchuria
. To that end, they killed many prominent people. They confiscated businesses.
They took a very high-handed approach to people living in
Manchuria
, just like what Germans were doing, confiscating their businesses. The Japanese
had no particular anti-Semitic approach except many (anti-Semitic) Russians
started to work with them, bedraggled Russians.
They
used to take people into this Kempetai, Japanese Military Police. By the time
they come out, they looked twenty, thirty years older. They tortured people
something horrible.
When
I was going to
United States
, they picked me up on the railway and
the (Japanese military) guy was
riding with me all the through, looked through my baggage, picked out all my
books that had reference to
Manchuria
. Because they created
Manchukuo
. On top of everything else, they
created the state of of
Manchukuo
.
When
they come in there, they declared independence of
Manchuria
and they took this little Emperor Puyi,
a distant heir to the throne in
Peking
. And Puyi was crowned as the prince of
Manchuria
, and
Manchuria
declared independence from
China
, and it become
Manchukuo
. My passport is
Manchukuo
passport. This is a puppet state. So
in
Manchukuo
, if you were a Soviet Russian citizen,
you were just a nonentity. So they were forever hunting Russian spies.
When
I was going to the States, the (Japanese) guy would pick out all my old books
that referred to
Manchuria
as
Manchuria
.
He
said, “Why is it
Manchuria
?”
I
said, ”This is a very old book.”
“No,
no. You shouldn’t take this to
United States
. It’s
Manchukuo
now.”
So (he) confiscated all my books with
reference to
Manchuria
! Took ‘em out. But I knew how to handle these guys. I said, “Sure, take
them.”
“And
do you have any relatives in (the States)…?”
I
said, “No, no.”
“None
of them are writers, newspaper people, journalists?”
I
said, “Of course not.” (laughs)
Because
they were afraid of bad publicity all the time. Even the mail was censored. They
would pick through your mail and everything. So there was tremendous oppression
and before you could speak to anybody, you had to know to whom you were
speaking, because they would denounce you.
(Charles
left
China
in 1937 to study in
California
. A year later his father was abducted
and killed by the Japanese Kempetai, who wanted to expropriate his cattle
operation.)
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