David Markus: From the Holocaust to the Cold War

Abstract

David Markus:From the Holocaust to the Cold War Michael Rom (bio) Keywords Brazil, Cold War, Holocaust, Immigration, Yiddish press "Why do you dedicate so much space in your newspaper to the fight against communism?" asked a dedicated reader of the Rio de Janeiro Yiddish biweekly Idishe Prese (Jewish Press) in August 1951. "Do you lack other important problems that need to be addressed and elucidated, and which are no less important than the fight against communism?" continued the reader, who signed his letter "Ben Moshe, São Paulo." In a lengthy response to the letter, the Idishe Prese columnist dubbed "A Broker" did not mince words. "The struggle against communist expansion is a struggle for Jewish national existence," he wrote. "Jewish national life is impossible there, where the dictator of the Kremlin rules, or in the countries upon which Moscow exerts her influence."1 "A Broker" was the Idishe Prese's editor, a Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor named David Markus. Markus was only six months into his editorial duties, having arrived in Brazil the previous year, but this did not stop him from leading a determined campaign for the expulsion of communists from Brazilian Jewish institutions, along with another Polish Jewish survivor, the newspaper's São Paulo correspondent Konrad Charmatz. Through the lens of Markus's unique life story, this essay explores three overlooked aspects of Latin American Jewish cultural and political life: the renaissance of the Brazilian Yiddish press after World War II, the importance of Latin American Yiddish newspapers as arenas of communal conflict, and the vital role of Holocaust survivors in Brazilian Jewish politics during the Cold War. Born in Brok, Poland, in 1916, Markus was studying humanities at the University of Vilnius when the Nazis invaded Poland. Obtaining a transit [End Page 521] visa from Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese vice consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, Markus made his way across the USSR to Kobe, Japan, before ending up in Shanghai, which was then dominated by foreign powers and did not require a visa to enter. One of nearly twenty thousand European Jews who found refuge in the Chinese city, Markus subsisted by selling leather goods and cigarettes and also worked for a Yiddish radio program. In his spare time, he wrote sketches and musical numbers for the Jewish Literary Arts Cabaret, a Yiddish theatrical troupe led by the Polish Jewish actress Rose Shoshana Kahan, whose holiday revues included "Hamantaschen with Rice" and "Twelve Kneidlach." When the war ended, Markus returned to Poland but was unable to locate any surviving relatives, and in 1947, he immigrated to Uruguay, where two of his cousins lived. In Montevideo, he wrote for the Folksblat (People's Page), became the editor of the Poalei Zion (Labor Zionist)–affiliated newspaper Unzer Vort (Our Word), and married a Polish Jewish survivor named Lucia Weigler. He also found himself in the midst of the Cold War. In response to Soviet control over Eastern Europe, U.S. President Harry Truman pledged in March 1947 to combat the expansion of communism throughout the world. Meanwhile, the USSR launched a campaign of repression against Soviet Jewish cultural life, arresting prominent Jewish artists and intellectuals and closing Yiddish newspapers, theaters, and publishing houses. In Brazil, where Markus relocated in 1950, the Jewish Cold War was becoming particularly heated. The Brazilian Jewish community was largely the product of interwar migration from Europe and the Middle East, which occurred shortly before and partly during Getúlio Vargas's Estado Novo (New State) dictatorship (1937–45). Vargas repressed ethnic political organizations and foreign language periodicals, including shutting down Idishe Prese from 1941 to 1945. Freed of these restrictions by the return to democracy in 1945, Brazilian Jews reestablished Idishe Prese and created new Yiddish newspapers, while Zionists and communists worked together to found communal institutions such as the Jewish state federations of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which became arenas of conflict during the Cold War. After becoming the editor of Idishe Prese in February 1951, Markus added his voice to the fray. Following a contentious meeting of the Rio de Janeiro Jewish Federation in July 1951, in which Zionists and communists traded barbs over who was...