Meir Walach

... “I can describe how a good, pious Jewish boy turned into a Bolshevik. At the time Czar Alexander was assassinated, a telegram from St. Petersburg arrived in Bialystok, ordering the arrest of a man named Walach. Our father, a devout Jew, had as much to do with socialism as I. Nonetheless, the police arrested my father by mistake. This made a terrible impression on young Meir. He heard that his father was jailed for socialist activities and demanded to know what socialism was. When our father was released a short time later, he enrolled Meir in a Russian school. There he read the outlawed socialist books. Still he was very religious, going to syn- agogue every day. Later he was drafted into the Russian army and sent away to serve in the Cau- casus Mountains. The unit was later renamed, ‘Comrade Litvinov’s Brigade.’ ...