My search for the history of the Bund in the process of migration almost turned me into a migrant myself. Originally conceived at the University of Cologne, the project would accompany me on my move to Bielefeld and travel to Buenos Aires, Israel, and the United States on several occasions before reaching its final destination at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The resulting manuscript was then completed in Berlin and Osnabrück; the translation took it back to the US (Notre Dame, Indiana) and, finally, to Berlin.
I lived out of a suitcase for several years, gathering source materials and pieces of evidence in official archives, private collections, and the dusty stacks of neglected libraries. Over the course of this search for people, memories, letters, and publications, telephones were often just as crucial as reference books – the only difference being that the latter were hardly ever forthcoming. Often enough I felt like the lyrical subject in the poem Jacinto Chiclana, written by Jorge Luis Borges and congenially set to music by Astor Piazolla:
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Me acuerdo, fue en Balvanera, en una noche lejana, que alguien dejó caer el nombre de un tal Jacinto Chiclana. … ¡Quién sabe por qué razón me anda buscando ese nombre! Me gustaría saber cómo habrá sido aquel hombre. |
I remember, it was in Balvanera, in a distant night, that someone dropped the name of one Jacinto Chiclana. … Who knows for what reason I’m driven to search for that name! I wish I knew what happened to him. |
My own research included quite a few such ‘distant nights’ in which I heard many names uttered with the greatest respect, yet whose biographies could not be found in any catalogue, encyclopaedia, or index. I often scoured the streets of Balvanera, encircling the Jewish quarter of Once where the Bundist Peretz School used to be. In these streets I found many of the archives relevant to my work, although I continued to depend on the help of sympathetic institutions and people all over the world who helped me trace vague clues, matching names with faces and sometimes even stories.
It would be impossible to list everyone who supported this effort in the limited space offered by a preface. Crucial assistance was provided in the form of a doctoral scholarship from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, covering not only my living expenses but also a large share of the mounting travel costs. The foundation also plugged me into a scholarly network instrumental in driving my work forward. The same is true for the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology at Bielefeld University. Both institutions were solidly committed to the project and never failed to provide me with support, even in difficult periods. They consistently responded with encouragement and the necessary means to successfully and ambitiously complete my research. A subsequent year-long stay at Johns Hopkins University was invaluable, providing me with pure, undisturbed writing time. A place like Johns Hopkins inevitably leaves its mark on any historiographical project conducted within its hallowed halls. Here I encountered both stimulating intellectual exchange as well as the peace and quiet needed to assemble a coherent whole out of the work I had conducted on three continents, at three universities, with sources in five languages.
Thanks to the support of my colleagues at my current institution, the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS)/Modern History, Dorothee Rheker-Wunsch and Patricia Simon at Böhlau Verlag, series editor Andreas Eckert, and a VG Wort publication grant, the German manuscript turned into a book in the renowned Industrielle Welt series. If it were not for Sebastian Budgen’s and Loren Balhorn’s continued interest in an English translation, the story probably would have ended there. Their encouragement and assistance paved the way for the Geisteswissenschaften International award and publication in Brill’s esteemed Historical Materialism Book Series. Many surviving Bundists migrated overseas and few of them and their descendants read German. I am especially grateful that this translation makes my book available to them – for it is, after all, their story.
The groundwork for the project was laid by numerous sources. Many documents only found their way to my desk through the help of others, as they were frequently neither ‘accessible’ nor ‘orderable’. The staffs at YIVO and the New York Public Library in New York, the IWO, the CeDInCl, and the Centro Mark Turkow in Buenos Aires, as well as the CAHJP in Jerusalem were all extremely helpful. I would like to express particular thanks to Ettie Goldwasser and the walking, talking encyclopaedia that is Leo Greenbaum at the YIVO in New York. Equally important was the work I conducted at the IWO in Buenos Aires, which still bears the scars of the 1994 AMIA bombing. At the time I conducted my research the institute lacked a functioning index system, and ordering documents often sounded something like ‘Necesito todo sobre los sindicatos judíos’. The rest was patchwork. Completing the transnational account of the history of the Bund you hold in your hands would have been impossible without the crucial assistance I received from Silvia Hansman and Debora Kacowicz, who never hesitated to fulfil even my most extravagant requests without the slightest hint of bureaucratic foot-dragging.
That said, working on a book involves not only research but also exchange, comments, and grant proposals. I would like to thank Regine Mehl, Manfred Alexander, Jürgen Dowe, and Christoph Schmidt for their initial advice and support. Furthermore, I am grateful to Linda Braun, Christian Alexander Bauer, Pablo Beyen, Tobias Brinkmann, Michael Bommes†, Jeffrey Brooks, Marcelo Dimentstein, Norbert Fintzsch, Heiko Haumann, Guido Hausmann, Jack Jacobs, Martin Krämer Liehn, Tony Michels, Kenneth Moss, Nick Raedburn, Christoph Rass, Dominik Schrage, Walter Sperling, Horacio Tarcus, Nerina Visacovsky, Mike Westrate, and Efraim Zadoff for conversations, opinions, and support that ensured this book’s completion. I received a considerable amount of conceptual inspiration (and concrete suggestions) at numerous conferences in Germany, Great Britain, the United States, and Argentina, as well as in colloquia and discussion groups at the universities of Basel, Bochum, Bonn, Buenos Aires, Cologne, Notre Dame (Indiana), Osnabrück, Tübingen, and Bielefeld on several occasions. I thank all participants for their contributions and critical remarks. Input from the ‘old Cologne crew’, the other three leaves of the ‘four-leaved clover’ – Julia Herzberg, Alexis Hofmeister, and Alexander Kraus along with Birte Kohtz, Roland Cvetkovski, Moritz Heidkamp, and Andreas Renner – proved deeply influential from the outset. All of them, as well as my fellow ‘grads’ at Bielefeld and Baltimore, my colleagues at IMIS in Osnabrück, the Ibañez and Pardo families, Jean-Olivier Richard, Suzanne Werner, and Jeremy Welter, who deeply enriched my stays in Buenos Aires and Baltimore, are veritable personifications of what the Bundists called khaverim.
Furthermore, I owe special thanks to Thomas Welskopp for his unfailing availability and unflinching support, even during complicated times. Likewise, I thank Jochen Oltmer for numerous suggestions to embed the project more firmly in migration history. Daniel Mahla and Thomas Maier also contributed heavily, taking on the task – as the experts, colleagues, and friends they are – of reading draft versions of individual chapters and providing necessary corrections in many instances.
This list would be incomplete without five individuals who served as my bedrock throughout the project: these were, firstly, Stefanie Fischer, who as my wife and a resourceful historian in her own right helped me maintain a proper life balance. On many occasions Bundists and Jewish cattle traders came together at our dinner table for quirky yet nevertheless intriguing and inspiring conversations. Similarly invaluable was my collaboration with Gleb J. Albert. I wish anyone undertaking a major project of this kind the good fortune of having a friend and colleague like him. These two shouldered the burden of reading rough drafts of my manuscript more than once. Their annotations and questions forced me to not only apply my thoughts to paper, but to do so in a way intelligible to future readers. Lastly, I dedicate this work to my daughters Jonah Lotte, Elisabeth Maria, and Magdalena Maria, in appreciation of all the sunshine they bring to this world.