This year
(2011) marks the 75th anniversary of two seminal events in which
Jews, notably East End Jews, were intimately involved: the
Spanish Civil War and the Battle of Cable Street.
My father
Jack Shaw (nee Schuckman) was active in both. His story is the
story of Jewish East End youth combating fascism and
anti-Semitism.
Their
communism was a gut reaction to social injustice and
anti-Semitism. After Cable Street, where they fought under the
Spanish republican slogan No Pasaran – They Shall Not Pass –
many continued the struggle in Spain in the International
Brigades, along with working class Jewish boys from Manchester,
Glasgow and Leeds. The names of these largely unsung heroes have
been collected and collated in Martin Sugarman’s study
Against Fascism, which names all known Jewish Brigaders
worldwide.
My father
will always be my hero – a “held” as they say in Yiddish – and I
grew up at his knee absorbing all his adventures.
Born in
1917 of immigrant parents from Russia, he grew up in the
grand-sounding Fieldgate Mansions in Myrdle Street, off
Commercial Road. He left school at 14, like so many. The major
practical occupation open to Jewish youth was tailoring, but
their principal aim was to escape from the ghetto’s poverty.
Some became market traders and business men, some turned to
crime (Jack ‘Spot’ Comer, the notorious gangster, was my
father’s neighbour), a few made it into the professions, but the
majority worked in the tailoring sweatshops or the furniture
trade.
My father
believed the world could be changed for the better, and for all
peoples, with the engine of change driven by socialism. The
Russian Revolution and propaganda from the Soviet Union seemed
to indicate that it could happen. My father joined the Young
Communist League, whose Stepney branch was overwhelmingly
Jewish, and the Stepney Workers Sports Club, which promoted
socialist values and saw health and fitness as essential to help
working class youth create a better society. The YCL and the
Communist and Labour parties also provided further education by
encouraging reading for pleasure and knowledge, a habit my
father continued for the rest of his life.
The rise of
fascism in the 1930s rang alarm bells in the western
democracies. Like socialism, fascism was a response to economic
depression and rampant inequality. But it was anti-democratic,
totalitarian, ultra-nationalistic and brutal in its application.
Communism, by contrast, appeared at that time to champion
inclusiveness and international peace and harmony as well as
economic change, and it was principally the socialist movements
that called for mobilisation against the fascist threat.
My father
heeded the call. Sir Oswald Mosley’s party – the British Union
of Fascists – aped those of Hitler and Mussolini. Mosley, once a
Labour minister and seen as a possible prime minister, became a
strutting demagogue at the head of his black uniformed members,
the so-called blackshirts. Using the Jews as a scapegoat for the
world’s woes became a useful tool and was, of course, already a
basic belief of many fascists.
Mosley’s
attempted march through the predominately Jewish East End on
October 4 1936, which resulted in what became known as the
Battle of Cable Street, was an attempt to reflect the power and
unstoppable force of fascism amid his party’s growing
popularity. There had already been numerous skirmishes between
communists and socialists, among whom were a disproportionate
number of Jews, and Mosley’s men.
My father
told of boarding a tram along with other Young Communist League
members at Aldgate. They had been told blackshirts were on board
en route to an outdoor meeting in east London. He said he and
his comrades walked down the aisles, easily recognising the
fascists in their black uniforms and “giving them a good
hiding”. As the tram stopped outside the London Hospital the
bruised and battered fascists staggered into the conveniently
located casualty department.
The Battle
of Cable Street swirled around several nearby streets with the
biggest mass of people at Gardiners Corner at Aldgate East. The
main fighting took place between the anti-fascist protesters and
the police, who were seen to be protecting the blackshirts who
could not proceed on their march. Many of the police had been
brought in from other districts and had far less compunction
than local policemen in brutally assaulting demonstrators. My
father was arrested for throwing a brick that broke a
policeman’s nose. He has always denied this as he was one to use
his fists (which he certainly did) rather than throw missiles.
He initially escaped arrest with the help of a couple of elderly
women pulling him away, but was soon rearrested.
Taken to
Leman Street police station he witnessed scenes of police
brutality away from the public gaze. Calling all who were
arrested “Jew bastards” whether they were or not, young
policemen with their sleeves rolled up were using fists and
truncheons to beat up those arrested.
He recalls
a local policeman (“an old time copper”) shoving him under a
bench and sitting on top of it saying: “Hold still, sonny, or
the bastards will kill you.” He witnessed a young woman who had
had her blouse ripped away being called a “Jewish whore” (she
was neither). As she was about to be struck she looked up at the
policeman defiantly and said: “I’m not afraid of you.” The
policeman hesitated and threw her into a cell unharmed.
The swing
doors of the police station suddenly burst open and my father’s
good friend Charlie Goodman appeared. His head had been used
like a battering ram by the four policemen who were carrying
him. My father said about the station: “There was blood
everywhere.”
My father
was one of 64 who were jailed. He was sentenced to three months
hard labour in Bristol prison. While on remand at Wormwood
Scrubs he was seen by Sir Basil Henriques, the Jewish
philanthropist who was very active in the East End. Sir Basil,
a visiting magistrate, my father believed, reprimanded him for
being a hooligan and said it would have been better for Jews to
have stayed away. This was the overwhelming attitude of the
Jewish establishment. The visit must have been on a Friday
(five days after the battle) as Sir Basil apparently said: “You
should be at home watching your mother light the Sabbath
candles.”
My father
replied: “I’m on the streets so that she can continue to light
the Shabbos candles.” He never had much respect for Sir Basil
or the Jewish establishment after that.
My father
was always convinced that being sent to Bristol prison was
deliberately vindictive as his family could never afford to
visit him. Just before his release – two weeks early for good
behaviour – he was visited by, he believed, Rabbi Morris Swift
(later a dayan – religious judge) who came to see if he was in
need of anything. My father, already at odds with the Jewish
hierarchy, rejected his offer as he felt that it was a bit late
in the day to be concerned about his welfare.
Back home
in the East End my father could not contemplate returning to the
workshop. He left home and joined the merchant navy as a
steward. In the Baltic he saw Nazi soldiers guarding the Kiel
Canal and could only shake his fist at them. That rekindled his
determination to continue the fight against the fascists. Europe
was becoming increasingly threatened by Nazi Germany and the
Jews in particular were in ever increasing danger. The Spanish
Civil War was taking on an international dimension with both
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy providing the rebels led by
Franco with men and weapons.
The
formation of volunteer International Brigades from over 50
countries began in the latter part of 1936. By January 1937 a
British Battalion was operational and saw action at the battle
of Jarama. My father jumped ship at Alicante where his vessel
was docked and made his way to Albacete in La Mancha, the
headquarters of the International Brigades.
He arrived
there in about the middle of March 1937 and joined the British
Battalion. He met up with his old friends from the East End,
Charlie Goodman and Joe Garber. At least 25 per cent of the
40,000 volunteers in Spain were Jewish. Of the 2,000 British
volunteers some 200 were Jewish, including about 60 from east
London.
My father
always said that the lingua franca in the Brigades was
Yiddish!
After
arriving at the tail end of Jarama my father went into battle
with the British Battalion part of the XV Brigade at the Battle
of Brunete in July 1937. He was a runner for the battalion
Commander Jock Cunningham and experienced coming under attack
from German Messerschmitt 109 aircraft. He found himself in a
foxhole on Mosquito Ridge with Giles Romilly, Churchill’s
nephew, who said to him: “Do you think we’ll ever get out of
this alive, Shucky (my father’s nickname)?” After having to
retreat from the ridge to rest in a shady wood away from the
intense heat, Romilly was suffering from shell shock. The
retreat was covered by two of my father’s friends from the East
End, Sam Masters and Harry Gross, who both died at their posts.
My father
was only 19 and, with so many young brigaders being killed, he
was being looked for by Will Paynter, the former Welsh
miners’ leader who was political commissar for the battalion.
His parents – my grandparents – were desperate for their son to
come home, especially as their good friends the Steigmans had
lost their son, Nat, who was killed in action at Jarama. My
father was eventually sent to a medical tribunal who declared
him too young for battle and he was repatriated at the end of
1937.
He always
chuckled at still owing the British Embassy in Madrid about 30
shillings for the cost of repatriation, a story that amused the
British Ambassador in Madrid in 1996 when my father attended a
reception at the embassy during the 60th anniversary
commemoration of the Civil War. The money – £1.50 in today’s
parlance – is still owing.
Back in the
East End my father was at a Stepney YCL meeting giving a talk
about Spain when he met my mother, Dinah Makolsky, a star struck
17-year old member who worked for the cause with him.
Having to
go back into the garment trade to earn a living, civilian life
was relatively normal and quiet, enlivened by my parents’
engagement. But this was to be cut short by the outbreak of war
in September 1939. My parents married in December 1939 (pictures
by Boris, of course!) and my father was called up in February
1940.
For some
strange reason known only to the War Office, my father was
enlisted (along with two other East End Jewish lads –Udinsky and
Rupinsky) into the Royal Welch Fusiliers. The only three Yidden
in the regiment, all became corporals. During basic training my
father tells of the drill sergeant major asking if any men had
military experience. Some stepped forward, having served for
example in India. My father also stepped forward. “Where did you
serve, sonny?” asked the NCO. “Spanish Civil War
Sergeant-Major”. “ I mean real military service sonny,
not that!” My father said he never volunteered for anything else
again.
After
seeing action in Burma with the 14th Indian Army in the final
push to Mandalay, my father came home in early 1946. I was 4
years old and distinctly remember greeting this sun-tanned,
fit-looking stranger who was wearing a bush-hat as he marched
into our flat in Fane House, Bethnal Green. Always the practical
man, he was carrying a large brass coloured tin of caster sugar,
always in short supply at the home front!
Post war
Britain was grim and against his better judgment my father went
back to the workshop. He had a family to feed and look after and
by 1947 my mother was pregnant with my twin sisters. By that
time Oswald Mosley had formed the Union Movement and fascism was
on the march again despite all the horrors of the war. Mosley’s
men, no longer in uniform, were rabble-rousing and using anti-semitic
rhetoric. A group of Jewish ex-servicemen decided that enough
was enough and the fascists should be met head-on in the
streets. The 43 Group (named after the original number of
members) broke up fascist meetings and highlighted the threat of
Mosley’s plans.
My father
attended a large meeting held by Mosley in a Bethnal Green
school on November 20. He went ostensibly to find his teenage
youngest brother, who had gone with others to protest, and stop
him from coming to harm as he was convinced there would be
violence. The meeting spilled out into the streets and Mosley’s
aggressive supporters were met by the 43 Group, my father
included. There was fierce fighting, with coshes and
knuckledusters being used. The police had a hard time breaking
it up and my father was arrested. His brother wisely slipped
away without having seen him. Fortunately my father had a good
defence lawyer (the Jewish leftwing lawyer Jack Gaster) and at
Old Street Court his case was dismissed.
After 14
years in the shmutter trade and being an activist in the
Tailors and Garment Workers Union, my father became a
taxi-driver. He was a committed husband and father with decent
moral values. With my mother by his side he provided us all with
a warm, secure environment, which was something he lacked in his
own childhood and youth.
When he
died in 2003 aged 85, my wife’s elderly uncle Ben sent me a
letter of condolence. He had known my father from childhood and
one sentence that he wrote has remained with me: “I always liked
your dad; he walked around with a piece of history inside him.”
Double click photos to enlarge
