David
Schoenfeld
Class of 1960
Both my father and mother were communists. My mother’s radicalization occurred
during the depression which started in 1929 and lasted for 10 years. I suspect
that her parents were left wing to start with. My grandfather was in the bonus
army, a mass march on Washington with 43,000 demonstrators. It would be small
by today’s standards. They camped on the mall demanding that their World War I
bonuses be paid in 1932 rather than in 1945 when they became due. The
demonstration was dispersed by the army. The bonus was paid early in 1936 so
in a sense the march was successful. My father’s radicalization was
intellectual. He wrote theoretical Marxist articles for a journal under a
pseudonym of Harry Tilden. I have many memories of his analyzing current events
from a Marxist point of view. My mother’s radicalism was more emotional as she
had felt the injustices of a capitalist society personally.
My mother met my father when he was, in her words, a working-class hero. In
1941 he and six other students were suspended for three months from New York
University, for leading a protest against the “gentleman’s agreement” to
sideline black athletes whenever the opposing schools objected to their
playing. In 2001 the seven were honored by NYU for their courageous anti-racist
stand. My parents were introduced to each other by Gertrude Elstein a
prominent communist who felt they would be a good couple.
I don’t know much about my parent’s activities as members of the Communist
Party. I would expect that most of my parent’s friends during this period were
party comrades. My mother related that she met Dorothy Indenbaum on the street
pushing Arthur in a baby carriage (he was born about the same time I was).
Dorothy introduced herself by asking where the nearest Communist Party Office
was. My mother also tells a story of being in a demonstration with me in her
arms and telling the policeman not to arrest her because they would have to
care for her baby. I only remember one demonstration when I was five years
old. It was a May-Day parade. May first was international workers day
everywhere but in the United States. It was established to in 1889 by the
socialist party (before it split from the communist party) to commemorate the
Haymarket riots in Chicago and the struggle for the eight-hour day. The
parade had the memorable slogan “Milk the cows not the people” to protest a
price increase in milk.
One consequence of my parent’s political activity involved our neighbors who
had a television set. I used to watch Howdy Doody, a children’s TV show, with
the boy downstairs. One day the boy’s mother told me I was no longer welcome
because my mother “wanted to put everyone in reform school.” Years later
Helene speculated that this involved her public support for school desegregation
in Brooklyn.
I was at the Peekskill riot in 1949 although I don’t remember this incident.
Paul Robeson gave a concert in Peekskill and it became a huge left wing
gathering. A right-wing mob gathered and lined the road leading from the concert
venue. When the concert was over, the mob threw stones at the cars that left
the concert. My father drove our car with Helene and myself and Joseph. I was
four and Joseph must have been a babe in arms. Every window in our car was
broken. My father was terrified.
The only other story that I remember about that day was that my father reported
that his friend, Abe Haber slept through the whole thing. Initially I thought
this was a criticism of Abe but later I remembered that Abe had been shot down
over Nazi Germany, had wandered behind enemy lines until he was captured, and
spent the rest of the war in a POW camp. A right-wing riot wouldn’t frighten
him. Paul Robeson was a fabulous singer. There are some examples on youtube
including a rendition of the Ballad for Americans, which may have had my uncle
Joe (Debbi’s father) in the chorus. Later I learned that Pete Seeger wrote the
famous song “If I had a Hammer” for that concert.
Another McCarthy era memory was my father throwing out a box full of pamphlets.
I was about 11 at the time. He told me that he was afraid of getting into
trouble but that he was keeping his books in his library and I could read them
anytime I liked. I did read them but much later in my life.
I was a
camper at Kinderland in 1953 after which I went to Camp Toloa where one of the kids in my
bunk was the son of someone who was jailed by McCarthy. We wrote a letter to
McCarthy in protest. I am sure that somewhere in my FBI files is a letter I
wrote at 10 years old. I have to say that I did not have a very good time at
Camp Kinderland. I was badly bullied, and my counselors really did not know
how to handle it. It ended when one of kids threw a rock at me. My parents
came and took me out of camp. It was a different time and I think bullying was
more tolerated or at least not as well handled.
One of the most consequential things happened to close friends of our family. Ruth
Alscher was a New York City teacher who went to a party attended by some of the
people involved with the Rosenbergs. The FBI wrote a letter to the school
district, and she was fired. Worse she was afraid that she would have to
testify so she had a friend admit her to the hospital with a fake injury. During
this period her son Colin lived with us. He is now my closest friend. Her
firing really made the family suffer as she could not get a good job; it was
years before she was able to teach again. My daughter obtained her FBI file,
there was no evidence against her but that did not keep the FBI from contacting
the New York City Board of Education and having her fired.
I was a draft resister against the war in Vietnam, and since I was destined for
jail (which actually never happened), my father invited Sid Stein who had been
a jailed communist to come to dinner with us. I think my father wanted to
dissuade me from my draft resistance, but the visit had the opposite effect.
Sid remembered this period of his life fondly and felt he had been helpful to
many of the other prisoners both political on otherwise.
My
children have continued the activism of their parents, grandparents and great
grandparents. My daughter is a professor at Boston University whose research is
focused on how to end mass incarceration. My son is an engineer focused on
energy conservation and my other daughter is a doctor focused on a more patient
centered health care system. Camp Kinderland keeps the focus on
struggling for social justice for the generations to come.
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