LIVING IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES WITHOUT MOVING

By the time thirteen-year-old Mowsza Ajzenberg immigrated to the United States, he had lived in a number of different countries while never having moved from his birthplace, Telechan.  An explanation is necessary.  Telechan is located in the Pripet (Pinsk) Marshes in what was the Pale of Settlement.  This area, commonly referred to as Polish Russia or Russian Poland, was a major battleground during both World War I & World War II.  It has been referred to as the “Killing Fields” of Europe during the 1940’s.  Enemy troops engaged one another in these territories.  Governments came and went as borders were moved back and forth based upon who won or lost the last battle. 

This instability dramatically impacted the lives of the inhabitants.  My father, then known as Mowsza Ajzenberg, was one of those inhabitants.  The scenario is as follows:

• In 1908 he was born in what was, at the time, Czarist Russia.
• During World War I (1914-1918), Telechan was occupied first by the Germans, then the Bolsheviks.
• In the ensuing Russian Civil Wars (1918-1920) the Reds (Bolsheviks) were victorious over the Whites, leaving Telechan on the losing side since it is located in Byelorussia (White Russia).
• In 1918 the Polish Republic was established and lasted until September 1, 1931.  Telechan was a part of Poland for almost 21 years.
• In 1921 when my father immigrated to the United States he left what was then the Republic of Poland.
• If he had remained with his family (his mother, his sister Ziporah and his three brothers) he would then have lived in the Soviet Union since Byelorussia was annexed by the USSR in 1939.
• If he had been in Telechan during World War II, as was his sister Ziporah, he would once more have lived under German occupation.         
• If, by some miracle, he had survived World War II in Telechan, he would have lived once more in the USSR from 1945-1991.
• Today he would be living in the newly independent country of Belarus, a member of the recently formed Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Consequently, Telechan was part of five countries or political systems, and three different military occupations during that span of time.  It was the country that "moved", not the individual.  It is difficult to imagine the level of instability that must have permeated the lives of the inhabitants.

These events occurred in the 20th century.   In 1996 I attended a seminar on the  "Changing Borders of Eastern Europe." The speaker reviewed the history of the region for the last 1000 years.  In the 14^th century Telechan was in Lithuania: in the 17^th century Telechan was in Poland, etc.  It seems that some things keep changing while other things appear never to change.

“For as long as anyone can remember, Belarus has been the backwater of someone else’s empire, and today it remains the black sheep of Eastern Europe.  ”^[1]