Lidia

A Worldwide Jewish Esperanto Association had been formed and intended to hold its first meeting during the 1914 congress in Paris. The leaders invited Dr Zamenhof to attend. He replied that he would gladly attend the meeting, but he declined to join the association. His convictions as a Homaranist prevented him from participating in any nationalist organization. 'I am profoundly convinced', he explained, 'that all nationalism offers mankind only the greatest unhappiness, and that the aim of all men should be to create a harmonious humanity.' He expressed his belief that the nationalism of oppressed races, as a natural self-defensive reaction, was more pardonable than the nationalism of the oppressive races, but if the nationalism of the strong was ignoble, that of the weak was imprudent; for each gave birth to and supported the other. The end result was 'a vicious circle of misery from which mankind will never escape unless each of us sacrifices his group selfishness and tries to stand upon completely neutral ground'.

Around 28 July Lidia's parents left for Paris, although the newspapers were full of the threat of war, and talk of war was on everyone's lips. The fuse that would ignite the powder keg of Europe had been lit in Sarajevo on 28 June when Serbian nationalists assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. A month had passed while diplomats issued ultimatums and armies mobilized. In spite of the clear signs that war was imminent, Adam later recalled that in Warsaw 'generally it was not believed very much that the war actually could happen, and certainly no one supposed that it would be so serious and so long'.

The Zamenhofs traveled through Germany and had reached Cologne on the first of August when Germany declared war on Russia. Suddenly, as subjects of the Russian Empire, the Zamenhofs found themselves in a hostile land.

In Warsaw the family immediately began to worry when they heard nothing from Ludwik and Klara. The children had gone on holiday in the country but retumed home as soon as they learned of the outbreak of war.

On the advice of some German Esperantist friends, the Zamenhofs had abandoned plans to continue on toward Paris and had decided to return home. But the borders were shut. At last, after a harrowing two-weekjoumey, traveling by way of Sweden and Finland, crowded into trains without enough food, they managed to reach Warsaw. Many other people from the Russian Empire, some of whom had been taking the cure at German spas, found themselves, like the Zamenhofs, suddenly among enemies. But while most ofEurope was in the grip of nationalistic hatred, Esperantists often helped other samideanoj who had been stranded in hostile countries.

Because of Dr ZamenhoPs fragile health, the difficult joumey was very fatiguing and unpleasant, Adam recalled, but more so because of 'the mighty moral blow he received, as it were, seeing the sudden appearance of hate between people to whom he had preached brotherhood'.

'He came home', Lidia's brother wrote, 'with heart broken not only in a symbolic sense. The serious heart disease in fact began during this unhappy period. Dejected, he resumed his daily work in Warsaw, always more sadly, when he saw that the war became ever more cruel and hope for its early end was more and more uncertain.'

Zofia and Adam both received their licenses to practice medicine within the Russian Empire. At the beginning of the war, Zofia went to spend a few months working under the guidance of her uncle Dr Zilbemik in Lebedin, a town in the administrative district ofKharkov, in the Ukraine. Adam worked as his father's assistant in Warsaw.

Lidia was in her second year of school. For her, life went on as usual. Every day her mother braided her hair, fried her an egg and sent her ofF to school. When Lidia came home in the aftemoon, she could expect Klara's loving inquiries about her day, whether she had been called on to answer a question, whether there had been the dreaded classwork during the arithmetic lesson. But her father, who had always helped her with her homework, especially arithmetic, was more ill than he had ever been.

Dr Zamenhofs heart was failing. After an especially bad attack of angina which frightened the entire family one night, Adam took over most of his father's work, caring for the poor patients who streamed in for advice and treatment. From then on, Adam did not allow his father to do that fatiguing, daily work in his consulting room.