Lidia

Because one cannot understand a person without knowing something of the historical, cultural, social and spiritual environment within which that person lived her life, I found myselfexploring Lidia's family history and the impressive figure ofLudwik Zamenhof, as well as the language he created and the ideals and beliefs Lidia shared with him and which played such an important role in her life. I discovered that Lidia and I had more in common than I had first thought. In 1980 I was astonished to discover a short story she had published in 1929 in Pola Esperantisto ('Polish Esperantist') called 'Birdo en kaĝo!' ('Bird in a Cage!'). I knew at once the source of her inspiration for that story — a passage in Some Answered Questions by 'Abdu'1-Baha - because my own, very similar tale inspired by the same statement had been published as a children's book in 1979 under the title Clementine and the Cage.

The story of the life ofLidia Zamenhof touches many other subjects - the history of the Jews in Poland, the life and thought of Ludwik Zamenhof, the Esperanto movement, the Baha'f Faith, the two world wars, the Holocaust. Naturally, in this biography it was only possible and desirable to include just enough details about any of these as to provide a background for Lidia's own story. The necessity to compress history into a background for a portrait means that one must regretfully omit many events of the period covered which, however interesting and important in their own right, were not of crucial significance in the subject's own life. The story ofLudwik Zamenhof, as presented in this book, is merely a brief sketch and by no means complete. I hope that readers will finish the book with a curiosity to learn more about him, as well as other topics touched upon, and I encourage them to do so. Readers of English are fortunate to have available Maijorie Boulton's biography, Zamenhof, Creator of Esperanto (London: Routledge and KeganPaul, 1960).

I hope that I will be forgiven for not providing bibliographical footnotes. As this is not intended as a scholarly or academic book, I felt that, for the majority of readers, such footnotes would be more of a hindrance than a help since many of the sources are not readily available to the general reader. For the benefit of those interested, a note on sources is appended.

For the most part, quoted passages originally in Esperanto were translated by me, with the exception of some excerpts from the speeches and writings of Ludwik Zamenhof, which were translated by Marjorie Boulton and are reprinted with the kind permission of Dr Boulton and her English publisher, Routledge and Kegan Paul. I would also like to thank Dr Boulton, who is a noted Esperanto poet, for translating the poem 'Lidia Zamenhof, kor fervora . . .' by Kalman Kalocsay, specially for this book.

Some readers may note that in other published works Lidia's name is often given as 'Lidja'. Until about 1936 she used that spelling, but after that date she spelled her name 'Lidia' in accord with offidal changes in Polish orthography introduced that year. Because this was her choice, I have followed it throughout this book and have taken the liberty of changing quoted material to conform to this style.

Place names have been given as in Webster's Dictionary, or, if not listed therein, as found in the New Oxford Atlas.

This book could never have been written without the assistance of a large number of people all over the world, who gave generously of their time, their hospitality and their memories. I would like to express my deep gratitude to Mrs Roan OrloffStone and Mrjim Stone for their hospitality in addition to the enormous help, mentioned above, which Mrs Stone has generously given me over the years.

I am greatly indebted to Dr Kent Beveridge of Vienna, Austria, for his patient and tireless efforts, including all the translations of material in German quoted in Chapter 5, arranging interviews for me in Vienna, uncovering and pursuing the story of Fritz Macco, obtaining documents and photographs and searching without complaint for the answers to my endless questions.