Lidia

Lidia seems never to have considered simply getting married and having children. At that time, of course, it was quite unusual for a woman to have any goal other than becoming a wife and mother. If a woman did choose to work in a profession, that choice usually required foregoing marriage, as it was generally believed that a woman could not have both a family and a career. In the Zamenhof home, however, it seems to have been expected that each person would do some kind of work which was of service to humanity, and in the extended Zamenhof family there were several two-career families - often both spouses were doctors. Yet, neither Zofia nor Lidia ever married. This also was not unusual in the Zamenhof clan. Many years later Julian's wife, Dr Olga Zamenhof, recalled that there were at least six Zamenhof women who did not want to marry at all.

Homemaking did not interest Lidia, who never leamed to cook - she described herself as 'completely unsuited' to it. The life of the intellect and working for the Zamenhof ideals was far more important to her. But unlike Zofia, who with her brusque manner and masculine appearance was, as her cousin Stephen described her, 'a bit dis- couraging, probably, to men', Lidia was not at all unfeminine. She had a great tendemess, and a great sympathy for the plight of women.

Although she was not beautiful in the usual sense, Lidia had an inner beauty that attracted those who met her; surely many of the young Esperantist men would have been honored to marry the daughter of Zamenhof. Yet perhaps the very fact that she was the daughter of the Majstro made people afraid to approach her. Throughout her life, although many admired and respected her, few people ever truly became close to her. On one occasion Lidia did confide to a friend that once she had 'lost her heart', but that was all she ever revealed ofit. Isaj Dratwer later recalled that' we Esperantists - then young men - used to say Lidia Zamenhof has only one lover, which is the Esperanto language!'

Over the years Esperanto had indeed become Lidia's great love. She had become an active member of Konkordo (Concord), a Warsaw Esperanto society, and some remembered her as its 'guiding spirit'. Ever since the Vienna congress she had served as secretary of the International Student Esperantist Association, helping to draw up its by-laws.

During the war, Lidia had begun translating Polish literature into Esperanto. Until now she had not tried to publish her translations, thinking them not good enough. She had not given up, but had kept improving her translating skills. At last she had something she was ready to publish: a collection of five short stories by the Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz. It came out the year she finished university, published in a slim octavo volume by Hirt & Sohn in Leipzig, Germany. The reviewer from Literatura Mondo was enthusiastic, calling Lidia's translation 'distinguished and remarkable'. He added that 'it would not be surprising if the first edition quickly ran out, because the little work merits the attention of every literature-lover'.

The child who once had stubbomly refused to leam Esperanto had grown up to see in the language more than just a family legacy. Through her father's example, and his careful and gentle instruction, his ideas and beliefs - the inner idea of Esperanto - had taken root in Lidia's heart. As a child she had seen the result ofpogroms, war and the occupation ofher country. As a young woman in her teenage years and as a university student, she had observed the war's aftermath of suffering, further injustice and revenge- the very things her father had . warned of — and she believed that peace would not come until there was brotherhood and justice among all the peoples of the world. But this could not occur until they could communicate with each other. Esperanto, she believed, provided the ideal means for that.

Although Ludwik Zamenhof had become convinced that the unification of mankind would only come about through a world religion, Lidia at twenty-one was not interested. in religion. By her own account she had believed in God as a child, but had lost this faith. By 1925 Lidia Zamenhof was, as she described herself, 'an atheist'.

As a sensitive young woman, Lidia must have felt deeply the conflict of national identity that troubled many young Polish Jews from non- religious families. She identified herself as a Jew, though a secular one. Although Lidia described herself officially by the Polish term wyznania mojzeszowego (of Mosaic Faith), which was preferred to the literal 2.yi (Jew) by those who wished to distance themselves culturally from orthodox Polish Jewry, she disdained those Jews who denied their Jewish affiliation and who tried to 'pass' as Gentiles, sometimes even converting to Catholicism in an attempt to further their careers. Yet Lidia loved Poland too, and felt a great affinity for Polish literature.