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Keyser, Dora Stoller (audio interview #4 of 4)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This fourth interview with Dora Keyser was conducted several years after the earlier student interview with her and was focused exclusively on her relationship with the well known anarchist, Rudolf Rocker. It was done at the behest of an anarchist researcher who was seeking to document Rocker's activities. Like the interviews conducted earlier by Lynn Fonfa, this interview was conducted at Keyser's home. The interviewer and narrator had developed a personal/political relationship several years earlier as a result of some of their shared political views. Nevertheless. it was difficult to get more than a very general description of Keyser's relationship with Rocker.
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- 2021-01-27
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- SUBJECT BIO - Dora Stoller Keyser was a lifelong anarchist activist, starting from the age of fifteen, two years after she arrived in the US. Born in the Ukraine, the 17th of 18 children, Dora Keyser was the last of her family to emigrate to the US with her mother in 1913 after her father's death. She recalls not only the pogroms in her native village, but also the protection that Gentile neighbors provided for her family. Like most of her siblings, she had very little education in Russia. After arriving in New York, at the age of thirteen, she started in the first grade. Within two years, she finished through the sixth grade. However, she dropped out of school to care for her sick sister and then went to work in the garment industry, participating in the 1916 strike of the ILGWU, Local 22. Gaining a political education from the lectures and activities in her Brownsville neighborhood, Keyser joined the anarchist movement when she was fifteen, following in the footsteps of some of her siblings. After her sister's death, she and her common law "husband" took over the care of her two children. Later, they had two children of their own. The Keyser family lived for a while first at the Ferrer Colony in Stilton, NJ and then later at the Sunrise Farm in upstate Michigan. Keyser and her partner played an active role in the activities of the two anarchist colonies, particularly in setting up a school. Keyser was close to many of the more prominent figures in the anarchist movement, including Rudolf Rocker, whose papers she helped to organize in later years in Los Angeles. She also provided housing for other anarchists and after the death of one of her roomers, she began to produce ceramic busts of Voltarine deCleyre from the molds that he had left. She remained a staunch anarchist and advocate of vegetarianism all her life. At the time of the interview she was still singing with the ILGWU Mandolin Orchestra and continuing to raise funds for the United Farm Workers. The interviews with Keyser were conducted by a women's oral history student at UCLA in conjunction with the Feminist History Research Project. An additional short interview about Rudolf Rocker was conducted later by project director Sherna Berger Gluck at the behest of the Minnesota Libertarian Society. TOPICS - relationship with Rudolf Rocker; destruction of Rocker's papers by Nazis; Rocker's philosophies and lecturing style; Rocker's evading arrest and deportation; his involvement with Spanish and Italian anarchists; and marital relationship of Molly and Rudolf Rocker;
- *** File: refdkeyser11.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-11:41)... Keyser discusses her friendship with Rudolph Rocker, who she met at Sunrise Farm. His ability to treat everyone with the same level of kindness and respect, regardless of their station in life, was admirable. He fled Nazi Germany in order to avoid persecution for his political writings. His library and his research papers were burned by the Nazis in a bonfire. Keyser visited him in his home once, and he showed her his library and the books he reconstructed from memory. (11:41-17:22)... In the 1940s, Keyser organized a cooperative theater workshop in Los Angeles in collaboration with the Ethical Culture Society. The organizing committee held lectures in order to raise funds for the theater. When Rocker visited Los Angeles, he was a featured speaker for their organization. During his short visits to Los Angeles, Keyser entertained him and they vacationed together as well. (17:22-24:09)... Keyser recalls reading Rocker's book on his experiences being held as an alien enemy in England, in which he discussed the issue of being forced to do things in a free society. She experienced this first hand while living on Sunrise Farm when people rebelled against the labor manager for ordering them to complete tasks they did not want to. Even though there was a substantial age difference between Keyser and Rocker, he did not relate to her as a father. He treated everyone the same and communicated with people on their level. She believes they met in 1930-31 while he was staying with friends in Detroit and she and her family were living on Sunrise Farm. Whenever he went on a lecture circuit, the anarchists arranged his accommodations. (24:09-25:38)... Millie Rocker occasionally accompanied her husband on his lecture tours and "would sometimes protect him when there were too many questions and he was worn out." The two had a beautiful relationship and she was responsible for her own work. She "had plenty of honors and didn't need to bask in the sunshine of him. She was an equal comrade and a wonderful person." (25:38-29:05)... During one of Keyser's vacations with Rocker, they visited a nursery and she recalls the way he interacted with her children in explaining botany. In addition to being a political activist, he was an artist and a humanist. Discussions about politics came up naturally and were not the only topic of their conversations. He approached things very delicately and did not want to hurt anyone's feelings while expressing his views. They both believed that "you don't have to wait for an anarchist society to be an anarchist; you just live your life." (29:05-32:05)... After he immigrated to the US, Rocker remained in the states, but limited his time in the public eye to avoid deportation. He kept a low profile by lecturing on literature and art, but for "someone who is an anarchist, their point of view was going to be obvious no matter what they talked about." His political lectures were typically done at anarchist meetings where they had discretion over who they let in and they could generally spot an outsider when they saw one. He was an outspoken man, but very careful about the things he discussed in his lectures because "it was a time when just pointing a finger was enough to arrest a person." (32:05-37:13)... When Rocker first came to the US, his anarchist work was still very focused on the Spanish anarchists. He had contacts all over the world and he was a great source of information. During one of his visits to Los Angeles, a German anarchist he knew was living with her. This man had an extensive library of over 25,000 books and manuscripts that he left to rocker when he died. These materials were stored in Keyser's home and Rocker asked her to catalog everything. When this task was completed, they donated the books to the anarchist library in Michigan and she gave some of the material to the City of Hope library. (37:13-39:36)... Keyser did not have any disagreements with Rocker over political issues because "if you believed in syndicalism it was so clear." (39:36-41:56)... Rocker did not make any distinctions between men and women because he was a man who believed in "freedom for everybody." He treated people in his life with great respect and friendship regardless of their gender or economic status. Like any couple, he argued with his wife, Mollie Rocker; she was older and Keyser looked up to her. (41:56-44:35)... Rocker was "outspoken about his philosophies and he was respected by the police or anybody who was in touch with him because he was a man who had convictions." He was a gentle man who was not perceived as a terrorist or a revolutionary that must be behind bars. Mollie Rocker was also highly respected and had a very nurturing, maternal quality about herself. They were excellent companions to one another and they had a beautiful relationship with each other and with their children. End of tape.
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