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Pollach, Edith (audio interview #1 of 4)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This is the first of four interviews with Edith Pollach. The interview consists of three tapes. It was conducted by a friend of Pollach's. The audio quality of the interview is good. 2/9/1999
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- 2020-10-21
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- SUBJECT BIO - Edith Pollach was active in many progressive groups in Long Beach. She was trained as a Social Worker and was interested in helping people make their lives better. Her local activism followed many years of political acidity in the eastern United States and in Los Angeles. This interview was conducted by a friend of Pollach's who believed it was important to record her story. Pollach's activities began in the Depression when she was a student and continued through he support of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II, she tried to enlist in the military, but was turned down for health reasons. After the war, she supported the Presidential campaign of Henry Wallace in 1948. And she continued fighting for similar causes in Long Beach. TOPICS - family background; childhood; protest actions; American Youth Congress; YCL; CP; American Student Union; Spanish Civil War; anti-fascism; Depression; college; and anti-Semitism;education; graduate school; anti-Semitism; activism; UOPWA; professional career; work; husband; American Red Cross; and Social Workprofessional career; union activities; CP; FBI; husband; UOPWA; PP; political activism; Henry A; Wallace; social activism; and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg case;
- *** File: cbepollach1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:06-8:34)... Brief introduction Although she did not receive a traditional religious education, her parents read her stories about the struggles and problems that the Jewish people overcame. These stories of overcoming problems were similar to the challenges faced in the United States when she was young. Jews who immigrated to the United States maintained the memory of the oppression they faced in Europe. Her father's family was from a small town, while her mother's family was from an urban area. Both families faced discrimination and exclusion. Immigrating to the United States was an escape from the powerlessness and oppression they faced in Europe. (8:34-14:54)... Her father passed on his childhood stories to her children, but he did not read Yiddish books to them because they did not understand Yiddish. When he was 8 years old, his father put him in charge of a construction crew. She and her husband taught their values to their children by example, rather than by giving them books to read. She took her children to demonstrations, peace marches, and picket lines, which is where they learned about life. (14:54-20:34)... Pollach attended junior high school from 1931 to 1934 and high school from 1934 to 1937. She joined the American Youth Congress, which was a national organization of high school age students. The issues that concerned American Youth Congress members between 1934 and 1937 were fascism and Hitler's rise to power. She went to Washington, DC to protest again Franklin Delano Roosevelt's foreign policy and the US failure to take action against the Nazis. At the same time, the country was recovering from the Depression and workers formed unemployment councils and the council members protested their continuing lack of jobs and government help. Some WWI veterans participated in the Bonus March, demanding early payment of the bonus they were promised after the war. (20:34-28:57)... While at Brooklyn College, she joined the YCL and the American Student Union. She attended classes and also participated demonstrations and other activities organized by these groups. The students in these groups during the late 1930s were concerned about fascism and the anti-Communist hysteria. The Spanish Civil War was an immediate concern and many students went to Spain to fight with the Loyalists. Promoters of the anti-Communist hysteria targeted teachers who were active in these groups. Many students also were interested in the Thomas Moony trial and the lynching of Blacks in the South. She lived in the Bronx and had to commute to school. (28:57-31:08)... Interruption in tape From 1941 to 1943, she went to graduate school at Western Reserve University School of Social Work in Cleveland. There she worked in a limited basis with a local CP organization; she had to study hard and didn't have time to be more active. She began to experience anti-Semitism while she was a student at Western Reserve University. End of tape. Tape ends just as she is beginning to discuss anti-Semitism in college. *** File: cbepollach2.mp3 (0:00-7:58)... Interview begins with Pollach continuing her discussion of anti-Semitism in graduate school. Many of her fellow students referred to Jews as "those pushy New York Jews." Pollach believed they did this because Jews were progressive and challenged the Freudian framework on which their school's social work curriculum was based. She describes herself and other Jews as "materialists" who subscribed to a holistic view of humanity. The school focused on casework and adopted a Freudian approach to psychology and some Jewish students challenged this approach. In spite of this, she was not ostracized or isolated. She lived in an apartment off campus with 3 other young women and enjoyed that part of her life in Cleveland. Graduate school broadened her horizons. (7:58-9:52)... When she was in high school she wanted to be a doctor. When she went to Brooklyn College, she was impressed by her psychology teachers and began thinking about a career in social work. She did not want to become a teacher. She wanted to help people through direct contact. (9:52-13:59)... After finishing graduate school, she went to work for the Jewish Family and Children's Agency in New York and she worked there for a year. During that time, she joined the CP and was active in community and labor union organizing. She wanted to help the US win WWII and tried to enlist in the WACs, but was rejected because of a spinal curvature. She joined the American Red Cross and worked at the Chelsea Naval Hospital just outside of Boston from 1944 to 1946. She took a leave of absence from the Red Cross for her honeymoon and to finish her masters thesis. When her request was denied and she resigned. (13:59-16:05)... From 1946 to 1949, she and her husband lived in racially mixed neighborhood in Roxbury, Massachusetts. She had never lived in an integrated neighborhood of Blacks and white before. She and her husband tried to organize their Black and white neighbors as equals. She also worked with the CP and her husband attended art school. They lived on the $45 a month he received from the GI Bill. Her family also helped them financially, but their budget was tight. (16:05-21:23)... Shortly after she married, she went to work for the Jewish Family and Children's Agency in Boston. She describes herself as a "boat rocker." She often was reprimanded by her supervisors for not being objective and inappropriately discussing personal experiences with people seeking assistance at the agency. As a result, she received negative performance evaluations and was terminated. She believes that her union activities were also a factor in her termination. She was the head of the Office and Professional Workers unit of the UOPWA. She attempted to appeal her termination but the American Association of Social Workers said there was nothing they could do to help her. (21:23-23:38)... From 1947 to 1949, she didn't wasn't employed as a social worker. For instance, she worked at the Harvard School of Public Health finding housing for foreign students . In this position she interviewed people with rooms or apartments to rent . She recalls interviewing one man who said, "But you understand, I don't want any Jews referred to me for these rooms." When she told him that she was Jewish, he became very uncomfortable and left. (23:38-25:36)... In 1949 she gave birth to twin daughters. Although most of her medical expenses were paid, her husband took extra jobs to pay the hospital bills. He was also studying at the Museum of Fine Arts. Tufts University offered students at the Museum courses that led to a bachelors degree in education and a masters in fine arts. Pollach's parents moved to Los Angeles and shortly after her husband graduated from college, they convinced Pollach and her husband to move to Los Angeles where they said he could find work as a teacher. (25:36-31:07)... Pollach and her husband moved to Los Angeles in 1949. He had to take some additional courses to qualify for a California teaching credential and he went to UCLA. Ultimately he went to work as an elementary school teacher in Downey. Pollach's parents had given them financial assistance and the burden of paying them back and her husband's low salary led her to decide to look for work. She found a job teaching at co-op nursery schools in the San Fernando Valley and in West Los Angeles from 1953 to 1956. She was active in a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) local and organized the co-op nursery school teachers. In the summer of 1956, a friend told her about a social work position at the Mt. Sinai Clinic in Boyle Heights. End of tape *** File: cbepollach3.mp3 (0:00-3:48)... Interview begins with Pollach continuing to discuss her decision to return to work at Mt. Sinai in Boyle Heights She accepted a position at Mt. Sinai in the Breed Street Clinic in Boyle Heights. At this clinic, she was the only social worker who could speak Yiddish and many of the elderly patients from the nearby Jewish Home for the Aging preferred speaking Yiddish. (3:48-6:48)... She became the shop steward of the Hospital Workers local (Local 399) of SEIU. The local had a "sweetheart" contract with Mt. Sinai, which the workers didn't like. From 1956 to 1960, she worked to improve the working conditions and wages of the workers at the Mt. Sinai clinic. (6:48-13:13)... There is an interruption in this segment of the tape. During the McCarthy era, she maintained her membership in the CP and the FBI continued to harassed her. The CP did not keep membership lists and only operated underground. When the FBI showed up at the Mt. Sinai clinic, the administration told her to resign from the party or be fired. She believed the clinic administration wanted to get rid of her because of her union activism. She and her husband feared that her firing would draw attention to them and threaten his position as a teacher and their future attempts to find work. So they reluctantly decided that she should resign. She and her husband decided that she would not tell anyone the reason for her resignation; this was a very difficult decision for her to make. (13:13-21:38)... When Pollach lived in Boston, she worked at organizing workers at Filene's department store for the UOPWA. It was one of the first drives to organize department store workers on a large scale. Previously UOPWA had primarily tried to organize insurance and office workers. (21:38-28:28)... In Los Angeles, she was active in the PP which supported Henry A. Wallace's campaign for President in 1948. She rallied support for the party and attended the national organizing meeting in Philadelphia. She believed that the US needed a more progressive leader to confront the Cold War and set domestic social policies. (28:28-31:11)... In the early 1950s, she was active in the campaign to save Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. She identified with the Rosenbergs because, like Pollach and her husband, the Rosenbergs were a young couple with two small children. She and her husband circulated petitions to stop the Rosenbergs execution. She believes that Ethel Rosenberg's brother falsely implicated them to save himself. End of tape
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