THE THINGS WE DO...: A simple book with a scary purpose (02/10/02)

THE THINGS WE DO...

by Orysia Paszczak Tracz

A simple book with a scary purpose

You really cannot judge a book by its cover - or its contents. A chance rediscovery of a book has brought back many memories, and a strange, horrible realization.

From my childhood in Jersey City, N.J., beginning when I was just 4, I remember a lot. I even remember the Orlyk DP (displaced persons) camp in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, where I lived "all my early years," until we came to America. Even though my parents did not have a higher education, circumstances and the war intruding, books and learning have always been an important part of my life. My father made sure that among the few things brought over on the ship from Germany were the books he had in the camp.

I learned to read Ukrainian when I was 4, and soon was reading not only books, but Svoboda, and Mii Pryiatel (My Friend), the children's magazine from Winnipeg, of all places (where I now live). Mama taught me, because even though she read to me a lot, there were moments when she had no time to finish the "kazky (tales) that I loved to listen to so much. She had to hurry to work. My father worked in a factory during the day, and my mother cleaned Manhattan offices at night, taking the Hudson Tubes (today known as the PATH subway system) across the river. Often they just greeted each other on the doorstep, one arriving, one leaving.

I think that almost all parents of my DP generation did the same, no matter what their education or social status back in Ukraine before the war. For one thing, very few knew English, even though they knew many European languages. Until they learned - and that was so hard for young adults to do quickly - we kids were their interpreters and translators, yes, even at age 4. I learned English within two weeks of playing on the street on Ocean Avenue in Jersey City, where my parents were also the janitors of the building where we lived in the storefront apartment. From what I remember, my first English words were "shut up."

Along with the Ukrainian books I read, there is one book that has stayed in my memory all these years. I wondered what happened to it, and was delighted that my sister, Nusia, had saved it. She had two copies, one our family's, and one from her husband Oleh's family. Most probably every Ukrainian DP family had a copy of this book. "Europa Versteht Sich: 1000 Wörter in 23 Sprachen Bildhaft Dargestellt" (Europe Understands Itself: 1,000 Words in 23 Languages Illustrated), published in Munich by Verlag Sebastian Lux. This book is not as large as I had remembered it (well, I was much smaller then). Maybe this is when my interest in languages began, even though I am still light years away from even being close to a linguist.

I enjoyed poring over this illustrated dictionary, because it had a color picture of the item, then the word in 23 languages, the Latin alphabet first, then the Cyrillic and Greek. I would look at a picture, check the Ukrainian word, then compare it to the other languages. It was fun to see that some words were exactly the same in all languages, and others very different. For example, "bomba" or some variation, "bomb," "bombe," was the same in all languages, as were "mandolina," "gitara" and "motor."

With the Slavic languages, I remember checking the similarities and differences among them, noting that sometimes all had the same root or word, with minor variations, while other times the words were very different. Sometimes the Ukrainian words were similar to Polish, Croatian and Serbian, and very different from Russian, while other times the Russian and Ukrainian were similar.

From even way back then, I remember noticing the complete differences between the latter two languages in some very basic words, for example: "nedilia" in Ukrainian is Sunday, and "tyzhden" is week, while in Russian "nedelia" is week, and "voskresenie" is Sunday. Other words were the same in all Slavic languages, such as evening, which is some variation of "vechir"/"vecher"/"vece," and the word for Monday, some variation of "ponedilok" (literally meaning after Sunday). Interesting by, the Russian word for Monday is "ponedelnik," even though their word for Sunday is not "nedelia."

This book is very telling in what the Ukrainian language was in the 1940s, and how it has changed since then. The notes say that the translation was by the Akademisches Üîbersetzungsburo des Studentenwerks (the academic translation bureau of student councils). There is no way of knowing who the student translators in Munich were, and from which region of Ukraine they came, which would indicate to us the vocabulary and its changes. Considering the state of the Ukrainian language now, this dictionary gives us the words as they were before the unwilling homogenization with Russian.

There has been some debate on the Ukrainian word for the number 90. The current Ukrainian word in Ukraine is "devianosto," which is the Russian word for 90. In this dictionary, it is "deviatdesiat," as it is in Borys Hrinchenko's dictionary of 1907. At the time Hrinchenko compiled his dictionary, a Ukrainian-Russian one, he could not publish a straight Ukrainian work, with both words and definitions in that language. In his text, the Ukrainian word "deviatdesiat" is defined in Russian as "devianosto."

The Europa dictionary contains many Ukrainian words "saved" by the diaspora and no longer that much in use in Ukraine. Among them are: "pomarancha" (Ukrai-nian)/ "apelsyn" (Russian from German) for orange, and "plasch" / "palto" for coat.

Every so often there is a heated discussion over fruits and vegetables - seriously. In the Europa dictionary, fruit is "ovoch" in Ukrainian, and "frukty" in Russian and Bulgarian (for some reason, the word is given as singular in Ukrainian, and plural in the other two). All other Slavic languages have some form of "ovoch" "voce," "owoc," "ovocie." In Hrinchenko, the Ukrainian "ovosch" (sic) is defined in Russian as "plod," or fruit. There is no listing for "frukty." Vegetables, on the other hand, in Ukrainian, are listed as "yaryna," "horodyna" in Europa, and as "horodyna" in Hrinchenko (with the Russian definition as "ogorodnia ovoshchi" - garden fruits). Europa gives "ovoschi" for the Russian, and the descriptive "zelenina" (things green) in other Slavic languages. Somewhere along the way, through Russification, "frukty" became the word for fruits, and "ovochi" became vegetables. Over the decades, this is now accepted in Ukraine, but it drives many of us DPs up the wall.

The word for car has changed. Back then, the Ukrainian word is given as "osobove avto" (personal car), the Russian "avtomobil." There is no "mashyna," the common word for car now (i.e., machine or motor). What about bicycle? In Europa, it is "koleso" (wheel) and "rover" in Ukrainian, "velosiped" in Russian (as well as in Serbian), "kolelo" in Bulgarian, "rower" in Polish (from the Land Rover Company in England, one of the first manufacturers of bicycles), and "jizdni kolo" (riding wheel) in Czech. Some interesting words in other languages that caught my eye include the word for match. In Ukrainian it is "sirnyk," in Russian "spichi," in Polish "zapalki" (all having to do with lighting and fire). In Dutch, the word for match is "de lucifer"!

There are interesting descriptive variations for towel: "rushnyk" (Ukr.) [for the hands], "polotentse" (Rus.) [little cloth], "ubrus" (Serb.) [the Ukrainian word for tablecloth], and "uterak" (Slovak) [something for wiping]. Some typos appear throughout the books, such as "duna" instead of "luna" (for moon in Russian and Bulgarian), and "nezabudka" as the Russian word for both violet and forget-me-not.

I was so glad to rediscover this book after all these many years. Checking the bibliographical information, I was puzzled to see that it was "Copy[right] 1943 by Sebastian Lux. Munchen." 1943. Strange. I had presumed that this dictionary had been prepared for all the refugees, the displaced persons in the various camps throughout Germany. Why, then, not 1945 or 1946. Why 1943, during the war? There was no additional information given anywhere on this publisher or the book, and so I inquired on the History-Infoukes webpage group.

Dr. Lubomyr Onyshkevych of New Jersey supplied information that stopped me in my tracks. This dictionary was not published as a goodwill gesture towards refugees. It had been published for the Wehrmacht, the German Nazi army! Of course, since they were going to conquer all of Europe and then some, they needed to "understand each other." When I looked at the book again, I noticed that the last segment is titled "Das Militär" - the military, with pictures and definitions of sirens, air-raid shelters, bombs (the same in all languages, how comforting), sand and entrenching tools, and - the last entry - gas-masks.

No, you really cannot judge a book by its cover.

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