Emanuel Litvinoff
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Emanuel Litvinoff (5 May 1915 – 24 September 2011) was a Jewish writer and well-known figure in Anglo-Jewish literature, known for novels, short stories, poetry, plays and human rights campaigning.


Early years

Litvinoff's early years in what he frequently described as the Jewish ''
ghetto A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other ...
'' in the East End of London made him very conscious of his
Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
ish identity, a subject he explored throughout his literary career. Litvinoff was born to Russian Jewish parents who emigrated from
Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...
to
Whitechapel Whitechapel () is an area in London, England, and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in east London and part of the East End of London, East End. It is the location of Tower Hamlets Town Hall and therefore the borough tow ...
, London, in 1915. His father was repatriated to Russia to fight for the czar and never returned: he is thought to have been killed in the
Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...
. Litvinoff was the second of nine children. One of his brothers was the historian Barnet Litvinoff and his half-brother was David Litvinoff who was born to his mother's second husband Solomon Levy. Litvinoff left school at 14 and, after working in a number of unskilled factory jobs, found himself homeless within a year. Drifting between
Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...
and Fitzrovia during the Depression of the 1930s, he wrote hallucinatory materials, since destroyed, and used his wits to survive. Initially a
conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...
, Litvinoff volunteered for military service in January 1940 on discovering the extent of the persecution suffered by Jews in Europe. He was commissioned into the Pioneer Corps in August 1942. Serving in Northern Ireland, West Africa and the Middle East, he rose through the ranks quickly, being promoted to major by the age of 27.


Poems

Litvinoff became known as a war poet during his time in the Army. The anthology ''Poems from the Forces'', published by Routledge in 1941, included some of his poems, as did the BBC radio feature of the same title. ''Conscripts: A Symphonic Declaration'' appeared in the same year, and his first collection, ''The Untried Soldier'', followed in 1942. ''A Crown for Cain'', published in 1948, included his poems from West Africa and Egypt. Over the years, he contributed poems to many anthologies and periodicals, including ''The Terrible Rain: War Poets 1939–1945'' and ''Stand'', a magazine edited by Jon Silkin. Litvinoff was a friend and mentor to many younger poets. His poems were collected in ''Notes for a Survivor'' (1973).


''To T. S. Eliot''

Litvinoff was one of the first to raise publicly the implications of T. S. Eliot's negative references to Jews in a number of his poems, in his own poem "To T. S. Eliot". Litvinoff, an admirer of Eliot, was appalled to find Eliot republishing lines he had written in the 1920s about "money in furs" and the "protozoic slime" of Bleistein's "lustreless, protrusive eye" only a few years after the
Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
, in his ''Selected Poems'' of 1948. When Litvinoff got up to announce the poem at a poetry reading for the
Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an modernism, artistic and cultural centre on The Mall (London), The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps a ...
in 1951 the event's host, Sir
Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read wa ...
, declared, "Oh Good, Tom's just come in," referring to Eliot. Despite feeling "nervous",Hannah Burman
"Emanuel Litvinoff: Full Interview"
''London's Voices: Voices Online'',
Museum of London London Museum (known from 1976 to 2024 as the Museum of London) is a museum in London, covering the history of the city from prehistoric to modern times, with a particular focus on social history. The Museum of London was formed in 1976 by ama ...
, conducted on 11 March 1998, retrieved 7 July 2008.
Litvinoff decided that "the poem was entitled to be read" and proceeded to recite it to the packed but silent room:
So shall I say it is not eminence chills
but the snigger from behind the covers of history,
the sly words and the cold heart
and footprints made with blood upon a continent?
Let your words
tread lightly on this earth of Europe
lest my people’s bones protest.
In the pandemonium after Litvinoff read the poem Eliot reportedly stated, "It's a good poem, it's a very good poem."


''Struma''

Litvinoff is also known for his poem "''Struma''", written after the ''Struma'' disaster. Volunteering for military service in January 1940, Litvinoff saw his membership of the
British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
as a straightforward matter of combating Nazi evil, but the sinking of the ''Struma'' in February 1942 complicated this. An old schooner with an unreliable second-hand engine, the ''Struma'' had left Romania in December 1941 crowded with nearly 800 Jewish refugees escaping the Nazis. After engine failure on the
Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...
she was towed into Istanbul harbour. Her passengers hoped to travel overland to Palestine, but Turkey forbade them to disembark unless Britain allowed them to settle in Palestine. British authorities rejected the refugees' request, and after weeks of deadlock Turkish authorities towed the ''Struma'' back into the Black Sea and set her adrift. The next day, 24 February 1942, she exploded and sank, leaving an estimated 791 dead and only one survivor. It emerged years later that the ''Struma'' had been torpedoed by a Soviet submarine. This was unknown at the time, and Litvinoff believed that the British were responsible. The disaster "blurred the frontiers of evil" in a way that left him reluctant to describe himself as "English" or to seek the kind of assimilation achieved by other Jewish writers in Britain. The poem contains the lines:
Today my khaki is a badge of shame,
Its duty meaningless; my name
Is Moses and I summon plague to Pharaoh.
Today my mantle is Sorrow and O
My crown is Thorn. I sit darkly with the years
And centuries of years, bowed by my heritage of tears.


Novels

After the war Litvinoff briefly worked as a ghostwriter for Louis Golding, writing most or all of ''The Bareknuckle Breed'' and ''To the Quayside'', before going on to write his own novels. Litvinoff's novels explore the issue of Jewish identity across decades and in a variety of geographical contexts; Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union and Israel.


''The Lost Europeans''

Ten years after the war Litvinoff went to live in Berlin. He described it as "a strangely exhilarating experience, like being under fire".Back cover, first edition of ''The Lost Europeans'', Vanguard Press 1960. ''The Lost Europeans'' (1960) was Litvinoff's first novel and was born out of this experience. Set in post-war Berlin, it follows the return of two Jews to Berlin after the
Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
. One returns for both symbolic and material restitution, the other for revenge on the man who betrayed him.


''The Man Next Door''

''The Man Next Door'' (1968), described by ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' as "the British answer to '' Portnoy's Complaint''", tackles British suburban anti-Semitism. Set in the fictional Home Counties town of Maidenford, it features a despondent middle-aged vacuum cleaner salesman who sees his new neighbours, wealthy self-made Jews, as the root of his problems and wages an escalating campaign of hatred against them.


'' Journey Through A Small Planet''

Litvinoff's best-known work is probably '' Journey Through a Small Planet'' (1972), in which he chronicled his working-class Jewish childhood and early adult years in the East End, a small cluster of streets that was right next to the City of London, but had more in common with the cities of Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa. Litvinoff describes the overcrowded tenements of Brick Lane and Whitechapel, the smells of pickled herring and onion bread, the rattle of sewing machines, and chatter in Yiddish. He also relates stories of his parents, who fled from Russia in 1914, his experiences at school and a brief flirtation with Communism.


The ''Faces of Terror'' Trilogy

The trilogy ''Faces of Terror'' follows a pair of young revolutionaries from the streets of the East End and their political passage over the years to Stalinist Russia. The first novel, ''A Death Out of Season'' (1973), is set around the Siege of Sidney Street and the fermenting anarchism of East London. The novel describes youth seduced by revolution through the characters Peter the Painter and Lydia Alexandrova, a young aristocrat who rebels against her class. ''Blood on the Snow'' (1975), the sequel, finds Lydia and Peter now committed Bolsheviks, in the chaos of famine and civil war in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. The final instalment of the trilogy, ''The Face of Terror'' (1978), is set under the regime of Stalin, where revolution has turned into repression, and the ideals of freedom that Peter and Lydia once had have crumbled under the weight of guilt and disillusion.


''Falls the Shadow''

''Falls the Shadow'' (1983) was a controversial novel, written because Litvinoff had become concerned at how he considered Israel to be invoking the memory of the Holocaust to justify its own outrages. Its narrative concerns an apparently distinguished and benign Israeli citizen who is assassinated in the street, then found to have been a concentration camp officer who had escaped using the identity of one of his victims.


Plays

During the 1960s and 1970s Litvinoff wrote plays prolifically for television, in particular '' Armchair Theatre''. His play ''The World in a Room'' tackled the subject of interracial marriage.


Campaign for Soviet Jewry

Although he was a successful poet, novelist and screenwriter, the majority of Litvinoff's career was spent spearheading a worldwide campaign for the liberation of
Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
Jewry. In the 1950s, on a visit to Russia with his first wife, Cherry Marshall, and her fashion show, Litvinoff became aware of the plight of persecuted Soviet Jews, and started a worldwide campaign against this persecution. One of his methods was editing the newsletter ''Jews in Eastern Europe'' and also lobbying eminent figures of the twentieth century such as
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
,
Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary criticism, literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th ...
, and others to join the campaign. Due to Litvinoff's efforts, prominent Jewish groups in the United States became aware of the issue, and the well-being of Soviet Jews became cause for a worldwide campaign, eventually leading to the mass migration of Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel and the United States. For this he has been described by Meir Rosenne, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, as "one of the greatest unsung heroes of the twentieth century... who won in the fight against an evil empire" and that "thousands and thousands of Russian Jews owe him their freedom".


Personal life

In 1942, he met Cherry Marshall at a Catterick Camp dance and they married at a register office a few months later. They had three children together but divorced in 1970. He had one child by his second wife, Mary McClory.


Bibliography

*''Conscripts'' (1941) *''The Untried Soldier'' (1942) *''A Crown for Cain'' (1948) poems *''The Lost Europeans'' (1960) *''The Man Next Door'' (1968) *'' Journey Through a Small Planet'' (1972) *''A Death Out of Season'' (1973) *''Notes for a Survivor'' (1973) *''Soviet Anti-Semitism: The Paris Trial'' (1974) *''Blood on the Snow'' (1975) *''The Face of Terror'' (1978) *''The Penguin Book of Jewish Short Stories'' (1979) editor *''Falls the Shadow'' (1983)


References


Sources

;Interviews *Interview with Emanuel Litvinoff, 25 Jun 2011"

*Burman, Hannah
"Emanuel Litvinoff: Full Interview"
''London's Voices: Voices Online''.
Museum of London London Museum (known from 1976 to 2024 as the Museum of London) is a museum in London, covering the history of the city from prehistoric to modern times, with a particular focus on social history. The Museum of London was formed in 1976 by ama ...
. Conducted on 11 March 1998. Retrieved 7 July 2008. (Summary and transcript of the interview, covering Litvinoff's life up to the 1950s.)
"The Roots of Writing:
With Bernard Kops, Emanuel Litvinoff,
Harold Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A List of Nobel laureates in Literature, Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramat ...
, Arnold Wesker; Chair:
Melvyn Bragg Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg (born 6 October 1939) is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian. He is the editor and presenter of ''The South Bank Show'' (1978–2010, 2012–2023), and the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 documentary series ...
: Gala Festival Opening Event, In association with the Jewish Quarterly". 2003 Jewish Book Week. ''jewishbookweek.com'' (Archive), 1 March 2003. Retrieved 7 July 2008. (Session transcript and recorded audio clip.)


External links

*
Obituary in [The Guardian]"Filmography: LITVINOFF, Emanuel"
at the
British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
(BFI) {{DEFAULTSORT:Litvinoff, E 1915 births 2011 deaths Jewish English writers British people of Russian-Jewish descent People from Bethnal Green English human rights activists Jewish human rights activists Antisemitism in the Soviet Union Royal Pioneer Corps officers British Army personnel of World War II British Zionists English male novelists 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English male writers English conscientious objectors Writers from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Soviet Jewry movement activists