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Well, Testing. Today is Monday, February 21st, 1994. Um this interview is with Stephanie Weissman, W E I S S M A N. Um, let's just assume that I haven't spoken to your sister and we're starting. Yeah, that makes sense because if you just start by giving

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me information. I know your name, your birth date, where you were born, your siblings and your parents' names. Um, OK, that's what you want. OK. My name is Stephanie Weissman. I was born in 1950 in West Virginia. Um My father is Irving Weissman. My mother was

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Frida Weissman. Uh, I have one sister, right? She's 3 years older than I am, Ann Weissman, um. You know the answer to that one. I was born during a miner strike. My father was a paid organizer for the Communist Party who traveled, as I understand it,

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he traveled to where there were strikes and, uh, so my sister was born in Niagara Falls during a paper mill strike, and I was born in West Virginia during a miner strike and. Uh My mother was 34 when I was born and so my father was

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37. Well, I did too much migrants, my father was born in, I think I was about to say in the Bronx, but I think he was born in Manhattan, um. Uh, at home, uh, he, his parents were immigrants from Poland. They had met in Poland. And

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uh my grandfather had first gone to the Argentine and then to the United States and uh had sent money to my grandmother to come over. Uh, they did not have a happy marriage. Um, at all. And my father had one sister who's still alive and a

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brother who was uh who died in infancy. Um, I don't know of what. And my mother was the youngest of 6 children. Her parents were immigrants. They had met in this country, I think, working up in the mills. He was from Russia, she was from Lithuania.

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And uh they had 6 children. My mother was the youngest and they lived in Staten Island, which was like living in the country. And um she also had a miserable childhood. I mean, much worse than my father's. She just was not wanted. Um, do you tell

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me the story of your parents and you know. Um, I know a couple of different versions of it, so I don't know what's the truth. I mean, they're all some truth in all of them, I'm sure, but, uh, my mother always told me that she had

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written a letter to a communist paper. Well, I should back it up. My parents both joined the party in their teens. I I guess they went from the YCL to the party. How did they, uh, what were the influences, what were the political influences on them

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that brought them in their teens? Well, my understanding of my father's was that he just grew up, you know, in an immigrant neighborhood with a lot of poverty. And that a You know, I don't know much about how he got drawn to the party. I assume

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he heard a street corner speaker. And like the ideas. And uh And Probably took to the material very quickly and got a lot of support for it and uh you know and he really believed in making the world a better place and he fought in Spain

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in the Spanish Civil War. And I don't know the details of this. I just learned about it a couple of weeks ago that he had disagreements with the party during that time. Yeah, and um. And that there was a possibility that he would have been executed.

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In Spain in Spain by his comrades. Um, but he got the support of the people in his immediate battalion, and so he was not executed. My sister just told me this story two weeks ago. I don't know the details, so I don't know what's true and

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what's not true. Uh And then he fought in World War II, which also he volunteered for, he was, um, he, he would not have been made to go, right, but uh he saw as fighting fascism and fighting anti-Semitism. My mother, when she was 17, the depression

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was on and she couldn't get a job. And uh she felt that something was very wrong with her, um, which is pretty much how she felt about herself in many areas throughout her life. And uh her older sister brought her to a party meeting and the

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slogan was, it was a YCL meeting and the slogan was um something about changing the world. And she loved that idea. She just loved it and she loved that it wasn't her fault that she couldn't get a job. She would go into the city every day,

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you know, take the ferry into Manhattan. And her father had given her money for the uh subways and she would take that money and spend it on a movie instead of looking for work because she knew there wasn't any work and she was very depressed um

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and unhappy about it so the YCL for her just opened up a whole other understanding. And she uh I don't think she ever was big in the party. I think she went to meetings and She did her work and she was always, um, she always worked

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for a living. And during the war she was like shop steward, so she was active in in the workplace and she went to meetings. Um, whereas my father was progressively more active in the party itself, you know. Even though he always disagreed with people. Um, but

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I think that he accepted the idea that in order to work to be effective, you had to. To work with people and sometimes follow orders that you might disagree with. And it wasn't until sometime around before I was born that both he and my mother really

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began to question. Um, as to how they met, uh, she had the story she told me was that she had written a letter to, um, the worker, you know, the newspaper, and that it disagreed with party policy and that people wanted to talk to her about

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it for quite a while and she became disgusted with them challenging her on it being mad at her. And uh so that when she met my father at a meeting and he said, are you the Frida Weissman who wrote that letter, she just said, Go away

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and don't bother me. And his story is slightly different. That's the story. Her story is the story I always heard until she died. I guess I should say my mother died about 8 months ago, um. So when she died, what he told me was that Um

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He was editing that paper or, or he was editing a section of the paper and that the party had um requested the people write in with letters expressing an opinion. I don't know what the issue was. I think the issue It was something to do with

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whether they should be doing anti-capitalist organizing during the war. Um, so my father had been editing these letters and going through them and that her letters stood out as not being, uh, the dogmatism. And the um You know, the mantra, so to speak, it was. And

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uh so, but the way he describes it is like love at first sight that he saw her, she was sitting at a table handing out name tags or something and or handing out literature, and I guess she was wearing a name tag and he just thought

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she was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen and And I don't think he'd ever, I mean, he was in his early 30s then. I don't think he'd ever had a girlfriend. He was, uh, not socially very adept. And he'd been working for the party for

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many years. I don't know, um, I always thought so, and then about 3 weeks ago, he wrote this little letter memoir thing. Um, about the different jobs he'd had, and it turned out that he tried to do some welding and he, he'd done a number of

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different things, so I don't know how long he was actually officially working for the party. And this would be right after World War Two, and I don't know when he got back. They met in 46, I think, 45 or 46, and I don't know when he

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returned from Europe, so. So, but then when he, he, he must have started working for the party not long after that. Right, because my sister was born 9 months after they were married. Uh-huh. So that, that the family would move and how long would he stay

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in? I don't know, um, I think that. I think that he was only in Niagara Falls for a year or so. I don't know. Um, I believed that we were in West Virginia for 2 or 3 years, uh. We left there in 1950 when I was

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3 months old. And that was pretty much when he was going to leave the party anyway. What do you know about those circumstances and his leaving? Um, Well, he became very angry at democratic centralism and felt that uh things directives were coming out of the USSR

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that were not relevant. to, to organizing in this country and that he had no voice in disagreeing with them and that's about all that I know and so he was uh. I guess he started to believe some of the stories about Stalin that he'd probably not

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been willing to believe, but I don't know that, that's my guess. And he was thinking of leaving the party, but then he was arrested, so he didn't officially leave because he didn't. You know, in those days you were either on one side or the other, and

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he wasn't going to name names or do, you know, he wasn't going to be on the side of McCarthy. So, uh, he left West Virginia and moved to New York City. So that was no longer doing party organizing, but he went underground. Because he was afraid

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of being arrested. So in 50 or 51 he went underground. In 1950, I used to know this um from Uh, one of my many bouts in therapy. I actually got this history pretty good, but I've forgotten a lot of it now. I was born in May.

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In August, my mother and sister and I moved back to New York. I think my father stayed in West Virginia for a while longer, but I don't know. When he came up to New York then he didn't live with us, but he saw a lot of

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my mother. I know that just because she once said something about um the something very derogatory about the Communist Party's version of going underground was. That you just didn't come home on weekends or something like that. Uh, what do you know about the circumstances of that

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period? Where, where was he living? Was he just living with different friends or? I don't know. He's never spoken about that. He hates to speak of those times. My both of my parents. See, I grew up. Believing that I was of the left, but also this

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well of bitterness towards the left. Then um I had um misunderstood for Anne that he had, I thought he had left the party before his arrest, but um maybe. She may be right. Um, my understanding was that he was Angry at the party and the people

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in the party were angry with him. I don't think he had actually left, but I could be very wrong. So, um he was arrested then when you were still an infant? Yeah, I was one. He was arrested a year later, I think in August of 51.

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Wait, you know, when were the Rosenbergs arrested? Um, see, I think his arrest came within a year of theirs. Now he was arrested in Philadelphia or. In Pittsburgh because they made some link between Pittsburgh Steel and West Virginia Coal, and he was tried for being, uh,

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for supposedly being part of a bombing conspiracy that would be centered in West Virginia where they would blow up a valley that was rich in coal resources. Uh-huh, so he did not live with the family for your, the first couple of years of your life or

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or? I believe not, um. We lived with my, with his parents. My mother's family uh told her never to contact them again. Following his Following his arrest that That they wanted no part of her and that she should not consider them family anymore. And what um

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Your father had had was known to have disagreements with the party. We was your mother, what was your mother's connection to the party by then? Good question. I don't know. I think that she was the support for my father. Um she You know, she had always

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wow. This is rain on the tape. She had always worked. She had been a secretary, um, she had been a secretary for the furriers Union. She had worked in the factories during the war, uh, drilling in an airplane factory. I think that when my sister was

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born, my mother either quit working or at that point was living in Niagara Falls and was not working and did not go back to working outside of the house. When I was 4 or 5, I can remember her working in the home doing paid work with

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a dictaphone. She was a typist, but I don't think she went back to working outside of the home until probably 56 or 57 when I would be in kindergarten. And their social circle too were uh party, other party members until I don't remember any friends when

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I was Well, you know, I say that and then I immediately bite my tongue. We went to Camp Midvale for the summers for two weeks each summer and that was a communist Party bungalow colony in New Jersey. Uh, I, I was there when I was 4.

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So they must have still had friends. They must have not been, see, it's so hard to tell. I mean, a lot of what I got, I got from my mother, um. My mother grew up feeling like an outcast, you know, from the, from the day she

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was born, she felt like an outcast. Some of the things she described to me of us being outcast from the party, I think it contradicted by some of the outside facts. I think that she brought that view. Of somebody who had never ever been loved or

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wanted in the world and and projected that into many situations um and it was probably partially true, you know, I think my sister once told me that she could remember people crossing the street to avoid us and they were party members. Um, I know the party

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was not supportive when he was arrested, but if you read um the book of Daniel that fictionalized, he talks about how the party didn't support anybody when they were arrested. You know, and I think that that book, I mean, I have a lot of anger at

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that book, but I think that it's pretty accurate, extremely accurate from what my parents told me and it's depiction of the party and how the party dealt with people, and those are, you know, those fictionalized Rosenbergs are loyal party members that the party turns its back

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on when they're arrested. So whether that was specific to my father or. Just the party's terror, you know, wanting to cut their losses for anybody, I don't know. Well, let's go back to your childhood then um and your um. You're coming to awareness of your father's

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absence, the family circumstance. I have no memory. I'm sorry. I, uh, I once found some books, some letters rather that my mother, my father kept my mother's letters that she wrote him when he was in prison, and she talks about me missing my father and wanting

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to know where he was. But I have no memory of that. Uh, when I was 3, we moved out of my grandparents' house and into our own apartment. Um, and I believe when he, when I was 6 is when he came back to live with us

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permanently. I know that when I was 3 was when the big trial was and that was down in Pittsburgh and we all went down there. Um, I have again no memory. I remember the plane ride down there. That's my earliest memory is as a of uh.

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It's a seeing beige and feeling nauseous. I mean that's it, and how long was he in prison? I don't know. Uh, I think that he was only in for 3 months while he waited for the trial before the bail. My mother went to Helen Gurley Flynn.

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And told her what was going on, and Gurley Flynn told the Communist Party to raise bail money. Um, Again, it's probably more complex than that, but that's the story I grew up on. Uh And my mother delivered the bail money. At one point many years later,

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she got some newspaper articles from that time and, and they described, you know, Mrs. Weissman, an attractive brunette, walked in with $20,000 you know, something like that. Um, So I think he was held for about 3 months. And then I don't understand why he didn't live

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with us he was sentenced to 5 years and they appealed and he went on the appeal. He always said it was because uh the star witness who was lying. Uh, had died and because by that time McCarthyism was just, they had destroyed the Communist Party, so

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they didn't need for him to go to jail, but um But he was absent from your birth I think until I was 5 or 6 except we went down to, we lived with him during the summer of the trial, and according to my parents, I was

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this ray of sunshine at that point that um. I was just this, you know, the youngest person. I was about 3 and uh. I guess, you know, that my function really was right and that I did it very well and um All for most of my

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life have been very good at being the comic relief. So then he, but you say you don't, he didn't live with you when the trial was over, you don't remember. I don't remember and I don't understand why. They told me that he didn't live with me

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until I was 6 or 7 when the trial took place in '53 and the appeals started immediately. He didn't serve time after then. So, see, whenever I would ask my parents, you know, how long was he in jail, they would say, too long. I think that

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I have a lot of misinformation here, um. You know, and that there's no way I'll ever know because they, my father is still alive, but they just uh didn't hold the memories, you know. Um, What did you do you know what your father did then after

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his quit after he won on appeal? I mean, what was he doing for work? He became a surveyor and then eventually became a superintendent in building construction, and that's what he did my whole life, I mean his whole working life during my life. And did he

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ever formally leave the party then? The answer is yes, but whether that was before or after, I just don't know. No, they weren't. Um, what they did was talk about politics. Which like in my neighborhood, I mean, other kids' parents didn't talk about politics. Um, I

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do remember this is a I think a pretty good descriptive story. When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Uh, I was yelled at by one of the crossing guards. They were called the AA monitors, and I said, you know, stupid AA monitor to my friend,

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and he, you know, grabbed me and was going to take me up to the principal's office for insulting him, and I gave him a lecture about free speech and my parents don't like Eisenhower. See, I had no idea that my father had been in jail. And

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I said, you know, my parents don't like Eisenhower, and they say things about Eisenhower, but they don't get put into jail for saying that. We live in America. And so I had some notion that that they were anti-government, but I didn't have any notion that they

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had been persecuted for it. No, not that I know of. My mother once told about coming back from Pittsburgh and uh. You know, so one of the neighbors asking her, how was your summer? Do you know, did you go away to the country? And she said

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it was all over the New York Times, but I guess nobody in my neighborhood read the New York Times or or made the connection, you know, she said his picture was on the front page of the Times. Um, what was Remember about the mood within your

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home within your family. They talked about politics a lot. Were you encouraged or discouraged from both, both, um, well, I personally. was always discouraged from. Thinking Um, as opposed to my older sister who was always encouraged to, uh, to think, and that was. Much more, I,

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I mean that. You know, the poli you can't talk about being a red diaper baby as though that's the only thing you were. I mean, my family, right, right, and my role was to be the happy cheerful. Aric emotional one. I, I actually didn't always have

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to be happy and cheerful. I was also uh. A very unhappy child who made suicide threats when I was very young and did very dramatic things and efforts to get some attention, um, whereas my sister was seen as an intellectual and a brilliant person and, and

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she was very much encouraged to think, um. But I certainly soaked up my parents' values and was encouraged to have their values. I was sent to summer camps from when I was 8 that, you know, we got scholarships to them and uh that's the other thing

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is we were very poor. We were, I mean I never went hungry at all, but um we were poor. And uh you know, which I thought was normal until I went to summer camp and and met these other people who had similar politics and totally different

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lifestyles and What was that I became very self-pitying for a while. Um, I thought we were really underprivileged. Uh, see, it was this interesting contradiction that I grew up with a feeling like You know, the people who had the politics that we had were all what

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I thought of as rich, which was probably not rich, but I thought of it that way. Um, but on the other hand, the working class was the vanguard of the revolution. So we were better than they were because we were poor. But we weren't better than

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they were because we were poor, so I grew up very confused about class issues and um You know, and then when I got older, the confusion never I mean, I still have friends who tell me I'm, I was not working class because we read. You know,

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and uh. Uh, you know, our, our intellectual style was different. But um but so I knew there were politics. I went on peace marches, you know, when I was very young, um but my memory, I'm not sure this is true, but I seem to remember that

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I would go with a friend of mine from summer camp and her mother. I don't remember my parents taking me. These were the band, the bomb marches, you know, in '58, 59. I don't remember my parents taking me on a march. No, in fact, when I

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was about 20 I guess and I was living in New Haven, Connecticut and there were a bunch of Black Panthers arrested and I mentioned to my parents that I would be handing out leaflets. My father became very upset. He was very afraid that I would be

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attacked. And it was the first time. I mean, I, I remember my shock because, you know, there were a lot of things I couldn't tell my father, but one thing I could always tell him was that I was doing something political. And um you know I

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mean all I can surmise now is that it had to do with Black Panthers and and his own racism and his own belief that this I mean aside from his racism but his belief that society's racism was going that I was more at risk in doing

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that kind of work than I had been in doing anti-war work or in, you know, women's work. The tenor and the mood within your family, um, when you were growing up. There were a lot of arguments, or a lot of arguments. Do you, um, what, what

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impact did you now, you know, now as an adult looking back, do you see those years of your father's absence having had on your mother and your father individually and on the marriage? I think it was harder for her than for him, um, because she had

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us and because she didn't have her own family, um. Were there? There was my parents, my father's parents were very supportive, but they were also my father.