Lidia Comes to America

For 14 months, Lidia traveled throughout America but her journey was not an easy one. Meanwhile, in Europe, a war was beginning. Learn how American Baha’is and Esperantists tried to keep Lidia away from the war but ultimately, failed. TRANSCRIPT:Welcome to Who was she? Podcast where I, Tara Jabbari share the stories of women throughout Baha’i history. This season is about the life of Lidia Zamenhof, an Esperantist and Baha’i who traveled through three continents to teach languages in efforts to bring unity to humankind. It was 1935 and Lidia had spent more than 2 years traveling through Europe to teach Esperanto. Tuition was twenty francs for forty hours of lessons but Lidia often allowed those who could not afford it to still join her classes. Like her father and brother, who provided health care free of charge, they wanted to be able to still serve any who needed them. It was not easy for Lidia, the tuition was her only form of income. Lidia traveled to Lyon the most and those who attended her courses and got to know her, wrote later on that she was not a talkative person, very modest and never tried to impose herself. Many from her travels and childhood would say the same thing but that when she went onstage to teach, she became another person altogether. Rene Lemaire said she was “a person who was almost invisible in the street, who walked along slowly, looking at the ground. But when she was in the classroom teaching a lesson, she was a lion.” During the Twenty-Seventh Universal Congress of Esperanto held in August, 1935 in Naples, Italy, Lidia spoke on the subject of free will and destiny. She said, “Fate is of two kinds: absolute and accidental…According to its destiny, when the oil in a lamp is consumed, the lamp must go out. But it can happen that, even before the oil is gone, by chance a strong wind may extinguish the flame. The absolute fate of man is to come into the world, to mature, and having attained the state of maturity, to begin to age, and finally, when the time comes, to return his body to the earth but it can happen that a brick falls on his head and cuts the threads of his earthly life sooner. We cannot avoid absolute fate, but we can avoid those other causes, and it is wise to guard oneself against them. Man is responsible for all the actions he performs by his own choice. If no free will existed, there would be no responsibility - neither merit nor guilt.“The greater the suffering, the greater the harvest of spiritual virtues appearing man. Sometimes happiness makes man self-assured and forgetful. But when sorrow comes, man remembers his smallness and powerlessness and turns upward to the Power above, which alone can save him from his difficulties. And thus his self-assurance dissolved and his spirituality grows…” Like she had done in the past, Lidia also spoke with the Union of Esperantist Women, urging them not to let children play with war toys, “because the toy of childhood will become a terrible reality in adulthood.” Instead, she urged the women to teach their children about other races and lands. Children should be encouraged to cultivate friendships “not only with children of their own race or people, but with children of other lands, above all, with children of those lands from which they are separated by the barriers of political hatred and prejudice.” She explained that this can be done easily through Esperanto. Lidia concluded, “Above and beyond the borders a wondrous bridge will be built of the children’s hearts. Upon that bridge the mature generation will meet sometime and build a new, better future.” Meanwhile, the Universal Esperanto Association felt the pressure that they needed to adapt “to the needs of the times.” The Vice President Anton Vogt was a German member of the Nazi Party. Therefore, about twenty Jewish delegates of the UEA were forced out of their positions. Lidia challenged the Esperantists to fight against this attitude and actions the UEA was enforcing. She wrote in an article called, “Nia misio” or “Our Mission” saying, “We must not permit national ambitions to raise their heads among us…Esperanto was created so that the peoples should feel equal with each other, not so that through it they should try to raise one about the others…”In another article she wrote, “It is time …to stand up and proclaim to the whole world that the international language opens not only human mouths and ears but also hearts.” She knew there was a danger within Esperantists but the Baha’is at least were committed to the ideals of universal peace and unity. If more Baha’is learned Esperanto, it would help ensure the ideology. She wrote for The Baha’i Magazine saying, “The international language is part of the Divine Plan which given effect in the era of Baha’u’llah (the Founder of the Baha’i Faith). And the creation and spread of Esperanto are proofs of the creative power of ...