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When Hesed was established in independent Ukraine I became chairman of the Board of Hesed. This organization supports older people and helps them to communicate and satisfy their spiritual needs. I'm the chief editor of Hesed News, the newspaper published by Hesed. I do this work for free. My wife and I receive a pension given to former inmates of ghettos. We can manage with what we receive, and when somebody needs help we are always happy to provide assistance. I go to the synagogue on Jewish holidays and on the death anniversaries [Jahrzeit] of members of my family. My wife and I celebrate Jewish holidays and Sabbath at home. We have lived a difficult, but interesting life. I'm grateful that we've found each other in this big world.

I was rather skeptical about perestroika, which began in 1986. I thought it was another 'activity' of the Communist Party. After some time I saw that things began to change for the better. Newspapers became more interesting, and books, which had been banned in the past, were published. The first steps of the restoration of the Jewish spirituality and culture were made at that time, and I became actively involved in this movement. I was chairman of the Jewish charity committee that was established during the Soviet regime in 1988. Many problems that had made our life difficult before perestroika were eliminated. Religion, although it wasn't officially acknowledged by the state, wasn't forbidden any more. The attitude towards Jews changed for the better. Jewish writers began to have their books published, which hadn't happened before. A Jewish association of culture and a public cultural fund were established in that period. I participated in both organizations. Jewish life began to revive even before Ukraine declared its independence in 1991. Jewish organizations, theaters and art collectives were established. People visited Jewish exhibitions. A Jewish library and school were opened in Chernovtsy.

My father died in 1975. We buried him in accordance with Jewish traditions in the Jewish cemetery. There were two rabbis at his funeral - I invited one, and the other one came when he heard about my father's death. My father was buried wrapped in a shroud. I recited the required prayers [the Kaddish]. He was a respected man among Jews in Chernovtsy and many of them came to his funeral. After the funeral my wife and I couldn't observe all Jewish traditions: we worked and couldn't even leave work for a week. My mother died in 1983. Since I had worked at school for a long time my colleagues were supposed to come to the funeral. It wasn't safe to have a traditional religious funeral with teachers involved because they were responsible for the education of the young generation. There were no colleagues and pupils of ours at my father's funeral, but they came to my mother's funeral. A religious teacher would have lost his job in an instant. The funeral was to be in the afternoon, and we had a religious ritual completed in the morning. We buried her without a prayer, but in a shroud as required, in the Jewish cemetery beside my father's grave.

. My wife and I had long summer vacations, which lasted for two months. We usually visited our parents. Sometimes we spent our vacations elsewhere; at the seashore or traveling to other towns. We visited Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad.

My wife and I spoke Yiddish at home. We didn't celebrate holidays at home because teachers were referred to as 'ideological workers'. We weren't allowed to discuss religious issues with our pupils, or be religious ourselves. The practice of religion was outlawed in the USSR. However, we visited my parents to celebrate with them. We always took part when my father conducted the seder on Pesach. The only thing my wife and I could observe was fasting. We celebrated Soviet holidays at work - teachers and pupils just had to take part in the parades, and then there were concerts at school where schoolchildren performed. Afterwards teachers got together at a table to celebrate.

Two years later, when our assignment was over, we decided to return to Chernovtsy, but we couldn't find any vacancies at schools. There were vacancies for teachers of physics and mathematics in a Moldavian school on the outskirts of Chernovtsy. My wife and I spoke fluent Moldavian and got employed at that school. It took us several years to find a job in Chernovtsy. I finally got a job at a secondary school in Chernovtsy in 1971 and worked there until I retired in 1992.

I didn't face any anti-Semitism at work. I still keep in touch with my former colleagues, Jewish and non-Jewish. I value people for their human qualities. I did suffer from state anti-Semitism. When I was awarded a title for my achievements in education, my documents were submitted to the Ministry of Education four times before they gave their approval. At school I was head of the school trade union committee for 24 years and people brought their issues and problems forward to me.

After the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party 18, where Khrushchev 19 made a speech denouncing the cult of Stalin, I was full of hope about a happier life. I believed that the truth had finally won and that we would have a decent life, but things continued like before.

We got married in 1954 when we were in our final year at university. We had a civil ceremony in the district registry office. We didn't have a Jewish wedding because it was a hard and complicated time and authorities might have punished us if we had had a Jewish religious ceremony. My mother cooked a wedding dinner for members of the family and our closest friends. Upon graduation my wife and I got mandatory job assignments 17 and went to a small village in Chernovtsy region to work as teachers of mathematics.

In January 1953 the Doctors' Plot 15 began. Students at the Faculty of Mathematics didn't believe the official explanation, which was that Jewish doctors intended to poison comrade Stalin. We didn't share our thoughts though because there was a KGB informer in each group. We knew who it was in our group, and he knew that we knew. This student was involved with the KGB somehow, but we knew that he didn't report on us because he understood it was dirty business. I don't remember how we found out that he was working for the KGB; students just told each other to be quiet in his presence. We treated him loyally. The Doctors' Plot had no impact on my family. There were rumors that all Jews were to be deported to Birobidzhan 16. It might have happened, if Stalin hadn't died in 1953. He was announced to be ill on 1st March and died on 5th March. Jews used to say, 'See, it's God's will that he died on that day'. I was one of the few who were glad that he passed away.

My mother took me and my sister to our grandparents' for our summer vacations. We went there in a horse-driven coach. My father stayed in Vad- Rashkov because he couldn't leave his store. My mother stayed with her parents a few days and left for home afterwards. My sister and I sometimes spent the whole summer with our grandparents. There was a forest near their house. We went there with our local friends. We also went to swim in the river and played games.

There were many Jewish children in the Romanian school. I studied successfully and had no problems at school. There was no anti-Semitism. Sometimes other children jokingly touched the lips of a Jewish child with a slice of pork fat because they knew that Jews didn't eat pork, but these were just harmless shenanigans. I had Romanian and Jewish friends at school. We didn't care about nationality then. After school I used to play with Jewish children who lived in my neighborhood. We visited one another and did our homework together.

At 6 I was to go to a Romanian elementary school. My father believed that after finishing a Romanian school I would have no problems entering a university. However, I wasn't admitted to a Romanian school because I hadn't reached the age of 8 yet. My father sent me to the 1st grade of a Jewish school. We studied all subjects in Romanian and had classes of Yiddish and Hebrew. After the 1st grade I passed exams for the Romanian school and was admitted to the 2nd grade.

Yiddish is my mother tongue. I spoke my first words in Yiddish. When I turned 4 my father insisted that I studied Hebrew. My sister didn't study Hebrew. I had a teacher of Hebrew at home. He was a teacher from cheder. When I misbehaved he complained to my father about it. I studied the grammar and pronunciation of Hebrew as it's spoken in Israel. At 5 I began to study the Torah with my teacher. I didn't go to cheder.

On the eve of religious holidays rabbis invited Jewish families to a festive meal in their house. My father was a respectable man and always got an invitation. I went with him. It was a common Jewish belief that if a rabbi took a piece from a dish, the rest of the food would heal those that ate it. And the moment a rabbi took a piece other Jews pounced upon the rest of food. I remember my father giving me a piece of something saying, 'Take this, it's sacred'.

We also celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. My parents fasted on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but they didn't force us to fast. On these holidays my parents spent a whole day at the synagogue. We sat down for dinner after they returned. On Purim my mother made hamantashen. On this holiday Jewish traditions required to bring shelakhmones to one's relatives and friends, and there were many Jewish children taking trays with sweets from one house to another on this day. For Sukkot my father made a big sukkah in the yard of our house and we decorated it with green branches and color ribbons. We had meals in it for a whole week. Chanukkah was a joyful holiday. Children were given some money and spinning tops [dreidel]. At home candles were lit in a chanukkiyah every day.

I remember Pesach best of all. There were preparations in the house beforehand. No bread or even breadcrumbs were allowed to be in the house. We bought enough matzah for the eight days of the holiday. Every Jewish family had special fancy utensils and dishes for Pesach that were passed from one generation to the next. On the eve of Pesach these utensils were taken down from the attic. If there weren't enough utensils, everyday dishes were treated in such a manner as to be ready for use on Pesach. They were to be washed with floating water, scrubbed with sand and boiled in the water with small stones before they could be used on Pesach.

My mother made traditional food: chicken broth, gefilte fish, chicken necks stuffed with fried onions and giblets, puddings from matzah and eggs. She also made strudels with nuts and raisins, honey cakes and a special Star of David or magen David shaped cookies. In the evening my father conducted the seder. After he said a prayer I posed the traditional 'four questions' [the mah nishtanah] to him in Hebrew. My father sang beautifully. He taught my sister and me Hatikvah, and we sang it together. At dinner one had to drink four glasses of wine. My father and mother drank wine, and my sister and I had water with a few drops of wine. During dinner the family had to keep the front door open for Elijah the Prophet to come in. An extra glass of wine was poured for him. My father said a prayer, and my sister and I were looking at the door to see if Elijah would come in. Sometimes Romanians or Moldavians, who wanted to play a joke, waited until the doors opened and let a cat or a dog in. Anyway, they weren't wicked jokes. We sang lots of beautiful Jewish songs until morning.

On Fridays my mother made food for two days. She kept Jewish meat stewed with tomato paste and jam, and cholent in pots in the oven. We bought challah for Sabbath at a Jewish bakery. On Friday evenings my mother lit the candles and said a prayer, and my father said a blessing for the house and the children. After the prayer we had a festive dinner. My parents didn't work on Saturday, but I don't remember if they followed all rules so strictly as to not turn on lights or stoke a stove. Sometimes my parents' friends came to see them, and then my father read a part from the Torah to them.

My parents were moderately religious. They wore worldly clothes. My mother and father liked fashionable clothes. My father never wore anything specifically traditional Jewish. My mother always had her hair neatly done. She didn't wear a wig; she only wore a shawl or a kerchief when she went to the synagogue. My father was more religious than my mother. On holidays they went to the synagogue together and on Saturdays my father went alone. He took me with him when I grew older. He had a prayer book, tallit and tefillin and prayed at home every day.

At 30 he had a house and owned a grocery store, which was located in his house. We lived there before the war. Like all other houses in this town their house was narrow. The biggest room in the house was for the grocery store. My father worked in the store, and my mother helped him, when there were more customers in the store. There were five other rooms in the house: two rooms for the children, my parents' bedroom and a dining room. There was big kitchen with a Russian stove 11 that served for cooking and heating the house. There was a front and a back door to the house. There was a big flower garden and an orchard in the back. My mother did all the housekeeping herself.

I don't know how my parents met. It might well be that they were introduced to each other by matchmakers, which was common in Jewish communities at that time. They got married after the mourning period over my father's parents was over in 1930. They had a traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah in my mother's house in Chinisheutsi.

After Bessarabia came under Romanian rule anti-Semitism could be felt. In Romania anti-Semitism was initiated by the intelligentsia, poets and artists, while common people were quite loyal to Jews.

In the mid-1930s the pro-fascist Iron Guard 7, the Cuzists 8 and other movements appeared. Jews were forbidden to work in state institutions.

All children studied Hebrew, Jewish culture and history. Their teachers taught them at home. My mother and her sisters and brothers also finished a grammar school. My mother studied at the Russian grammar school in the town of Orgeyev, Bessarabia. It was easier to enter grammar school in Orgeyev. It was tsarist Russia. My mother spoke fluent Russian.

Grandfather Teviye owned a big timber storehouse. He provided well for the family. My grandmother was a housewife. She was a short, plump woman. She always had her hair neatly done and wore elegant secular clothes. My grandmother didn't wear traditional long and dark clothes. I never saw her wearing a kerchief either. My grandfather wore elegant suits, light shirts and ties and casual hats. He didn't cover his head at home but put on his hat when going out. He had a small well-groomed beard. They spoke Yiddish in the house but were also fluent in Russian and Romanian. They observed Jewish traditions, but to a smaller extent than my father's family. My father felt the need to observe all religious traditions while in my mother's family religiosity was a mere tribute to traditions. They just observed traditions so they wouldn't be different from their surrounding.

My mother told me that there were many Jewish families in town. Like in all other small towns Jews were involved in crafts and trade for the most part. There were only a few wealthier families; the majority was poor. There was a synagogue and a cheder in Chinisheutsi. There was no Jewish elementary school. My grandparent's house was surrounded by hills. There were four houses in that spot: my grandparents' house and the houses of their sons and their families. I remember my grandparents' house because my sister and I used to spend our summer vacation there. It was a big stone house with several rooms. There was heavy solid oak furniture, carpets and pictures. There were also guest rooms, which were used when children and grandchildren were visiting. There were bookcases stuffed with books in the living room. There was no running water in the house. Water was fetched from a well in the yard. There were stoves stoked with wood and used for heating and cooking.

My father's younger brother, Solomon, emigrated to America in 1921 where he got married. He died a few years ago. His four children live in the USA. They are doing very well there. My father corresponded with his brother before 1940. When the Soviet power was established in Bessarabia they stopped corresponding. It wasn't safe for Soviet people to keep in touch with their relatives abroad 6 or receive parcels from them. Only in the middle of the 1980s, when perestroika began, did we manage to find our relatives. Since then we've kept in touch with my uncle and cousins.

The whole family perished during the Great Patriotic War 5. Maika's husband and her son Moisey were shot by the Germans in Kodyma village. Maika and her other three children perished on the way to the ghetto near Kodyma village.

My father and his brother studied in cheder and at the Jewish secondary school. Maika was educated at home. She had classes with a teacher every day. He taught her to write and read in Yiddish and Hebrew, prayers, the Torah, history and about the religion of the Jewish people. They spoke Yiddish in the family, but they were also fluent in Russian and Romanian.

My grandfather provided well for the family, and my grandmother was a housewife. I'm sure that their family was religious because my father was raised religiously and kept his faith until the end of his life. Besides all Jewish families were religious at that time. They observed Jewish traditions and attended the synagogue.

Nahman's wife, Taibl, and their four children - Ida, born in 1918, Rachel, born in 1920, Leo, born in 1925 and David, born in 1927 - stayed in Vad-Rashkov. At the beginning of the war they didn't evacuate and were killed by the Germans in Kodyma village in 1941.