Travel

Sami Schilton
Istanbul
Turkey
Interviewer:  Yusuf Sarhon
Date of Interview: April 2005

Sami Schilton is a healthy and friendly 84-year-old. He has a very warm personality which is reflected in his kind and smiling face and he is always ready to socialize with his dear friends.  He lives in Kurtulus, a district in the European side of Istanbul, with his wife Suzi, to whom he has been married for 47 years and his son Robert.  They live in their own flat in an apartment building.  They spend their summers in their own flat in Suadiye, a district in the Asian side of Istanbul.  Sami and his wife like to go to the cinema, theatre and opera a lot and they also like to travel whenever the opportunity presents itself.  The only problem we encountered during the interview with Sami Schilton was the fact that although he could remember names and facts, he could not remember any dates.

My family background

Growing up

Family life

Glossary

My family background

The paternal side of my family came to Turkey from Austria and settled in Bursa [a city in the Marmara region of Turkey, close to Istanbul]. My paternal great-grandparents used to live in Vienna.  That is why our surname is written as ‘Schilton’, the same as in German because we came here from Austria.  Our surname is still written in German in our official documents like passports and identity cards.  One of my paternal greatgrandfathers was the Hahambashi [Grand Rabbi] of Vienna and then they gave him the surname of “Deschilton”. Our real surname therefore is Deschilton, a title of nobility that the Austrian government bestowed on my great-grandfather. [Editor’s note: De Schilton may be the Frankofied version of the name that was most probablty von Schilton in the German original.] However, afterwards the family thought it was too much and we did not use that part of our name and only used Schilton.  They used to speak German in Austria and of course did not know Turkish.  The Austrian government gave us Italian citizenship after World War I, in other words they abandoned us.  My great-grandparents were living in Bursa with Austrian passports, but during World War I, the lands where my family members had been born in were conquered by the Italians and that is why we were given the Italian citizenship. [Editor’s note: Probably they lived in those parts of Austria-Hungary that were annexed to Italy after WWI: South Tyrol, Gorz and Gradisca, Istria, Fiume (Rijeka), Zara (Zadar) and some northern Adriatic iselands.] We have had Italian citizenship since then.  That is all the information I have on my paternal side. 

As to my maternal side, I know nothing about them except that they were from Istanbul.

My father’s father, Avram Schilton, was born in Bursa. I do not remember the dates at all.  He lived in Bursa, but later on he came to Istanbul.  They lived in Bursa for long years, but during World War I 1, the Greeks came to Bursa, so probably because they wanted to be safe they came to Istanbul.  My paternal grandfather dealt in trade, he was a very good businessman.  He was a very serious person.  He dressed very fashionably, he was always very smart.  He was tall and very handsome.  He did not have a beard but he did have a mustache.  They did not change their family name.  They were Deschiltons.  Later on I took out the “de” at the beginning.  My grandfather could speak Turkish, Judeo-Spanish and French.  They used to speak in Judeo-Spanish amongst themselves.  He did not have anything to do with politics or any political party.  He did not take part in any social or cultural activities either.

My father’s mother, Bulisu Schilton (nee?), did not wear a wig but she did wear a scarf over her head.  She also dressed fashionably and liked to wear a lot of jewelry, necklaces, bracelets etc... She would mostly wear her kolana [Ladino for gold chain].

That is all I know about my paternal grandparents.  I do not know anything about their siblings, either. At that time they did not use to tell children anything, that is why we know very little about them.  If they had told us, we would have known of course, but they never did.

My mother’s father, Avram Danon, was born in Istanbul.  Again I do not remember any dates.  My mother’s family was called Danon and they never changed their name.  My mother’s father was a businessman and he advanced a great deal in life.  He used to dress very fashionably, whatever the fashion was, you could see on my grandfather.  He was of medium height; a very quiet and serious man. He was a seller of sundries.  He knew Judeo-Spanish, Turkish and French.  They always spoke in Judeo-Spanish amongst themselves.  My mother’s father had a white beard and he used to wear a kipa.  He wasn’t involved in any political or social activities.  They were simple people.

My mother’s mother, Sultana Danon, did not wear a wig but she wore a scarf.  Otherwise she dressed quite fashionably. She loved jewelry.  She always went around with necklaces and bracelets and kolanas.

My mother’s father’s side of the family lived in Kuzguncuk [a district in the Asian coast of the Bosphorus].  When my family and I came from Bursa to Istanbul, when I was about one year old, we lived with them for a couple of years.  They had a house with a garden and they had chickens in the garden.  There weren’t any servants.  Only a daily cleaning woman would come, probably once a week, to do the washing and the cleaning.  They were very religious.  They followed all precepts.  They practised kasherut, and Shabat. Friday night was very important.  They used to go to the synagogue every Friday night, and on all festivals.  All the festivals were always celebrated at home, too.  They had very good neighbors. They were mostly Jewish of course, but they had Greek neighbors, too.  They got along with their neighbors quite well.  I do not remember their ever going on holiday somewhere.  I do not have any information about their siblings either.

My father, Robert David Schilton was born in Bursa.  He was a good and kind-hearted man.  He was quite talkative and had a very modern mentality.  He was a serious man.  He had a lot of friends and he liked his friends very much.  They were very intimate, and the same with his neighbors, too.  They were all like brothers and sisters, I remember quite well.  My father studied until secondary school.  He studied at the Alliance Israelite Universelle 2 school in Bursa.  After he finished secondary school [8 classes] he started to work.  My father did not do military service because he was a foreigner, he had a foreign citizenship.  His mother tongue was Judeo-Spanish.  He also spoke Turkish and French.  With my mother and his parents however, he used to speak in Judeo-spanish.  My father’s business was very good in Bursa.  They lived there for many years.  He used to be in the insurance business.  The reason they came to Istanbul was the war.  During the war they had problems with the Greeks and they had to run away.  They came to Istanbul in a hurry to escape the Greeks.  They came to Istanbul to live more comfortably.  I was about one year old at the time.  They did not have a home when they came to Istanbul and they went to live with my mother’s family.  They lived with them for 2 years.  When they came to Istanbul, their economic situation was average.  My father worked at a bank in Istanbul, in the insurance department.  The bank’s name was “Banque Francaise des Pays d’Orient” [the French Bank of Oriental Countries].  It used to be located in Karakoy [a district in the European side of Istanbul] at that time.  He worked there for many years.

My mother, Dina Viktorya Schilton (nee Danon) was born in Istanbul.  My mother was also like my father, with a very modern mentality.  She dressed in the modern way and got along with everybody.  My mother was a serious but talkative person, who was also very understanding.  My mother also studied until secondary school.  She studied at the Alliance Israelite Universelle school in Ortakoy [a district on the European coast of the Bosphorus].  After she finished school, she did not do anything, she became a housewife.  Her mother tongue was Judeo-Spanish.  She also spoke Turkish and French.  However, the language of communication in the family was Judeo-Spanish.  Apparently my mother and my father met through a matchmaker but they never told me how they met and got to know each other.  They got married in Bursa.  My mother went to Bursa from Istanbul and the wedding took place there.  I do not know when they got married but they were married at the Bursa synagogue 3. 

Both my parents used to dress nicely and simply.  They did not use to go to any library but they both liked to read a lot.  They had a lot of books in Judeo-Spanish and they read them.  These were novels about love, or they were books with anecdotes and light reading material in them.  They also read newspapers in Judeo-Spanish.  I remember the names of two of them for example: El Jugueton 4 and La Boz de Turkiye 5.  Apart from those, they would also get the Turkish papers of the time, too.

My parents were religious.  They practised kasherut [kashrut] and Shabat [shabbath] and celebrated all the festivals.  They went to the synagogue every Friday and on all the festivals.  We used to celebrate all the festivals at home, too.  For example, the whole family would gather in Pesah [Pesach] and we would read the Agada [Haggadah] in Judeo-Spanish.  We would always visit our relatives during the festivals, like Rosh Ashana [Rosh Hashanah] and Pesah [pesach].  We would go from one relative to the other on those days.

My parents had Jewish neighbors and they got along very well, they all were like brothers and sisters. They were together every day, all the time.  They had their tea and coffee together always.  There were relatives, too of course.  Both relatives and neighbors would gather in a house and then they would enjoy themselves.  In those times, there was no radio or television for entertainment, people would entertain themselves by chatting.  They used to talk about everything.  They did not use to go on holidays then.  They did not have the habit of travelling. 

My parents were of course members of the Jewish community but they were not active inside the community.  They were not involved in any political, social or cultural organization.

Both my parents died in Istanbul, but I cannot remember the dates.  They are both buried in the Jewish cemetery.  They are buried in the Italian Jewish cemetery 6 in Sisli [a district in the European side of Istanbul].  They were buried with a religious ceremony.  There was a rabbi at the funeral and I recited the Kadish [kaddish].  Every year we have a meldado [the equivalent of the yahrzeit in the Ashkenazi rite] at the synagogue for them.

My father had three siblings.  The first was Yomtov Schilton, who was born in Bursa.  He married Rita Danon and they had two sons, Alber and Mishel Schilton.  Yomtov was in the stock exchange and was very well off.  However, I don’t remember exactly when, there was a crisis at the stock exchange once and he lost heavily.  I remember, he went to Paris in a panic, on his own.  His wife and sons stayed with us while he was in Paris.  They stayed with us for 2 years.  During that time, my uncle Yomtov went into the insurance business.  When he ameliorated his situation, his family went to Paris, too.  Then he had a daughter there, Suzi Schilton.  Yomtov died in Paris, but I do not know when.

My father’s sister, Luiza Abuaf (nee Schilton) was also born in Bursa.  She married Salamon Abuaf.  Salamon Abuaf had been born in Istanbul.  They had two daughters, Sara and Fortune.  Luiza died in Istanbul and her husband, Salamon died in Izmir.

Yet another brother of my father’s was Viktor Schilton.  He was born in Bursa and married a girl called Cecille Leibowitz.  They had three children: Nina, Bernar, and Alfred.  After Nina got married, her husband’s business did not go well, so they left and went to settle in Mexico.  Alfred wanted to live in Brazil and he went and settled there and married there.  As to Bernar, he lived in Istanbul and became a businessman.  My uncle Viktor went to live with his daughter in Mexico after his wife, Cecille died.  He died in Mexico.

My mother had 4 siblings; three brothers and one sister.  Jozef Danon, Beno Danon, Rita Danon and Izidor Danon.

Izidor left very young and he went to live in Mexico.  He lived there all his life.  He was in the hotel business.  He had a hotel there.  He died in Mexico.

Beno lives in Istanbul.  He used to be in the leather business.  His business was in Karakoy.

Rita lived in Paris and died there.

Jozef lived in Istanbul.  He grew up in Ortakoy and was a good businessman.  I do not know the birth and death dates of any of them.

As for me, we were 4 siblings, 2 boys, Alber Schilton and me; and 2 girls: Sara Schilton and Suzi Schilton.

Sara was born in Istanbul and unfortunately died when she was 17.  Before that she studied at the St. Benoit high school [French Catholic high school in Istanbul].  She studied in the girls’ school.  At that time, girls and boys studied in different schools.  She studied primary school there, too.  She was a very good student.  She spoke excellent French.  Unfortunately, she got tuberculosis and died at 17.  I do not know how she got that disease, there wasn’t any epidemic or anything, but she caught it.  After she got ill, she wouldn’t eat and she got very thin.  I was quite young at the time but I remember, they were trying to cure her.  We used to go to the Italian hospital at Tophane [a district in the European side of Istanbul] to see her.  They tried to save her but they couldn’t.  My mother was terribly affected by the death of her firstborn.  I remember quite well, I was 6 or 7 at the time and I remember the state my mother was in.  They were very difficult times for our family.

Alber Schilton finished the Jewish Lycee.  He studied at the Bene Berit Jewish Lycee 7 from primary school to the end of the lycee.  I still remember the name of the headmaster of the school; it was Dr. Markus and the teachers were French.  After he finished school, Alber worked in different places as a clerk.  He worked as a translator at a translation bureau in Karakoy [a district in the European side of Istanbul].  Then when he was 23-24 he got it into his head to leave for Israel.  At that time people were contracting what was called “marriage blanc” [french for ‘white marriage’, meaning a marriage in name only to serve a certain purpose, in this case, entrance to Palestine] in order to go to Israel [Palestine].  They married some girl or boy and divorced when they got to Israel.  That is what my brother did, too.  He married a girl and they left for Israel.  There they got divorced and my brother went to a kibbutz.  I don’t remember the dates really.  He stayed at different kibbutzim for 2-3 years.  He went to the Kibbutz Massada [in the Jordan valley] and stayed there the longest.  I don’t remember the names of the other kibbutzim he stayed at.  He did a lot of different kinds of jobs there, picking bananas, cleaning etc...  He would do whatever they told him to do.  Then suddenly we heard he had become a soldier.  This was during World War II, 1939-1945.  In those times de Gaulle was in France and he was calling for volunteers to the French army.  And Alber, while in Israel, joined the French army.  He liked France and the French very much and he joined their army.  He went to Africa with de Gaulle’s army.  They fought there for a long time against the Germans and then they went to Italy.  He used to write us letters, saying he was OK, or saying that they were having very difficult times.  Then he wrote that he hoped to come back from the war alive and we understood here that his life was in danger.  He was fighting the Germans.  They fought them in Africa and they fought them again in Italy.  The French army was allied to the American and British armies.  There was a big battle at a place in Italy called [Battle of Monte] Cassino 8, near Naples.  Alber died during that battle.  They buried him at the military cemetery in Naples.  He had died during a bombardment.

One day, (I don’t remember when) I received a letter from the French Consulate in Istanbul and the letter said that they regretted to inform us of the death of my brother.  They wrote that he had died in such and such a place and in such and such conditions, and that they wanted to talk to me.  So I went to the consulate.  The Consul himself received me and told me in a very serious and calm manner what had happened.  He gave me my brother’s belongings and told me how he had died.  There was a terrible battle at [Monte] Cassino and Alber had died during the bombardment together with all his soldier friends who were with him at the time.  The Consul gave me a big envelope and Alber’s belongings that were in his room.  His wallet, photos and all our letters were inside the envelope.  Then the Consul told me that the French government was going to give my mother a lifelong salary and they did until she died.

My sister Suzi was born in Istanbul.  She studied at the Italian secondary school; she did not go on to study lycee.  Then she worked as a secretary at the import-export firm called Anatolian Contoir.  She also knew Italian, French and Turkish. Then she married Alex Samuel and they had a daughter called Doli.  Then Doli married a guy called Ahituv.

Growing up
 

I was born in Bursa in 1921.  I lived there until I was one, and then my family and I moved to Istanbul and went to live in my mother’s father’s house in Kuzguncuk.  My mother raised me.  We did not have a nanny or “mademoiselle” [governess], and I never went to kindergarden either.  I did not have many friends when I was little; my mother’s friends came to visit and I would sit with them.  There were not any children my age at that time among my mother’s friends so I did not use to play. 

The house in Kuzguncuk had two floors, it was made of wood and had a very nice garden.  There were chicken coops in the garden.  They did not use to plant anything in the garden.  I remember there were also cats.  I can’t remember how many rooms the house had, but there was a kitchen and a bathroom.  The furniture was of the kind everybody had at that time, and they were quite mediocre.  We had water from the taps but we did not have electricity, we had gas lamps.  We also had braziers and stoves for heating.  I remember the books that my grandfather had in the house.  My grandfather always read religious books in Hebrew.  He was very religious and knew Hebrew very well. 

We stayed in Kuzguncuk for 2 years and then moved to Galata [the Galata Tower district on the European side of Istanbul].  My childhood passed in Galata and I also went to school there.  There were many Jewish families around where we lived.  We had wonderful neighbors; we were like siblings with them.  The Jewish community used to be quite big then.  We had a synagogue in Kuledibi [Galata Tower district] and there was also the Italian synagogue 9.  Our Italian synagogue had a hazan [chazzan] and a haham [hakham].  The haham’s name was Monsieur Gabay.  We also had a mikve [mikveh], a talmud tora [talmud torah] and a yeshiva [yeshivah].

Jews at that time used to live in big crowded groups.  We were at Galata, but on the other side of the Golden Horn there was Haskoy, and then there was also Ortakoy, where many Jews  lived.  I remember there being lots of small tradesmen, like the shoemaker, the tinman, the junkman etc etc, they were all Jewish.  We did not have a hamam [Turkish bath] in our district, there was one further away.  We used to go to that hamam quite often.  We went there with my father; we went to the hamam, washed and came back.  I do not have any specific memories of the hamam.

I did not come across any antisemitism when I was little, I never heard of such a thing.  We never even knew what antisemitism was.

I remember there being military parades and days on which the Turkish independence [Day 10] was celebrated.  It was really very nice.  Soldiers used to pass all along the streets.  The military parades were very colorful.

I went to primary school at the Italian San Pietro school [Italian Catholic high school in Istanbul].  This school was beside the San Pietro Church in Kuledibi.  I studied there for a year.  From there I transferred to the Italian school [Italian Catholic high school in Istanbul] in Tophane and studied there until grade five, in other words I finished primary school there.  These were all schools that belonged to the Italian government and they were free.   Everything was free, not only the schools but the books and notebooks and uniforms, they gave all that for free.  It was something really wonderful.

One of the lessons I liked most was mathematics.  I liked it a lot and I was really very successful at it.  I was always first in my class in primary school.  From grade 2 till grade 5, I was first of my class every year.  I was first of my class for 4 years.  When I was in primary school I liked my Italian language teacher very much.  He was a very nice man and he liked me a lot, too.  There was also a gym teacher that I did not like very much; I did not hate him but I didn’t like him.  He was a very strict teacher and I couldn’t do most of the exercises he wanted us to do.  For example, there was jumping and I had difficulty doing those jumps and he used to get angry with me.  Then there was climbing ropes but I couldn’t do that either, the rope used to slip from my hands and I couldn’t climb, so he would get angry again.  I didn’t like his getting angry with me.  So I went to his classes very unwillingly only because I had to.  That is why I did not feel very nice towards that particular teacher.

At that time, in our school we didn’t know what antisemitism or such thing was.  There was no differentiation between Jewish, Catholic or Muslims.  We had students who belonged to all three religions but there was never a day when one told the other “you are like that, we are like this”.  It was really very nice then.

I did not have any private lessons in music or languages.  We had such lessons in school.  We had lovely music lessons, we had singing lessons.  We learned how to read music and we used to sing all together.  We never learned to play an instrument though.

When I was a child we used to go to the movies on Sundays in winter, and the beach in the summer.  We used to go with the whole family.  We used to go to the islands [Prince Islands of the Sea of Marmara] for swimming.

In my family, my father used to do the shopping, my mother never did.  There used to be a place called Salipazari in our district, near the St. Benoit school [French Catholic high school in Istanbul], and this was an open market.  Salipazari was a very famous market and my father used to do our shopping there most of the time.  He also used to go to the grocer’s in our street.

After primary school I continued my education at the Italian Lycée [Italian Catholic high school in Istanbul].  I studied from grade 6 to grade 12 there.  Our school was next to the Italian Consulate.  They taught Italian, Turkish, French and English in this school.  Those who preferred, could take French or English as a second foreign language.  I chose French.  We also had to choose between Accounting and Latin; I chose Latin because those who studied Latin at high school could go and study the university in Italy.  Those who chose Accounting could not go on to university.  At that time I was planning to go to Italy for my university studies.  My goal was to become an engineer.

At high school, my favorite teacher was our geography teacher, Prof. Faro.  He was not Jewish.  He was a very good teacher and was friends with all the students.  He used to treat us as a friend, he used to tell us stories and then he would begin classes.  He used to start the class by talking to us for the first 5-10 minutes to relax us, and then he would say, “Come on kids, open your books now so we can start class”.  All the students liked him as much as I did.  There were not any teachers that I disliked.

The headmaster of our school was quite a hard man.  He was Italian, he came from Italy.  He was very strict and had quite a temper.  He got angry real fast, and we were all quite frightened of him.  I wanted to go to Italy after high school and become an engineer but it wasn’t to be.  My family’s economic situation was not good so I had to start working.  I finished high school but couldn’t go on, I started to work.

I remember Ataturk’s death 11 very well indeed.  There was a magnificent ceremony for him in Turkey.  I remember going to the Dolmabahce Palace to see him but it was so crowded that we couldn’t get in.  There used to be the mounted police then.  On that day, we got scred of the crowds and returned home.  That night there were even people who died in the crowds.  We told ourselves that we would not be able to make it inside in that terrible crowd and we went back home.  We had gone there with our neighbors.  There were about 8-10 of us, and we really wanted to see Ataturk but had to go back home without seeing him.

I also remember the Wealth Tax 12, but as we had foreign nationality they did not take anything from us.  They did not interfere in our business because we had foreign passports.  For us, it was as if the Wealth Tax did not happen.   It did not affect us at all.  However, we did hear about what was happening to others.  We heard about acquaintances being sent to Askale, but we did not live any of this.

I had a lot of friends outside school. I had a friend called Hayim, another called Davit.  There were many of them but now I cannot remember.  I also had Jewish friends from school.  There was a Toledo, a Papo, then Hayim who became a dentist and is still alive.  The others are not.  We used to go out together, go to the movies, go on outings, sit at cafés.  Especially in the summer, we would go to garden cafés, sit in the garden and chat.

On Saturdays and on our holidays, we would spend our leisure time at a friend’s house if it was winter, and we would always go swimmimg if it was summer.  I would always go out with friends, not with my family.

It so happened that we had many a meal at restaurants with my friends.  There was a fast food kind of place at Tunel, called Mandra and there was also a restaurant called Fischer. The Fischer that exists today in Taksim used to be in Tunel in my time.  We used to eat at restaurants a lot.

When we grew older we started going out in mixed groups, boys and girls.  We met the girls!  We had a wonderful time with them.  There was Ester Toledo, for example, from the group.  She still lives. There was also Beti Konfino. Beti Konfino was my ex-fiancée, whom I had met in that group.  We were friends for a time, then we started going out together and then we got engaged.  We were engaged for 8 months but we didn’t get on very well, so we broke up.  In our time mothers used to live with their children.  For example, when I got married I had to live with my mother.  Beti did not want that, she wanted us to live on our own. That’s why the disagreements started and then both parties decided this wasn’t going to work.  In the end we broke up amicably enough.

When we were old enough and were going out with girls, we used to go to dancing matinées.  There were alot of dancing places.  In the summer, we used to go to Caddebostan [a district in the Asian side of Istanbul, which used to be a summer until the late 1970s but is a popular reisdential area nowadays].  We would first go to the beach there and then we would go to the music garden next to the beach where there was an orchestra that played music during the matinée, which was around 5:00 or 6:00 p.m.  We would leave the beach in our swimsuits, had something to eat first and then the music would start, dancing and songs. We used to have a great time.  Afterwards we would take the boat from the port at Caddebostan and return to Galata.

I lived in Galata until I got married.  I lived in the street across the St. Benoit Lycée.  I got married 47 years ago and came to live in Kurtulus [a district in the European side of Istanbul].

I never had a lot of hobbies.  I loved to read and to go to the movies.  There were a lot of adventure films in my time, cowboy films, you know.  I also liked to go to the theatre. At home both my mother and my father read a lot and they always advised me to read, too.  I used to read books in Italian in my free time.  I liked to read about the lives of poets etc... and also novels.  I have not read much in Turkish because we had gotten used to reading in Italian always in school.  I also read in French.

I did not participate in any political or cultural activity. I wan’t a member of any club, either.

When I was a kid, we used to apply all Jewish traditions in our home.  We practised Kasherut [kashrut], we celebrated all the holidays, and of course we read the Agada [hagaddah] at Pesah [pesach].  We used to go to the synagogue on all the Jewish holidays.  We sometimes went on Saturday morning as well.  I often accompanied my father to the synagogue.  I, myself went every Friday evening. 

I learned Hebrew and got a religious education, too.  I was privately tutored by our previous Chief Rabbi, Rav David Asseo 13.  I was his student.  I did not go to the synagogue for lessons, our teacher used to come to our houses.  David Asseo was not the Chief Rabbi then, he was a professor of Hebrew.  8-10 of us used to gather in a home, every week a different home and he used to come and teach us Hebrew and the Tanah [tanakh].  I never went to the Yeshiva or the Mahazike Tora.  My family never taught me anything, they just made sure I got lessons.  I used to pray and read the Tora [Torah] on Saturdays; my father usually didn’t.

We celebrated my Bar-Mitzva [bar mitzvah] at the Zulfaris Synagogue 14 in Karakoy.  I went on the teva [tevah]; there was no tradition of making speeches then; we only did the berahot [brochot] and the sefer-tora [Sefer Torah] ceremony.  Afterwards, our relatives came to visit to our home and we had a meal together.  In my time, these ceremonies were much lighter than they are today.  They were much simpler and less of a show off.

The Jewish holidays I liked best were Rosh Ashana [Rosh Hashanah] and Kipur [Yom Kippur].  These holidays affected me a lot with their meanings.  Pesah [Pesach] is a difficult holiday and I don’t like too much.  We can’t eat bread, there are a lot of fried dishes and therefore the food is really heavy and there is not much choice either.

There have been a few Salonikan donmes 15 among my friends.  A colleague of mine at work was a donme Muslim, a Salonikan.  He used to say quite honestly: “I came from Salonika, and we settled in Istanbul; now we are Muslims and have forgotten that we are Salonikans”.  He liked us a lot and would always praise Jews.

During the holocaust in Europe I did not notice any increase in antisemitism in Turkey.  What I remember about the war is the experiences of my aunt, Rita Schilton.  They used to live in France with their children.  They ran away from France at the time of Hitler.  They sought refuge in Italy because they were of Italian citizenship.  They lived in Milan for two years.  They returned to Paris after the war.  The fact that they had Italian citizenship saved them.

We heard about what happened to the Jews in Europe at first in very very light dozes.  There were rumors at first, so there wasn’t too much of a reaction in Turkey.  We did not understand what was happening.  It was later that we slowly got to know what really happened and we were of course devastated.  We couldn’t believe that something like that could have happened.  It wasn’t only me, everyone thought the same.  There were some refugees who were able to escape Europe but I did not get to know any of them.

I do not know the details about the Struma [ship 16] tragedy but I think it was a terrible thing that happened.  They left those people on the boat, they couldn’t come to Turkey, they were not given permission, and then the boat sank and the passengers all died.  Everyone in the Jewish community then was terribly sad and sorry about what happened.

As far as I can remember, the Thrace events 17 were terrible.  A lot of horrible things occurred, there were lootings and Jewish families had to run away.  Some of them settled in Istanbul, a lot of them went to Israel. 

There was also a “Vatandas, Turkce konus” [Citizen, speak Turkish] 18 policy in those days.  I remember that it was a slogan that was constantly repeated at one time.  Everyone started to speak Turkish.  Before that everyone used to speak their own language.  The Jews used to speak Judeo-Spanish in very loud voices in the streets, on the boats, everywhere.  The Turks felt uncomfortable with that and then gradually everyone started speaking Turkish.  In fact so much so that today it is only us who can speak Judeo-Spanish.  Young people do not know it, they don’t understand it nor can they speak it.

Family life

My wife, Suzi Behar Bitek, was born in Ortakoy.  Her native language is Judeo-Spanish.  My wife’s real surname was Behar.  When the Surname Law was passed, some Jews took Turkish names, and my wife’s family added the name Bitek [turkish for only one] to their surname.  My wife’s father, Menahem Behar bitek was from Ortakoy, and he was very religious because his own father, Moshe Behar was a rabbi.  Menahem Behar therefore raised his daughter with a very strong religious identity.  Her mother, Rebeka Rifka Behar (nee Azuz) was a dressmaker.  She used to go to the houses of ladies and sew all day.

My wife, Suzi graduated from the St. Benoit Lycée [French Catholic high school].  We are distantly related to her family actually.  Our relatives in Ortakoy used to praise this girl a lot.  After I broke up from my first fiancée, Beti Konfino, our relatives said Suzi was a great girl, a very good girl.  So I made a decision and one day they introduced us at one of our relative’s homes.  Then they said, “now that you know each other, why don’t you go out together for a while”; so we started going out to get to know each other better.  This did not last long because my wife’s father was a very strict man; he did not think we should go out together for 6 or 8 months.  After a short time he wanted me to make a decision, it was either Yes or No. So I said Yes.  But he said, “It is not enough for you to say, yes, I agree.  You have to get engaged”.  So we got engaged in a matter of 1-2 months.

Our engagement was celebrated at home.  These things always happened at home in those days.  All friends and family were invited, long tables were set, rings were put on each other’s fingers and all in all it was a very nice day.  We got married 8 months after the engagement.  The fact that my wife was Jewish was an important factor in our marriage because at that time it was very unusual to hear about marrying someone who was not Jewish.  That was a very very rare thing.  Our wedding took place at the Italian Synagogue in 1957. The wedding was really very nice. There was quite a crowd at the Italian synagogue and the atmosphere was great.  We had our party that night at the Lido Restaurant/night club in Ortakoy.  The Lido was a very famous place at the time and it was ideal for these kinds of celebrations.  We had dinner there and it was really a very nice evening all in all.

My wife never worked, she is and has always been a housewife.  She is a wonderful cook, she cooks great Jewish dishes.  My favorite Sephardic dishes are, ‘koftikas de prasa’ [leek meatballs], ‘pishkado kon guevo i limon’ [fish with an egg-an-lemon sauce] and borekitas [pastry].

We had two children.  The elder, Rita Schilton (now Rasier) was born in Istanbul in 1958.  My daughter Rita went to a Turkish school first, called Tarhan Koleji and then she went to St. Pulcherie French school. [Catholic secondary school, 6th to 8th grades only with two preparatory classes at the beginning]  Then she went to St. Benoit [French Catholic high school, 6th to 11th grades with two preparatory classes at the beginning] for the lycée.  We did not have a Bat-Mitzva [Bat Mitzvah] for our daughter because there was no such tradition at that time.  Rita married Cako Rasier when she was 20.  They had actually been together for 7 years before that, since she was 13.  They had two children; a boy, Ralfi Rifat Rasier born in 1980, and a girl Meyzi Rasier born in 1987.

My younger child, a son, Rober Schilton was born in Istanbul, in 1964.  He was born at the French Hospital and his brit-mila [brit milah] was also done there.  My sister’s husband, Aleks Samuel held him and my sister brought my son to the hall.  Then there was a buffet for the guests.  When our son was 13 years old, we also had a Bar-Mitzva [Bar Mitzvah] for him.  We had the religious ceremony at the Sisli Synagogue 19.  Then that night we had another celebration at the Tarabya Hotel ballroom. A lot of guests and relatives came, there was great entertainment, live orchestra etc... Then we cut a big cake, and all in all it was a beautiful fiesta [Ladino for celebration].  He recited a speech both at the synagogue and at the ballroom.

Rober studied primary school at the Kurtulus Primary School [public school], then he went to High School [English High School for Boys] 20 for secondary school and he wento on to Robert College 21 for the lycée.  Then he studied Business Administration at Marmara University 22 and did his Master’s degree at Bogazici University 23.  He was a very good student and was able to get a very good and very strong education.  He is a talkative person who likes to tell things in detail.  He will give every detail of even the smallest thing he is talking about.  He never cuts things short, so much so that sometimes we tell him “just cut it short and come to the point”; but he answers “oh, no you are going to listen from beginning to the end”.  He never comes to the point quickly but he tells a good story.

We always spoke Turkish with our children.  We used to go to the movies with them when they were kids. We had mostly Jewish friends with whom we went to the movies, the theatres, on picnics etc...  We would also frequently gather in houses and enjoyed ourselves.  When we got together our children would play with the children of our friends of course.

We raised our children according to Jewish traditions.  We taught them about all the holidays, Pesah [Pesach], Rosh Ashana [Rosh Hashanah], Kipur [Yom Kippur].  We got them used to fasting since they were quite young.  At Pesah [Pesach], the seder was celebrated at our house with our family and my wife’s father who lived with us.  It used to be a very nice seder and we read the Agada [Hagadah] beautifully.  We weren’t crowded, just our own close family.  Our children go to the synagogue during the holidays.

We weren’t able to send our children to the Jewish youth clubs.  My daughter got tied up with her husband very early in her life and so she had no time for clubs.  They were together since she was 13.  And my son somehow never wanted to go.  We always insisted that he go but he never wanted to.

We did not go abroad on holidays with my family.  My wife and I went quite a few times but not with the children.  We used to go to the [Prince’s] islands on a daily basis, not for the whole summer.  We went to Suadiye [a district in the Asian side of Istanbul which used to be a summer resort until the 1970s.] for the summer.  We have a house there and we have been going there for the summer for the last 40 years.

We learned about the foundation of Israel from the newspapers and the news on the radio.  We were strongly affected emotionally and were very happy.  We never thought of making aliyah however, because it was a very difficult thing.  We didn’t know the language, we didn’t know anybody; on the other hand, we were born here and we were used to the life here, we had an order in our lives here. 

In our family, my sister Suzi Samuel’s daughter, Doli went to Israel in the years 1965-1970 and settled there.  She stayed there for a few years and then her father said “it’s enough, come back” and she came back.

Today we are not members of any Jewish club or organization but we go to conferences from time to time.  We do not take part in any of the volunteer activities.

Our religious practices today are just as they were before.  There haven’t been any changes.  We go to the synagogue during the holidays.  I go to the Italian and Sisli synagogues and in the summer to the Caddebostan synagogue.

We have not had any conflicts with our children about their raising our granchildren according to Jewish traditions.  Our grandchildren are not religious but we do not say anything about this.  We do not force them into anything.  We let our children make their decisions.  Today we still gather the family and cook for them.  When we are alone with my wife we speak Judeo-Spanish, but with friends and our children we speak Turkish.

Our granchildren did not go to the Jewish school 24; they went to Turkish schools.  My granddaughter is at university and my grandson has finished university and has become a doctor.  He is an occulist.

My granddaughter participates in community activities.  She is taking part in a play that is being performed at the ‘Dostluk Yurdu’ [Jewish youth club in Istanbul founded in 1966].

As for my wife and me, we sometimes go out with friends.  My wife goes to play cards with her friends once a week.  The men used to gather for poker once every two weeks but we don’t any more, we do not enjoy it as much any more.  We go to the movies, the theatres and operas with friends quite frequently.  We also have a vacation at least once or twice a year inside Turkey or abroad.

I heard about the 1986 Neve Shalom massacre 25 from friends at first.  I was in Kuledibi [Galata Tower region, European side of Istanbul, over the Golden Horn] that day and saw that people were running.  I was curious and wanted to know what was happening.  At that moment I saw a friend of mine, Izi Levi, who was also running.  “What is going on, Izi?” I asked him.  “There has been a massacre at the Neve Shalom and a lot of people died” he said.  That’s when I learned about it.  I waited outside for a while and then I left.  I did not want to go inside; I felt terribly sad and a terrible weight on my chest.

During the 2003 bombing of the synagogues 26, we were here at home and we heard a terrible explosion.  We wondered what was going on and turned on the TV and learned about the bombings at the Neve Shalom and Sisli synagogues.  Of  course we were terribly sad about it all.

Glossary

 

Bertha Isayeva
Odessa
Ukraine
Interviewer: Alla Zhavoronkina
Date of interview: November 2003

Bertha Isayeva is a young looking lady of average height. She has preserved her slim figure.  One can tell that she takes good care of herself and doesn’t give in.  Bertha Isayeva is a lady with a big sense of dignity. She has a vivid mind and likes to discuss various subjects. She has her own point of view on any issue.  She lives with her son Edik in a comfortable three-bedroom apartment in a new district of Odessa. Her son made a lot of things in their apartment. He also had their furniture manufactured by his designs to create comfort for his mother. Painting is one of her son’s talents and hobbies. There are his works on the walls in their apartment.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary 

My family background

My mother’s father Zalman Blehman was born in Sloboda village, Lepel district, Vitebsk province. He is registered as a farmer in my mother’s birth certificate. I don’t know when my grandfather moved to Odessa, but his children were born in Odessa after 1895. My grandfather was very ill. He was bedridden 14 last years of his life. I was bout four years old when we came to see grandmother Dora and grandfather Zalman in 1926. My grandfather was in his bed. I remember that he had a big beard. I was afraid of my grandfather and was peeping through a chink. One had to cross my grandfather’s room to get into other rooms, but I never went there and cannot say how many rooms they had. There were many children in my mother’s family. It was a custom with Jewish families to have many children.  They weren’t a wealthy family. They lived in Lidersovskiy Boulevard, present Belinskogo Street.  My grandfather kept few cows in an annex facility. I think they fed cows with hay. My grandparents sold milk to buy everything the family needed.  I heard that my grandfather Zalman had a brother, who also kept cows. He lived in the very center of the town in Malaya Arnautskaya Street between Pushkinskaya and Richelieu  Streets. This is all I know about him I think that before my grandfather fell ill he looked after cows himself and my grandmother was helping him. They spoke Yiddish to one another. My grandfather died in 1927. He was buried in the Second Jewish cemetery in Vodoprovodnaya Street. This cemetery was removed in the 1960s. I don’t know whether my grandfather Zalman was buried in accordance with Jewish traditions. 
My mother mother’s name was Dvoira, but we called her Dora.  After my grandfather died my grandmother continued her cow keeping business. She didn’t have any help and did all work by herself. My grandmother died in 1931. She was only 54 years old, still young, and I think, she worked herself out and down. I only have dim memories about my grandmother. My grandmother was buried near my grandfather in Vodoprovodnaya Street. I believe they wee religious since my mother went to the synagogue later.  My grandmother and grandfather had eight children. 

One of my mother’s brothers Bencion perished in 1921.  There was famine 1 in the town then. People went to villages to exchange clothes for grain. Bencion and his friend went to a village and some bandits beat them to death throwing stones on them. Monia, the second brother, suffered from a heart disease. He died in the late 1920s. I remember a young man living in the house when we visited my grandmother. This was Monia.

I cannot remember my mother third brother’s name, but I just have to tell his story.  He, his wife Dusia and their children Pavlik and Grisha live in Kiev before the Great Patriotic War 2. When the war began they left Kiev by foot. German troops were advancing fast. My mother brother’s family stayed in a kolkhoz near Mozdok in the Northern Caucasus. Chairman of the kolkhoz wrote in my brother’s documents that he was Russian (he was fair-haired) and his beautiful wife Dusia Armenian.  When German troops came and lined up all Jews, chairman of the kolkhoz dragged them out of the line and explained ‘They are not Jews. She is Armenian and he is Russian!’ The German officer believed him. Their rescuer was surely a Righteous man of the world 3. However, I think that when Soviet troops came back they shot this man because he was chairman of the kolkhoz during German occupation. My mother’s brother worked as a stableman in the kolkhoz and Dusia was afraid of leaving their house. She stayed inside for nine months. She was in a state of shock after all of her relatives were shot. After they were liberated they had some problems with NKVD 4: ‘How did you, Jews, manage to survive, when the rest of Jews were shot? It means you cooperated with fascists’. After the war they lived in Central Asia. This is all I know about this brother and his family.

My mother’s older sister Tsylia was born in Odessa in  1895. My grandmother managed to give her a dowry, but other sisters got no dowry whatsoever.  Aunt Tsylia was a housewife before the Great Patriotic War. Before the war all women in our family were housewives tat was ordinary for the wives having decent husbands.  Their husbands provided for them. Tsylia’s husband Boris Gurovich  was a logistics supervisor in various organizations. Their family was always wealthy. They had two daughters: Olga and Rita. Rita finished 10 grades before the war. Olga, an older daughter, was a doctor. She went to the army and served in a front line hospital during the war. During the war aunt Tsylia, Boris and Rita were in evacuation in Tokmak [Kirghizia].  After the war aunt Tsylia and her family returned to Odessa. Olga worked as a rontgenologist after the war. She married her former co-student who worked as a throat doctor.  Her daughter Lina died in a car accident in 1980. Her daughter Yulia became an orphan at the age of one month. Olga grieved hard after her daughter. She became very ill.  Her husband looked after their granddaughter. Olga died in 1998. Her husband died in the end of 2000. Yulia studies in Medical Academy. Rita got married after the war and adopted her husband’s surname of Gorenshtein. She worked as a secretary. She has two sons. Her older son Mark was a talented boy. In the 1950s he studied playing the piano in the school named after Stolyarskiy [Stolyarskiy, Pyotr: violin teacher in Odessa and one of the founders of the Soviet Violin School]. he had an incident in the ninth grade. I don’t know whether it was anti-Semitism toward him. He had excellent marks in all special subjects, but he failed at his exam in the Ukrainian language and was to have another try in autumn. During his summer vacations Mark went on tour across the USSR with an orchestra of the town palace of students after obtaining permission of director of his school. He was late for his exam in autumn due to this tour and when he came to school he found out that he was expelled. Rita could not allow to let it happen. She went to Kiev and Moscow. A commission of higher authorities came to his school, but Mark was resumed. There were rumors that some ‘big shot’ wanted a place for his offspring in this school. Mark entered a music school in Kishinev. Later he finished Moscow Conservatory. He won competition for a job in the orchestra of Svetlanov [Svetlanov, Yevgeniy Fyodorovich (1928 – 2003), Soviet conductor and composer. In 1965 he became art director and chief conductor of the State Symphonic Orchestra of the USSR]. Mark was a concertmaster of the orchestra. Then he finished the Faculty of Conducting in the conservatory. Mark Gorenshtein is chief conductor of this orchestra now. Rita’s younger son Alexandr is an artist. He studied in Leningrad and now he lives in Moscow. Rita lives in Moscow raising her grandchildren. Aunt Tsylia died approximately in 1983. Boris died some time later, but I don’t remember the date. 

My mother’s sister Rosa married Solomon Vainshtein.  They didn’t have any children. Solomon was a woodworker and a nice specialist. During the Great Patriotic War  Rosa was in evacuation with us and Solomon was recruited to the army. Since he was over 50 years of age they demobilized him some time later. He joined his wife in Tokmak. After the war they returned to Odessa. Uncle Solomon died in the late 1970s. Rosa died in 1988.

My mother next sister’s name was Basia, but everybody called her Buzia. Buzia and her family lived in Odessa. Her husband Moisey Fafel was an accountant. Their only son Ilia was born in 1930. During the Great Patriotic War they evacuated to Tumen in Siberia.  They went to work there. Even Ilia worked at a military plant, though he was only 11-12 years old. He is a veteran of the war and has an appropriate certificate. They returned to Odessa after the war. Ilia finished Odessa Polytechnic College. He became an engineer. Aunt Buzia died shortly after my mother in 1973. Ilia is my only remaining relative in Odessa.   

My mother’s next sister Clara married Ghideon Vitorgan, my father sister Manya’s son. So it happened that Ghideon was my uncle and cousin brother at the same time.  He finished Odessa Flour Grinding College and was chief engineer of a flour grinding trust in Astrakhan. Aunt Clara was a housewife. They stayed in Astrakhan during the war. After the war Clara worked as a seamstress in a garment shop for some time. Their older son Vladimir is an engineer. Their younger son Emmanuil Vitorgan is a renowned actor. He works in a theater in Moscow.  Ghideon and Clara died in Astrakhan in the 1990s.

There is an interesting story about my mother younger sister Fania’s birth.  Nobody remembered her exact date of birth. They only remembered that it happened on Christian Easter.  Since it is celebrated on different dates each year we had to follow this holiday each year to greet her. I believe she was Feiga by her passport, but we called her Fania. Her husband Izia Balan was a shoe fitter.  Izia earned well and aunt Fania never had to work.  Aunt Fania was always concerned about her diseases. On 9 June 1941 her son Lyonia was born. He was under one month old when the war began. They evacuated to Mariupol by boat. We met there. Lyonia was all sun burnt. They were in evacuation in Tumen.  After the war they returned to Odessa. Lyonia finished Odessa Navy School and  sailed as radio operator. Then he got married and went to work at a plant.  Now Lyonia and his family live in Germany. [Bertha refused to tell us names of the towns where her relatives live abroad. For some reason she thinks that it is not safe to disclose this information]. Fania’s daughter Henrietta finished the Piano faculty in Odessa Conservatory.  She didn’t go to work being very ill. She died in 1993. Fania died in 1992.
My mother Anna Erlihman, nee Blehman, was born in Odessa on 9 January 1898. I don’t know how she was growing up or whether she got any education. I don’t know anything about her childhood or youth.  I don’t know how or where she met my father. My mother didn’t have any dowry: she came from a poor family.
I didn’t know my paternal grandfather Yoina  Erlihman. He died in 1902. In my father’s birth certificate my grandfather was called a townsman from Bendery. I read in my father’s autobiography that my grandfather was a loader. However, I doubt it since two older sons of my grandfather Yoina studied in Germany. Therefore, my grandfather was a wealthy man.   From what my father said my grandmother Doba owned a grocery store before the October revolution 5. I remember my grandmother a little. She rarely visited us. She was a gray-haired and an imposing lady with her hair popped up.  She wore a thin glaze cotton dress. It was an electric blue dress with slight white stripes. Wearing this dress and a hat, with her hair gray, she looked as proud as a queen. She never played with us, kids. She lived in an old house in Odessa in 114, Bazarnaya Street. There was a terrible staircase to her apartment on the second floor. I remember a common kitchen, therefore, it must have been a communal apartment 6. I don’t remember her furnishings: just a table, a chair, a bed and a cupboard. I only remember that it was a light room.  I don’t remember what my grandmother cooked: I really didn’t see her often. She died in 1938, when I was 16, a big girl. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery, but I don’t think there was a religious funeral. I think my grandmother and grandfather spoke Yiddish since my father knew Yiddish.  My grandparents had eight children.
My father’s older sister Tsypa moved to America before the revolution. I don’t know the exact date. The family kept it a secret and nobody was supposed to know about it. It goes without saying that we had no contacts with her. My grandparents managed to sent their older sons Naum and Solomon to study in Germany, before grandfather died. They received medical education there and returned to Russia with diplomas of doctors.  
Naum worked as a surgeon in Kronshtadt for a long time. Before the great patriotic war he moved to Odessa and worked as chief doctor of the town polyclinic. During the Great Patriotic War he was mobilized to the army. He was a military doctor of the 1st range, a surgeon. Naum perished during an air raid when he was in his surgery in Sevastopol.  A bomb  hit the surgery. They recognized him by his wristwatch. Uncle Naum had a son named Boris and two daughters: Lusia and Tatiana.  Boris was chief engineer at a big plant in Volzhskoye. Lusia finished a college before the war. She worked as a chemical engineer. Tatiana was a medical nurse. She lived in Odessa and died in 2001 .
Uncle Solomon was a therapist. Before the war he worked in Odessa town hospital. During the war he was in the hospital with Naum and also perished in Sevastopol. Uncle Solomon wife’s name was Betia. Solomon and Betia had two children. Their younger daughter Lena died in evacuation. I don’t know exactly where it happened. After the war Betia and her older daughter Klava returned to Odessa. After the war Klava finished Odessa Medical College and worked as a doctor in a recreation center. We still don’t know where Solomon and Naum were buried.  I went to Sevastopol with my children, but we couldn’t find any traces. Aunt Betia died in the 1970s. Klava lives with her son in America.  

My father’s third brother Rafail was born in 1894. He was called Fulia at home. Before the great Patriotic war he worked as chief engineer at the Marti shipyard. He was married and had three children: Volodia, Nelia and Lena. Uncle Rafail wife’s name was Fradia. They lived in an apartment on the 2nd floor in a new house in Preobrazhenskaya Street. During the great Patriotic war Rafail was summoned to the front. Fradia and her daughters were in evacuation in the Ural. Her younger daughter Lena died in the evacuation. After the war Rafail didn’t return to Odessa. He remarried. After the war he worked at a plant and lived in Sterlitamak. Some time later he moved to Voronezh where he died tragically. A motorcyclist hit him to death in the middle  1970s. His son Volodia was a Navy officer in Kronshtadt before the war. He was at the front.  In the late 1940s he perished in Sevastopol under unidentified circumstances. He was probably washed off his deck during a storm. Aunt Fradia died approximately in 1950. Rafail’s daughter Nelia graduated from the Odessa University and worked in a library. In 2002 she, her husband and their son moved to Germany.   

The fourth one was uncle Nulia – Nathan. I believe he lived in the same house with my grandmother.  Uncle Nulia worked at the plant named after Stalin where my father worked.  He was logistics manager. His wife was a housewife. Her name was Lisa. They had children: Rita, Yulia and David. They evacuated to Saratov with the plant. After the war they stayed to live in Saratov. This is all information I have about them.

My mother’s next sister Manya was our neighbor in Odessa. Aunt Manya was married to Abram Vitorgan. Abram Vitorgan worked as a turner at the dairy in Troitskaya Street. They had six children. Their older daughter Sopha was married to Yevsey Kanevskiy, a Jewish man, colonel.  He was a very nice and kind man. I remember that he always brought me books from his trips. They were colorful and nice.  Yevsey had a good education. I think he knew 7 languages. He even served as an interpreter at the meeting between Voroshilov 7 and a Turkish military leader. They were in Minsk when the Great Patriotic war began. Yevsey perished in Belostok on the first days of the war. Sopha and her three children where evacuated from Minsk that was already on fire. She escaped as she was. They reached Buzuluk town  near Orenburg. Then Sopha and her children moved to  Frunze [Kirghizia]. She worked as a typist in an organization. Sopha was a nice person.  She lived in a small room with her children Lilia, Tolia and Victor, but she managed to accommodate me and my co-student when we came to study there. After the war Sopha and her children returned to Odessa. Since she was an officer’s widow she received an apartment in Zhukovskogo Street. Her older daughter Lilia graduated from Odessa University.  Tolia finished Odessa Refrigeration College and moved to America in the 1970s. He has his own business there.  Vitia, the youngest son, and his sister Lilia are in Israel now.  
Manya’s next daughter Tatiana lives in Vladimir, one of the sons, died in infancy.   Then there were twin-boys Ghideon and Boris. Ghideon married Clara, my mother’s sister. Boris finished Flour Grinding College in 1938 and received an engineer diploma. He moved to Leningrad.   He worked as a turner at a plant. During the war he was recruited to the army and took part in the defense of Leningrad. After the war he worked as a turner in a scientific research institute. He was very handy and could fix the most complicated devices. Boris was married. He died in 2002. Aunt Manya died in the 1960s. Abram died in the 1980s at the age of 98. Manya’s younger daughter Beba was my age. She finished one year in a construction college before the war.  Then there was a war and front line. After the war Beba entered a flour grinding college where she met her husband-to-be Misha. After finishing the college they both received job assignments to work as engineers in Moldavia. After working in Moldavia for some time they moved to Stanislav town, present Ivano-Frankovsk. This was a nice town and they stayed there for a long time.  Beba and Misha worked in a design institute. In 1980s Beba, her husband and son moved to San Francisco to Beba’s sister Tatiana. 

My father had another sister. Her name was Brana and she died young.  I was named after her. I don’t know anything about her.

My father David  Erlihman was the fifth child in the family. He was born in Odessa on 18 June 1891. He was named Duvid at birth. I think he had a primary education. Since he didn’t have a secondary education he couldn’t enter a higher educational institution.  My father was a worker. At the age of 14 he was already an apprentice at the plant.  Later he became a turner (in due time he was awarded the highest grade). He served in the czarist army from 1913 till 1917. He was released due to an illness or injury. I don’t remember. After October revolution he worked at a plant. He finished a rabfak 8. He was promoted to foreman, and then shop superintendent at the mechanic assembly shop at the plant named after Stalin in Odessa. In 1937 my father joined the party.

I don’t know how my parents met.  Somehow, it never interested me! I even don’t know whether they had a wedding party: we never talked about it.

Growing up
 

I was born at home in 1922. My mother made an arrangement with a midwife, and by the way, she was a sister of Marshak [Samuel Marshak, a Soviet poet and translator], she was a good midwife. She lived in Moldavanka  [poor Jewish neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa]. We lived in Richelieu Street. When my mother started labor my father went to call the midwife. It was February and it was freezing and windy. They said in our family that my father carried the midwife all the way to our home.

My brother Zachariy was born in a maternity hospital on 22 July 1930.  I remember this day well. My father sister Manya’s family live on the second floor of our house. I was staying with them when my mother was in the maternity hospital. There was a steel ladder to the second floor. I remember my father screaming ‘It’s a son! A son!’ when he opened the front door.  He had a daughter and now there was a son – it was such joy! My mother was a housewife.  I was eight years older than my brother. I helped my mother about the house. I also went to school, and I went to a gym and for walks. I remember once staying with my brother. We had a withe chaise longue. I put it in the sun on the balcony. My brother was lying in the chaise longue wrapped in cloth and I was embroidering. Suddenly somebody called me. I put down my embroidery and ran out when he began crying. I grabbed him and began to dandle him. Then I laid him on a needle unintentionally. How he was screaming, poor thing! Thank God, everything ended well.  This was a kind of nanny I made.

We lived in a miserable apartment in the basement, three stairs down: it was a former furniture store storeroom.  There were two rooms. There was a pump in the yard and there was also a toilet. There was no kitchen. We had two entrance doors there was space between them. There was a stool and a grets stove on it in this spot between the doors. Grets stove was a kerosene stove, only it made less noise.  It produced a lot of smoke, though, so it needed to be watched.  My mother always had a headache because of it. There was also a heating stove in one room. We used it for heating and cooking in winter. We stoked it with coal and wood. Since it was dark at all times we had electricity on in the morning during a day and in the evening.  My brother and I had iron beds, and my parents slept on a nice sofa. There was also a table with carved legs, few chairs around it and a very beautiful cupboard. 

I went to school at 8. Some parents sent their children to a Jewish school and some wanted to be no different from others and wanted their children to go to a Russian school. My cousin sister Beba and I went to a Russian school. There was an introduction interview at school where they asked various questions including what language our parents spoke at home. My parents told me to say that they only spoke Russian at home. I was admitted to this Russian school. This school #117 is still there in Zhukovskogo-Richelieu Streets.  Beba got confused and said her parents spoke Jewish at home. She was sent to a Jewish school. My parents didn’t speak Yiddish. Only rarely they spoke a word in Yiddish if they wanted to keep me unaware of their subject of discussion. I didn’t know Yiddish. I cannot say that we observed Jewish traditions at home. My parents went to the synagogue on holidays, but they could not pray. They prepared to such holidays. My mother did washing, ironing and cleaning. When I came home it smelled of clean bed sheets. I liked it. We, children, always knew there was a holiday. We didn’t follow kashrut and only after the war I got to know there was kosher food.  However, we identified ourselves as Jews.

I loved Pesach since this meant spring. My mother cooked something delicious. She made pastries and gefilte fish. My mother didn’t make matzah. I don’t remember having any matzah before the war.  My mother made pancakes to replace matzah. My parents dressed up before going to the synagogue in Pushkinskaya Street. It was small and it didn’t accommodate all willing to come inside. Once my parents took me with them. There were many joyful and nicely dressed people. There were so many of them that they even blocked the traffic. After the war the synagogue moved from Pushkinskaya to Peresyp.  We didn’t celebrate Sabbath. (Sabbath was a working day before the war.  I don’t remember whether my mother took her chickens to a shochet, but I remember that there was a shochet.  Almost all of our neighbors were Jews and there were few Russian families. We lived like one family. We knew all relatives and got along with our neighbors. There was no anti-Semitism before the war. 

1932-33 was a hard period of famine. There were Torgsin 9 stores where people could exchange gold or other valuables for food. People were willing to give away their valuables for bread. My classmates’ parents sold everything of value they had to get food. The only valuable we had was my mother’s wedding ring that she exchanged for food products. She brought home bread and some flat cookies. I remember my mother giving me and my brother Zachariy oval sugarplum candy with one pink and another yellow sides. My mother divide one candy in halves: one for me and another for my brother. I was 10 and my brother was 2 years old. We threw lots for which color we would get: it was important for us at that time. Everything was sold on coupons then. My father worked, but he didn’t earn enough. My mother always borrowed 150-200 rubles from my aunts, her sisters. She paid her debts on my father’s payday when he brought his salary home.  My aunts were better off. Aunt Rosa didn’t have children and her husband had a good job. 

In 1937 [Great Terror] 10 my father’s cousin brother Leonid Ledovskiy was arrested. His real surname was Krikshtein and Ledovskiy was his Party nickname. He and his wife were underground Bolsheviks. Her Party nickname was Krasnen’kova. They had two children. their son was born shortly after Dzerzhinskiy 11 died and was named Felix after him. They named their daughter Ivstalinka after Stalin and his initials I.V. In 1937 Leonid was arrested at night. We were horrified that he turned out to be an enemy of the people being an old underground Bolshevik. Could we talk or think about things? Well, we thought about those happenings, but we didn’t talk. Nobody heard from him for a long time. Later militia called his wife. They offered her to repudiate him as an enemy of the people. They threatened to arrest her and send to GULAG 12 and send their children to a children’s home for children of enemies of the people.  It was a tragedy for her to refuse from her husband, but to save her children she had to repudiate from her husband. Leonid was in exile at the construction of Belomor-Baltic channel [Editor’s note: Bertha must be wrong here since the Belomor-Baltic channel connecting the White Sea with the Onezhskoye Lake was inaugurated in 1933]. Prisoners worked on this channel manually with spades.  He came back home shortly before the war. He had lost his teeth having scurvy.  When the war began he went to the front where he perished. At the beginning of the war their son Felix also went to serve in the Navy. Leonid’s wife and their daughter evacuated. Ivstalinka died of typhus in evacuation. Leonid’s wife returned to Odessa after the war. Felix returned from the war and lived with his mother in a house on the corner of Zhukovskogo and Karl Marx Streets. Felix finished water Engineering College and worked in the navy design institute.  During Khrushchev 13 rule in the 1950s Leonid’s case was reconsidered and he was rehabilitated posthumously. Felix and his mother received a small amount of money as compensation for the loss of their breadwinner: such miserable peanuts. Felix’s mother died shortly afterward. Felix got married and I lost contact with them. He probably moved abroad.

I had all excellent marks at school. I liked geometry and algebra and I was fond of literature. We had a nice teacher of the Russian language. She came from an old family of intelligentsia. Unfortunately, I don’t remember her name. We listened to her with rapt attention. I liked Pushkin very much. We read a lot. We read newspapers and magazines at home. My friends were my classmates and my neighbor’s children. I didn’t care what nationality they were.  At home we didn’t celebrate Soviet holidays, though my father was a communist, but there were mandatory celebrations at school. We were raised patriotic. We celebrated October revolution anniversary 14. We went to parades. There was music and dancing in the streets. We were in high spirits and there was a holiday mood everywhere.
I was a pioneer and had all excellent marks and my portrait was on the board of honor in the children’s cinema theater named after Frunze 15. In 1938, when I was in the 8th grade, few of my classmates and I got recommendations to join Komsomol 16. We had to go to an interview in the district Komsomol committee. We were very excited. I can still remember this event: there was a commission in a room. We were asked questions. We had to know the names of all members of the Central Politbureau of the Communist Party. I cannot remember all details, but I remember that it was quite a ceremony. When we became Komsomol members we were to take an active part in public activities. I was a pioneer tutor in the 5th grade. We issued wallpaper and drew patriotic posters. We also arranged concerts and attended a physical culture club.

I spent a lot of time in the yard. It was a fenced yard with a gate. Our janitor closed the gate at midnight, I think. On hot summer days young people slept outside. There was a garden in the middle of the yard. There was a summer tent house, benches and a table in the corner. I used to play there with other girls. We played with dolls when we were small. When we grew up we knitted and made doll clothes and embroidered shirts. I still have some of our crafts.  I embroidered a pillowcase in a ‘richellite’ pattern: it’s very fine work. First you embroider a pattern with special stitches and then you cut it out. I still have a peacock that my mother started; she embroidered a contour and I completed the feathers. My friends and I went to the Lunnyi Park in Primorskiy Boulevard: we read, embroidered and crocheted. We sat in a circle embroidering and one girl used to read aloud. We also played ‘Baba, baba, give us fire’ running from one tree to another standing by a vacant tree. There is a similar game now when there are chairs in a circle, the music plays and participants have to sit down on vacant chairs. Boys played their own games.

In summer my parents sent me to a pioneer camp. My father made all necessary arrangements at his work for us to go to a camp.  I went to a different camp every year, but all of them were at the seashore.  Every summer I looked forward to going to a camp. There were children from Moscow and Leningrad. One year about thirty children came. We made friends and cried when time to say ‘good byes’ came. It was a full and interesting life. We had sports holidays. I was a lissome girl and they even called me a ‘girl without bones’. I actually folded in two reaching my heel with my head. I also went in for basketball in our palace of pioneers.  We trained in rented gyms in town schools. Our couch Lyonia Pilin was an experienced basketball player. He was a member of the town basketball team that won the first places in Ukraine.  We, girls, shouted for our town team because our couch played in it.  I knew all players. I remember Footerman, a tall Jewish player. He seemed older to us, young girls.  
When we grew older we used to go to the seashore, girls and boys, to bathe in the sea and play volleyball. We walked along Pushkinskaya Street and Primorskiy Boulevard. We sat on benches watching the sea. Or we got together at somebody’s home to dance. We always enjoyed ourselves and had lots of fun. I remember one of our classmates’ birthday when we got together and there were about thirty of us. We had one bottle of wine for all of us and we just had few drops of wine each of us, but we had so much fun. 

There was a Jewish theater in Grecheskaya Street Odessa. It’s where the Theater for young spectators is located. My parents often went to the theater, particularly they tried to attend first night performances. There were wonderful actors in the theater. I remember my father’s cousin brother Iohann Zeltser visiting from Leningrad. He was a journalist and wrote scripts to  the following movies: ‘Happiness hunters’ [(1936), about the establishment of the Birobidzhan 17 in the Far East], «Submarine Т-9», and others, only I don’t remember the names. He had a wife and three children. Regretfully, I don’t remember their names. We went to the theater during one of uncle Iohann’s visits. I admired this gathering of so many people enjoying themselves and nicely dressed. I can’t remember the performance, but I remember this festive atmosphere. During the war uncle Iohann was a military journalist. He perished on the battleship ‘Marat’. This battleship was near the shore defending Leningrad. It was partially destroyed during a batter. I had no contacts with his family after the war.  I went to the theater for the second time with my mother. I was about 16 and was a big girl, but I didn’t understand the language, but watching Bugova’s [Lia Bugova: famous Jewish actress in Odessa, after World War II she performed at the Russian theater in Odessa] acting I couldn’t help crying.   It was the ‘Overseas’ performance about people leaving or vice versa, coming back from there, I can’t remember exactly. We didn’t discuss this performance or the subject of departure at home. No, we didn’t.  We discussed beautiful acting.  At that time I was sure that I was lucky to be born in this country, at that place and at that time. There was a drama club in our school. It was headed by Basmanov, actor of the Jewish Theater. I was in the 10th grade then. We staged some plays, but they weren’t in the Jewish language, of course. I remember that he taught us acting and reciting. After I finished school this club was closed.

I finished school with a golden award: there were no medals at that time. I wanted to continue my studies in Leningrad. I was 17. My parents didn’t want to le me go to another town considering my age.  So I entered the Industrial College in Odessa. I had no problems with admission. I submitted my school certificate and they admitted me. I had a wonderful time being the first-year student. I had ideas and believed in the happy future like all young people at the time. I remember my first day in college. My friends and I came into a huge hall with a balcony and a staircase leading to the classrooms. There were boys on the balcony watching us. I made new friends in college. We used to go home together. I even had an admirer in college. He used to write me messages. He complained that I was always with my friends and he couldn’t talk to me alone. His name was Lyonia. He perished during the Great Patriotic War.

During the War

I remember the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. It was Sunday, 22 June 1941. Molotov 18 spoke on the black plate-shaped radio. He said that the war began. We didn’t believe that there could be a war. It was a shock for us. On 26 June I passed my exam in physics.  We didn’t consider evacuation at the beginning. We thought the war was to be over within two weeks. We believed that our troops would just defeat Germans and that was it.  However, when our government realized the war was going to last longer it took a decision for evacuation.  My father’s plant evacuated. They disassembled all equipment, loaded it on a train and shipped to Saratov.  My father was appointed supervisor of this shipment and went to Saratov. We went by boat.
My mother, my brother Zachariy, my mother’s sister Rosa and I evacuated on the ‘Tashkent’ boat on 2 August 1941. The street leading to Tamozhennaya Square in the port was overcrowded. We had to climb a ladder onto the boat. People were jumping onto the lower deck missing the ladder. We were all sent to the hold where adults, old people and children were lying side by side. The boat departed at night fearing air raids. When it got dark an air raid began. It was quiet in the hold at first until somebody started a song: ‘The sea stretched out wide and the waves are storming far away. My comrade, we are going far away, far from our land’.  It was a popular song. Then people began to cry and scream.  Everybody understood we were going to the unknown. The previous boat ‘Lenin’ bumped into a mine in the sea. It drowned. There were over ten thousand passengers on it. Only 419 survived. They were sent to Mariupol.  In Mariupol I met a girl from this boat. She was 20 and she was a brunette, but when I saw her, her hair was white. It was horrible what she went through! People were fighting for their life grabbing others by their feet pulling them down. Many of them drowned.  

We were accommodated in a school building in Mariupol. We slept on the floor on our luggage. We were there several days. Aunt Rosa went to Tokmak.  My mother, Zachariy and I went to Saratov by a freight train. I don’t remember how we managed to get food on the way, but we somehow survived.  It was a long trip and we arrived in Saratov in winter. It was December, minus 36 degrees.  We joined my father in Saratov. We lived  in a room and our landlady lived in another in her apartment. One railcar with the plant equipment got lost and some officers [from NKVD] came for my father. I don’t know by what miracle they didn’t shoot him at once, but he was taken to court.  We didn’t have anything to eat. My mother went to the evacuation agency at the railway station where she could get some bread.  My mother fell ill with typhus.  My father was in jail and my mother was ill. I don’t know how we managed. Besides, we became enemies of the people in our surrounding since my father was in jail.  Fortunately, everything turned out well. This ill-fated railcar arrived and my father was released.  Life was hard in Saratov and we went to my mother’s sisters Rosa and Tsylia in Tokmak [3. 625 km from Odessa in Kirghizia]. My father stayed to work at his plant in Saratov. They manufactured mines.
We were very poor and starved. My brother was just a boy of 11. There was anti-Semitism and it was very hard for him. He was often called: ‘zhyd – running on a rope’. I didn’t face any anti-Semitism. I was older and others didn’t dare to abuse me.  I worked at the motor repair plant. I was a turner apprentice. The plant repaired vehicles from the front. When my management heard that I studied in college they transferred me to work in the quality assurance department (OTK).  We rented a room in a house on the outskirts of Tokmak. We worked two shifts and in the evening I was afraid of going home in the dark.  I took off my shoes and walked barefooted.  My mother was a night watch in a watermelon plantation. In 1943 I went to study in Kharkov College of Housing Construction evacuated to Frunze. My mother and brother stayed in Tokmak.

After Ukraine was liberated teachers and students willing to go back to Ukraine were allowed to go home. My college returned to Kharkov in March 1944. I came back with my college. Kharkov was burnt to ashes. The power in the town switched from Germans to our troops and then back again four times. We were accommodated in a hostel with no glass in the windows.  We woke up covered with snow in the morning. It was terrible, but I still felt happy to be near Odessa. I remember this unspeakable joy when we heard that Odessa was liberated in April 1944. It’s hard to find words to describe what happened to us: we hugged, kissed and cried. Our dear Odessa was liberated! It was required to have a permit to go to Odessa. How was I to go back to Odessa? I went to the dean’s office before the academic year began and obtained a certificate for going home to Odessa to pick up warm clothes for winter. At that time my mother moved to my father in Saratov and there were no other relatives staying in Odessa. I was the first one to come to Odessa.

There were tenants in all apartments in our house. Jews were away: some didn’t return from the ghetto. There were only Russian neighbors living in their apartments. A postman and his invalid mother lived in our apartment. I asked our Russian neighbor Valia to let me stay overnight in her apartment.  Valia was one year younger than I. When the war began she placed a big cross on her door for Germans to know that there were Russians living in this apartment.  Few days later I went to my college and they gave a bed in the hostel. When my parents and my brother returned, I lived in the hostel and they stayed with our relatives or acquaintances. Actually, it seemed nobody expected to have us back in our town. Our belongings were stolen after we evacuated.  Only in 1948 we managed to get our apartment back through a court.

I remember Victory day very well. I was sleeping under the piano in my aunt Rosa’s apartment on 9 May. There were those black plate-shaped radios in apartments and they were always on.  At night the radio announced capitulation of Germany. We went mad of joy listening to each word of it. Then people began shooting. We didn’t go to sleep for the rest of the night and at dawn we ran to the town council. There were crowds of people there. They were crying and laughing and there was music playing.

After the War

I met my husband Georgiy Isayev in college. I studied at the Electric Engineering Faculty and he studied at another Faculty. He was born in Tbilisi in 1923. He was Russian. I didn’t care about his nationality. This is the way we were raised.  After finishing college in 1950 I followed my husband to Kaluga where he had his job assignment 19. I went to work in a design institute.  We designed hospitals, houses and telephone stations. I received  150 rubles per month. I sent my mother 80 rubles each month. My mother had to go to work after the war. She picked any work she could lay her hands on. After the war my brother Zachariy studied  in a food school and continued his studies in Odessa College of Food Industry.  

Fortunately, the period of ‘doctors’ plot’ 20 in 1952 didn’t affect my family, though my cousin Olga Gurovich and her husband were doctors. One distant relative worked as a doctor in the Jewish hospital. I remember Stalin’s death in 1953. I lived in Kaluga at that time. I remember that many people were crying and fainting. He was the father of all peoples. The only thing I knew was that there would be a replacement for him. I didn’t feel distressed. The regime remained the same and it was all right with me.  I don’t think there were any changes.  

In 1951 my father was very ill.  In early 1952 I came to Odessa to have my baby there. My father died few months before his grandson was born. My father was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Slobodka [neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa ], and I don’t think there were any traditions observed. Shortly after he died my son Eduard was born. I was to go back to work and my mother went to Kaluga with me. Then my mother left home and I hired a baby sitter to look after my son while I went to work. Some time later I divorced my husband and returned to Odessa in 1955. My husband and I never resumed our relationships afterward. Eduard was two years and a half.  My mother helped me to raise Eduard. 

In Odessa I went to work at the Giprocommunstroy design institute. I worked there 35 years before I retired. When I returned from Kaluga I began to reconstruct our apartment. I had an annex constructed where we had a balcony. We put a stove in it and made there a kitchen.  I had water, gas and sewerage facilities installed. I had to borrow money from my relatives and then it took me some time to pay back my debts. Our apartment became more comfortable. About this time I bought a ‘Record’ TV set. It was a big TV with a small screen.  My relatives and neighbors came to watch TV with us.

My mother was a very nice and kind person. After my father died she dedicated her life to me and Eduard. I spent my vacations with colleagues. We traveled and went hiking. We bought tours through trade union committee at work and paid 30% of their cost. I traveled to various locations across the USSR. Eduard was with my mother at home when I traveled. My mother died in 1971. We buried her near my father in the Jewish cemetery in Slobodka.

My brother Zachariy finished Odessa College of Tinned Food Industry in the middle 1950s.  After finishing college he went to work at Giprocommunstroy where I was working at the time.  My brother and I got along well and always supported each other. Zachariy married Lisa, a Jewish girl. In 1968 his daughter Larisa was born. In the late 1990s they moved to Australia. We keep in touch calling each other on the phone. 

I started my career at the institute as an engineer. Then I became senior engineer and then team leader. I never faced any anti-Semitism at work. Over 50% of employees were Jews. Our director Konstantin was summoned to the regional party committee many times. They reprimanded him for the wrong national policy. They believed there were too many Jewish employees working in the institute. I think he had three reprimands, but he didn’t react to them. When Konstantin retired they began to replace Jewish chiefs of departments.

In 1968 our institute constructed a house and I received a two-bedroom apartment in Filatov Street. I bought new furniture and other necessities on installments. I bought a sofa for Eduard, a table, a wardrobe, bed sheets, crockery and a carpet. There was a so-called ‘black cash’ in our institute. Employees paid monthly ten rubles each and when the total amount reached about one hundred one of us could borrow it for his own needs. Therefore, an engineer, for example, could afford to buy expensive things: furniture or house appliances.

I didn’t raise Eduard Jewish. I was also raised Soviet: in the course of time we lost Jewish traditions. Eduard had a Russian father and Russian friends. Besides, there was a 2% quota for Jews in educational institutions. It was hard to demonstrate one’s Jewish identity under such circumstances. Eduard is Russian in his documents like his father. In 1959 Eduard went to school #49. After finishing the 8th grade he went to school #116.  It was a popular school and admission was based on lower secondary school certificates and interviews. There were special classes with prioritized studies of physics, mathematic and humanitarian subjects. Eduard was planning to go to a technical college and went to a mathematic class. Alevtina Ivanovna Kudinova, director of school #116 was an amazing person. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her school.  There were no obstacles for her. She loved her job. She introduced self-government at school: schoolchildren acted as deputy directors and directors. She hired best teachers. There were many talented children at school and there were many Jewish children. In the 1990s Alevtina Ivanovna arranged a meeting of her alumna that lasted few days. Alevtina Ivanovna died few months ago (2003).

Many Jews left the country in the 1970s and in the 1990s, but I never considered it; this was too serious a matter.  Society didn’t approve this at the time and these issues were discussed at work. Those who wanted to leave were considered to be traitors. Some of my colleagues also left. I’ve never traveled abroad, but I wrote letters. We met when they visited here. We wrote about routinely matters in our letters. We never discussed political subjects and there were no grounds for official authorities to interfere with our correspondence.

In 1970 Eduard entered the Electric Engineering Faculty in Odessa Polytechnic College. I hired private teachers for him and he had no problems with entrance exams. I wanted to be sure that he would be admitted since I didn’t want him to go to the army.  Eduard studied well in college. After finishing college he went to work at Giprocommunstroy where my brother and I were working. This was our dynasty in this institute. Eduard got married, but his marriage didn’t last.  His daughter Zoya lives in America now.  Eduard is fond of traveling. He used to guide hiking tours to the Crimea. Now he is a businessman. 

When perestroika 21 began I retired. Life became more difficult for older people, but in the latest years we learned many new things about our history and life abroad. We lived in the world of limited information before. As for me, I’ve never spoken my mind in public and I don’t feel any need in the freedom of speech really. 

I know that there is a Jewish community nowadays, but I do not take any active part in its life. However, I know more about Jewish life in our town. I receive two Jewish newspapers: ‘Or Sameach’ and ‘Shomrey Shabos’ and I know that we have a Jewish cultural Center. Recently I went to a concert of the children from the Jewish school ‘Or Sameach’ 22 in the Philharmonic Theater. They are such wonderful children: how they dance and sing! I am very glad that there are Jewish schools and kindergartens where they tell children the history of Jewish people and teach religion. I know that there is a Jewish library at school, but I do not use its services.  I receive packagers from Gemilut Hesed each month. They are very good packages. It is nice of tem to support old people and pay for medications. I am not religious, but I read in Jewish newspapers about what needs to be done on holidays. It is very interesting to know such things.  I am a Jew and I must follow our customs and traditions. I sympathize with Israel and I am very concerned that there is shooting and fighting there.

Glossary

Hava Goldshtein
Ukraine
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: December 2002

Hava Goldshtein is an elderly and very ill woman. She lives in a small apartment with stove heating, typical for old houses in Lvov. She is poor and has to keep a tenant – a student that also looks after Hava and her deceased sister’s husband living in this same apartment. Hava has dim memories of some periods of her life.  She had a stroke after her son died that had its impact on her memory. Regardless of this great sorrow Hava is an optimist. She jokes and laughs a lot, but this is laughter through tears.  Her apartment is poorly furnished. Old pieces of furniture were bought approximately in 1950s. She has no books or pictures on the walls. She has old cracked dishes in the kitchen. 

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary  

My family background

My father’s parents, whom I never saw, Moisey and Golda Goldshtein, were born 1860s,  in the town of Yassy in Bessarabia that belonged to Romania before 1939 1. There was a big Jewish community in Yassy before WWII. There were 10 synagogues, yeshyva, few cheders and a number of stores selling kosher products. Jews were mainly involved in crafts and trade.

My grandfather Moisey was wealthy. He didn’t study in grammar school, may be he went to cheder in the childhood, but he was smart and business-oriented. He was the older son of his parents. He inherited a fur factory and in due time expanded his business and opened a shop and a store in the factory.
Besides, he owned an apartment building in the center of the town for lease where his family lived in a 6-room apartment. The rooms in their apartment were big with stucco molding ceilings, tiled stoves and beautiful furniture. There was a Viennese grand piano ‘Karl Hamburg’ of mahogany tree with ancient candelabra in the living room. My grandmother Golda played the piano. My father said she had a good education unfortunately, I do not know what kind.

My grandparents were religious. Every morning grandfather went to the synagogue near their house. My grandmother went to the synagogue on Saturday. They spoke Yiddish in the family, but they also spoke fluent Romanian.  They strictly followed all Jewish traditions. They bought kosher meat and had chickens slaughtered by a shochet at the synagogue. My grandmother had a housemaid and a cook. One of the girls, a Jew, was responsible for shopping and keeping food stocks for the family. The second girl, Romanian or Moldavian, made dinner on Saturday, stoked an oven and did all work that Jewish women were not allowed to do on Saturday. Before Sabbath the house was thoroughly cleaned. Pillows, blankets and carpets were beaten to remove the dust and floors and furniture were polished. The cook made a Saturday dinner following my grandmother’s directions. They had Gefilte fish, chicken or turkey, rich broth, pastries and cookies. On Friday and Saturday we had kosher wine from stocks in the cellar. Grandfather sat at the head of the table with his tallit on.  My grandmother wearing a fancy dress, wig and a lace shawl lit candles saying a prayer over them.  Then we took to a festive dinner. Our housemaid and cook had a meal in the kitchen. There were also poor Jews that couldn’t afford to celebrate Sabbath invited to a meal. It was an ancient Jewish tradition to serve a meal for the less fortunate Jews. On Saturday grandfather went to the synagogue and my father carried his book of prayers being the oldest son. My father told me this in every detail adding that celebration of Sabbath was the brightest memory of his young days.  

The family celebrated all Jewish holidays according to all rules. They prepared to celebrations in advance. Chickens were purchased and kept in a shed in the backyard. The apartment was cleaned more thoroughly than ever. It was particularly important to clean the house before Pesach. Kosher dishes were taken out of boxes: silver tableware and fancy china. Dinners were lavishly served at Pesach.  Grandfather conducted seder and the older son asked him traditional questions. However, Jews had their problems in Yassy. Romanian authorities suppressed them allowing or banning their trades. Jewish children were not always allowed to study in grammar schools. In the end of 19th century when my father was just a child there was a horrible pogrom in Yassy 2. My grandfather’s family survived hiding in the basement with a heavy lock on the door. 

There were seven children in the family: my father had four brothers and two sisters. The boys studied in cheder, all children finished a grammar school. I know very little about my father’s brothers or his parents.

Duba, my father’s older sister, born in 1890, married a rich Jew from Yassy after finishing grammar school. They had two children. Her husband owned a garment shop. Their son, I don’t remember his name, took over his father’s business. He became a tailor. I have no information about their daughter. My father’s sister Hava, born in 1896, finished grammar school. She was single at the period when we heard from them – before middle 1930s. Regretfully, this is all I know about them.
My father’s brother Srul, born in 1893, was recruited to the Romanian army during WWI and returned to Yassy after the war. He assisted grandfather Moisey with his business and soon afterward grandfather actually left his business to Srul. In 1922 Srul married a local Jewish girl named Feiga. We even have her picture that Srul sent in one of his letters.  Srul and Feiga had two children, but I have no information about them.

I don’t know anything about my father’s younger brother Naum, born in 1898. . Beginning from the middle 1930s we hardly communicated with them, and we got letters from them very rarely. We stopped hearing from them after 1939, and lost track of my father’s family, when the Soviet power was established in Yassy. As far as I know they were all religious people. They never again got in touch with us and I think they shared the fate of thousands other Bessarabian Jews that were exterminated and sent to ghettos and Transnistria 3 where they starved to death or died of diseases.

My father, born in Yassy in 1894 finished cheder and grammar school. My father was very fond of animals (horses, in particular) and became a veterinary doctor after graduating from an agricultural or veterinary institute.  
In 1914 when WWI began my father went to the Romanian army. He was at the front and was captured and sent to a camp for prisoners-of-war in Poltava, a provincial town in the center of Ukraine in 300 kms from Kiev. My father was in captivity between 1915 and 1917. Inmates of the camp worked at road construction. I do not know about a life of the father in the conclusion, he did not like to tell about it. A young girl often came to sell cigarettes to prisoners. This was Sonia Epelbaum, my mother.

Mother was born in the family of Moisey and Frieda Epelbaum in Poltava in 1897. Her father was an assistant forester. My mother’s family was poor. They lived in a small house with thatched roof and one room with a big stove in the middle of it, any part-time farm at them was not.  The house was in the outskirts of the town. My mother was the first and only child. Her mother, my grandmother Frieda died of consumption in 1900. Grandfather Moisey didn’t remarry. Although there was a big Jewish community in Poltava – the Jewish population constituted one fifth of the whole population of the town: 80 thousand people, there were quite a lot synagogues and Jewish schools, grandfather Moisey communicated with Ukrainians for the most part. Perhaps, this was because he spent most of his time in the woods staying on sites where Ukrainian woodcutters worked for few months in a row. He got on well, there was no anti-Semitism among his neighbors and employees. Moisey wasn’t religious, at least I can’t remember him praying or observing any Jewish traditions. He spoke Ukrainian and Yiddish. My mother Sonia also communicated with Ukrainian children. My mother only spoke Ukrainian and didn’t know one single word in Yiddish, her parents speak Ukrainian at home. She didn’t go to school and couldn’t write: she put a cross if she had to sign a paper. The only thing Sonia learned to do before she turned 17 was making cigarettes. She sold cigarettes in town with a box on her neck. She was very pretty and my father fell in love with her at first sight.  I don’t know in what language he told her about his love – my father only spoke Yiddish and Romanian, but they got married in Poltava in 1918 after he was released from captivity. Later they spoke Ukrainian. My father told me that they had a traditional Jewish wedding under a chuppah at the synagogue and then had a civil ceremony at the registry office. Only grandfather Moisey attended the wedding ceremony since there were no other relatives of my parents in Poltava. My parents didn’t tell me any other details.

My parents couldn’t go to Romania where my father’s family lived since after 1917 the Soviet authorities didn’t allow Soviet citizens to leave the country. My parents rented a room in a basement in the center of Poltava. My parents were very poor. This was a period of famine and unemployment. My mother sold cigarettes and my father got occasional jobs at construction sites.

In 1919 my older sister Sheindl was born and on 24 February 1924 I, Hava Goldshtein, was born.  My grandfather Mosey often came to stay with us, children, while our parents were away. He told us stories and fairy tales about wood goblins, witches and house spirits in Ukrainian. My mother told me that after pogroms made by Denikin troops 4 during the Civil War 5 grandfather did his best to conceal his Jewish identity.  Grandfather never went to the synagogue that functioned in Poltava even after 1917. We didn’t observe any Jewish traditions at home, only father prayed quietly in the corner of the room.

Grandfather died in Poltava in the late 1920s, he was buried in a Jewish cemetery. In 1926 my sister Sheindl went to a Russian secondary school. I don’t even know whether there were Jewish schools in Poltava. Our mother took us to a photo shop in the central street to get photographed just out of curiosity and this was the first time in my life that I was photographed. 

Life was hard in Poltava: my parents couldn't find a permanent job. In 1926 our family moved to Odessa that was not so far from Romania. Mother told me that my father was hoping to cross the border of Romania somehow where his family resided, but he failed. At that time Joint 6 began its activities in the Soviet Union . In 1927 our family moved to a Jewish settlement in the Crimea that was formed with the help of Joint.

Growing up

We settled down in the village of Kalay, Djankoy district. There was Ukrainian, Russian and Crimean Tatar population in this area. People treated us kindly. Jews formed an agricultural cooperative association. We were accommodated in houses (four families resided in one house with a common kitchen), toilets and water were outside, there was no power, they cooked on primus stoves and lighted rooms with kerosene lamps. There were initially 50-80 Jewish families in this area. Joint built cottages in the outskirts of the for them. We bought food products at the village store. Jews worked at the collective farm. All collective farm products belonged to the state.  I remember a big family of the Bershaks that were our neighbors, but I can’t remember other tenants. In few years the cooperative association with a Jewish name became a collective farm named ‘Oktiabr’ [October], and Joint was forced to leave the USSR 6.  There was even a song in Yiddish about Zionists that didn’t like the name ‘Oktiabr’ and left – I can’t remember the lyrics of this song, I didn’t understand the song and my father explained it to me.   In the Crimea life was gradually improving: my father began to work as veterinary and my mother became a milkmaid at the farm. My father was the only vet in the area and often went on trips. He could leave home even at night if his work required – it wasn’t an unusual thing to work at night, besides, my father was a very responsible man. Sometimes he traveled to Simferopol, central town of the Crimea and I went with him – we traveled on a horse-driven coach.  I liked going to a big town with crowds of people, cars, traffic police – this was all knew to me.  In Simferopol father went to the synagogue after he finished his business and purchased medications in a pharmacy. He left me in the yard and sometimes I went upstairs with women companions. There was no synagogue in Kalay and religious Jews including my father and our neighbor Shmul Bershak got together for a minyan to pray. They often got together in our house and Bershak’s son Syunia and I often watched them. We found it funny how they prayed swinging with their talit and tefillin on their heads and hands.  

We began to observe some Jewish traditions in Kalay. My father didn’t eat pork and often argued with mother who didn’t follow the kashrut. Every Friday there was a general cleanup of the house and we, children, got involved in it. We washed the floor, dusted the furniture and scrubbed casseroles and kitchen utensils. We laid the table in a big room and our family and all other tenants of the house got together at the table. Sima, Bershak’s wife or their older daughter Tsylia lit candles, as a rule. Saturday was a working day in the collective farm. We celebrated holidays together. Before Pesach we baked matzah and cooked Gefilte fish, chicken broth, meat stew and made pastries and pudding from matzah flour. Shmul Bershak conducted seder. I remember him sitting at the head of the table and one of the children was looking for a piece of matzah and posed traditional questions about the holiday. At Purim mother and Sima made triangle pies with poppy seeds – the so-called ‘Haman’ ears’ [hamentashen] that we liked.  My father fasted at Yom Kippur and my mother joined him. Children didn’t fast – our father believed that we would learn everything when we grew up. I don’t remember other holidays.
We made dolls from rags, played with a ball and ran in the streets.
My father became an activist in the collective farm: he took part in construction.  My father wasn’t a member of the party, but he was a ‘non-party communist’ as such people were called at the time. He didn’t think he was spiritually prepared to become a communist. My father gave up his idea to move to Romania. He liked communist ideas and liked living and working at the collective farm. Only when my father got a letter from Romania that came through America he stayed in his room in silence for a long while. I don’t know how they found us – perhaps, through Joint.

In few years we received a small house of our own with two rooms, a kitchen and an open terrace. We didn’t have a garden or livestock. Our father provided well for the family and life was inexpensive. There was a plot of land near the house that my father planted with diminutive fruit trees. The most amazing thing was running water in the house: there was a water pump facility built in the village that supplied water to the houses. My mother was very happy about it remembering how during the Civil War and afterward portable water in Poltava was sold from street pumps. 

In 1931 I went to a Jewish school my sister studied. This school was built at the time the Jewish colony was established. It was built at the Jewish neighborhood and was not far from or house. The only difference of this school from others was that teaching was in Yiddish. I learned Yiddish  gradually and my sister helped me. I studied in this school for a year. In 1932 when famine began in Ukraine 7 I was sent to a boarding school for orphaned and homeless children in hope that I would at least be getting some food there All children whose parents were not able to providefor them were admitted to this school. My sister stayed with our parents. These were horrific years when all grain was taken away from collective farmers, there was no food for cattle and my parents had no job. I remember my father and Shmul Bershak took me and Bershak’s younger daughter to the silage facility at nighttime to come there unnoticed. We were tiny and thin girls and my father and Shmul lowered us into the silage pit on a rope tight on our feet where we picked silage: pressed grass prepared to feed cattle. Mother made pancakes that smelled of rot. I remember seeing a cart with dead people when my father was taking me to the boarding school: their swollen legs were sticking from a cover.  The boarding school was in 15 kms from Kalay. We got soup and potatoes and some black buns. This was a Russian secondary school where we studied.

In 1934 when famine was over I stayed at the boarding school and finished the 10th form there, my sister finished Jewish school in 1930. The school was closed in late 1930s. There were Jewish, Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar children in my class. We never cared about one another’s nationality. We were friends. I became a pioneer in the school, but I took no interest in any public activities.  Besides, I was not quite successful with my studies. I didn’t like reading or writing or mathematics. I much preferred to spend time with animals helping my father and help my mother in the chicken yard and on the farm.

In summer 1936 when I was on vacation at home few men wearing military uniforms came for my father. They searched the house shuffling my father’s papers. They took pictures of my father’s parents and relatives from Romania. I remember that when my father was taken away I held of one of the military’s leg like a tick and he could hardly get rid of me. My father was taken to Simferopol, but he returned home after two months. I don’t know how he happened to escape: in such cases people were charged with espionage and ties with foreign intelligence agencies and they disappeared forever. Father never told us, children, what happened to him and what were charges against him, but he never prayed again and put his tallit away. At that time we stopped receiving letters from his relatives in Romania. Only in 1939 after Bessarabia joined the Soviet Union my father received few letters from his family, but father never responded – he was probably afraid of being arrested again.

In 1938 after finishing school I entered Medical College in Kalay. I finished it in 1940. My schoolmates Sonia Krol and Syunia Bershak – he became an assistant doctor - studied there with me. My older sister Sheindlia graduated from Teachers’ Institute in Simferopol. She worked at a school in Kalay as a teacher of mathematics. In 1938 Sheindlia married Shura Friedental, a Jew, our neighbor. He was a driver in the collective farm. The whole collective farm celebrated the wedding in our yard under the tents. There was no chuppah or religious ceremony at the wedding since Shura and my sister were convinced atheists and Komsomol members 8, but there was Jewish music played and guests danced Jewish folk dances. The newly weds lived in our house. In 1939 their daughter Rita was born.

During the War
After finishing medical college in spring 1941 I became a medical nurse at a school in Kalay the same where my sister worked. I worked there for about half a year until we heard on the radio about the beginning of war on 22 June 1941 9. We didn’t quite understand what was going on – we were convinced that our country was so powerful and a war was something we couldn’t believe might happen or that somebody dared to attack us.

Few days after the war began our village was bombed. In the middle of July 1941 the collective farm began evacuation. The Party district committee assigned my father to stay in occupation and work as a vet in a partisan unit. We bid farewell to father carelessly laughing and cheering one another – we didn’t believe we were parting for long. Newspapers and radio broadcasts were convincing us that the war would be over soon. Shura Friedental, my sister’s husband, was recruited to the front. My mother, my sister and her little daughter and I evacuated with the collective farm. We walked about 100 kms watching the cattle of the collective farm until we reached Kerch. During frequent air raids we hid in wheat fields. There were vehicles passing by, but we couldn’t get a ride since we were responsible for the cattle that belonged to the collective farm. It was hot: there was no water and the grass was dry – the cattle were hungry and thirsty. Bershak’s family walked with us: Shmul, Sima, their son Syunia that was the same age with me and their younger children.  Sima was a sick and very fat woman. She couldn’t walk and was driven on a cart. After another air raid Sima died of heart attack. The men dug a grave in the stony soil, said a prayer and buried Sima. In Kerch we got on a ferry with cattle and other belongings of the collective farm.  Bombardments were continuous in the sea and later we got off in Taman in 600 kms from Kerch where we got on trucks and drove for about two days.  We arrived at the town of Khanlar, Azerbaidjan in the Caucasus, in 900 km from home. We settled down in the village and the cattle was transferred to the local collective farm. 

We were accommodated in local stone houses that were richer and had more comforts than Ukrainian houses. We got a room that belonged to a big Azerbaidjan family. They welcomed us cordially and shared everything they had with us. In Khanlar I was called to the military registry office where I received an assignment to a hospital. I was a surgery nurse in evacuation hospital 1852. There were many patients there and numbers of surgeries during which doctors amputated extremities: legs and arms. Surgeries went on round the clock and nurses had to assist surgeons handling instruments. At first I made mistakes and the surgeon swore. After the surgery he kissed me on the forehead and apologized. It was hard work, but I received food packages and we got meals in hospital. My mother, sister and Rita lived in the apartment worked at the cattle farm in the collective farm. We stayed in Khanlar for about half a year. Germans were approaching the town. We got on a freight train and moved on. We were heading Middle Asia. The trip lasted about 3 months. We stayed at stations for long letting military trains to the front pass by.  Shmul Bershak and his younger children were with us. Syunia was already at the front. 

We came to an aul [a village in Middle Asia] near Chimkent in Kazakhstan in 2000 kms from home where we were accommodated in apartments in the collective farm named after Lenin. There were clay houses with thatched roofs in the village. There was no water or sewerage. Food was mainly cooked on stoves. In summer we spent most of the time outside sleeping in little huts made of vine branches, cooking and having meals in the open air. Summers were hot and dry. Local people and newcomers worked in the collective farm. There was a school, kindergarten, hospital and pharmacy in the village. There were many people from different parts of the USSR there. There wasn’t sufficient space, but they all got along and I can’t remember any national conflicts.  We lived in a very friendly Kazakh family.  We slept all together on straw on the floor in a small room. Our landlords were trying to help us and shared their food with us. It was hard at the beginning before mother began to work on a farm. I also worked at the collective farm: on the farm and in the field. My sister Sheindlia went to work at the kindergarten of the collective farm and her daughter Rita was there, too.  We worked from dawn till dusk, but we were not afraid of hard work. Three years passed. It was most terrible to have no news from father when we knew about barbarity of Germans and their brutal attitude and mass shootings of Jews from people that escaped from occupied areas. Mother kept crying at night reprobating herself for letting my father stay.

In summer 1944 almost at once after Crimea was liberated we moved home. The whole collective farm was returning. We went back by a freight train.  We were given grain by local authorities that we were exchanging for bread and food products on the way.

When we arrived we heard the frightful news. Germans killed Jews in the vicinity of Kalay and my father was among them. People said he was hiding in the cellar, but Sushko, a local policeman, reported on him to Germans. This Sushko was in good relationships with our family before the war. After the war Sushko was sentenced to 10 years in camps. I heard later that some time in 1950, when we left the Crimea, he returned home and lead his life as if nothing had happened. I tried to find my father’s grave. I remember that during one of diggings and reburial of the dead I saw the corps of Manya Tseitlina, our neighbor. She was half-sitting in the pit holding her granddaughter Ida. The child had a soother in her mouth. This horrible scene had such an impact on me that I refused further search of my father’s body.

After the War

I remember celebration of Victory Day on 9 May 1945.  All farmers got together in the center of the settlement in front of the village council building. There were tables installed there and all people brought what they could. Chairman of the collective farm said a speech remembering the deceased including my father. On this day laughter was mixed with tears: it was a happy and a sad day.

We needed to begin life anew. Our house was in place, but it was occupied by the family of Abraham Modergeim. They returned from evacuation before we did and since their house was destroyed they moved in ours. Abraham didn’t want to move out of our house and we had to sue him. We temporarily stayed with Bershak family. Only at the beginning of 1946 the court took a positive decision for us and we had our house back, but those people took with them all our furniture and kitchen utensils. We moved in an empty house, but we were too exhausted to sue Abraham for theft.

Life was more difficult than it was in evacuation. In Kazakhstan we had sufficient food, fruit and vegetables and we did not starve, at least, while after the war there was famine. Germans removed all food stocks before retreating and we didn’t have any grain left for sowing.

Right after arrival we had one trouble after another. My mother got cancer of uterus. She had a surgery in Simferopol and after surgery mother stayed at home. She got tuberculosis that she had had a long time before. This was not the end of our problems. My sister’s daughter Rita became infected with tuberculosis. There was nothing we could do. She died at the end of 1945.

Shura Friedental, my sister’s husband, returned from the war in April 1946. He knew that his daughter died and didn’t even come to our home. Instead, he went to his mother and sisters that lived in another end of the village. Sheindlia that seemed to have turned into stone when her daughter died didn’t say a word when she heard that her husband arrived. I ran to see Shura. I cried and yelled telling him that there was no fault of ours that Rita died, but Shura didn’t even want to listen. He said that Sheindlia was alive, but she failed to save their daughter and he wasn’t going to live with her, they divorced shortly afterward. Shortly afterward Sheindlia moved to Lvov where her friend Sarah lived. Sarah was married to Arnold Tseitlin that came from Kalay.  Arnold’s mother Manya Tseitlina, his first wife Tsilia and daughter Ida were shot by occupants. After he returned from the war Arnold married Sarah and left for Lvov with her. Sheindlia began to live with Sarah and Arnold. She finished an accounting course and went to work.  In some time she married Arnold’s brother Ruvim Tseitlin they lived with Sarah and Arnold, having no other place to live.

I finished a short-term course of vine-growers and began to work at the vineyard. Was a dexterous worker and earned good money. In 1946 Boris Cherniak that returned form the front proposed to me. Boris’ parents Isaac and Gesia came from Byelorussia. They moved to the Crimea in middle 1920s. Boris, born in 1922, was the oldest son in his family with many children. He worked as a driver before the war. After returning from the front Boris’ father became director of a greengrocer store and Boris was director of the buttery in the collective farm.  Their family was wealthy and my mother wanted me to marry Boris. I knew Boris before the war and tried to avoid him. He had the fame of a drunkard and womanizer. I didn’t want to marry Boris. I couldn’t forget Syunia Bershak that was my friend before the war. Syunia didn’t return from the front.

Finally I agreed to marry Boris giving up to my mother and Shmul Bershak.  We had a civil ceremony and a small wedding party for close relatives and friends at our home. I had an ankle long wedding gown made at the tailor shop in our collective farm. There was no synagogue or a rabbi in the collective farm. My husband’s parents insisted that we had a chuppah installed where I was lead by Shmul Bershak. One of older religious Jews conducted the wedding ceremony. This was the first Jewish wedding after the war and the whole collective farm celebrated it.

I put a big tub filled with grain in my room and covered it with bed sheets. This was my bride-bed. My son was born in 1947. We named him Victor. This was a very popular name in those years after Goddess Victoria given in commemoration of victory over Germany.  We didn’t have our son circumcised since there was no rabbi in the village or anyone else, who could do it. Besides, I didn’t feel any need to have him circumcised.

Boris failed to make a good husband. From 2nd half of my pregnancy he began to carouse and went on a spree. He didn’t come home at all sometimes. When our son was one year old Boris left me for another woman. I hated to stay in Kalay: I believed people were pointing fingers at me to say ‘Look, her husband left her’.  In 1949 my mother, Victor and I left Kalay for good. We went to Lvov where my sister lived. Before we left Boris came to apologize. He begged me to stay promising to come back and be faithful, but I didn’t forgive him. I never saw him again. He didn’t support us and Victor never saw him.  I know that Boris stayed in Kalay, but I don’t know how he is now.

In Lvov we stayed some time with our friend Lyova Gershman that also came from Kalay after the war. Later we got an apartment. We lived together: my sister and Ruvim in one room and my mother, Victor and I – in another. Except for few moths when I went to work in Brody, Lvov region and Khmelnitskiy I lived my life in this apartment. We were a close family. My sister and her husband supported me treating him to a meal, giving him toys and clothes, entertaining and spoiling him.  My life wasn’t easy. I went on my first vacation when my son turned 18.  I never had any recreation before: I received my ‘vacation pay’ (I always needed money) and stayed at work.  I got along well with my colleagues. I had Jewish, Russian and Ukrainian friends. We celebrated birthdays and Soviet holidays together. We didn’t observe any traditions or celebrate Jewish holidays. I didn’t remarry. After Boris betrayed me I didn’t trust men and never let any of them to come near me. We stayed at home in the evenings having discussions and drinking tea. Sometimes our friends and acquaintances visited us. I spent time with my son and was busy doing housework: cleaning, cooking and washing. 
After her daughter died my sister didn’t want anymore children. She was afraid that she might lose another child.  Sheindlia and her husband were cheerful and sociable people. They had many friends, went to theaters and cinema and spent vacations in the Crimea or Caucasus.

My mother died in 1957. We buried her at the town cemetery in Lvov.
Director of the factory at the shop of which I worked was Semyon Averbukh. He was kind with me. He understood how hard it was for me to raise a son. Semyon trained me and I was soon promoted to supervisor. We made rubber boots and went to sell them in other towns. We had a multinational collective at work. In early 1950 state anti-Semitism was at its height. Radio and newspapers broadcast news about Jewish cosmopolites and doctor poisoners. One could hear abusive ‘zhydovka’ everywhere in the streets 10, but we had good relationships in our collective. We went on parades on 1 May and 7 November 11 and celebrated all Soviet holidays in our club, had parties drinking and singing Soviet songs.  Semyon was a deputy of the district council and helped many of my colleagues to have their issues associated with housing problems, installation of telephone, giving higher education to their children and arrangements for recreation resolved. Later the shop was converted in a factory and Averbukh was its director. In early 1960s he was arrested and accused of manufacture and sale of ‘left’ products (illegally manufactured product sold through private agents: all profit was received by director and sales agents) and bribing. The court lasted few months. Semyon was sentenced to death and executed. I felt very sorry for him. He was the only person that treated me so kindly.   After he died there was another director appointed. Until now nobody knows whether it was true that he was selling goods in private. 

I took absolutely no interest in any politics. I was too busy with my personal issues. I had Russian and Ukrainian friends and never cared about nationality. When my son grew old I began to spend more time with friends gong to theaters and cinema and reading Soviet  magazines. In late 1970s my sister and I bought a TV and spent evenings watching it. I went on vacation to the Crimea several times.

My son Victor had Jewish, Ukrainian and Russian friends at school.  He wasn’t  great success with his studies, but he was a cheerful and sociable boy. He didn’t face any anti-Semitism.  After finishing school he finished a barber school and became a skilled barber. He was promoted to director of a barbershop.  Victor married a Russian girl Valia.  They had two daughters: Sonia and Natasha. His first marriage failed, though. My son always identified himself as a Jew, but he came to the Jewish way of life after he got Jewish friends at 16 that observed Jewish traditions and were religious.  He could not celebrate holidays at home since Valia teased him about it and happened to not turned out to be - no  be anti-Semitic. The majority of his colleagues were Jews and they didn’t have any objections when Victor became director; they liked and respected him. Perhaps, he wouldn’t have made such good career if he had worked ina Ukrainian collective. In 1992 Victor divorced Valia and married Alla, a Jewish woman. Victor and Alla decided to move to Israel. Victor was always interested in this country and listened to foreign radio stations that were jammed during the Soviet power to conceal the true situation in Israel and the rest of free world from people in the Soviet Union.  Victor and Alla submitted their documents for obtaining permission to move to Israel. I was planning to go with them when Victor fell severely ill. He got arthritis and he was confined to bed. In 1999 my son died. I buried him near my mother’s grave at the town cemetery.

In 1979 I began to receive pension, but I continued working. I retired in 1989 when Perestroika began and our factory became unprofitable. Perestroika didn’t bring anything good into my life. I get miserable pension enough to buy bread.

My sister Sheindlia died in 1986. She didn’t have children. I live in this apartment with her husband Ruvim We wouldn’t survive if it weren’t for the Jewish charity center Hesed. They support us. All elderly Jews get charity meals and free medications. Sometimes they take us to the Daytime center where we can communicate with other old Jews. I observed Jewish traditions only after the war when I lived in Kalay. Recently we began to celebrate Jewish holidays: Pesach, Purim, and Rosh Hashanah thanks to charity organizations. We get together in Hesed where we have visitors who tell us about Jewish rituals and traditions, they say prayers and conduct rituals, make traditional Jewish food, buy special kosher wine at a store near the synagogue. We watch films about Israel and Jews.    We read Jewish newspapers. My granddaughters Sonia and Natasha often come to see us. They celebrate Jewish holidays with us.  Natasha and Sonia identifies herself as a Jew.  Sonia wrote her nationality as Jewish in her passport. She is a member of the Jewish cultural association and sings in a Jewish group. She married a Jewish man. My great granddaughter was recently born and Sonia named her Sarah-Revekkah. Natasha is married to a Russian man. They have a nice family. They don’t have children as yet, but I am sure they will.  Natasha is an accountant in a company. She does not take much interest in Jewish life.  Valia, Victor’s ex-wife was against such tendencies and even didn’t communicate with her daughter for some time, but in due time she resigned herself or pretended that she did. In any case, I am happy that my granddaughters understand and support me.

Glossary

1. In 1812 Russia  managed to annex the  eastern  half of the  Romanian  Principality  of  Moldavia.  From then  until the First World War, the territory  known as Bessarabia  (Basarabia in Romanian) changed hands  between  Romania and Russia  several  times.  After the First World War, Bessarabia  joined Romania, but Moscow never accepted this union.  In June 1940, Moscow  delivered to Bucharest an ultimatum to  evacuate,  in  four  days,   Bessarabia   and  Northern   Bukovina (Bucovina).  Romania  had no  choice  but  to  yield.  The  two  ceded provinces  had an area of 51,000  square  kilometers,  or some  20,000 square  miles and 3.9 million  inhabitants  mostly  Romanians.  It was then Romania's  turn to reject the  settlement and in June 1941 joined Germany and attacked  the Soviet  Union.  In 1944,  however,  the USSR reannexed  the area,  occupied  the entire  country  of  Romania  and, shortly  thereafter,  imposed  a  communist  government  in  Bucharest.
2. During the Civil War in 1918-1920 there were all kinds of gangs in the Ukraine. Their members came from all the classes of former Russia, but most of them were peasants. Their leaders used political slogans to dress their criminal acts. These gangs were anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic. They killed Jews and burnt their houses, they robbed their houses, raped women and killed children.
3. Transnistria: Area between the rivers Dnestr and Bug, and the Black Sea. It was ruled by the Romanians and during World War II it was used as a huge ghetto to which Jews from Bukovina and Moldavia were deported.
4. Denikin, Anton Ivanovich (1872-1947): White Army general. During the Civil War he fought against the Red Army in the South of Ukraine.
5. CIVIL WAR 1917-1922 By early 1918, a major civil war had broken out in Russia--only recently named the USSR--which is commonly known as the civil war between the ‘Reds’ and the ‘Whites’. The ‘Reds’ were the Bolshevik controlled Soviets. During this time the Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist party. The ‘Whites’ were mostly Russian army units from the world war who were led by anti-Bolshevik officers. They were also joined by anti-Bolshevik volunteers and some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. During this civil war, the Bolsheviks signed a separate peace with Germany and finally ended Russia's involvement with the world war. 8 to 13 mln people perished in the war. Up to 2 mln. people moved to other countries. Damage constituted over 50 billion rubles in gold, production rate reduced to 4-20% compared with 1913.
6. Joint – World Jewish Distribution Committee), the main task at that period was to provide assistance to Jews that suffered from WWI in Russia and the Dual Monarchy. In 1924 American Jewish united agricultural corporation was established (Agro-Joint). Its purpose was establishment of Jewish settlements in the south of Ukraine and Crimea. They had full support of the Soviet authorities. This was a way to save Jews from poverty and help them regain their civil rights. Thos association funded housing construction for poor Jewish families in the Crimea and provided them with agricultural equipment and tools. By 1934 many collective and Soviet farms in Jewish settlements funded by Agro-Joint were established in the Soviet Union. In 1938 Agro-Joint had to leave the Soviet Union and terminate any activities in the country that was on the edge of war and entered into a treaty with fascists Germany. 
7. In 1920 a deliberate famine was introduced in the Ukraine causing the death of millions of people. It was arranged in order to suppress those protesting peasants who did not want to join the collective farms. There was another dreadful deliberate famine in 1930-1934 in the Ukraine. The authorities took away the last food products from the peasants. People were dying in the streets, whole villages became deserted. The authorities arranged this specifically to suppress the rebellious peasants who did not want to accept Soviet power and join collective farms.
8. Communist youth political organization created in 1918. The task of the Komsomol was to spread of the ideas of communism and involve the worker and peasant youth in building the Soviet Union. The Komsomol also aimed at giving a communist upbringing by involving the worker youth in the political struggle, supplemented by theoretical education. The Komsomol was more popular than the Communist Party because with its aim of education people could accept uninitiated young proletarians, whereas party members had to have at least a minimal political qualification.
9. On 22 June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring a war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War.
10. “zhyd” – abusive nickname of Jews in the Soviet Union.
11. October Revolution Day: October 25 (according to the old calendar), 1917 went down in history as victory day for the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia. This day is the most significant date in the history of the USSR. Today the anniversary is celebrated as ‘Day of Accord and Reconciliation’ on November 7.

Naum Baru
Kiev
Ukraine
Bronia Borodianskaya
April 2002

I was born 15 January 1926 in the town of Bershad. I was named after my grandfather Nuhim Barats that had died a long time before I was born. My mother Anna Naumovna Baru (nee Barats) was born in the town of Bershad on 16 September 1899. This town belongs to Vinnitsa region nowadays, but at that time it belonged to Kamenets-Podolsk province. Isaak Semyonovich Baru, my father, was born in Olgopol, Vinnitsa region, in November 1897. 

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

My family background

My both grandfathers had died before I was born. My grandmother and especially my mother told me about the life of Nuhim Barats, my grandfather on my mother’s side. He was born in 1870s. My grandfather was a merchant selling fabrics, shoes and haberdashery. He was a well-off and respected man. He lived in Odessa (to do his job there) but he often came to Bershad. Nuhim Barats died in 1921 when my mother was 23.  

The name of my grandfather’s mother was Genendel Barats. I don’t know her nee name. She came from the village of Ternovka, Vinnitsa region. My great grandmother Genendel lived longer than her son Nuhim did. She died in Ternovka in 1927. She must have been about 90 yeas old when she died.

My grandfather Nuhim had a sister and a younger brother. I knew them. His brother’s name was Benchik (Bencion) and his sister’s name was Rieva. She took her husband’s last name: Furman.  Rieva was religious. She didn’t live with us in Kharkov, but she often came to visit us. She always brought my mother something delicious. I remember Bencion taking me out on my sledges in Monastyrskaya Street in Kharkov, when I was a child. He loved me a lot. Everybody was spoiling me.   I also remember Uncle Bencion giving me more money at Hanukkah than he gave to the others [according to the Jewish tradition all adults had to give some pocket allowances to the children]. He took much care about our family and me, in particular, because he had a son of my age.

Rachil Barats, Nuhim’s wife, nee Dovner, my grandmother on my mother’s side, was born in 1877 in Bershad, Vinnitsa region. My grandmother Rukha (Rachil) in 1933 in Kharkov where she was living with her son and she was buried there, too.

My grandmother had two brothers: Gersh Dovner and a younger brother Iosiph Dovner, and three sisters: Bella (Beila), Evgenia (Genia) and Donia, in marriage was Khazanova. Her husband Moisey Khazanov was a successful sugar dealer. All 3 sisters and their brother Gersh lived in Donetsk. Unfortunately, I never met them and have no more information about them.

My grandfather Nuhim and my grandmother Rachil had 3 children: my mother Anna (Hanna), born in 1899, her sister Sarah-Genia, born in 1897, and her brother Joseph (Yuzia) born in 1902. My grandfather Nuhim gave education to his children. Later I will tell you about each of his children.   

I remember Bershad of around 1929. I remember a narrow street, my grandmother Rachil and my old great grandmother Haya, her mother. There was a synagogue in Bershad. My grandmother told me that women were not allowed to come inside the synagogue and she came to the synagogue to meet her husband, my grandfather. I was a little boy then and I constantly asked “Where’s my Granny?” I loved her so much. As for my mother, she used to spank me, but I must have been about 3 years old.

Shymon Baru, my father’s father, born in 1870s, died in 1906 when my father was only 9 years old. My grandfather was involved in commerce in Vinnitsa and Olgopol. I believe he was involved in sugar manufacture that was just beginning to develop. After he died his father (my great grandfather) was taking care of the children: my father and his brothers. Their sisters stayed with their grandmother.

Bluma Baru, my father’s mother, nee Zilbermann, was born in 1870 in Vinnitsa region. My grandmother was a housewife and was raising the children. There were 5 of them in the family: 3 sons and 2 daughters. Adel, born in 1890 was the oldest, then came Michael, born in 1894, my father Isaak, born in 1897, and two younger children: daughter Sophia, born in 1900 and their son Emmanuil (Monia), born in 1902.   

My grandmother was religious. She went to the synagogue (women were praying on the 2nd floor of the synagogue) on holidays, observed traditions, honored Sabbath and celebrated the Jewish holidays. They spoke Yiddish in the family. After the children grew up, my grandmother went to live with her son Michael in Vinnitsa. He was a widower by that time. Later he got married for the 2nd time and my grandmother went to live with her daughter Adel in Novorossiysk. We visited them twice in Novorossiysk: in 1936 and in 1938. My grandmother Bluma died in Novorossiysk in 1941. 

My Grandparents spoke Yiddish in their families. When I was visiting them I heard them speaking Yiddish and I even understood it, but they spoke Russian to me. I learned quite a few words. It went just by itself, although sometimes I had to ask what this or that word meant.  My mother only spoke Russian to me. But when my parents wanted to talk about something that I was not supposed to hear they spoke Yiddish. 

My both grandmothers were strict. They had many children and they treated me strictly. They were housewives and were both religious, as far as I remember. Both families always celebrated Jewish holidays, although the authorities did not appreciate this at that time. However, there were candles and matsa and all kinds of Jewish dishes. I knew what kosher food was about. I remember my grandmother cooking tsymes. They were buying pumpkins, beans to boil and cook tsymes. I can’t remember the recipe in all detail, of course. They baked very delicious gomentash (this such triangular patty with poppy and nuts) and the traditional triangle little pies with poppy seed at Purim. I just loved them. As for my mother, I was her only son and she was very strict with me. My father was an atheist, but my mother was religious.  After my grandmother Rachil died in 1933 my mother took my grandfather’s thales. My mother put it in the farthest spot in the wardrobe where my father never even looked. It was a sacred thing for my mother, but my father wouldn’t understand it if he saw her hiding it. He was a convinced atheist. My mother was raised in a religious family and was a believer.

My mother didn’t go to the synagogue and didn’t have an opportunity to follow the kasruth. We lived in a communal apartment (sharing it with few other families), but my mother always celebrated Jewish holidays at whatever cost. My mother went to the synagogue to get some matsa and kept it a secret from my father. I knew there was a synagogue in Kharkov, but I didn’t know exactly where it was. We always had matsa in the house at Pesah.  My father ate it, too. My mother always cleaned the apartment thoroughly and cooked the traditional Easter food: stuffed fish, chicken clear soup with matsa, made strudel with nuts and raisins. I still remember the taste of this strudel.

There were many Jews in Bershad, as my mother told me. She corresponded with many of them and they even visited us in Kharkov.

Aunt Sarah, my mother’s sister, Wainshenker in marriage, finished a school in Odessa (with a gold medal for her successful studies) and Pediatrics Department of Odessa Medical Institute. She was pediatrician in Kiev before and after the war. She knew many famous families, as she was their children’s doctor. She started working in Zhytomir and later she and her 2nd husband Daniil Abramovich Wainshenker, a Jew, moved to Kiev. He was a surgeon ophthalmologist. When in the late 1920s Kiev became the capital of Ukraine they moved to Kiev. Many professionals were invited to work in Kiev then.  They lied in Kostyolnaya Street. Daniil Abramovich was a famous ophthalmologist. In the late 1920s he was sent to study at the school for ophthalmologists in America. He polished his English there. He was a well-known doctor in Kiev. My aunt even said that he was a member of European Ophthalmologist Association. He worked in a hospital. They didn’t have any children and they invited me to spend a summer with them. When the war began Daniil stayed in Kiev. He couldn’t leave, as he was working in hospital. He was a man of ideals and he believed that our army was not going to let Germans occupy Kiev. He put me on the train and went back home. Daniil Abramovich was an invalid and he was not to be recruited in the army. He had poliomyelitis when he was a child.  He walked with a stick, but he was a strong-willed and energetic man. He went to work in the hospital voluntarily. On 29 September he went to the Babiy Yar 1 with all other Jews following the order of the German commandment.  He was shot there on 29 September 1941.

Iosif Naumovich Barats, born in 1902, was the youngest child in the family. He studied in Kharkov technological institute and lived in a hostel. Later Iosif worked in the Design House in Kharkov, located in the central square of the city. Iosif must have been a very talented employee. During the war he worked in Berezniaki, near Sverdlovsk, and then he returned to Kharkov. He got a job offer in Kiev and he moved there.

At one time we lived with him in Kharkov. After my grandmother died in December 1933 he received an apartment and we all moved there. Iosif was 32 and he was not married, so my mother was taking care of him. He got married during the evacuation in Berezniaki, Sverdlovsk. His wife also came from Kharkov, but they met in Berezniaki. He was among the last people to evacuate. We left Kharkov on 9 August 1941 when it was bombed for the 1st time. We were on the train at that moment. Iosif left some time in September when Kiev was occupied already. He changed one train to another until he reached Russia. And there he stayed – In Berezniaki near Sverdlovsk. I guess he could have met some former colleague that offered him a job. Engineers were in demand then. He didn’t stay there long. He met Luba and they got married and moved to Alma-Ata. Iosif got a job offer from a construction institute. This was in 1942, the year of the Stalingrad battle. He wasn’t recruited to the army, as he had a spinal curvature. He fell when he was a child. He was among the first ones to return to Kharkov after the war.  He got a job offer in Kiev and moved there in 1945. He received an apartment in Bolshaya Zhytomirskaya. I visited him there in 1946. He became Chief engineer at GIPROGRAD (State Town Design Institute). They had a lot of design work. Kiev was to be restored after the war. Iosif was a well-known engineer. He often participated at different meetings; sometimes he even was invited to a meeting at the Communist Party Central Committee. He worked a lot all his life. Once he came home to change and sat in an armchair for a second while his wife was preparing his shirt and tie. His heart failed him and he died instantly. This happened in 1956.  

My father had two brothers and two sisters. Michael Semyonovich Baru, his older brother, lived in Vinnitsa and was involved in sugar manufacture. His younger brother Emmanuil (Monia) Semyonovich Baru, born in 1902, got educated at the Krasnodar Medical Institute. He lived with his older sister Adel Semyonovna. He worked in the towns of Russia. His last job was in Mytischi and he got married there. Then the war began. He was in medical units on the front and perished in the vicinity of Tula during the defense of Moscow. He was Director of a hospital.

Adel Semyonovna was the oldest in the family, I guess, she was born in 1890 in Vinnitsa region, I don’t know the town she was born in. She married Naum Abramovic Averbach, a Jew. He was an eye doctor. They moved to the Caucasus during WWI. They lived in Kutaissi and then in Novorossiysk. My father, my mother and I visited them in 1935 for the first time. Averbach was working as an eye doctor in the polyclinic at the cement factory. He was basically a good doctor and had his own practice. He had a sign with his name on his door and he received patients at home at the weekends, because there were not many eye doctors and there were many people having problems with their sight. I saw the line of people at his door at the weekends. His wife was a housewife. They had two children: daughter Susanna, born in 1912 and son Simon born in 1910. His wife was raising them. Simon wasn’t a very good pupil at school. After finishing school they both entered the Polytechnic Institute. Their daughter studied at the Krasnodar Medical Institute. Simon went to Perm and entered Architecture Department at the Construction Institute. He lived in a hostel. After finishing the Institute he returned to the Caucasus and later moved to Kharkov. Kharkov was the capital of Ukraine then. Simon stayed with us for a short period of time and then he rented a room and got married. After the war he moved to Kiev. He worked at a design institute for some time. I know that he made a design for a secondary school in Kiev. Simon died in 1995.

Adel’s daughter was my cousin Susanna Naumovna Averbach. Her name after her husband was Vinarskaya.  Her husband David Vinarskiy, a Jew, got educated in the Kharkov Institute of Transport and worked in Rostov and then in Kharkov. He was Deputy Chief of the Northern Caucasus and then South-Western Railroad. Regretfully, their marriage didn’t last long. In 1936 David Vinarskiy was arrested as the suspect for theft and shot. In 1950s he was completely rehabilitated. They had a daughter Nelly, born in 1934. Nelly’s last name was Averbach, her grandfather’s name, as it was not very safe to have the last name of the father, executed as a criminal. She got education at the Kharkov University, married a Czech and moved to Prague with him some time in the early 1960s. Nelly Poblavski is a well-known literature specialist. They have a daughter. Her name is Irena. Irena Poblavska was a famous film producer. She made eight films and quit this job. Her son Dodik, a Czech, studies in a Jewish school in Prague. I know from her letters and from our phone conversations that he speaks fluent Yiddish, English, Czech and Russian.

Aunt Sonia, Vetman by her husband, my father’s younger sister, died during the war. She had two sons. One of them (an English teacher) perished on the front in the vicinity of Kiev at the very beginning of the war in 1941. Her second son Boris Vetman, my cousin, (he comes from Kiev), also was at the front. He was severely wounded near Stalingrad and awarded the Order of Glory. He returned to Kiev. He and his wife worked in some shop.  Later he studied at the Department of Journalism (I don’t remember in what town) and became a journalist. Later he moved to Odessa. In Odessa he was a reporter for the “Selskaya Zhyzn” (Village life) in Odessa and covered the news for Ukraine and Moldavia. He was a recognized journalist in Odessa mass media spheres. He moved to Israel in the late 1970s. There he wrote a book “About the evident, incredible things and something else”. He described his life, the surrounding and his meeting famous people. The book was published in 1998.

After Shymon died my father lived with his grandfather in Bershad. I don’t remember my great grandfather’s name. My father told me that he had strict looks, although he was a kind man and he loved and cared for his orphaned grandchildren. My father studied in cheder. After cheder my father finished a commercial trade school in Balta. In 1918 the civil war began. Around 1920 almost at the end of the civil war he joined the red army. My father was in division 44 of Schors 2. He had a diploma issued by the commercial school and he served in the commercial department in the army. He even told us that Schors gave him a horse to ride on his trips. We had a picture of my father sitting on this horse.

After he was dismissed from the army my father returned to Bershad. There he met my mother. I don’t know how they met each other, but they got married soon. Both grandmothers were religious and my mother also wanted to have a traditional Jewish wedding with a huppah, However, my father was a red commander and an atheist and he insisted on the plain civil ceremony. After the wedding my father worked in an oil office in Bershad. This was the period of the NEP 3. My mother was a housewife. I was born on 15 January 1926. In 1929 the oil office was closed and our family moved to Kharkov. I was 4 years old. In Kharkov my father went to study. We were renting a room. My father worked at the Kharkov metallurgical plant as an accountant and my mother was raising me. After my grandmother Rachil died we moved to my mother’s brother Iosif where my grandmother had lived. Iosif was not married and couldn’t cope with the housework. He lived in a communal apartment with neighbors in Rymarskaya street. In 1933 (this is the year when my grandmother Rachil died) I went to school. I don’t know whether there was a Jewish school in Kiev then, but the nearest in our neighborhood was a Ukrainian school where I went.  I studied in it for two years.

Later Uncle Iosif received two rooms in a communal apartment, as he was in the construction business and was to be provided with a place to live. We all moved there, to Darvin Street. These were two big rooms (25 to 30m2). However, we installed partials in them to make a separate study for my uncle. He was a leading engineer. He received an award for the design of some pier in the Baltic republics. He had numerous professional books in Russian and English and he worked in the big room at nights. I got a separate room as well. They arranged it in the kitchen. And they rebuilt the bathroom into the kitchen for my mother to cook.

Growing up

I remember the interior of this apartment. There were wardrobes, and the ancient floor mirror that belonged to my grandmother and also her old clothes-box. We were sleeping on some kind of sofas that consisted of a wooden frame, manufactured as ordered by a client and on top there were mattresses with springs. My mother and father tried to bring good books into the house. We had a whole bookcase full of good books. We had classical and modern Soviet literature books. I loved books. Not litter was beside us then making the Jewish writers, expect that were.

There was a Russian school named after Lenin near our house and I went to study there. There were many Jewish children at this school. There were Jewish teachers, too, there was even one . He got arrested before the war. He was our teacher of physics. And all of a sudden he disappeared. Our class tutor was Vera Zvantseva (Russian) and then Sophia – a Jew. I don’t remember her last name. She was our Biology teacher. I met her later when I was in the army. I’ve also met her at the bazaar in Alma-Ata. She was in the evacuation in Alma-Ata and she stayed to work there. There were many Jews, Russian and Ukrainian children in our school. There was no nationality issue and we all were friends. We played volleyball, football and attended various clubs at the Palace of Pioneers. But there was something else that was disturbing – starvation 4. There were beggars in the streets that came from the neighboring villages; they came into the houses begging for some food. This famine was not so acutely felt in towns but it still touched upon our family.

My friends were my classmates: Misha Drein, Lucia Polskiy and Nina Kreiter. They were all Jews. I guess, it was a mere coincidence that they were all Jews. By the way, Lucia Polskiy became a famous pianist.

Horrific 1936 began bringing repression and arrests 5 that lasted up to the end of 1939. I felt and saw and knew it all. I saw it as it was. We lived in Darvin street. Nika Chervinskiy (we were sitting at the same desk at school with him) lived in the nearby house. Once Nika didn’t come to school. The following day before going to school I decided to call on Nika. When I came I saw that their house was a mess and their neighbor told me that Nika’s parents were arrested and that Nika was taken away.  David Vinarskiy, the husband of my cousin Susanna, was arrested too. Susanna was living with us, as her apartment was taken away by the authorities for the reason of their family being the enemy of the people. Susanna’s grandmother took Susanna’s daughter to Novosibirsk. Susanna lived with us and worked in a health center somewhere near Kharkov. It was far away from home but that was the only job she could get as a wife of an enemy of the people.  She took a tram and went down all the way and there a horse-driven cart was waiting to take her to this health center. 

My father and mother also were scared during these terrible years. I remember that our apartment was on the 1st floor in Darvin street. The windows had shutters on them. Only later I understood why we had those shutters. We got them all of a sudden, although we lived in the center of the city. My father ordered shutters at the factory where he worked. That was because people were peeping into the windows, eavesdropping and were becoming very much afraid of each other. I got up in the morning and heard that some of our neighbor was already missing. The “Black Marias” (black vehicles) were arriving at night to take somebody away.

Darvin street was the House of Officers. The authorities began arresting commanding officers. Kharkov was the capital of Ukraine and there were many military institutions in it. There were many high rank officers. The ranks were different then: kombrig (Russian: brigade commander), komcor (Russian: corps commander). I saw them. My father showed me komcor Dubovoi – he knew him. After Schors died Dubovoy took his division under commandment. Dubovoy lived near our school and we, boys always watched him, a Red army officer, getting into his car to go to work. He was also arrested and shot after.

I went to the food market with my mother as her assistant. I remember this Blagoveschenskiy market in Kharkov. It seemed to me a huge, almost endless row of sellers. They were shouting for their products. The sellers were farmers selling their own products: vegetables, fruit, greenery, milk, cottage cheese and cream. My mother usually bought some vegetables, meat and milk. She couldn’t afford to buy more, considering her salary. I usually begged her into buying some sweets, although I don’t think there was anything but loll-pops. I also remember the stores that were called Torgsin. My grandmother left my mother few golden rubles when she died. My mother bought me boots made in Leningrad in this Torgsin 6 store and she paid these few rubles for them. I was very proud of my shoes. These were my school years and my mother was constantly telling me off for wearing off my shoes like all other boys, because we all played football. But she still took me to the Torgsin because this was the place where one could buy good shoes. My grandmother Rachil also left me a china table set with the coat of arms of the tsar manufactured at the famous Russian china factory named after Kuznetsov. It was only used on holidays: revolutionary, Jewish holidays or birthdays. We didn’t have a big family and we celebrated my mother’s, my father’s, my mother’s sisters’ and brothers’ birthdays and of course, my birthday.

At school we celebrated the revolutionary holidays, went to parades and sang patriotic songs. I went to the theater or Cinema. My father used to bring tickets to the theater and as a rule I went to performances every Sunday. I don’t remember Jewish theaters. I also remember that my father and I liked to sing Jewish songs and my mother joined in with our singing. She was still young at that time. However, my father didn’t remember a song from beginning to end, he only knew some phrases. We sometimes sang Ukrainian songs that were often on the radio.

I spent my summer and sometimes my winter vacations in Kiev. Aunt Sarah and Uncle Daniil invited me. I saw a refrigerator for the first time in my life at their home. My uncle brought it from America. He also brought a motor cycle from the US, this was also new to us. When I grew up he gave this motor cycle as a gift and I remember how fascinated I was.  My aunt and my uncle spoke Russian. Although Aunt Sarah grew up in a religious family, like my mother, she absolutely gave up following the Jewish religion or traditions. They had friends among cinematographers from Kiev film studio. They often got together at my aunt and uncle’s place with their families. I enjoyed listening to their sties about the film making process.

At school I was fond of chess. Also the 1st Palace of Pioneers in Ukraine was built in Kharkov. It was a big structure.  We were told that it was a gift given to the children by the Soviet power. There were no extracurricular activities at school and we attended all kinds of clubs at the Palace of Pioneers.  I also attended a course of streetcar drivers. I was fond of physics. My teacher of physics told me to take a course of streetcar drivers. She said it would help me to gain a better understanding of streetcar operation principles, why it needs an arch and rails, etc. It was all very interesting to me. I attended this course with my friends Misha Drein and Lyucia Polskiy at first. But later Lyucia took to music classes and Misha went in for boxing. I also liked skating. My friends and I went to the skating rink at the Dynamo stadium. 

During the War

I remember well Hitler coming to power and invasion of Poland. My father was a reserve officer and was recruited to the army in 1939 for half a year service term. He worked as an accountant, business manager and lieutenant-technician at a military institution in Kharkov. He was wearing a military uniform. He lived at home, but due to his mobilization to the army he spent a lot of time in service. I hardly ever saw him. He returned home very late. We were actually preparing for the war. Nobody knew how it would start but everybody knew that it was inevitable.

When working at the plant he was leaving home at eight in the morning to return at 10 in the evening. I was already asleep at this time, as far as I had to get up early in the morning to go to school. It was basically my mother that I spent most of my time with.

I knew who Hitler and Mussolini were. We had political information classes at school. I was one of the leading speakers at these classes. I also knew what a ghetto was. They showed anti-fascist films at school. One of them was “Professor Mumlock”7. We used to exchange opinions on such subjects in our family. We had a radio receiver CI-25 or CI-225, I can’t remember exactly. We listened to the programs and reacted to the subjects very acutely.

I remember 22 June 19418, beginning of the war. I finished the 9th form. My uncle’s son Semyon (on my grandfather’s side) came to see me. We studied at the same school, only he was one year younger. When the war was declared he ran to me and we went around the city. We even saw a German plane and our antiaircraft guns shooting. Our whole family got together on this day. We felt patriotic about our country. My father and my cousin Susanna went to the recruitment office just by themselves. Susanna was a surgeon. They received uniforms on 15 June and left somewhere. The military units were formed in Kharkov. My father was sent to a mobile artillery shop at the Lozovaya station near Kharkov. My mother and I visited him several times. I even remember the soldiers’ borsch that we had there.

Later evacuation began. My father obtained permission to evacuate his family from the commandant of Kharkov on 9 August 1941. We were taken to the freight yard, and they showed our railcar to us. Each was allowed to have two suitcases at the most. We stayed several days at this station. We got into a bombing on some day in August. This freight yard was bombed. My mother and her sister Sarah, uncle Bencion’s wife, Fania and her son Semyon and I went to Chkalov region. This was an officer’s train to take the officers’ families away.  My uncle Iosif and my mother’s uncle Benchik got evacuated at the last moment. We were constantly changing trains heading for Donbass. We all met at Mayachnoye in the vicinity of Chkalov.

At Mayachnoye our family (including my aunt) and few other families got accommodated at the water pump station. However, later we were told that this pump station was a military facility, although it was located far from the town, and that it would be better for us to move out.  We had to move to the village from where my mother called her friends and that were evacuated to Omsk and we moved there. 

My father was on the front all this time. From Kharkov he moved to Balaklea. A famous artillery plant “Garroz’ was located there. It manufactured and assembled mobile artillery shops for maintenance and repair of artillery systems. In September they relocated to Kiev. He became a Party member in the army. He was a technical commissary in the rank of lieutenant. He was promoted to captain. Mobile artillery shop #5 (where my father was in service) moved to the front to support maintenance of various artillery systems. It was following the front repairing artillery to be reused at the front. My father was Chief of the financial sector. They were retreating from Kiev to Voronezh. The army stopped at the Voronezh front was holding the defense line for some time there. In 1943 passed to the offensive.

My mother and I were on our way to Omsk. My mother received a certificate as an officer’s wife and received regular allowances from the military office. There were trains to Omsk, but one needed either a ticket or one had to pay to get on the train. We got to the village of Tekulbas in Kazakhstan and then arrived in Omsk. My mother wanted to get to Omsk because the Laitmans, our closest friends, were in the evacuation there. We stayed with them for a few days and then rented a room. I missed one academic year at school. I resumed my studies in the following year. I finished my 10th year of school in the evacuation. My mother was a housewife and we lived on the allowances that we received from the military office for my father’s service in the army. There were some Jews in Omsk, but there were more Polish people that were running away from Hitler. We received rationed food packages at the military office (again, for our father’s service). Besides, people received bread by cards and could buy milk or cream at the market. There was very little meat. We also ate semolina and potatoes, always potatoes. There were not enough clothes. I was wearing what we had taken with us from home. And I was growing out of all these clothes. The only thing my mother bought me there was a pair of winter boots, because it was extremely cold in Omsk.

In spring 1943 my mother’s brother Iosif moved from Berezniaki, Sverdlovsk region, to Alma-Ata and wrote us to join him there.  He lived there with his wife and daughter. My mother and her sister Sarah rented a room in Alma-Ata and I stayed in Omsk to finish the academic year at school.

In 1943 I left for Alma-Ata after finishing school. I passed one entrance exam in physics and was admitted to the Alma-Ata metallurgical institute. I lived in the hostel, located at the outskirts of the town. There were six of us in one room. I was the only Jew. We were constantly hungry and were stealing apples. There were beautiful orchards in Alma-Ata. We also made some kind of soup with a little bit of flour and salt. We worked at the bread delivery service. Each of us received a cart with 100 loaves of bread, 1 kilogram each. When bread was hot it weighed more and we had 1 loaf of bread for ourselves from each delivery of 100 loaves. They weighed this bread at the delivery point and when it was hot it weighed 101 kg. We were given money for this 1 kg loaf and went to the market to buy some sour milk and flour for our soup. Sometimes I visited my aunt Sarah (she was working at the kindergarten) and she gave me a glass of cocoa. My father was sending his certificate to my mother for additional provisions from the military office. And every now and then my mother sold either my father’s shirt or her dress at the flea market. The Kazakh people paid more for bed linen. So, we were selling gradually things that we had with us to keep living.

I didn’t feel any national segregation at the institute. The Bekkers (two sisters – Jews) were my friends. I paid visits to them. My Uncle Iosif was called to Kiev in January 1944 to work on restoration of the city. He left with his wife and then called my mother and her sister to Kiev. My mother left in March and I stayed to finish my studies.          

My mother sent me an invitation form from Kiev (it was necessary to have an official invitation request to return to Kiev). I was going to continue my studies in Kiev. This resulted in my mobilization to the army. I was off the military records while I was a student. But when I came to the Dean’s office to get my ticket there was a military registration officer there and he asked me to come to his office. He gave instructions to his secretary to get my documentation package together to enlist me to the army. I argued with him telling him that I was not subject to recruitment to the army as a student. But his argumentation to me was that as far as I was no longer the student of their institute I should go to the army. This happened in September 1944. In two days I was mobilized to the army and sent to Samarkand artillery school. I studied one year and then the school was converted into a tank school. My profession was commanding officer of a tank platoon. Commander of our battalion was lieutenant-colonel Raperman, a Jew. There were other cadets that were Jews: Isaak Pismenniy, Grishka Seriy, and Iosif Tallis.

After the War

My father was in Poland at the time heading towards Germany. My farther served in the army of Marshal Konev. Then my father called my mother to Sandomir bridgehead and she followed him as far as Vienna. This was at the end of the war: October 1944 through May 1945. My mother worked as an orderly in the officer’s dining room. And my father was Head of financial department of these mobile artillery shops. He remained a professional military until 1947 when he retired. However, he remained in the status of civilian in the Central Group of the Armies. In Austria he worked in Blumau and Baden-Baden, in the vicinity of Vienna. They lived there and were going to return to Kiev. 

My father knew that the attitude towards the Jews had changed. But he was a member of the Communist Party and there was no anti-Semitism shown openly at their meetings, etc. He used to tell me then that nothing changed. But things did change. If we take my father as an example – he had orders and medals at the front, besides, he was a participant of the civil war but he left the army in the rank of captain. He was never promoted further on. My father had the Red Star Order, the Order of the Patriotic War and medals “For Combat Merits”, “For Vienna”, etc. (he was awarded orders for the towns that he had liberated.

My parents returned to Kiev in 1951. My Aunt was living in a two-room apartment in Vladimirskaya Street. My father received this apartment during the advancement of our army. But later the owner of this apartment returned and occupied a bigger room. He left the smaller one to my mother. As my mother had left to join my father she left this room for my Aunt. After my parents returned they lived in this apartment until 1963. But my Aunt didn’t have a place to live. At that time my Uncle Iosif got a plot of land and began construction of the house, but then he died. My Aunt went to live there and all relatives were helping her to finish the construction.

My mother went to work, and she also participated in the restoration of Kreschatik9. My Aunt also took part in these activities. We had a picture of them sitting in special coats and gloves to clean out the ruins and put away the debris.

My tank school moved to the town of Cherchik (the suburb of Tashkent in 1946). The school was reformed and we were to go through medical check up. And all of a sudden, that medical commission did not approve me as fit for military service due to my poor sight. They expelled me from the school in the rank of 1st sergeant. But my sight is still all right. This was the first case of anti-Semitism that I faced. I didn’t understand this at that time, of course. They didn’t let me quit the school, because the term of service was 7 years at that time. This was in1947. I was authorized to be kaptenarmus?? at the battalion of cadets.  There were 200 cadets in the battalion, and I was to take care of their uniforms, take cadets to the sauna and keep records of all property in the battalion. I was an intelligent guy and the battalion commander made me a document control assistant. I was responsible for all files, reports and other documentation. I only felt sorry that all my former co-students finished the school and became lieutenants and I was still a 1st sergeant.

I met my future wife in Cherchik when I was still a student. In 1947 there was a big parade on Victory Day in Tashkent. They invited cadets and young people from Cherchik to take part in this parade. My distant relative Fiera (she was of the same age with me) lived in Tashkent. She had her birthday on 9 May. She invited me to her birthday party where I met her friend Zhenia Zats. I gave her the address of my school and we wrote letters for some time. Then at some time she came to visit me. That was how we got to know each other. Zhenia finished pharmaceutics school at the Tashkent Medical Institute. We got married in 1949. She was born in 1927 and both of us had birthdays in January. Zhenia was Jewish, Sheso they  was born in the village of Miastkivka, Kryzhopolskiy district, Vinnitsa region, Ukraine. In the early 1930s her parents left for Tashkent running away from the famine. They rented a clay hut in the Old Town. Zhenia’s 3 brothers and 2 sisters were born there. Now they live all around the world: in Israel, the US and Germany. Zhenia’s father was a driver. But his salary in Tashkent was not enough to make ends meet and he got a job in commerce. Her mother was a housewife. Zhenia’s parents sometimes communicated in Yiddish. But their children didn’t know Yiddish. They spoke Russian and Uzbek. But they all celebrated Purim, Roshso they  Hashanah and Pesah. They ate matsa, but they didn’t go to the synagogue. We didn’t have a wedding party. It was a civil registration ceremony and Zhenia’s mother cooked a family dinner.

I attended a course of officers and received the lieutenant’s rank in April 1951. I was also the Battalion Komsomol unit leader and had the privilege to choose the location of my assignment. I selected Kiev regiment. But I was told that there were no vacancies in Kiev. However, later I found out that they sent few people to Kiev. I got an assignment in the town of Bendery, Odessa regiment. How I became the Battalion Komsomol unit leader was as follows. Rybkin, a 1st sergeant arrived at our school from the front. And he was outraged that a platoon was under the command of a Jew. I was blamed of abuse, of ill performance of my duties, etc. None of it was true, but I was dismissed from my position. But I was immediately elected the Komsomol unit leader. Of course, never again did I speak to that man Rybkin. This was the 1st time when I understood that I was discriminated because I was a Jew, and that they could blame of the things that were not true. In1952 I went to take a course of political officers in Lvov.

On 1 October 1951 Our son was born. We called him Emmanuil in honor of my father’s brother.

I kept in touch with my parents. We often talked on the phone, wrote them letters and spent few days with them during our vacation.

I remember the “Kremlin doctors’ case”10. None of our loved ones suffered then, because all doctors in our family were on the front. There were mainly Jewish names in newspapers and on the radio. The authorities were saying that these doctors formed a group that intended to finish with Stalin. (It was a very serious accusation, considering that Stalin was called “the father of all people, the Great leader, etc.” and millions believed that he was leading the country to its happy future). This was hard to believe. Everybody knew this was nonsense but people pretended that they believed it. I remember Stalin’s death in March 1953. I was studying in Lvov. We were given black armbands and went to the park. There was a stand for speakers there and loud speakers on the posts. We listened to Molotov’s speech 11 and then Lvov Party and military leaders made speeches. Then we returned to our school. There were no classes on this day. Many people felt the death of Stalin as their own tragedy. We didn’t know all truth about what was going on in the country. Later I got to know that they were planning to move Jews from Ukraine and Russia to Birobijan 12 and only Stalin’s death terminated this process.

I finished my course successfully and wanted to get a job assignment in Kiev. The commission didn’t issue me an assignment to Kiev. I was assigned to return to Odessa region, only to a different town - the town of Bolgrad.

Some time later I was transferred to Balta. My wife didn’t work. She was raising our son. Of course, we didn’t observe any Jewish traditions then. It was out of the question for a Soviet officer and in particular, political officer. Besides, many years of military service made an atheist of me. In Balta we rented an apartment. In 1956 the Hungarian campaign 13 began and we were transferred to Bolgrad. We rented an apartment from a Bulgarian woman. Our task was to force the Hungarians to build a happy communist life. We were using military methods. The Hungarians subsided, but they were very much afraid of us and hated us ferociously. The military learn to follow orders. Besides, few generations of people in the Soviet Union learnt to keep in themselves what they were thinking. Many believed in the idea of communism and that all decisions of the Communist Party were right and just. Besides, spreading the idea of communism all over the world was declared to be the course of the Party from the very beginning. This was the time of dictatorship of the Communist Party.

Upon completion of the Hungarian campaign in the late 1960s I insisted on promoting me to the next rank. The higher officials told me that they could promote me to the rank of captain but that would mean that I would end in Vesyoliy Kut, a distant village in Ukraine. People called it Paris, as the nearest railroad station was Parizhskaya. It got its name in the 19th century when Empress Yekaterina was granting the military with lands in the vicinity of Odessa after the victory over the Napoleon’s army. There were stations called Leipzig, Magdeburg and Paris in this area. I stayed 7 years in “Paris” (except for one year when I attended the course of the highest military officials in Moscow). From Moscow I returned to “Paris”. I served as a tank man for 20 years and then I was given an assignment as a political officer. Then my promotion went easier. In 1951 I was promoted to a lieutenant and in 1964 I became a major, and was a major until 1971. In January 1967 I was assigned to serve in Birobijan. They needed skilled, experienced and reliable officers. By the way, there were many Jewish officers in the Far East. The attitude towards Jews was different. I liked Birobijan. From there I was assigned to go back to Odessa region.  I arrived at Birobidjan in the late 1960s. It was a big and bright town. No ruins, no damages caused by the war, like I saw in Ukraine. There was no unemployment due to a number of big plants. Everybody that moved there got a job and an apartment almost immediately. It was the capital of the Jewish autonomous region. People of different nationalities lived there. There were not so many Jews and there was no prominent anti-Semitism. However, there were anti-Semitic demonstrations in everyday life like anywhere else. Not many of thwe Jews moved there for several reasons: severe climate (minus 30 in winter), winters last almost 9 months, summers are short and hot (up to plus 45). Secondly, manual workers were in big demand (builders, carpenters, etc.), and the Jews had non-manual professions (lawyers, engineers) so they could hardly find a job.   Besides, it’s always hard to leave a home place that one is used to. There are very few Jewish families left in Birobidjan. Many moved to Israel, USA, etc. This means their life was not so easy in Birobidjan.

So, I got promotions at work to the Corps Headquarters and became a propagandist, but I still had the same rank, although my direct management solicited for my promotions. At that time a good assignment was service in Germany, in the Western Group of Armies. But Jews could not get an assignment in Germany. Anti-Semitism was on the state level. They thought that Jews were to keep quiet where they were. Not all military commanders were anti-Semitic. Many of them valued Jews and understood them but at the same time promotions were delayed more often than not. If they missed the term of next promotion their explanation was something like “You are still young. We’ll wait until next year” and then “Get out. You’re too old now”. I understood that the real reason was my nationality and submitted my retirement letter when I reached 45.

At 46 (military retire after they serve a certain number of years) I arrived in Kiev. I was a young pensioner. It was difficult to find a job. Wherever I came they told me to come again the following day and when I did their answer was they had no more vacancies. How many humiliations I went through. It was practically impossible for a Jew to find a job. Even an experienced professional that I was could hardly hope to find a decent position. I’ve always suffered due to my nationality. When the others took no effort to get things, I always had to prove that being a Jew didn’t make me worse than the others. Where anybody else took things for granted and got what one wanted I had to beg and bow. In 1972 they introduced a military science class in schools all over the country. I was offered a job of a military teacher and I accepted it. I worked at a secondary school from 1974 till 1997. I taught military science and History of the USSR to senior students. I still keep in touch with many of my students. Many of my Jewish students left for Israel or the United States when they grew up. I knew why they were leaving, I because I knew what anti-Semitism was like. And I always wished peace and happiness to every person that was leaving. My school colleagues remember me and offer me to work a little. But it’s hard to work at my age.

In Kiev I often visited my parents. My father worked after returning from Austria. He was Senior Auditor at the Consumers’ Union. My mother was at home. She had asthma. In 1970 my parents received a room in the communal apartment at the 5-storied apartment building. The authorities installed a telephone in their apartment, as my father was a veteran of the war. This was the only telephone in their building. Neighbors also used their phone to make phone calls. My father retired at 65, but he continued working 2 months in a year. My mother tried to observe Jewish traditions until the last days of her life. She prayed quietly and lit candles at Sabbath and fasted at yom-Kippur.  I always supported my parents. Before we came to Kiev Zhenia had been sending my parents 30 rubles monthly. My mother died in 1980 and my father lived 3 years longer and died in 1983.

My son finished school in 1969 and tried to enter Kiev Polytechnic Institute. He got a 4 at the exam in physics and was not admitted. I helped him to get a job of lab assistant at the plant. Next year he tried again and failed.  My wife and I understood that the real reason was his nationality. My son suffered from this failure. My wife took him to Komsomolsk-on-the Amur at the far East. He passed successfully entrance exams to Polytechnic Institute there and finished 3 years of studies in this town when he was sent to the Moscow aviation-technological institute to complete his studies and invited him to come back and lecture at the institute afterwards. He finished the Moscow Institute and was offered to stay as post-graduate student. He came to spend his vacations with us and stayed two weeks. Then he left and we received a call two days later. Emmanuil said that his place was no longer vacant. He was very upset and decided to go back to Komsomolsk-on-the Amur. His former teachers told him they understood what it was all about and promised to help him. The neighboring area was the Jewish autonomous republic and there were many Jewish students and teachers. He went to work there and in a year’s time he was offered a job at Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. He took a post-graduate course in Leningrad and later he returned to Komsomolsk-on-the Amur. He got a job as senior lecturer at the Polytechnic Institute. He worked as Dean and then Chief of Department. In 1991 my son decided to leave the Institute. He didn’t see any perspective in this small institute. He moved to Khabarovsk and took a course in management. After finishing this course he founded the Priminvest Company and became its General Director. The management of Amursteel plant (metallurgical plant) addressed him with the request to restore their plant back to the operational level. He managed to make this plant profitable within two years. He established contacts with English, Czeck and even Australian companies. 

When he was a student in Moscow Emmanuil met his future wife. Her name is Lubov Malenboim. She is a Jew. She was born in Slavuta, not far from Kiev. After school Luba entered the Moscow aviation technological institute. They got acquainted there and got married. She is a Scientific Secretary of the Institute in Khabarovsk.

Their children were growing up. Zhenia Baru, the oldest, was born in 1978. His parents gave him my wife’s first name. He went to study in Israel (after he finished 9 years of secondary school). My grandson finished school in Israel and came back to Khabarovsk. He got educated at the Khabarovsk Institute of Economy and Law and took a post-graduate course. Ilyusha and Igor, the younger twins, were born on 20 April 1984. They also entered this same Institute of Economy and Law, only they study at different departments. The twins are like two peas in a pod and they decided to choose different departments at the institute to avoid any confusion. Zhenia, the older one, was President of Khabarovsk Jewish Student Organization. The twins also attended all events there when they were still at school.  They even took an active part in these activities. Our daughter-in-law told me on the phone that they danced and sang and were awarded prizes. They do not know Yiddish or Hebrew. However, they have a deep knowledge of the traditions of their people. They like to study the Jewish history. They read a lot about it in Russian. They sometimes bring me books to read. They know traditional food, traditions and holidays. My grandchildren look forward when restoration of the synagogue in Khabarovsk shall be completed. There are not many Jews in Khabarovsk and there is no state anti-Semitism, although there are some expressions it in everyday life. There is a Jewish community and Hesed in Khabarovsk.

My wife and I celebrated the golden anniversary of our wedding in June 1999. Our son died earlier, on 26 February 1999 after heart surgery. He stayed 3 days in the reanimation ward but the doctors couldn’t bring him back to life. He was buried in Khabarovsk. The funeral was in accordance with Jewish traditions. The ritual was performed in an ordinary apartment, something like a meeting house for praying.  The children loved him so much and his death was hard to accept.

I am very concerned about what is happening in Israel, because I understand the history of this country and I know the price of freedom of the Jewish people and how much effort they put into building up their life there. I have many acquaintances in Israel, many of those that moved to Israel. I can understand the position of their Prime Minister, although some people may disagree with it. But it is the right of the people to defend their land and their families. I believe that this is Israel’s land historically. As for Jerusalem, it is the result of the effort of the people of Israel. I haven’t been in Israel, although I would love to visit this country.

Now I know all Jewish holidays and study the history and traditions. Hesed, the Jewish community, supports us. My wife and I often read newspapers and magazines. I am happy to live at the time when my grandson can say with pride “We are Jews!”

Glossary

SUZI SARHON
Istanbul
Turkey
Interviewer: Yusuf Sarhon
Date of interview: January 2005
 

Suzi Sarhon is a very kind-hearted 78-year-old housewife who is always ready with a smile.  She has devoted her whole life to looking after her family, children and grandchildren, always supporting them in their hour of need both physically and psychologically.  She is a very active woman but her activities have been cutailed in the last few years because of her heart problems.  Suzi Sarhon can get along with practically anyone, as she is sincere, affectionate and understanding.  That is why she is liked by everyone she meets.  She lives in a flat at an apartment building in Gayrettepe with her husband.  She spends certain days of the week meeting her friends to play cards and chat.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

My family background

My father’s father, Avram Danon, was from a very good family.  They were 3 siblings but I do not know anything about them.  I do not know what my grandfather did for a living.  He was a well-educated and talkative person.  He was quite tall apparently.  He had died a long time before I was born so I do not have much information about that side of the family except that they were very religious.  As I never met my father’s father, I do not really know how he used to dress. I was told that they were quite well-off and that they used to speak French and Ladino.

My father’s mother, Sultana Danon had 4 siblings but I do not know their names.  This grandmother died of cholera.  I do not know when and where, but apparently there was a kind of epidemic and she died.  My grandfather then remarried (I do not remember the name of his second wife) and had another son called Beno Danon.

My father’s side of the family was from Istanbul.  I do not know exactly where they lived, but it might have been in Ortakoy because my father was from Ortakoy [a district where Jews used to live on the European side of the Bosphorus].

My mother’s side of the family had all come to Istanbul from Salonica.  The whole family on that side was from Salonica.  I know that they arrived in 1910, but I do not know why they moved here.  I do not have much information about them except that they were very religious, just like my father’s side of the family.

My mother’s father, Hayim Benmayor, (I do not know his birth or death dates) was a very nice man.  He was from the best of families.  When I say “the best of families” I mean “rich and educated”.  They were quite a big family.  He had two other siblings about whom I know nothing.  Hayim Benmayor studied in Salonica because he was born there.  He was a well-educated man and quite talkative.  He was tall and dressed very fashionably in clothes that were the highest fashion of the time.  I do not know what he did for a living.  My mother’s side of the family spoke French and Greek because they had all been born and raised in Salonica.  They all spoke Greek perfectly.

I never got to know my mother’s mother, Sara Benmayor (nee Faraci).  She was a sick woman.  She had a very high degree of diabetes and went blind consequently.  She had 3 more siblings but I do not know anything about them.  My grandmother used to wear long-sleeved dresses of her time.  She used to wear jewelry and had a “kolana” [Ladino term for “long gold chain”] which laterbecame my mother’s.  She would wear her jewelry when she went out to go somewhere; not that they would go on outings very often.  They had a lot of family, cousins, sisters, brothers, and they would gather in one another’s homes.  One other thing I remember about grandmother Benmayor is her going into a depression after her son Jak Benmayor went to the USA to settle there.  She died when she was 52-53 years old. 

When my mother’s father, Hayim Benmayor came from Salonica they settled in Bakirkoy [an old Jewish district on the European side of Istanbul].  My mother and her brothers, Avram, Mishel, Jak and Daniel all grew up there.  When my grandfather came from Salonica, he bought 4 houses there. 

The houses had wells in their gardens.  There was no tap water then and they used to get their water with a pump from the wells.  According to what my mother told me, they had two maids in their home, so I guess they were quite well-off.

My mother’s side of the family was quite religious. They practised all the Jewish traditions.  They bought kosher meat for example.  Then when Pesah [Pesach] came, they would change all the kitchenware.  They did all this for a very long time.  They used to go to the synagogue every Friday.  The Jewish religious holidays were celebrated at home.  When they lived in Bakirkoy, my grandfather was the president of the synagogue there.

My mother’s family had very good relations with their neighbours.  The neighbours were Jewish, too.  There were a lot of Jews in Bakirkoy.  They used to call this district “Makrikoy”.  The Greeks who lived there used to say that “Makrikoy” meant “little village”.  The name later changed into “Bakirkoy”.

My mother and her brothers grew up in Bakirkoy, then the years went by.  My eldest uncle, Alber Benmayor went to Germany on business and he lived there for years.  Then some years after my grandmother had died, my grandfather went to live with his son in Germany.  My uncle bought a beautiful house in Germany, a house with 6 floors.  He was in the razor blade business. He had a factory.  My uncle, Alber Benmayor, (I don’t know his birth date) died in Istanbul in 1951.  He was married to Lidya Benmayor and had a son, Mario Benmayor.  Mario was born in Germany in 1929 and came to Turkey when he was 8 years old.  Here he studied at a British school [probably English High School for Boys]. 1  We did not use to frequent them.  His father had a textile business in Mahmutpasha [a business district in the Euopean side of Istanbul].  When my uncle died, Mario took over the business but he was not successful and quit.  Then I remember he went into the automobile spare parts industry.  He married a Christian German girl here, and had 2 sons but I don’t have any more information as we did not use to see them.  I think Mario died recently.

During the holidays, they gathered within the family and would visit each other in their homes.  There were a lot of cousins, big families on both sides.

My father Jozef Danon, I don’t know his date of birth, was born in Istanbul.  My Dad was a very good man, and he did a lot of good deeds for people.  His sister, Viktorya Danon (I don’t know her birth and death dates) married Rober Schilton and went to live in Bursa.  A few years later, they returned to Istanbul.  I do not have much information about her.  I just know that she was older than my father and that my father sent them sacks full of food because their economic situation was not very good.   My father looked after both our family and hers.  He was always doing good to people in need.  He exhausted himself trying to help people.  He was also a member of one of the charity organizations of the Jewish community, called “Sedaka u marpe” [charity and healing].  He used to take a lot of things there, like hats.  I distinctly remember him taking them hats, I don’t know why or what they were doing with those hats but hats it was.  He worked very hard for this organization of the community and tried very hard to help. 

My father was a very talkative person.  He was skillful and hardworking.  I remember, when we went to my uncle’s (my mother’s brother) for the New Year celebrations, it was my father who prepared the table and organized the food etc...

On Sundays my father would set the table beautifully and he would make us all coffee with milk and call us to the table.  He would do all that so my mother would not get tired; not because she was ill or anything, just because he loved her so.  He would prepare everything and then he would say: “Come on Tutuni, the table is ready”.  My father called my mother “Tutuni” instead of “Fortune”.

My father had a hardware shop.  He was the only one then; there were no other hardware shops around.  He used to do a lot of business with Anatolia and his business was very good.  We were very well-off.  I grew up with a nanny and we had a maid, too.  Unfortunately my dad died in January 1936.  I was 9 at the time.  He had a heart disease.  In fact, when he and my mother got married, he already had heart problems.  He was not very young when he got married.  I used to see him feel uncomfortable and open the window to get some fresh air.  He would breathe deeply to relieve his distress.  “What’s the matter, Jozef?”, my mother would ask him at those times and he would reply, “Oh, nothing, it’s nothing”.  He wouldn’t tell her anything.  He just exhausted himself running around for other people.  One day he had a heart attack.  The doctor warned him: “Mr. Danon, you will not bend down to even tie your shoes, let your children tie your shoes.  Don’t tire yourself and don’t go out”.  But in the meantime my father’s business was not going well because he used to gamble with his friends and neighbors every night till morning.  He ruined his business in that way.  He and my mother would have fights about this gambling of his.  He would even go to neighbors in our apartment and not come back for hours on end.  In that way, the shop and the business was ruined.  When he died, he had a lot of money owed to him because he had sold a lot of goods to a lot of people but we did not know anything about the business and how were we to find those people?  So we couldn’t collect any of those debts.  No one came forward and said anything.  He had a lot of clients in Anatolia and they all disappeared.  If we, the children, had been older, then we could have followed and dealt with these problems but we were all so very young and we did not have anything.

My father had 5 siblings: 2 brothers, Izidor, Sami; and 2 sisters, Viktorya and Sara from my grandfather’s first wife and another brother, Beno, from my grandfather’s second wife.  Beno still lives.

Izidor left Turkey (I don’t know when or why) and went to settle in the USA.  He married someone there and had a child but we never had a lot of information on him.  After long years, he came here once to see us.  Apparently he had a hotel, a gambling hotel, in Las Vegas.  He had one son only.

When Viktorya Danon got married, she became a Schilton.  Her husband’s name was Rober Schilton.  Rober was of Italian nationality and he came from Bursa.  They got married in Bursa, then they came to Istanbul and lived in Tunel [a popular neighborhood in which the Jews lived].  When I was a little girl, I used to go to my aunt’s a lot.  I liked Rober Schilton very much.  He used to work at an insurance firm.  Their economic situation was not very good but he was a very good man.  They had 4 children: 2 girls, Sara and Suzi; and 2 boys, Alber and Sami.

My father’s other sister, Sara Danon married another of the Schiltons but I do not remember his name.  She married a brother of Rober Schilton’s.  They lived in Paris and had 3 children, with the same names: Alber, Sami, Suzi.

I do not remember anything about the other brother, Sami.

I do not know when the last brother, Beno was born.  He grew up and got married and had a son, Albert Danon.  He lives in Istanbul, in Sisli.  I do not have any other information about him.

We mostly visited my aunt Viktorya with my mum and dad.  I would see Beno there when he came for the holidays to visit my aunt.

My mother, Fortune Danon, (I don’t know when she was born), was born in Salonica.  She came to Istanbul when she was 13.  My mother was a quiet person, she did not speak too much.  She spoke Greek very well and French, too.  She had studied in Greek in Salonica.  Then here, she studied in French, I don’t know which schools, maybe there was a French school in Bakirkoy.  Her French was very excellent.  She was very intelligent. 

She was not a very authoritarian mother.  She raised us all with great economic difficulties after my father died.  After being really well-off with maids and nannies, it was douby difficult for her to raise 4 children.  She did it all on her own.  My uncles also helped of course, moneywise.  My grandfather (mother’s father) had 4 houses in Bakirkoy, 4 houses for each of his 4 children.  When my grandfather went to Germany to live with his son, he rented out those houses.  When my father died, my grandfather was no longer alive.  My mother had 2 brothers in Germany and they immediately wrote to her and said: “we do not want our share of the rents of the houses”.  The brother who was living here said the same thing and they made it possible for my mother and us to live on these rents.  She would go to Bakirkoy every month to collect the rents, and the tenants would sometimes give her the money and sometimes not.  My uncles in Germany would send her money from abroad, too until Hitler came.  When Hitler came, they came back here.  I do not remember exactly when they came back but it must have been a little before the war.

My mother had 4 brothers:  Alber, Mishel, Jak and Dani (Daniel), all of them born in Salonica.  Two of them, Mishel and Alber Benmayor lived in Germany until Hitler came. 

Alber Benmayor had gone to Germany when he was 16.  He studied there, then he started a business.  He opened a razor blade factory there. Then when he came back he lived very close to our house in Kurtulus.  Here he opened a jersey cloth factory.  He was quite well-off.  He had a son, Maryo Benmayor.  Maryo was 8 when they came to Turkey.  Here he studied at the English High School 1 and then at Robert College 2.  I do not know what he did after that.  My uncle Alber died here in Istanbul in 1950.

Mishel was also born in Salonica of course, like all the others.  I do not know when, but he also went to Germany when he was very young both to study and then to do business.  He was in business with his older brother Alber and then came back here when Hitler came.  After the war was over, he went to Paris.  There he married a woman whose surname was Behar and whose first husband had been killed by the Germans.  He went in to the textile business in Paris.  He died in Paris, but I do not know when.

My other uncle, Jak Benmayor got married here and then went to Los Angeles with his wife.  I do not remember when he went or who his wife was.  We were told he had 2 daughters.

My fourth uncle, Daniel lived in Istanbul and married an Italian girl called Emilia Kilkus.  They did not have any children.  He was in business with her father.  I think they had a hardware shop.  Later on, when the business did not go well, he took his share and left.  He bought two flats with that money and lived on the rent of those flats.  He did not work.  Daniel died in 1957.

Both my father and my mother studied in French.  In those times, most people studied in French.  My parents’ mother tongue was Ladino, they learned Turkish later on but they could never speak it like we did.  My father was alittle better but my mother spoke very little Turkish.  She spoke Greek, French and Ladino.  My parents spoke Ladino with each other.

My parents met through a matchmaker but I do not know the details.  They never told me anything about it.  Just that the matchmaker proposed my mother as a very eligible young woman of very good family.  Then they got married, I do not know when or where.  They probably got married at the synagogue, I don’t know.  After the wedding they lived at a house opposite Pera Palas [a very old and famous hotel in Tepebasi, very close to the Grand Rabbinate in the European side of Istanbul].  My father’s business was in Tahtakale [a business district in the European side of Istanbul].

My father always wore suits and his shoes had laces always.  They were some kind of boots with laces.  He also wore a hat called “republique”. [top hat] But before that, the men used to wear the fes 3 before Ataturk 4 and his reforms 5.  My mother had kept my father’s fes, with which he used to go out.

My mother used to read a lot.  That is why there used to be a lot of books in our home.  She used to read books in French, all sorts of books.  After my father died, she started reading books about diseases.  She got obsessed with illnesses, heart diseases, other diseases.  She would read these all day long and would not go out.

Growing up

I was born in the house opposite Pera Palas, but then they moved to a house in Tunel.  I was too young to remember when.  When you went into that house, there were 3 rooms downstairs, you went up a flight of stairs and there were 2 more rooms and then you went up again and it was the attic.  It was a beautiful house but quite tiring.  We had a big stove downstairs and another one upstairs.  We used to sit upstairs, near the stove and watch the people coming and going in and out of the underground, and others getting on and off the tramway, because Tunel was the last stop.  We used to entertain ourselves watching all these people.

We did not have a garden.  We could not have a pet because my mother did not like pets and would never permit such a thing.

I remember my father bringing home some fruit like dates.  I can’t remember its name now.  He brought those and then hung them.  My brothers and I would go and pick the fruit before it was done.  They weren’t dates but some yellow fruit.  They would hang them and then they would dry and we would eat them.  When they were done they got red.  We would eat them before they got red.  My father would hang them at a place that got a lot of sunshine.  I thought they were called “ziruelikas” [a Ladino word meaning “plums”] but they weren’t.

My mother used to do the shopping.  She would go to the open market to do her shopping.  There would be sellers who came to the door of course, but she preferred to go to the open market.  Sometimes she would take me and my brothers, too and we would carry everything back.

My parents were religious but not fanatical.  They did all the Jewish holidays and never did anything on Saturdays.  On Saturdays, we would either sit down and read books or go and visit my aunt.  They were careful with kasherut.  They did not go to the synagogue every Friday; just on the holidays or when somebody got married or for funerals. My mother also had the “loksa”.  She had these beautiful special kitchenware for Pesah [Pesach].  When Pesah was over, these would be put into a special chest used only to keep the “loksa”.  Then when my father died my mother did not have the will to go to all this trouble and she left all this.

Neither my mum nor my dad were members of any political party or any social or cultural organization.  Just my father worked as a volunteer at the charity.

My family had Jewish neighbors now and again.  There were a lot of Jews in Tunel.  When I was 5 or 6 we moved to Osmanbey [a district in the European side of Istanbul].  Thre were Jews there, too.  We had Jewish neighbors there, too.  My father used to go and play cards with them.  There were 2 Jewish families at that apartment.  One family was called Behar, the other I don’t remember.  They all used to play together, either at their homes or at ours, but more often than not they would go and play outside, where I don’t know.  My mother did not go because she did not know how to play cards.

My parents are buried in the Jewish cemetery in Ulus [a district in the European side of Istanbul].  They were buried with a religious ceremony.  And of course there was a rabbi and a hazan [chazzan] at the funeral.  The sons of the family sang the Kadish and I always do their “meldado” [yahrzeit] every year.

I had 3 brothers, 2 older than me and one younger.

My brother Alber was born in Istanbul in 1917.  He had meningitis when he was 5. One day he was visiting our grandmother (my mother’s mother).  He was jumping on the cushions and then he hit his head on something.  My grandmother put him to sleep and he slept till morning.  When he woke up, he couldn’t speak.  My Dad took him to the doctor, and the doctor said: “you will not tire this child; he will start to speak very slowly”.  After a couple of years, we had a cousin in Tunel, Viktorya Danon, my father asked her: “Please, let Albertiko come to you for a while, you have cats”.  So Alber went to stay with her for a while and indeed he started to speak there.  He did not go to school.  There were teachers who came to the house to teach him French.  He would beat the teachers, he was sick really.  He actually started to speak when he was 10.  What a pity, because when he was little he was one of the smartest kids ever.  Now, the doctors tell us not to put a child to sleep if he takes a fall or hits his head etc...  But my grandmother did not know that.  When my grandfather came home that night she even told him: “Please, Hayim, do not make any noise, Albertiko took a fall” and she had him sleep till morning.  And he got meningitis.  But later on, he grew up and he even did his military service for 2 years.  Then, when my uncle came back from Germany and opened his jersey factory, he took Alber to the factory where he worked until my uncle died in 1951.  Then he went to work for the Kastro family as an office boy and retired from that job.  Then when my mother died, we took him to the Old People’s Home 6 in Haskoy.  He lived there for 10 years, then took a fall and died in 1999.
  
Vitali was born in Istanbul in 1922.  He studied primary school and the secondary school until my father died.  He was 14 when my father died, and had to start working.  He worked for a florist in Osmanbey near our home, and brought home some money.  He would take flowers to clients.  Later on he worked at a big shop in Beyoglu [very famous district, otherwise called “Pera”, in the European side of Istanbul], called “Galeri Kristal” as salesman.  They sold glassware and crystalware there.  When he was 14, Vitali met an Armenian girl called Adirne Donaloglu, who lived in Ferikoy [a district between Osmanbey and Kurtulus, where a lot of non-Muslims, especially Armenians used to and still live].  They fell in love and later got married.  The families did not want this marriage of course but while Vitali was doing his military service, he came on leave once and they got married secretly, by civil marriage only of course.  The families did not know but I did because Adirne was my friend.  They had two daughters, Linda and Rita.  Linda was born in 1949 and Rita in 1954.  They studied in state schools. Linda married an Armenian, Simon Kokyan and she became Armenian, which means she became a Christian.  They had two daughters as well, Karolin and Karin.  Rita, on the other hand, married a Moslem boy, Emin Kaplan and she converted and became a Moslem.  They had a son called Akin.  Vitali died in Istanbul in 1982.  His wife, Adirne, died many years before him, I don’t remember exactly when.

My third brother Sami was 1.5 years younger than me.  We grew up together and we were in the same school.  After he finished primary school, my mother sent him to Saint Michel [a French Catholic high school in Osmanbey].  I do not know why, but he did not finish St. Michel.  Then he started working and later he opened a perfume shop with a partner.  Then he got married.  He married Fortune Algazi.  They had two children, a girl, Sara and a boy Yasef.  Sara was born in Istanbul in 1956.  I do not know where she studied but she got married in her early twenties.  Then after 18 years of marriage, she got divorced.  She never had any children.  Yasef was born in Istanbul in 1962.  He also got married and then divorced.  He has a daughter.  My brother Sami always worked in the same job.  Then he had heart problems and then one day, one Friday in 1989, he was coming home from Sirkeci [a business district in the european side of Istanbul] in a taxi and he had a heart attack and died in the taxi.  The following day was the Bar-Mitzvah of my grandson, Izel and we were preparing for that.  It was a terrible time for me. On the one side I was grieving for my brother and on the other side there was the happiness of the Bar-Mitzvah of my only grandson.  It was a terrible clash of emotions.  On the Saturday night, we celebrated the Bar-Mitzvah among the family members but it was entirely spoiled for me.

None of my brothers are alive today.

My parents were going to have another sibling actually.  When we were living in Tunel, I was 5 at the time, my mother got sick.  She got the flu and was coughing terribly.  We had a Jewish maid and she gave her the wrong medicine.  Instead of the cough syrup the doctor had given her, she gave her an enema to drink!  She did not realize it was the wrong medicine and my mother was 8 months pregnant at the time.  The medicine killed the baby inside her.  My mother screamed for 3 days and 3 nights.  There were no gynaecologists then.  My father called the midwife.  The midwife said the child had died inside anyway and then she made my mother give birth like a normal birth.  They pressed on her tummy and made her give birth.  She was in such a lot of pain.  I cannot forget her screams for days after that.  If the baby had lived, she would have been 5 years younger than me.  They were going to name her after my mother’s mother, too.  She died because of the maid’s mistake.  In spite of this, the maid continued to come and work for us.

I was born in an apartment building called “Gul Apartimani” [Rose Building] opposite Pera Palas, in Tepebasi in 1927.  My mother kept a record of all the births.  At that time people could get their identity cards whenever they wanted, not like now, that you have to leave the hospital with a birth record paper. Then, children were born, and after a while they would go and get their identity card.  I got my sister’s identity card.  I had a sister who was born before me in 1925.  She was born on 7th July.  She died when she was 13 or 14 months old from some sort of illness.  My mother told me she had died when she herself had been one month pregnant to me.  Then when I was born, they gave me that other one’s identty card but my mother recorded my birth in one of her books: “Suzi. Elle est née 24 janvier 1927” [in French: “Suzi: Born on 24th January 1927”].  There was no need to get another identity card.  No one checked anyway.  Her name had been “Sultana”, so I got that name as well.

We moved to Tunel from Tepebasi when I was very young.  We lived on the top floor of an apartment building.  We had both electricity and tap water as far as I remember.  I also remember the tram.  There were trams on the roads but I do not remember any cars.  The roads were asphalted then.  There were big stones.  No cars.

There were a lot of Jews in Tunel then but we did not have much contact with them because our family was quite extensive and we usually met with them.  The Jews would usually gather in Sishane [very near the Galata Tower].  They used to speak in Ladino in the streets.  There were fisherman, street sellers etc... who would shout in Ladino in the streets.  There were people of every trade; hat makers, shoemakers etc...  My father had a cousin, Viktorya Danon, who had a big shop (I don’t know where) where she sold and repaired paintings.

My mother raised me.  At first I had both my Mum and my Dad.  I had a governess and a maid.  The governess would teach us French, had us play games and taught us poetry.  The governess would teach and the maid would do the cleaning and the housework, that’s how it was then.  The governess was Jewish and she left in the evening.  We used to sleep with the maid. 

We had all the Jewish traditions in our home when we were kids.  Kipur, Roshashana [Rosh Hashanah] were great celebrations in our home.

There was a synagogue in Tunel then, before coming to the Neve-Shalom synagogue.  [It was opened in 1923 in the location of the previous Apollon cinema. Although it was officially called the Knesset Synagogue people kept on refering to it as the Apollon synagogue.] It does not exist any more. [it was completely burned down in a fire in 1941] I don’t remember what it was called.  Well, haham, hazzan, shohet, they all existed then.  When my sister was stillborn, my father went to the synagogue to have a rooster sacrificed, in case something else terrible happened to the family. 

The day we liked best was Roshashana [Rosh Hashashanah].  It was the new year and my mother bought us new clothes and we would wear our new clothes.  We had new and clean shoes and we would all dress up.  We would have a very good breakfast that  morning and we knew it was Roshashana [Rosh Hashanah].  There would be a lot of guests.  My mother’s cousins would come, my aunt (my father’s sister) would come to visit.  Or we would go and visit them.  We were a big family.

Apart from Yom Kippur and Roshashana, we also celebrated Pesah [Pesach] and “beraha las frutas” [Ladino term for Sukkoth].  My mother would do a lot of cleaning before the holidays.  We even painted the house before Pesah.  Even I did some painting in the house before Pesah. 

When I was a young girl, a friend of mine and I would go to the Sisli Synagogue 7  at Yom Kippur.  We would go near the time it would be finished.  We went to see who was at the synagogue.  We went up to the women’s place and watched the people.  I don’t remember my friend’s name, but she lived near us and we would go to the synagogue on foot of course.  We rarely took the tram.  Not if we could walk.

My father first sent us to some sort of preschool.  The law that said we had to study at a Turkish primary school 8 had not started yet.  So Vitali and I went to St. Benoit for a couple of years.  There were nuns at this school and I had a round cap.  Then the law was passed and I went to the state school called “44. Ilkokul” [44th Primary School] in Bomonti [a district very near Osmanbey].  There weren’t many private schools then.  All my brothers and I studied in that school.  Of my classes, I liked Turkish best of all.  We also had history, geography and citizenship classes.  It was inetersting because we would learn about all the things that Ataturk had done.  The I went to the “Arts and Crafts School” where I learned sewing and household management.

There was a teacher I did not like in primary school.  Why didn’t I like her?  Well, it was like this: in our school they used to give lunch to the poor kids.  One day, there were chick peas for lunch.  I asked for some and they gave me a plate but I saw some stones in the food.  I told my friend: “the people here are very dirty”.  She immediately went and told this to the teacher whose name was Nahide.  “Sultana said this about you”.  So the teacher called me and asked me what the problem was.  I said it was nothing but from that day on she disliked me.  We would go out into the garden and if anything fell or was dirtied she called me to pick things up or cleans things up.  Then when we were in fifth grade, we had finishing exams [to get primary school diploma].  This teacher asked me the most difficult questions so she could flunk me but my own teacher did not let her do that.  He protected me and I passed.

We had music and gym classes, too but no language classes.  I did not feel any antisemitism on the part of my teacher or my friends.  There were very few Jews in that school, most of them were Turks.  I had some very good friends among them.  I remember one girl called Remziye for example.

What I most remember of those days were the military parades, special national days and independence days [Turkish Independence Day].  9 We would go to Taksim square on 29th October or 23rd April [The Turkish National Assembly and Children’s Day] 10 to see the parades.  I had even memorized the marches.

The most colorful memory I have of my childhood was having seen Ataturk himself in the flesh.  I saw him in Florya [a sea side resort on the European side].  My uncle Daniel used to take me to the beach in Florya.  As my uncle and his wife did not have any children, they loved me very much.  And my mother, as the kids were very naughty, would say, “please come and get Suzi” and I woıuld go to my uncle’s.  His wife would dress me in beautiful clothes and I would stay with them.  In the summer, they would take me to florya to swim.  We used to hire a cabin and spend the day swimming.  Ataturk had a house in Florya then and we would see him.  One day, when I was 7, we saw him walking on the beach.  He was dressed beautifully.  He had a little girl with him, I think it was his adopted daughter, Ulku.  She was very sweet.  I used to see her there, too.  Anyway, I went to him and gave him my hand.  He shook my hand and said “my dear child”.  This was quite a memory.

I had many greek friends outside school.  We were very very good friends.  After Osmanbey, we moved to a house in Kurtulus when my father died.  My uncle wanted us to live close to him.  I continued to go to the same primary school because there were no schools in Kurtulus then.  We used to walk from Kurtulus to Bomonti [a ten-minute walk].  I had wonderful friends in Kurtulus and I learned to speak Greek perfectly from them.  We often went to each other’s homes.  I remember one of my friends’ parents had a pharmacy and we would go to the pharmacy to help when they were open one night every week.  The pharmacy was close to our home.

My best friends were Greek.  There was Zorka, for example.  They lived in my uncle’s apartment.  There was a big vacant lot at the end of the Kurtulus Street where we played ball, jumped ropes and had a good time.  The Greeks were so lively, we would often hear music coming from the hand organ.  After we finished our homework, we would go out together or play with dolls at home.  One of my friends had a piano and we would go to her house to listen to her playing the piano.  They were rich, that’s why she had a piano. 

I have many meories from the times I spent at my uncle’s home.  For example, I remember that my uncle’s wife’s brother, Atilyo Kilkus and his wife (I can’t remember her name now) had had a baby.  The name of the baby was Romano.  There were 10 years’ difference between us. So when I went to stay with my uncle I would play with little Romano.  The 14 months later Covani was born. They lived in my uncle’s apartment, too.  So I was with them all the time I stayed at my uncle’s and I stayed with them a lot.  They used to call me “Suzika”.  They loved me very much.  Romano and Covani Kilkus were of Italian nationality.  Romano Kilkus was born in 1937 and Covani Kilkus in 1938.  Both of them studied primary school in the French Catholic school called “St. Esprit”, then they went on to St. Michel for secondary and high school. [French Catholic School]  Romano worked for a Jewish businessman and Covani was in household appliances spare parts business.  Neither of them is alive today.

Another nice memory from Kurtulus is my friendship with the famous singer Ayten Alpman [Turkish jazz singer].  We met through a fried who introduced us and we became friends.  I was 15 at the time.  We went out together and she used to sing.  We used to go to each other’s homes a lot.

Apart from this, we didn’t usually eat at restaurants when we went out but there used to be a cafeteria called “Hay-Layf” [High Life] beside the Tan Cinema in Pangalti [a district very close to Osmanbey and Kurtulus on the European side of Istanbul]; and my brother and I used to eat cakes there.   We liked that place a lot and we went there a lot. 

When we wanted to go to a place we usually took the tram.  There were trams in Kurtulus.  We got on trains a lot as well when we went to Florya with my uncle.  Apart from these I do not really remember there being any cars.  My uncles did not have cars.   The first time I got into a car was when I got into my husband’s car in 1949.

During the War

During the Second World War, we used to cover our window panes with dark blue blinds.  The alarms went on when night came and everyone would go into their houses and cover the windows and nobody would go out.  No light could be seen from the outside because the blinds we put were very dark.  We were also asked to turn the lights really down so no light could come out.  In those days, they sold everything with certificates.  My poor brother Alber would get into long queues to buy bread, margarine, sugar etc...

We heard what was done to the Jews in Europe afterwards.  During the Holocaust in Europe we did not notice any rise in antisemitism here in Turkey.  When my uncle Michel came back from Germany, he told us about the terrible treatment of the Jews in germany.  As he was of Turkish nationality, they did not do anything to him.  The Turkish consul told him: “you had better leave as soon as possible; I will give you a passport as you are of Turkish nationality and you must get away immediately”.  My uncle came back in 1938, just before the war started.

During the war, the Wealth Tax 11 did not affect me or my family.  We did not have any shops or anything.  Uncle Michel was taxed but I don’t know how much.  He had a shop in Eminonu [a business district in Istanbul] then.  No one else from my family was taxed.  But of course, a lot of people were taxed quite alot of money. My uncle Daniel was called for the 20 military classes.  12   They took him but none of the others. 

After the War

I remember the 6-7 September 1955 events. 13  That day, my elder son Sami  was at his grandmother’s (my husband’s mother).  My husband had gone to pick him up.  By the time they came home, the streets were full of looters and people attacking shops and houses.  I remember them coming home terribly frightened.  Our landlord was Greek then.  It was an apartment building of two storeys.  The landlord and his family lived upstairs.  They came down to us, terribly frightened.  Also there were two Greek grocers at the corner of our street.  When there was a shortage of sugar or coffee these would not sell anyone these goods.  So now, that day, the angry mob came to these shops and threw all their coffee and sugar into the streets shouting: “Hey, Kocho, no coffee eh?!”  The poor men hid in the basements of their shops.  Kurtulus was in a terrible state.  We stayed at home quite afraid.  Then it stopped.  Everywhere was ruined.  After that all the Greeks in Istanbul started to run away, to Greece most of them. 

Then I remember this policy of “Citizen, speak Turkish”.  We actually needed to speak Turkish.  14 They used to call us “Jews”.  For example, when we walked in the streets, they used to say: “Don’t speak in ‘the jewish language’, speak Turkish”. [The word for Ladino in Turkish was for long years “yahudice”, meaning “language of the Jews”].  Then, when we studied the primary school in Turkish, we were able to speak in Turkish after that.

When we lived in Osmanbey, there was a “donme” 15 family from Salonica, who lived above us.  They were “Selanikli”s [from Salonica: meaning donmes] but they converted to Islam and became Turkish.  They spoke Ladino very well.  My mother knew them well but I don’t remember their names.  I only remember that they and my mother used to speak in Ladino. 

My husband, Izak Sarhon, was born in Ortakoy, in 1914.  His mother tongue is Ladino and he speaks French, too.  My in-laws were very nice people.  I met my husband through an acquaintance.  That person told us there was somebody (my husband) so and so and when we said “OK”, we met at the Hay-Layf café in Pangalti.  My uncle and my brother Vitali came, too.  We saw each other for the first time there.  We chatted a little, then we ate something and then he left.  Then, the person who introduced us went to talk to his father and they said “OK”.  Then his father called my uncle and they talked about what was necessary to talk about [probably about the dowry], and then they said “OK”.  Then Izak came to visit us one evening and then we got engaged in 1948.  We got engaged in my home.  My uncles, my in-laws, and my sister-in-law all came to my home and we had a family dinner.  There were a lot of flowers.  My in-laws brought me a ring.  And my family gave my fiancée a gold watch as a present.  Of course, the fact that my fiancée was Jewish was an important factor in our decision for marriage.

In 1949, one week before the wedding, we had our civil marriage ceremony in Tunel .  The civil marriage was at the registrar’s hall and it was quite crowded.  I wore a tailor-made suit and my husband wore a dark suit.  My witness was my uncle Daniel and my husband’s witness was a cousin of his mother’s, the lawyer Selim Danon.  After the ceremony we went to my father-in-law’s house and there was a kind of cocktail.  There were about 30-40 people present.  We talked and listened to music on the radio, there was nothing else in those days. 

One week later, on a Sunday, on 10th July, I got married at the Zulfaris Synagogue 16 in Karakoy at 6:00 p.m.  I don’t know why we got married so late in the day, probably because there was no other free hour.  I bought my wedding dress from a shop, I did not have it made especially for me.  On that Sunday morning, we got up early.  My uncle and his wife, my friends, all came to my house.  The hairdresser also came and did everybody’s hair.  Then we got dressed.  At 10 minutes to 6 we went to the synagogue all together.  My cousin Sami Schilton gave me away and he and my mother got on the “teva” with me.  I also had a little bridesmaid and an older one who accompanied Sami Schilton later on.  After the wedding ceremony, we went to my husband’s parents’ house.  We changed there and then went to the Belvu Hotel [the turkish version of the french expression “Belle Vue”].  We did not have a party that night.  We stayed at that hotel for 4 days.  It was raining hard all the time so we spent the whole of the 4 days inside the hotel.  We did not go out.  Then we went to Caddebostan [this district on the Asian coast of Istanbul used to be a summer resort.  It is now a residential area.].  We rented a house for the summer.  Our friends also rented a house and we spent the whole summer together having fun.

When I got married, my husband was in the import-export business. He had a place in Karakoy [a business district in the european side of Istanbul].  The business did not go well, so after a while my husband started working at the shop of my cousin Alex Samuel.  This was a cloth business and my husband was a clerk there.

We had 2 sons.  The first, Sami, was born in 1951; and the second, Yusuf, was born in 1958.  Both were born in Istanbul.

When they were young, we used to speak French with our children.  However, when they reached the age of 6, we started speaking Turkish with them.  They were going to go to a turkish school so we did not want them to have problems at school with the language.  At that time we spoke only French in the family and that’s the language they heard, not Turkish.  So then we had to revert to Turkish when their time to go to school came.

We had a Greek neighbor who lived below us at the apartment building we lived in and they had a daughter the same age as my son Sami.  They used to play together and Sami had even learned how to speak Greek from them.  I used to take the kids everywhere, to the cinema, the theatre everywhere, with other children and their mothers of course.

Every summer we went to Caddebosta for the summer.  There we would hire a boat and go swimming with the kids.  When we came back, we went back home in a horse carriage.  We had a lot of friends.  I can give you their names as far as I remember: Ceni Jak Rutli, Esti Mordo Peres, Zelda Yomtov Behar, İzi Süzet Levi.  They were very intimate friends.  We were a big group and during the day we went swimming together.  Then in the evening we would meet again with the kids.  The children would play together, we would prepare food and eat all together.  Sometimes we would go out.  My husband had a car and we would go for rides.  We were together with our friends every weekend.  And when summer came, we would all rent houses near one another so we could be together all the time, both during the week and at weekends.  During the day we would go swimming and in the evening we would either go to the cinema or gather at one house.

When the children grew up a little, we sent them to the Mahaziketora. [Talmud Tora]  In summer, they would go to the Mahaziketora in Caddebostan, and in winter they would go to the one in Sisli.  We wanted them mto learn about their religion, especially before their bar mitzvahs.  After the lessons, there were quite a lot of activities at the Mahaziketora, like games and dancing.  They would stay for those activities as well.  Then both my sons went to the Jewish youth clubs.  Sami was a member of the “Kardeslik” [“brotherhood”] club in Kurtulus, and Yusuf was a member of the Dostluk [friendship] club in Osmanbey.

We raised our children according to the Jewish traditions.  They knew all the holidays and they started fasting at Yom Kippur when they were very young.  I used to take them to the synagogue whenever it was festival time, so that they could see and learn.  At Simhat Tora for example, they used to take the Sefer Tora’s out, and there were alot of songs, and I would take my sons so they could watch all this.

My father-in-law was very religious.  We went to their home whenever there was a holiday and we kept all the traditions.  On Shabat, we did the “hamotsi”, drank wine, did the prayers, and at Pesah we read the Agada two nights.  All this was celebrated at my father-in-law’s house.

We celebrated Sami’s bar mitzva both at the synagogue and at home.  He made a speech both at the synagogue and at home.  It was a beautiful bar mitzva.  There were 90 guests in our home afterwards.  We had a big house.  We had musical instruments, and a big feast with waiters.  Sami had an accordeon teacher who brought all sorts of instruments, especially percussion instruments.  We had a lot of fun with those instruments.

My younger son, Yusuf, did not want to have a lot of fuss.  So he had his “tefillin” ceremony on a Thursday morning and then we came home.  Again there were waiters and a lot of sweets and cakes for the guests, but he did not want to make a speech or have another ceremony on the Saturday morning at the synagogue.  So we just had the Thursday morning ceremony for him.

I learned how to cook from my mother and my friends.  There are certain very traditional Sephardic dishes that I like making very much.  The one I like best is “tomatoes filled with cheese”.  I used to cook those and they would like it at home.  Then we would make tomatoes again, this time filled with meat and cooked with a lot of sugar.  Also we have “almodrote de berendjena” [baked aubergines].  You take the aubergines, boil and peel and then squeeze them.  Then you add white cheese, “kasher” cheese [Turkish name for kosher yellow cheese, popular among both, Jews and non-Jews], a little bread, a little flour and an egg.  You mix all this and put it in an oven dish and bake it.   Then we have “bulemas”.  You take the “fila” dough, put cheese in long strips of the fila, then roll the strips into rose shaped “bulemas”.  You put them all on an oven tray, put grated cheese and egg yolk on them and then bake them.  Then there are the “bumuelos” for Pesah.  To make bumuelos, we soaked 3-4 matzot, then squeeze the water out.  We add one egg for each matza and a little salt.  We mix all this and then fry little balls of it in the special bumuelo pan.  They can be eaten with powdered sugar afterwards.

We had Jewish friends in Kurtulus and we saw them frequently.  During the week we used to play cards.  The husbands played poker and the wives played “relance” [a card game where the aim is to make sequences of at least three cards and finish the cards in your hand].  All our friends were Jewish.  They were all very good people of good families.  We also used to go to the cinema or theatre as a group as well.  When summer came we would often go to Buyukdere [a district on the Bosphorus, near the Black Sea] and swim.  I would say we had a “medium” social life.

My elder son, Sami, finished his secondary school at “Tarhan Koleji” [a private Turkish school founded in 1959 by Turkish statesman and educator Mumtaz Tarhan] in 1967.  He then went to Israel to study high school there.  It was fashionable those days; everyone was sending their kids to Israel to study.  Sami also wanted to go, so we sent him and he left with a few of his friends.  He went to study electronics there.  He studied for one year but he was not happy because they taught him not electronics but carpentry.  So after a year, he came back.  He finished the lycée at Tarhan Koleji.  Then later, he was able to get into university and he studied economics at the Iktisadi Ticari Ilimler Akademisi [Economics Academy in Osmanbey].

My sons grew up, they became young men, they had friends, they came they went.  My elder son, Sami married Ceni Levi in 1974.  In 1976 they had a son called Izel.  Izel studied in the Jewish High School 17.  He did not go on to university.  He did his military service and since he came back he has been working in the textile business.

In 1980, my elder son had a daughter called Sandy.  She finished “Kadikoy Kiz Lisesi” [private Turkish high school on the Asian side of Istanbul].  Then she studied tourism and hotel management at the University of Istanbul.  She has been working at the Swiss Hotel since she graduated.

My younger son Yusuf studied at the Saint Benoit [French Catholic high school] school.  He also started studying Economics at Istanbul University 18 but he couldn’t finish it because there was a lot of terrorism at the universities at that time 19.  So he went to do his military service.  In 1992, he married Karen Gerson and in 1996 they had a daughter called Selin.  Selin studies at a private primary school where she learns both turkish and english.

The foundation of the state of Israel had made us very happy.  I remember being very happy that morning when we heard the news and nothing else.  We never thought of doing our aliya there because we were content here.  Of course we had friends and family who went and settled in Israel.  My husband’s aunt, Fani Saranga for example was one of the first to go and settle in Israel with her family.

We do not have too many relations with the jewish community today; what I mean is, we are not members of any club or organization.  We try to follow our religious traditions and go to the synagogue at weddings, funerals, bar mitzvas and less frequently during the holidays.

Our children are not as religious as we used to be, nor have they raised their kids in the traditional way, but we have not had any conflicts about this with them.  We did not interfere.  Today, it is our children who gather the family and do family dinners.  We are tired and can’t do it any more.

We still meet with friends once a week.  I meet with my women friends: Jinet Behar, Zelda Matalon, Hayat Kubilay, Suzet Molinas, Margo Arditi and Zelda Behar.  We have been seeing each other for the last 20 years and we still go on.  We used to see each other outside the card playing days too but we can only meet once a week nowadays.  My husband also meets his friends for poker once a week.  When we come together as couples, the men play poker and the women play bridge.  That is all really.

We used to go on holidays until 3 years ago.  We went to places like Marmaris [a seaside resort on the Aegean], Ayvalik and Sarmisakli [seaside resorts on the Marmara].  We haven’t been able to go for the last 3 years because basically there is no one to go together with.

In the 1986 Neve-Shalom massacre we were at home and heard the news on TV 20.  We felt terrible and were extremely sad of course.
 
We got terribly upset when we heard the 2003 bombings, too 21.  We heard that on TV too.  We were really scared.

When we are alone with my husband we speak Ladino; with our friends we speak both Turkish and Ladino, but with our children we speak Turkish only.

Glossary

Vera Doroshenko
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Vladimir Zaidenberg
Date of interview: March 2002

I, Vera Doroshenko (nee Shtein), was born on 21 December 1921 in the town of Zvenigorodka Kiev region.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary 

My family background

Sergei Mikhailovich Dubov, my grandfather (my mother's father), was born in 1847. His Jewish name was Srul Moishkovich. My grandmother Anna Yakovlevna Dubova was born in 1895. They lived in the village of Stetsovka Zvenigorod province. My grandfather's father died when my grandfather was still a child and his mother married a Russian man. He served 25 years in the tzarist army. He treated my grandfather well. My grandfather learned farming from his stepfather. Before the revolution my grandfather was manager of baron Vrangel's estate (baron Vrangel was an aristocrat, a general in the tzarist army and a very influential man in Russia), and later - of Prince Kuragin's estate (Prince Kuragin also came from an ancient aristocratic family). These families had estates all over Russia and they used to sell them, exchange or put at stake along with all servants. When a landlord was visiting his estate he demanded that all people living around served him. They, for example, had to hunt for pigeons, cook them and serve them as his meal. He would have brought his girls with him, and they were feasting, gambling, etc. My grandfather's landlord would have asked my grandfather to lend him some money to buy his lover a present. My grandfather was a great specialist in sugar beet growing. However, he was paid a miserable salary.

My mother's mother Anna Yakovlevna was a very wise Jewish woman. She was a member of an arbitrary court in her village (this was a public court, dealing with all kinds of everyday life problems). There were three of them in this court (two men and Anna).  Hers was a decisive opinion. She was much respected and her opinion was highly valued. [this was a kind of arbitrary court. It was established in bigger villages. The wisest and most experienced people in the village were elected to this arbitration sitting. They were mostly men at that time, of course. A woman must have had an outstanding personality to be elected into this kind of arbitration. This arbitration was there to resolve all kinds of problems and disputes that people dealt with. For example: somebody refusing to pay his debt to another villager, or any interface and interrelation issues, arguments and disputes.]

They had a huge house with ten rooms. They had an orchard, a pigsty, chicken and a cow. My grandmother had servants. She had a small dairy store in the town of Zvenigorodka. She sent her milk products (milk, sour cream, cottage cheese) there every day.  This business of my grandmother was much support for her family.

At home my grandmother and grandfather spoke Ukrainian and Yiddish. They were fluent in both languages. They were religious people. They observed traditions and celebrated holidays and they honored Sabbath. There were no other Jews in Stetsovka where they lived and there was no synagogue. They went to the synagogue in Zvenigirodka for big holidays like Pesah, Purim or Rosh-Hashanah. My grandma not wore wig. I think that they did not keep koshrut, anyway I never heard of that that in the house was kosher meal.

My grandparents' family was big. They had 9 children. The oldest girl Maria was born in 1885, her brother Samuel - in 1890, Rosa - in 1893, Efim - in 1894. My mother Raissa was born in 1895, and her brother Vladimir was born in1896. These are my mother's brothers and sisters that I knew about. There must have been other children, but I've never been told about any of them. The oldest daughter Maria finished school and got married. She died in 1920 from typhus. My grandparents' sons studied in a commercial college in Zvenigorodka after school. They studied at the accountant department.  My grandfather had to obtain a special permit for his Jewish children to study in the chief town of the province.  My grandparents' children were not raised as Jews. They were growing up among Ukrainian people and they had no idea of the traditions or religion of their own people.  I just think that my grandmother didn't have time to tell them about such things.

When WWI began in 1914 Samuel and Efim were recruited to the guards regiment, as they were tall men. They were privates in the tzarist army until 1918.

My father Leonid Efimovich Shtein was born in 1890 in the village of Gruzkoye, Pervomaysk district, Odessa region. I know very little about his parents.  I know that his father Efim Shtein was a brewer.  My father's mother Rosa Shtein left her husband for some reason after my father was born and was raising her son alone. I believe, they were religious people but my father wasn't raised as a Jew and didn't understand a single word in Yiddish. My grandmother died when my father was 7 or 8 years old. He lived with my grandfather for some time, but then he left home when he was 14 and found a job at the Nikolaev factory. This was a part of the Nikolaev shipbuilding plant. They manufactured equipment for the water mills and windmills.
In 1911 my mother finished school (8 years). Her school certificate gave her the right to teach at school. Her older brother came to Zvenigorodka to take her home by train. At that time young ladies were not supposed to travel alone. My father happened to travel on the same train. He had worked at that factory for several years by then and was a specialist in flour grinding enterprises. He was traveling a lot. He was going on one of his business trips and met my mother on that train. They liked each other and exchanged addresses. They wrote letters to one another for three years and my father often visited my mother. Then he finally proposed to my mother. My grandfather and my mother's brothers liked him and they had no objections to their marriage. In the summer of 1913 my grandmother Anna died from illness and hard work.

My parents got married at the New Year night of 31 December 1913. My father was actually late for his own wedding. He was coming to Stetsovka on a horse-driven wagon and one of the wheels broke. That's why he arrived late at night. My mother burst into tears on seeing him. She said to him "Why are you so late? It's New Year soon, and everything is ready for the ritual, and you got stuck somewhere. I really feel ashamed in front of all these people". And my father said to her "It is no hurry. I'm getting married once in a lifetime. It is no hurry. I managed to arrive before the New Year. I am not late for my own wedding". Mummy wasn't quite happy about my father being in no hurry. They had a wedding following all Jewish traditions. They had a huppah and Jewish musicians. They also invited the rabbi from Zvenigorodka.

After their wedding my father took my mother to the village where he was building a mill. I don't remember what village that was. In 1916 they moved to Zvenigorodka and my father bought a big wooden house with 7 rooms. There also was a an outhouse and a garden. They settled down there for many years. And so they started their cattle and poultry yard and an orchard and a vegetable garden. My mother's father moved to join them in 1916. He wasn't working for landlords any more. He started making wagons and carts for farmers. There was a spot in the yard oft heir house where my grandfather was doing his work. In 1914 my older brother Yakov Shtein was born. In 1915 my parents got another son and the boy was given a name, but he only lived a few weeks. What happened was that at that time my father's father Efim Shtein was visiting my parents. And he happened to drink the breast milk that was meant for the baby. To conceal this fact he gave the baby some cow milk. The baby got sick with diarrhea and died. My parents terminated any relationships with my grandfather. We don't know what happened to him.  In 1920 my older sister Rosanna Shtein was born. I was born in Zenigorodka on 21 December 1921

In 1916 my father was recruited to the tzarist army. In 1917 after the revolution he joined the Red army. What happened was that my father's army was in Petersburg at the time when Lenin was saying his speech on the armored vehicle for 25 hours in a row.  My father was listening to him, and this speech turned him into a convinced revolutionary. Father always sympathized to revolutionaries, and this speech else more bolted its in the faith in ideals revolution. After he returned home in 1918 he became the first Chairman of the Millers' Union in Zenigorodka. His portrait and an article about him were published in the '"Trud" ("Labor") newspaper in Moscow.  In 1920 my father was the leader of the partisan unit in Zenigorodka. This partisan unit was fighting against various counterrevolutionary gangs. There was a gang of Ataman  Gryzlo. This Gryzlo was hiding somewhere near the town. My father found out that some farmers were bringing him food, clothing and even wood. My father went alone to that ravine where he was hiding. When he descended the steep slope of the ravine he saw Gryzlo sitting beside the fireplace. Gryzlo was taken by surprise and my father took away his weapons, tied him and escorted him out of that ravine. After the civil war my father became a miller.  

Growing up

I have bright memories about my childhood. I remember our house and Zvenigorodka. I loved my grandfather Serei Dubov, my mother's father. He was living with us and my family called me my grandfather's "little tail".  My grandfather often went to the synagogue and sometimes he took me with him. I was interested in everything and my grandfather used to tell me stories about the Jewish people and religion. There was a rabbi in Zvenigorodka. I even remember the Jewish wedding of my father's friend Brodianskiy. I was so excited when the ride and bridegroom went beneath the huppah. In 1926 the synagogue was closed. [Then new (Soviet) power fought with the religion. In these s were locked nearly all religious temples on the whole Soviet Union.] Our parents were not religious. Neither my sisters nor my brothers or I were raised Jews. I only remember what my grandfather told me when I was a child.

Life was joyful in our house in Zvenigorodka. In 1920s my mother's sister Rosa with her husband and her brother Efim with his family moved to our house. And there was enough space for all of us.  However, Efim soon moved to another town to work as executive director of a sweet beet collective farm.

There lived many Jewish people in Zenigorodka. My parents had many friends that were visiting them. I remember the Rosental family - Manya and Israel. There was also the Kirzner family. They had 3 children. Kirzner was a specialist in manufacture of cereals and flour. There was lawyer Matt, a very highly respected man.  These families were not religious, but they celebrated all Jewish holidays. It was a tradition with us. We visited one another, and had tea parties, made strudels with jam and nuts and cookies. There was no synagogue, but the people celebrated holidays together. The Jews communicated in Ukrainian, using Yiddish words every now and then. They danced waltz, tango, Cracovienne [Public polish dance], polka and freilehs [Public Jewish dance].  My brother Yakov was playing the piano and my mother dancing with her shoes off. I remember other people used to borrow our piano for a Jewish wedding or other holidays.

At some time the authorities decided to build a power plant in Zvenigorodka. My father was appointed director of the construction site and later - director of the power plant. I remember the festive start up of the plant in 1927. This was a great event for Zvenigorodka and the whole town got together to celebrate it. The town gained much from this power plant - power supply to the houses, light posts for lighting streets, cinema theatre.

I went to school in Zvenigorodka, then continued my studies in Uman and Vinnitsa, and finished the 10th form in Kiev. These were ordinary Ukrainian or Russian schools that I went to. There were children of various nationalities in those schools, we didn't care about the nationality then, and we were all equal and friends. I was an active pioneer and later became a Komsomol member. I enjoyed doing social work, like helping other pupils with their studies if they were having problems, participate in collection of scrap and waste paper and study the works of Marxism-Leninism classics.

My father studied at the extramural department of Kiev Polytechnic Institute. His tutor and teacher was German Iosifovich Reizner. He was German. He was the one who was teaching him the profession of a mechanic at Nikolaev plant in 1904, and they remained friends for many years. Reizner moved to Kiev and became a lecturer and he convinced my father to study at the Institute. My father received an engineer's diploma in 1927. In 1933 we moved to Kiev at Reizner's insistence. Reizner's life was tragic. He had a wife and Russian wife and 3 sons. When the Great Patriotic War (So in USSR name WWII) began his sons went to the front and never returned. Reizner and his wife stayed in Kiev. He believed that the Germans wouldn't touch them. But the Germans executed them for the reason that he was working for the Soviet power being a German. Neighbors told my father this story, when he returned to Kiev after the war.

In 1931 our family moved to Uman and then to Vinnitsa. This had to do with his job. This was the period of famine. My father was working for the flour department then and he had to travel to various towns. He was working very hard.  Finally our family moved to Kiev in 1933 at the insistence of Reizner. My father held official positions in the flour grinding industry and we received a two-room apartment in Kiev.

In 1938 when I was 17 and my sister Rosannochka was 18 years old our sister Allochka was born. My mother was 43 and my father was 48 years old. They were very concerned. They thought they were too old for having a baby. But we got a precious gift - a lovely sister.

In 1939 I entered the extramural department of Moscow Planning and Economy Institute. I had a job of a worker at the metalware factory. 

And even then I started thinking about the reality that was contradictory to what was said at the Komsomol meetings and what was written in the books. In the late 1930s arrests of the Party and Government leaders and repression against them began.  Common people were arrested, too.

In 1937 my mother's brother Efim was arrested. This happened as follows. All directors of sweet beet collective farms were summoned to go to Kiev to a meeting. My uncle put on a good suit and a black coat made from good quality English fabric (this was November and it was cold) and went to Kiev. They were arrested at the meeting, and his imprisonment lasted over a year. He never took of his clothes, whether it was winter or summer. He never told us where he was, as he had signed the non-disclosure statement. My mother started visiting this sadly known office in 15, Korolenko street in Kiev (NKVD office). She took her baby and kept going to that office trying to find out where her brother was. They didn't allow her to leave parcels for him but they didn't tell her where he was either. At that time Vyshynskiy was the all-Union Prosecutor. My mother wrote so many letters that one of them reached the Chief Office in Moscow. At the beginning of 1939 a representative of this Office came on a visit to our home. My mother told him about her brother Efim. She told him how during the period of famine (1932-33) the local farmers were growing potatoes, vegetables and pigs on the plot of land that belonged to her brother. All those working for him had their bread and a plate of soup. The reason why my uncle was arrested was as follows. The People's Commissar of Farming at that time was Chernov. In 1937 he was under trial as an enemy of the people. But this Chernov had visited my uncle's collective farm and gave him a bonus in the amount of 2 months' salary for my uncle's good performance. Therefore, the authorities thought that my uncle was with Chernov and was an enemy of the people. Other Chairmen of collective farms were also arrested for the same reason.  They were all released and my uncle returned home. It was almost a miracle. At that time people under arrest disappeared and nobody ever saw them again. It was also impossible to find out anything about them, these people were ever missing. My uncle was crying for a month. The moment he was going asleep he started crying. Our grandfather Sergei Dubov lived in Zvenigorodka. He was 91. He said "I will die when my son is back, when I see my son". Efim returned home, and my grandfather lived for another month and a half and died. He was 92 yeas old. This happened in 1939. My uncle Efim died in 1939, too. He was totally exhausted and had heart problems. He was taken to the hospital of Medical University in Kiev but doctors couldn't save his life.  

During the War

On 22 June 1941 the Great Patriotic War began. My father was of under recruit age. He was appointed director of the food factory in Shintal, Kuibyshev region. I was member of a Komsomol group at my plant, and this group was sent to the Donetsk steppes, this south-east part of Ukraine. We were assisting with harvesting and storing up the grain. All this was sent to the rear immediately, as the Germans were approaching rapidly. We were working very hard from sunrise till the dark. Sometimes we slept at where we were working to save time. Later we were evacuated further on. In 1942 we, young girls (there were 50 of us) were sent to a military plant in Kuibyshev region. This was the aircraft engine plant. Life was very hard there: we were starving. Our ration was 200 grams of bread per day. It was so very cold, especially during night shifts. I worked at the plant from May 1942 till September 1944. I had pneumonia 4 times. It resulted in emphysema of lungs, and I was given invalidity status of group 2. I was 21 years old. I came to my parents in Shantala October 1944. I stayed with them for a short time. I didn't feel quite comfortable with them. My father was working and he seemed to be reproaching me for not working. Perhaps, it only seemed so to me. My father used to say that one had to be a fighter and reach everything in life by oneself. Although he was holding management positions I worked at the most difficult jobs before and during the war. He never suggested that he would help me to find an easier job. I believe he could have helped me if he had wanted to. Mummy was very concerned about Yakov and Rosanna - she had no news from them. And I went to my friend in the town of Ostrogorsk. She worked at the recruitment office there and promised to find me some easier job. But then my parents returned to Kiev and sent me the necessary documents to come back to Kiev. They also sent me an invitation from my previous job with Glavmetiz department. But I didn't go to work there. My clothes were so poor that I was ashamed.
 
My older sister Rosanna had finished a medical high school before the war and got a job at the Sanitation and Chemistry Scientific Research Institute. When the war began she was recruited to the army. On 5 July 41 she came home to say her good-byes. She was wearing a uniform, had the rank of first lieutenant and worked in the regional hospital. She came by car, picked up some of her clothes and left. She had long hair, long plaits. Mummy recalled that she didn't give her a proper comb or our family pictures. Shortly after 4 o'clock on the next morning (6 July) I went to the hospital. I walked from Podol to Kreschatic - there was a traffic jam on the bridge and I had to climb over them. I finally reached the hospital. It was closed. There was only a sentry inside. I shouted to him that I wanted to see my sister and asked him to call Rosanna's name. I hoped that she would hear and come to the gate. But then all of a sudden her closest friend Lisa Galperina came out. She told me that Rosanna wasn't there any more and that her unit had left an hour before. Rosanna was working under the leadership of professor Alekseyev. They were working for defense, looking for the methods to strengthen the immunity system to resist poisonous materials and they were following the front. So, I didn't see Rosanna. I gave Lisa the comb and our photographs. We received one letter from Rosanna. It was sent from Lubny via uncle Volodia. My mother's brother Volodia lived in Kharkov. My mother wrote him a letter with our address in the evacuation for Rosanna and Yakov. Yakov was in the army since 1936. After the war professor Alexeyev visited us in 1947. He was Rosanna's Director. He told us that they were encircled in the vicinity of Lubny and captured by the Germans. In 1942, in February, the Germans brought them to their German hospital in Darnitsa (an area in Kiev - left bank). Alexeyev managed to get an identity card for Rosanna that said that she was Georgian. She did look like a Georgian. That was all information he had about her. He himself gained confidence of the Germans and managed to leave that German hospital. He crossed the front line and joined our army. The professor's wife was a Jew. He forced her to leave Kiev taking their little boy with her when the Germans were almost in the city. He found his wife in the Middle Asia and they returned to Kiev after the war. My mother wrote 376 letters to various authorities, trying to find Rosanna and the only answer she ever got was "Her name is not on the lists of the lost, missing or those that died from the wounds". Rosanna perished.

Rosanna's friend Lisa Galperina also died in the partisan unit. After the war I met Yura Zhigulevich, her co-student at the law department in the University. He told me that he was in the same partisan unit as Lisa and they got into a cordon. Lisa shot herself, but he was captured by the Germans. Later he spent years in the Stalin's camps for being a captive of the Germans. Yura was blamed for betraying Lisa for a long time. He told me that his only fault was that he hadn't been strong enough to shoot himself  like Lisa did.

My brother Yakov Shtein joined the army in 1936. He happened to join the Navy. He participated in ship convoys to Spain. They were taking the children out of Spain and bringing food, bread and weapons there. Their ship sank and they were picked up by another vessel. At 22 Yasha had all gray hair. Then he was on service in a submarine in Baku. When our army advanced to Poland in 1939 their ships also headed to Poland in a detour way. When the war with Poland was over he was transferred to the Baltic Navy.  In 1940 the war with Finland began. This was his 3rd war. The Finnish war was short but the frosts were very severe. The ships were to fire on the Finns. The Finns were firing back and it lasted four years. After the war was over we rejoiced hoping to see Yasha home at last. But they added a fifth year of service in the army. And there was another war on 22 June 1941. Yasha was in Leningrad, in the Navy and on the war again. He survived the blockade of Leningrad.  He was on one of the boats that transported the marines from the center of the city to the open sea. He received the ration of 250 grams of bread and a mash of beet and cabbage leaves per day. It wasn't exactly bread - it consisted of tree rind and a little bit of corns, it was some kind of bread-like stuff. This 250 grams was a military ration, the rest were receiving 125 grams. They spent 6 hours in the smoke screen in the open sea, transporting the military, involved in landing operations, and going back to the port. If they spent additional 6 hours in the sea they received a small piece of fish and a matchbox of goose fat. Goose fat was to be used against chilblains, but they also ate it. He met an engineer there. This man was so exhausted that he was on the edge of death. Yasha shared his piece of bread and thus, saved his life. When the "Road of Life" (The only road that served to deliver food to Leningrad across the frozen Ladoga lake at the night time sneaking under the ground firing) was opened Yasha arranged to have this man taken out of the city. They were mainly taking out women and children. Yasha carried the man to the vehicle on which he left the city and survived. When in 1945 the war was over Yasha was sent to the Northern Fleet on the White Sea. His service ended in 1946. Yasha returned to Kiev and worked in the Town Recruitment Office for two years. He had many awards: The order of the Great patriotic war Grade 2, medal "For Defense of Leningrad", Memorable badge "To Defender of the Kronshtadt fortress and others.

Later Yakov worked as a mechanic at the "Lenin Kuznia" plant. He lived in Kiev and died in 1998. He has two daughters - Rosanna, named after our sister and Irina.

My mother's relatives had a tragic life, too.

My mother's brother Volodia Dubov lived in Kharkov. He had a Ukrainian wife. They had a son, Pavlik, and a grandson. Pavlik and his wife finished an Institute in 1941. I don't know why Volodia's family did not evacuate. When the Germans were in Kharkov they exterminated the Jewish population in the Drobitskiy Yar.  But uncle Volodia was hiding and escaped. Somebody reported on him, and the fascists captured his family to take them to Germany.  Their train was passing Kiev. Two cousins of his wife lived in Kiev. They were Ukrainians and worked as teachers.  Uncle Volodia's wife begged the fascists to let her go say good-bye to her relatives. She came to them and only managed to say that the Germans were taking them somewhere and ran away quickly. This was the last time they were seen.

Aunt Rosa, my mother's older sister, stayed with her husband Semyon Mikhailovich Krivosheyev in Zvenigorodka. Like many others, they thought that they were very old and the Germans wouldn't do them any harm. Semyon was taken along with the other Jewish men. The Germans put out his eyes. Then they put them all in a shed and burned. Aunt Rosa had a friend Sekleta (they were friends from the time when they lived in Stetsovka). She took Rosa to her house and Rosa lived there from 1941 till 1943. She only went outside at night. Only one other woman in this village knew that Sekleta gave shelter to a Jewish woman. Olga helped Sekleta to barter clothing for food. There were no Germans in the village, only the Headman of the village. In 1943 Kiev was liberated and there were rumors spreading in the village that all Germans had gone away. Aunt Rosa cheered up and decided to go home. Sekleta couldn't hold her back. My aunt, thin and exhausted, went along the path across the woods. Then a wagon caught up with her. Sitting on it was her schoolmate Petro. He asked her where she was heading and offered to give her a ride. She asked him whether there were Germans in Zvenigorodka. He assured her that there was none and … took her right to the police office. It was late autumn, cold and snow on the ground, and the Germans were taking her and a group of other captives across Zvenigorodka barefooted and made them dig up their own grave. They shot them and threw their bodies into the ditch. After the war my mother went to Zvenigorodka for the opening of the monument to the victims of fascism. My mother took off her shoes to walk the same path that her poor sister had walked to her death. Petro was under trial after the war, but his sentence wasn't severe, he was released pretty soon and lived his life as if nothing had happened at all.

My mother's brother Samual was in the evacuation. After the war he lived in the vicinity of Moscow and died in early 1970s. 

After the War

After returning to Kiev I got a job of economist at the "Melmashstroy" plant where my father was working. Chief engineer and the Party unit secretary at the plant were Jewish, and they accepted me into their team, because they respected my father very much. I worked there for about a year, then I caught cold that developed into pneumonia. This resulted in heart problems, and the doctors again gave me invalidity grade 2. I couldn't work any more and worked at home sewing whatever people ordered.

When we returned from the evacuation our apartment was occupied. Our former neighbor Nyura and her sister were living in it. They worked at the knitwear factory. The apartment was full of the stolen knitting machines and yarn. They were making stockings and selling them at the market. When my parents came to their apartment they only found a piano of all the furniture that we had and there was a night pot on it. Nyura didn't want to leave our apartment and we had to turn to the court. The court made a decision in our favor.

My father retired in 1960. He died in Kiev in 1976. My mother had died 3 years before, in 1973.

I got married in 1958 when I was 36 years old.  My husband Alexandr Grigorievich Doroshenko was Ukrainian but he respected Jewish people. His mother was an Evangelist and she instilled in him love to the "God's people". My husband was a worker.  He was kind and nice. During the war he was in the evacuation, involved in the military ship repairs. His mother stayed in Kiev. She told me about the horrors that happened in Kiev during the war. She saw how the Jewish people were going to the Babiy Yar.  She always remembered it and repented that she hadn't rescued anyone then. My husband worked at the 37th military plant. He died in 1986.

I didn't face any anti-Semitism during the post-war years in our country, especially the "doctors' case" before Stalin's death, etc. I didn't even read newspapers - this all went past me. Later I worked as a cashier in a movie theater, but due to the hard war years any work was too much an effort for me. I haven't worked since my son was born.

My son Vladimir Doroshenko was born 1960. When he was receiving his passport his chose his nationality as Ukrainian. This was the time when all roads were closed for Jewish people. But he still believes that he belongs to the Jewish nation. He is interested in their history and reads a lot.  My son is married and has a son. His son Yevgeniy was born in 1983. They are both businessmen. Their business is car repairs.
My younger sister Alla married a Jewish man. His name is Milia Maizner. Milia worked as designer. He was involved in design activities of quite a few bridges in Kiev. He wasn't promoted due to his Jewish nationality and they moved to Latvia in 1977. From there Allochka and her husband went to America. That's where they are living now.

In our family we've never discussed emigration. My husband and I have always been interested in the life in Israel, but we have never been there. We've never thought about emigration. Ukraine is our Motherland and we always wanted to live and die here. Besides, our relatives' graves are here.

After the wedding I lived in the workers' neighborhood on the so-called Fisherman's (Rybalskiy) island. There were no Jewish people living there and no anti-Semitism accordingly. Of course, I never mentioned that I was a Jew to avoid any problems. In the recent years I've become closer to the Jewish community via Hesed.  Regretfully, I don't go out, but I read all Jewish newspapers and watch Jewish programs on TV. I always have matsa at Pesah. I try to celebrate Jewish holidays: Pesah, Khanukkah and Iom-Kipur. Basically, I'm trying to lead a Jewish way of life. I am 80 years old, but I feel optimistic. Life goes on.

Glossary
1 "Doctors' Case" - was a set of accusations deliberately forged by Stalin's government and KGB against Jewish doctors of the Kremlin hospital charging them with murdering outstanding Bolsheviks. The "Case" was started in 1952, but was never finished in March 1953 after Stalin's death.

Semyon Goldwar
Odessa
Ukraine
Natalia Fomina
Date of interview: December 2002

Semyon Mironovich Goldwar  is a thin and slim man. He is a wonderful storyteller. He is expressive and when he gets to emotional events his eyes fill with tears. Semyon Mironovich likes to recall the time when he was young. Semyon lives in a two-room apartment. He has a nicely furnished living room: there is a sofa, armchairs, a cupboard with china, bookshelves with art albums and few water colors on the walls.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

My family background

My maternal great grandfather Simkha Rabinovich had died long before I was born. I was named after him. I don’t know what he did for a living. But I know that both of my great grandparents were born in Odessa. I remember my great grandmother Khona, the mother of my maternal grandfather Isaiya Rabinovich. My great grandmother didn’t wear a wig or a shawl from what I remember. On an old photograph she has a nice hairdo. She lived with her daughter Revekka Dvorkina in a two-storied building, their apartment was on the 2nd floor. My great grandmother loved me dearly and spoiled me a lot. She brought me candy when she was visiting us. During the Great Patriotic War 1 she was over 80 and couldn’t evacuate and was left in care of her neighbors and my grandmother Bertha. I don’t know how she perished.

My grandfather on my mother’s side Isay Rabinovich was born in Odessa in the 1860s. I don’t know what kind of education he got, but I am sure that he finished a grammar school. Before the revolution of 1917 my grandfather supplied leather to Odessa leather factory. He purchased leather in Nizhniy Novgorod, Leipzig and Dresden. My grandfather could speak foreign languages. He wore business suits and was very elegant. He had a beard and moustache. My grandfather died in 1929 when I was 5. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Odessa. In 1948 I found his gravestone – a flat marble slab heightened at the head.

My grandmother Bertha Rabinovich, nee Bronshtein, was born in Odessa in the late 1860s. She was a housewife. My mother told me that they had a cook, but my grandmother made delicious Jewish food by herself. My grandmother was an intelligent and educated woman. She finished grammar school and had fluent French. She held herself straight and always looked very elegant. She didn’t wear a wig or a shawl. My mother never told me whether they observed Jewish traditions in her family. They spoke Russian at home. After my grandfather died my grandmother lived in the family of her daughter Clara. She helped her daughter to raise her children. My grandmother had hypertension. There were no special medications at that time and she used leeches to reduce her blood pressure. During the Great Patriotic War my grandmother stayed in Odessa. She perished in the ghetto in 1942 along with her daughter Clara and her three grandchildren. I don’t know where they were buried, but in 1985 I placed a gravestone with their names beside the graves of my mother and father at the Jewish cemetery in Slobodka. [Slobodka is a neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa.]

My grandparents had four children: two boys and two girls. They received a good education: they had music classes and private teachers at home. My mother’s older brother Grigoriy Rabinovich was born in Odessa around 1892. He was a brilliant and purposeful man. My mother recalled that he decided to learn to play the horn in his teens. It was too loud and all neighbors were unhappy about it, but he learned to play the horn. He finished grammar school in Odessa with honors and entered Physics and Mathematic Faculty at Moscow University before the revolution of 1917. After the revolution he lectured at the same university Uncle Grigoriy didn’t have children of his own. He was married for the second time. His wife Ania had two sons of 11 and 12 years of age. Later he divorced Ania and married again. He had a son - Alik. In 1937 2 uncle Grigoriy was arrested. He was accused of an attempted encroachment on Stalin. He went on hunger strike in jail of which he died.  We found out the details of Grigoriy’s death only after Stalin died.  His son Alik had a weird phobia – he went out only at nighttime and was afraid of people. I used to call Alik on the phone when I came to Moscow on business, but now I don’t keep in touch with him.  

Misha (Moisey) the other brother, one year younger than my father, was born in Odessa in 1898. Misha finished Realschule 3 at the same time as my father did. He was as talented as Grigoriy, but he had a different character – he liked entertainment and was easy-going. He played the piano and sang. He was very handsome. My father liked to tell me the story of how Misha introduced him in 1919 to Vera Kholodnaya, a Russian mute film star that lived in Odessa. My father was a provincial man and felt very shy in her presence while Misha was quite at ease. Misha invited my father to his house where he met his sister Raissa, my mother. After finishing school Misha entered a shipbuilding institute in Nikolaev. Upon finishing the institute he began to work at the shipyard in Nikolaev. Misha made a career – he became construction manager at the plant. This position was higher than the position of the director of the plant in a way. Construction manager could directly contact the minister of heavy machine building of the USSR. Uncle Misha had to be a party member to hold such high position. His older brother’s arrest didn’t have an impact on his career.  He must have been a highly valued employee at his work and nobody dared to do any harm to him. One of big torpedo boats made under his supervision was called the Tashkent – it became the best ship of the Black Sea Navy. I remember uncle Misha coming to Odessa to attend the testing of this ship. During the Great Patriotic War this torpedo boat participated in the defense of Sevastopol and Odessa.  It was destroyed by a German submarine and sank. During the Great Patriotic War uncle Misha and his family evacuated to the Urals where all defense enterprises were evacuated. After the war he continued his work at the defense plant. Uncle Misha died from stomach ulcer in 1962. His son Emmanuil  born in 1928 also graduated from the shipbuilding institute. In 1990 he moved to Israel with his children. 

My mother’s sister Clara, born in Odessa in 1911, was the youngest in the family and my favorite. She was only 13 years older than me. She was very pretty. Clara finished school and got married. Her husband was land surveyor and his last name was Elentukh. He used to work with my father and my father introduced him to Clara. In 1930 their twins Shura and Genia were born. In 1940 her daughter Jeanne was born. Before the war the family lived near the town park in the center of Odessa where they moved in 1935 from Slobodka. When the war began in 1941 Clara’s husband went to the front. Clara, her three children and her mother, my grandmother Bertha refused to evacuate. Clara believed that the Germans were harmless and were not to last over two or three months. She didn’t want to move with the children to strange places, so she stayed. She was last seen with her mother and children in the march of Jews along Koblevskaya Street to the ghetto in Slobodka in January 1942. We don’t know how they perished, but we know that it must have been an excruciatingly tormenting death.

My grandfather on my father’s side Avrum-Leizer Goldwarg was born in Berezovka town, Kherson province [90 km from Odessa] in 1845. At that time Berezovka had Jewish and German population. The Germans were called ‘dachi’ – probably a derivative of ‘deutsch‘. People communicated in German and Yiddish. At home my grandmother and grandfather spoke Yiddish, but they also knew Russian that they used with my mother and me. My grandfather was a religious man and attended the synagogue – he was a gabbai, a warden in the synagogue. [The interviewee means a shammash and not a community representative, what gabbai really means.] This was an elective position and the Jews usually elected the most decent and honest man. My grandfather was a horse dealer. He went to Odessa and other towns to buy the weakest and most miserable horses that he cured in his own stables and sold at a higher price. This was how he made a living. His family was wealthy for its time. They had a 3-hectare plot of land and two houses. They leased the smaller house and lived in the bigger two-storied house: my grandfather, grandmother and their younger son Isaac and his family. We also stayed there when we visited Berezovka They had a big orchard and a big barn with grain.

In the late 1920s my grandparents moved to Odessa to join their children there. They lived with their son Isaac’s family. I remember visiting my uncle. There was a mezzanine in their apartment where my grandfather used to pray and I peeped into the keyhole. He put leather cubes on his hands and forehead and put on a thallith and prayed swinging. He died from pneumonia in 1931 at the age of 87. He was buried according to the Jewish tradition. He was put on a white sheet on the floor and there were candles burning. Then he was taken to the main synagogue in Rishelievskaya street on the corner of the Jewish Street. This was my first time in synagogue. It was a beautiful building with columns of the Corinthian Order, benches for men in the lower tier and women’s area in the upper tier. My grandfather was covered with a black cloth with a hexahedral star on it. My grandfather was a very respectable man and he was carried by people in their hands from the synagogue to Jewish cemetery– the distance of about 3 km. Many people came to his funeral. I remember the ride in a horse-driven cart where elderly Jews were sitting, since they couldn’t walk such a long distance. The community installed a gravestone on my grandfather’s grave. I can’t remember where exactly his grave was. I tried to find his grave in 1948, but I failed. I found the grave of my other grandfather, though.

My grandmother on my father’s side Rivka Goldwarg, nee Grinshtein, was born in Berezovka in 1861. My grandmother was a housewife: she did everything about the house and kept livestock; chickens, ducks and a cow that she milked twice a day. She made traditional Jewish food: Gefilte fish, stew, sweet and sour meat, meat with prunes and stuffed chicken neck with chicken liver or semolina. She baked delicious pastries and made jam. There was a Russian stove in the kitchen and my grandmother baked bread once a week. She took some grain from the barn to the German baker to grind it to flour and made rich and big bread. This was the most delicious bread I ever had in my life. We lived in Berezovka when I was 4 and my mother watched my grandmother cooking to learn things from her. My grandmother wore dark skirts and a  kerchief on her head. She was religious and went to synagogue on Saturday and on holidays. A Ukrainian woman came to do the housework on Saturday. After my grandfather died my grandmother lived with her son Isaac and went to evacuation in Tashkent during the war. In 1944 they returned to Odessa. My grandmother died in Odessa in 1952

As far as I remember she had 5 children, they were born in Berezovka town, Kherson province. Lyova, the oldest in the family, was born in early 1880s. He died when he was two. The next one Matvey was born in1889. He was the fist one of my grandparents’ children to move to Odessa. He was a pharmacist at the Weinshtein pharmacy. My father told me that during the imperialist war Matvey was to be mobilized in the army. [By imperialist war the interviewee means WWI.] My grandmother took him to a doctor that made an injection and his forefinger stopped functioning. He wasn’t drafted , but his hand got inflamed after this injection and had to be amputated.  It resulted in a general inflammation of which he died in the 1920s. Sophia was the next child. All I know about her is that she died from tuberculosis when she was young. My father’s brother Isaac was born in 1900. He also moved to Odessa. He had lower secondary education. He was director of a food products storehouse. He was married. His daughter Raya was born in the 1930s. In the late 1920s my grandfather and grandmother moved to Isaac’s place. During the war he and his family evacuated to Taskent. After the war they came back to Odessa where they lived in their old apartment. Uncle Isaac died in the early 1970s. His daughter Raya lives in Germany. 

My father’s sister Etia (she was called Tyusha at home) was born in 1903. Etia finished a secondary school and studied in Odessa University. When she was a third year student she married her fellow student. Later she got ill. As a result of this illness she began to pull her leg. She turned into an invalid from a beautiful girl. She divorced her husband and quit the university. She became very nervous and closed. She finished an accounting school and learned typing. She often left Odessa for Soviet construction sites, but then she returned and her father or uncle Isaac helped her to find a job. In some time she left again. She was like a curse of our kinship. In late 1960s she moved to Israel. I don’t know anything else about her. 

My father Miron Goldwar was born in Berezovka, Kherson province, in 1897. He was not called Goldwarg because he asked the last letter to be deleted in his last name when he received his passport. He might have studied in cheder in Berezovka. He came to Odessa when he was a young boy. His older brother Matvey lived in Odessa. Matvey helped him to get an employment in the Yung’s pharmacy. My father was a courier – he delivered medications that he stored in a basket. He entered a Realschule. He studied well and was ambitious. He gained much from meeting the Rabinovich family – not just because he met my mother. My father was struck by their way of life. He came from a small and poor family in a village. And all of a sudden he joined the society of educated and wealthy people. He was planning to work hard to gain such way of life, but the total confusion in the country connected with the revolution of 1917 and Civil War broke his plans.

My mother Raissa Rabinovich was born in Odessa in 1900. She was a beautiful woman and always looked younger than her age and when she got her passport she changed her birth date to 1904. My mother enjoyed recalling her life in her father’s home. She was an only daughter in the family for a long time and her parents and brothers loved and petted her. My mother finished a grammar school. She enjoyed studying at school. She knew French and played the piano. She had many friends and admirers. After finishing grammar school in the age of 17 my mother lived with her parents and didn’t work. My mother met my father when she was rather young. My father was a classmate of Misha, my mother’s brother. My father often visited the Rabinovich family and fell in love with the young schoolgirl. 

My parents got married in the early 1920s. My father courted my mother for a long time before marrying her. I didn’t ask my parents about their wedding, I didn’t even know anything about a traditional Jewish wedding. At that time my father was taken by the authorities to do land surveying. My father was the supervisor of a team of land surveyors – they traveled across the south of Ukraine, measuring plots of land for farmers and later – for collective farms during the period of collectivization 4. My father didn’t quite enjoy traveling because he wanted to study. He was planning to continue his education. My mother followed him in his trips. My mother had asthma since childhood. She had attacks, especially at night. There were no medications and my mother inhaled some herbs to improve her breathing. She had a poor heart and my father sent her to the resort in Kislovodsk  once every second year during the 1930s. [Kislovodsk is a balneal resort in Stavropol region and it is located at the foothills of the Caucasus at the height of 720 -1060 meters.] He saved up money for my mother. When she went there for the first time she stayed in bed for two weeks – it took her this long to get adjusted to the new climatic conditions. She got much better – this resort was very good for her and improved her condition significantly every time she went there. She didn’t have any asthma attacks for a whole year.

Growing up

I was born in my grandmother’s house on 7 April 1924. But I don’t remember anything about the house. My grandmother Bertha insisted that my mother gave birth to her baby in Odessa. A midwife came to attend to my mother during her labor. I was the first grandson in the Rabinovich family. I was the only baby and everybody paid their attention to me, especially my mother’s 13-year-old sister Clara. We lived with my grandparents for about a year. Later we traveled all over Ukraine with my father. We lived in Proskurov and Berezovka and then with my grandfather Avrum-Leizer in Kherson. My mother was a housewife. I learned to read when I was 5. I remember that my mother was reading to me The White Poodle by Kuprin. [Kuprin was a Russian writer who emigrated to Paris in 1919 but returned to the Soviet Union in 1937.] I was so moved by the story of this dog that I even cried over the story. I learned letters from this book and my mother said to me once: ‘That’s it, now you read it by yourself.’ So, I began to read this book. This book inspired me to read books. We had many books. Most of them were fiction in Russian. I was especially fond of historical novels, such as Napoleon by Evgeny Tarle. [Tarle was a  Soviet historian and writer of Jewish origin.] My parents also read a lot.

In the summer of 1931 when I was 7 I went to Moscow with my grandmother Bertha. We went to see uncle Grigoriy. Grigoriy suggested that I stayed with him and went to the first form at school in Moscow, since my father had to travel and we usually followed him. We lived in my uncle’s summerhouse in Malakhovka near Moscow. My grandmother didn’t get along with Grigoriy’s wife. I was bored and I was a spoiled boy – I must have been tactless at times. Uncle Grigoriy had a crude character and he beat me few times. Basically, we didn’t get along and uncle Grigoriy sent me back to my parents

In 1931 or 1932 we moved from Kherson to Odessa. In 1932 my father quit his job and entered Odessa Construction Institute. We rented the 2nd floor of a small two-storied house near the market across the street from the church in Slobodka.  We lived in one room. I cannot remember how it was furnished. My mother’s sister Clara, her family and grandmother Bertha occupied two other rooms. We had a common kitchen and a toilet. There was running water and electricity in the house, but the stove was wood stake. I was allowed to play with the other children in the yard and to this day I do not know of what nationality they were; it was not important. We lived there for too short time and my parents did not make friends with anybody. There was plenty of snow in winter. My father made me wooden skates that I tied to my winter boots to skate. 

1932–1933 were years of famine 5. My father worked at a construction site in the daytime and studied at the Institute in the evening. My father took empty containers to the Institute where he received a free meal that he took home. There was some mixture for the first course called ‘green borsch’. My mother added some water and carrots to it to make it eatable. And there was some cereal for the second course. My mother worked at the Torgsin 6 at the New Market. My mother received her salary in rubles and a portion of it was calculated in hard currency, only they couldn’t have it, but could receive butter or sugar for it. My parents also received tram tickets at work – 30-60 tickets that I used to sell 15 kopecks each at a tram stop to make some money. My parents walked to work. Tram 15 that commuted from Slobodka to the center of the town stopped near the Duke’s Garden where all passengers got off the tram to walk uphill and the tram climbed the hill empty. The tram was not powerful enough to go up the hill with the passengers on. On top of the hill all passengers got in to continue on their way. I also remember when my father bought a box of cigarette paper he and my mother stuffed them with tobacco and I went to sell them at the market. I was selling them humming the tune: ‘Kupite, koyft di papirosn’. [This is the first line of a well-known Yiddish song.] My mother and I were trying to do our best to help my father provide for the family.

My father worked as foreman after he finished the Institute. He worked on a number of construction sites in Odessa and I often came to see him at work. He wanted me to become an architect and shared his experiences with me. He climbed the scaffold on the construction site of Pedagogical Institute where a 3rd floor was added to the first one to show me the way beams were installed.

I remember the Odessa of my childhood with paved street. There were several tram lines – one of them commuted to Luzanovka, a popular beach in the outskirts of Odessa, another 17 commuted to Arkadia [a beach in town]. Trams were always overcrowded and people were hanging from the doors. On Sunday my mother, father and I went to the beach in Luzanovka – our tickets cost 60 kopecks. We got on with a basket full of food for a day. We spent the whole day on the beach. In 1937 my father and a group of engineers from the construction department received a little plot of land near the sea. Six of them built three houses and each family received half a house into their disposal: two rooms, a small kitchen and a big verandah. There was a cellar under the kitchen. and a shower, electricity and running water in the house. We planted an orchard. Since 1937 we moved there in May after the school ended and staid till the fall when it got cold in this summerhouse. The father went to work from there. I used to walk barefoot there. I spent all my time on the beach. I swam and dived well.  

I went to the first class of the Ukrainian higher secondary school near our house in 1932. Our first teacher was a fat rough woman. She slapped us on our cheeks. I was a naughty and lively boy and suffered the most. Once I gathered together a group of my classmates and led them to director’s office to complain. The situation was scandalous and the teacher was hfired.  We liked a lot our next teacher Vera Ivanovna. I don’t know what nationalities were in my class. We didn’t focus on the issue of any national origin. I got along well with all children. At Christmas our teacher staged an anti-religious play  The Pope and the Barometer. It was about a draught when farmers asked a priest to pray for rain. The priest said that they were sinners and didn’t deserve to be prayed for. But then one day he said to the farmers: ‘All right, I don’t want your children to be hungry – let’s go to the field and I shall pray.’ They went into the field and the moment the priest began to say his prayer it began to rain. However, the reason was that the priest had a barometer at home and knew when it would rain. I read the author’s lines – and our performance deserved a storm of applause. But when I came out of the school some boys in the street called me ‘zhyd’ [Jew]. I heard the word zhyd for the first time. When I came home I began to ask my parents what the word zhyd meant and they had to calm me down. 

When I finished the second class in 1934 year we moved to the center of the town. My mother had a friend, Sopha Pekelis, who lived on the second floor of a house in the very best part of Odessa. The 1st floor of their house was a confectionery store that belonged to her father during the NEP 7 and later was confiscated by the Soviet power. The Pekelis family moved to Kislovodsk in 1934 and we moved into their apartment. I went to a Russian secondary school. Before we moved I gave my photograph to my favorite teacher Vera Ivanovna to show my love. We had very good teachers at the new school. I studied successfully and was fond of geography, natural history and anatomy.  Elizabeth Grigorievna Garun, our teacher of natural sciences, gave me a 5+ for my knowledge of natural sciences. [The highest grade is 5.] I went to the municipal public library to read books on anatomy and made reports on the circulation of blood and the nervous system in class and made presentation materials for her. I also remember the Russian teacher. I read a lot and she advised me on the books to read. As for Ukrainian language and literature, our teacher Olga Moiseevna Khmelnitskaya made us learn many Ukrainian poems by heart and taught us Ukrainian traditions and rituals. I can still remember many Ukrainian poems. She spoke only Ukrainian to us. I remember visiting the school after the war, still wearing my military uniform – how happy I was to see my old teachers! I asked where Olga Moiseevna was and our teacher of physics, said: ‘Don’t you know? She perished in the ghetto.’ So, she was a Jew – it really never occurred to me. I believed she was Ukrainian. Her husband and son perished along with her.

At 15 I joined the Komsomol 8 league. I looked forward to this day. I believed in all the communist ideas. The first step was the School Komsomol Committee. The final decision was taken by the District Committee. There you solemnly received your Komsomol card. I took an active part in public life: I was the editor of our wall newspaper. I liked all Soviet holidays: the October Revolution Day 9 and the 1st of May. On these days we went in a march with red flags and communist slogans on banners. I had many friends and never thought about their nationality. My father didn’t share my enthusiasm and was hostile to the Soviet regime, especially when the arrests began in 1937. My mother always tried to smoothen down my father’s moods. They began to be particularly concerned after uncle Grigoriy was arrested in Moscow in 1937. My father never wanted to join the Communist Party, but he never interfered in my Komsomol activities. Our family was entirely secular and had nothing to do with Jewish tradition.

During the War

I remember the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.  It was Sunday and I was going on a visit to my favorite aunt Clara. I went across the town park when I saw a group of people listening to Molotov’s 10 speech. He announced that the night before Hitler attacked the USSR without declaration of the war. On the first days of the war the young people were full of enthusiasm to win a victory within about a month.

My father was mobilized to the army on the first days of the war. He was on a construction site in Novosibirsk [3,700 km from Odessa] to construct facilities for the factories evacuated from Ukraine. Later he was sent to the Leningrad front where he was throughout the period of the blockade 11. After Leningrad was liberated he worked at the restoration of ruined buildings in Leningrad and was demobilized in 1945.

Odessa was bombed for the first time on 22 July – a month after the war began. The first bomb was dropped in Gogol Street. The house was destroyed and for a long time there was a piano half-hanging on the third floor. My friend Tamara Agalarova perished during one of the first bombings. Our enthusiasm was over and was replaced by fear. My mother and I moved to our summer house where it seemed to be safer. I insisted that we evacuated. I didn’t believe that Germans were cultured people. We needed a special permit for evacuation. The logistics department of the army occupied one of our two rooms for some time. After the evacuation began one of the officers named Gankevich obtained a permit for my mother – he told the authorities that she was his wife and I was his son, and we managed to leave Odessa.

On 8 October 1941 we boarded a ship called Armenia and on 16 October Odessa was left to the Germans. Near the cape Tarkhankut [south-east of the Crimean peninsula] the boat was stranded in the night. The boat was overcrowded – there were over 3 thousand people including wounded military. In the morning two trawlers pulled us off the strand. My mother and I got off in Tuapse [port on the Black Sea shore]. My mother’s friend Sopha Pikelis lived in Kislovodsk [1,200 km from Odessa]. We got to Kislovodsk by train. I entered an artillery school there. We studied general subjects and some artillery subjects. I lived in a barrack.

In 1942 the front was close to Kislovodsk and I convinced my mother to go on to Djambul, Kazakhstan [3,200 km from Odessa]. I was to enter the army in August 1942. After my mother left and till the end of the war my mother and I corresponded. My mother has kept my letters. In the summer of 1942 I was transferred to the Rostov Artillery College. The Germans were near Bataysk, Rostov region, the tank army of Kleist was proceeding to the East. Our College was retreating together with the Red Army and had no provisions and very few weapons. I had a bottle of kerosene with a match and fuse sticking out of it. I was supposed to strike a match, throw the bottle on a tank and run away. But I had no opportunity to carry this out, thanks God. We were retreating through the Salskiye steppes near Stalingrad covered with fine dust few dozen centimeters deep. We had this dust in the mouth in the hair – everywhere. We were black covered with this dust, hungry and thirsty. We caught stray sheep, slaughtered them and I made borsch for the whole battery. We reached Ordjonikidze [Vladikavkaz at present] and moved along the Military Georgian Road 12, across the Caucasus mountains to Tbilissi. I remember a Chechen settlement Lars. The Chechens didn’t give us water. We came to the Krestovy pass when a snowstorm began. We crossed the pass and began our descent. There was a beautiful view in front of us - the blooming valley of the Aragvi River in Georgia. The Georgians were happy to help us: they gave us food and water and shared their clothing with us. In Tbilissi I got to the artillery school where I studied for 8 months. I was a success with my studies and helped other cadets – my group mates came from villages for a most part. I didn’t face any anti-Semitism. In May 1943 I finished the school in the rank of lieutenant. I was sent to the First Ukrainian front. My first big action that I took part in was liberation of Kiev in November 1943. Our battery was taken to the right bank of the Dnieper River and we were to distract attention of the enemy. It was a miracle that we survived. I was commanding officer of a howitzer battery. My howitzer cannon weighed 3 tons and was pulled by ten horses. I remember battle near Proskurov [town in Ukraine]. We didn’t have enough shells. A Churchill tank (an assistance from Great Britain) was near my battery and I begged him to pull my howitzer, since my horses were killed. Later I participated in the battles near the Dnestr. I was only twenty years old, but I was already a first lieutenant. I was wounded in the autumn 1944 in Germany, where I went with the offensive army, shell-shocked. One splinter injured my eye and another one hit my right side where it got stuck in my bag with papers. The bag saved my life. I kept that splinter for memory for a long time. I was put in the front hospital till the end of 1944. My eye injury resulted in blindness. I was hysterical being afraid of life-long blindness. The doctor assured me that I would see in two months. When a nurse removed my bandage I screamed ‘Light!’

At the end of 1944 I returned to my regiment. At first I was deputy regiment commander for reconnaissance. Then I became commanding officer of a battery. At the beginning of 1945 in Germany I became a member of the party. It was quite a natural step for me, a Komsomol member. I made a little pocket on the inner side of my shirt to keep my party membership card. We were heading for Berlin, but later we were ordered to turn to Prague, where an uprising 13 began. We covered 90 km per day. We sat on the cannons which were drawn by horses, this is how we traveled. We reached Prague after our tanks entered it – it happened on 9 May – Victory Day 14. We were so happy and rejoiced in our happiness. We laid a table – about one hundred meters long. Commander of our regiment appointed me to be on duty to take care of drunken officers just in case, since I didn’t drink. I returned home from Prague in 1945. I served in Berdichev [Zhytomir region, 500 km from Odessa] where I was Chief of headquarters of anti-tank.

After the War

My mother returned from evacuation in 1945. She found our apartment occupied by a militiaman – major Urbanskiy. She even went to see the commandant of the town, but it didn’t work. Then I came to Odessa for ten days. I gathered my friends and we came to my home. I told him to move out before the following day or, I said, I would throw him out of the window. The major moved out and I helped my mother to move in. My father was reconstructing a big plant in Leningrad where he was deputy director and returned home. When he returned home, my father went to work as foreman at a construction site. By the way, he participated in reconstruction of Annunciation cathedral. Since my father was a Jew from the point of ethical standards it was awkward for him to be working there since it was a Russian Orthodox church. Formally the Ukrainian Vassily Filippenko, father’s close friend was on the lists of the staff there and my father did the work. Vassily Filippenko lived in the Moldavanka 15 neighborhood, he spoke fluent Yiddish from his childhood. He was a nice man. I don’t remember my father ever going on vacation. He stayed at work and received compensation for his vacation period. My father retired in the early 1960s.

I demobilized from the army on 26 August 1946. I returned to Odessa and went to see the rector of the Construction Institute – he was also a war veteran. He ordered his subordinate to enroll me on the lists of students. That was how I became a student of the faculty of architecture at the Construction Institute. There were 11 veterans of war at my institute. We had wonderful lecturers. Many of them were Jews: professor Zeiliger, director of the Museum of Western and Oriental Art, Zametchik – correspondent member of the Academy of Science, and Gotlib, graduate of the Academy of Architecture in Paris. When we were 3rd year students the campaign of the struggle against cosmopolitism 16 began. I remember a meeting of our faculty attended by second secretary of the town committee of the Communist Party. Galia Golota that was at the front near Sevastopol took the floor and said: ‘Bortnik has just told me to vote for the resolution of the Party or I would be expelled from the Institute.’ We, veterans of the war did speak our mind regardless of the party politics. At the meeting we argued and talked a lot, but, alas, professors Zeiliger and Zametchik were fired from the Institute. 

I graduated from the Institute in 1951. I got a job assignment at the design department in Nikolaev. I went there with my friend Grinberg that lives in Los Angeles now. There was another architect from Kiev working there and the three of us received a 3-room apartment in the main street of the town. I was among developers of the design for the Palace of Shipbuilders, a cinema theater and few residential buildings. I traveled to Odessa every weekend. I was married at that time and had a son.

I met my wife at a friend’s party when I came on leave to Odessa to help my mother get back our apartment in 1945. There were dressed up young people at the party and I felt out of place in my military uniform. I was sitting in a corner of the room when I noticed a nice lovely girl. Her name was Musia Dalskaya. I took her home and when we were saying good bye to one another she said: ‘Senia, I feel shy, but I can’t help telling you that I like you much. I am telling you this, because that’s the way I feel.’ Well, it was almost a declaration of love. It was a surprise. I told her that I liked her and she was a nice girl, but that I had to leave. I went back to Berdichev. When I demobilized she was already married and had a son. When her son Robert turned 6 months old she divorced her husband. We began to see each other. My family was against our meetings – they thought I was too good for Musia, a divorced woman with a child. However, we got married. I did not care about her nationality, just as it is not an important issue for me today.

My wife’s father Motele Dalskiy came from Bobruysk in Byelorussia [750 km from Odessa]. He didn’t know his father or mother or date of birth. His parents must have perished during the Civil War. When Motele showed up at the market in Bobruysk all vendors tried to hide their goods, he was a notorious thief. He was imprisoned in a camp for underage criminals. He finished secondary school in this camp. When he was in the camp he took the last name of a popular Russian actor Mamont Dalskiy. My father-in-law was a very handsome man. Before the Great Patriotic War he was director of the film studio in Odessa. He was a member of the Communist Party. During the war he was at the front in the Crimea where he was head of the political department of a division. He was wounded. After the war he established a network of photo shops in Odessa called the Ukrphoto. Later he was Chairman of the Regional Council of trade unions of milk and meat industry. He died in the 1970s. My wife’s mother Anna Solomonovna was a housewife. She died in 1983. As far as I know they never kept any Jewish traditions.

My wife was born in Odessa in 1925. She graduated from secondary school. She was a photographer when we met, but later I helped her to get a job at a design institute where she was a registrar. She worked there until she retired. After the wedding I went to see Robert’s father that lived in Moscow. I told him that I wanted to adopt the boy and that he couldn’t have two fathers – one that lives with him and one that comes to see him every now and then. We went to the district municipal agency to have the adoption processed. Robert got to know that I was his adoptive father when he turned twenty. Or neighbor told him after she had an argument with us. Robert came to ask me whether it was true and I told him. I also said that he could call me by my first and patronymic names if he thought it necessary. My son hugged me saying ‘father, how can you think so?’ In 1952 our second son Alexandr was born. Our sons got along well. Robert felt responsible for Alexandr.

Both of our sons were raised the way all Soviet children were at the time. We taught them to love their family, and to be honest and industrious people. They got their share of the communist ideas in school. There was no religious influence from their grandparents on any side. They had both Jewish and non-Jewish friends and they never noticed any difference. I do not recall that they ever experiences any anti-Semitism in school. New Year’s Eve was the common and much loved family holiday in those times. Of course, we celebrated everybody’s birthday in the family -- with holiday pie and nice gifts.

Robert finished Navy School and sailed on ships as electrician. He was married to a Jew, but they had no children. Robert died of a heart attack at the age of 36, in 1982. Alexandr entered the Faculty of Sanitary Engineering at the Odessa Construction Institute. He studied 3 years there and then worked as a foreman at a construction site. He got married to a Jew also, but he divorced his wife and emigrated to the US in 1989. He lives in Los Angeles and works in the service sector. He calls us from time to time but we have not seen each other since he left.

In 1952 during the period of the Doctors’ Plot 17 I didn’t believe the official propaganda any longer. I had become disillusioned back when I saw the struggle against the cosmopolites in my own institute. I don’t think many people believed Stalin during that period. Persecutions didn’t touch our family – there were no doctors, but this was an anti-Semitic campaign that made establishment of the Jewish state in 1948 even more important. During the war I was aware of the anti-Semitic attitude towards the Jews both within the USSR and in other countries. So, when the country that defeated fascism declared anti-Semitism as its state policy it was like a blow for me. Israel is like the promised land for me. This is the land of Jews. I am an atheist and I wasn’t raised religious, but I’ve read the Bible. During the Soviet period I took an interest in the history of Judaism since I wished I could understand where the roots of anti-Semitism grew from. I took Stalin’s death in 1953 easy. I don’t wish evil to anyone, but here I was glad that he died. All I was concerned about was what was going to happen next. But I was fully engaged in my professional activities and had nothing to do with politics.

In the summer of 1953 I returned to Odessa and got a job at Giprograd [State Institute of Town Planning]. I was an architect and then chief project architect. On 17 August 2003 it will be 50th anniversary of my work at this organization. Forty five years I was Chief architect of the project. I’ve designed many buildings in Odessa. I worked at the department of industrial planning for ten years. I designed hydrolysis factories in Belgorod-Dnestrovsk, Svaliava [Zakarpathiye region], Zaporozhiye, tyre repair plant in Odessa. I also designed residential buildings. I worked with nice intellectual people. There were a number of Jews among us but there was no ‘Jewish question’, we valued each other for their professional qualities. Somewhere in 1960 I took part in development of design for a school building in Illichevsk. [Illichevsk is a port on the Black Sea in 25 km from Odessa, which became a town in 1973.] This school was a beginning of my career as chief of general development of Illichevsk. A town with about 70 thousand inhabitants was built within 40 years. It’s a beautiful modern town with schools, shops and gyms. I developed a design for the Palace of Sports. I like Illichevsk a lot. When I travel there I gain energy for the rest of the year. 

In 1969 my mother died in pain. Her asthma was getting worse and my mother was afraid that with age it would become even worse. We kept an oxygen pillow at home. My father watched my mother very closely. Once my father went to the pharmacy and wasn’t home for 20 minutes. When he returned my mother had a dark blue color and was on the floor trying to reach to the oxygen pillow. She died and we buried her at the Jewish cemetery in Slobodka. My father didn’t remarry, although there were candidates to become his wife. He kept saying ‘I loved my wife’. He cooked for himself and went to the town beach in Langeron every day. He lived in my family in his last years and died in 1983. He was buried at the Jewish cemetery beside my mother’s grave.

My wife Musia died on 12 January 1992. In 1996 I married Lidia Musatova. I met her during a cruise on the Volga River in 1980s. She visited us in Odessa several times. Lidia lectured on the Russian literature at the pedagogical Institute in Nikolaev. When Musia died she supported and helped me. Then it took me 3 years to convince her to get married. We lived together seven happy years. She died of cancer six months ago.

In 2000 the director of Giprograd called me for a meeting with the representatives of the association of the former inmates of concentration camps and the ghettos of the Odessa region. He was not Jewish but he knew that I was and realized that the subject was a concern to me. They offered me to take part in a very interesting project: the development of the design for a memorial complex dedicated to the Jews who perished in Odessa in the course of its history: the victims of pogroms and the victims of the Holocaust. It was to be installed in the former place of the 2nd Jewish cemetery, which was removed back in the 1960s. I gave my consent and began to work. There already was a memorial to victims of 1905 pogroms at the cemetery when about 400 Jews perished: women, elderly people and children. 14 granite slabs were on this common grave. There were names of over thirty people on each slab. There are missing names as well.  When the cemetery was to be removed the town architect inscribed numbers on these slabs and they were transported to Jewish cemetery in Slobodka. They are still there – many of them were stolen or decayed, but there are quite a few left. I did my land survey and did some additional work about granite. The memorial based on my projects shall be erected in its place. Minkus, a well-known architect from Odessa, developed a project for this memorial and I took part in the development. We followed the design of Minkus for two portals and the temple wall and my design was based on an old photograph. During the Great Patriotic War about two hundred thousand Jews perished in Odessa and Odessa region. The second memorial of the Memorial Complex shall be dedicated to the victims of Holocaust. There will be the monument called ‘The Righteous Woman Among the Nations’ holding a Jewish baby in the kippah. [The Righteous Among the Nations were the non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.] I spend all my time doing this very interesting work. Public Jewish organizations and mayor’s office provide all necessary assistance to us. My work with the Jewish Memorial is very important for the Jewish community in Odessa.

Glossary

Ida Voliovich
Kishinev
Moldova
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: July 2004

Ida Voliovich readily gave her consent to meet me for this interview. She lives in a two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a nine-storied building in a new district of Kishinev [Chisinau in Moldovan]. Ida has recently renovated her apartment. She has new furniture and appliances: a Japanese TV set and modern kitchen appliances. There are pictures on the walls and stuffed animals all around: Ida’s husband was a passionate hunter. Ida looks young for her age, though she is already 84. However, she has a nice dressing gown on, her hair is neatly done and her nails manicured and polished. Ida gives me a warm welcome and offers me a cup of coffee. Ida speaks very distinctly and adds clear comparisons and descriptions to her story. It was almost midnight when we called it a day.

We called Ida Voliovich again in November to ask her a few questions to add to her story, but unfortunately her son told us that Ida had passed away on 24th October 2004.

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

My name is Ida Voliovich. Voliovich is my maiden name that I never changed; being the only bearer of this rare Jewish surname left, I decided to preserve the memory of my father. In 1903 a tragedy happened in my father’s family: My grandfather Kelman Voliovich was born in the 1830-1840s in the Bessarabian 1 town of Orgeyev [Orhei in Moldovan] and spent his youth there. Later he and my grandmother Hina, a few years younger than him, moved to Kishinev, where Kelman became a grain dealer, a wealthy and respected man. My grandfather owned a big three-storied house in the center of the town, on Gostinaya Street [today Schmidtoskaya Street]. Grandmother Hina took care of the children and the household. She had housemaids to help her around. They were a religious family. My grandfather had a seat in the synagogue of butchers [there were 65 synagogues and prayer houses in Kishinev before 1940. There were bigger synagogues for all and smaller synagogues: a synagogue of tailors, leather tanners, butchers, etc. maintained by guild unions], a big and beautiful one, on Izmailskaya Street. My grandfather got along well with his Jewish and Moldovan neighbors, never refusing to lend them money or give advice.

Therefore, when on the Pesach day in 1903 2 his neighbor and his Ukrainian friend, who had arrived from Nikolaev the day before, came into his yard, Kelman went towards them, to greet his guests. And his daughters Ita and Hava, young beautiful girls with long black hair, came out with him. However, their neighbors, who were intoxicated by alcohol, didn’t come there with good intentions – they knew that Jews were being beaten and robbed in the town and wanted to take advantage of Kelman’s wealth. When they saw the girls, they went for them. Grandfather stood up for his daughters. The ‘good neighbors’ beat him mercilessly, and the man from Nikolaev, whose name was Pyotr Kaverin, struck my grandfather on his head with an iron bar. Grandfather Kelman was taken to the Jewish hospital where all victims of this ‘Bloody Easter’ were taken. He died the following day. The bandits raped the girls and beat Ita brutally – she was ill for a while afterward.

For a long time after that there were feathers and down from the torn pillows flying around. There was blood on the walls of houses in Kishinev, where public representatives, including Nahman Bialik 3, a Jewish poet, and Vladimir Korolenko 4, a great Russian writer and humanist, arrived after this brutal pogrom. There is still no truthful information about who had provoked this pogrom. However, it is well known that the tsarist regime benefited from the situation [Editor’s note: The majority of the population of tsarist Russia lived in miserable poverty. There were revolts and uprisings against the existing regime and the government didn’t mind that people’s anger turned against Jews, who were always believed to be to blame for the hardships of people’s life. Therefore, the authorities supported the pogrom makers by silent observation from aside and imposed no sanctions on them]. The murderers of my grandfather got away with what they had done. My uncle Simkha Voliovich sued them, but the trial issued the ‘not guilty’ verdict, based on false testimony of bribed witnesses, and the murderer Kaverin went back to Nikolaev, where I guess he lived a long life afterward. It was not before the mid-1990s that I discovered the opinion of one jury member in the archive, who gave a detailed description of how false the testimony was and expressed his disagreement with the verdict, but this didn’t affect the final decision.

This terrible disaster shook the family. Grandmother Hina died shortly after the pogrom. The sisters Ita and Hava recovered physically, but their moral condition was terrible. They never got married. The whole town was aware that the girls had been raped and there were no young men, suitable from the point of their social standing, willing to marry them. They also rejected those young men, who had a lower status than their family. This was a family tragedy. According to Jewish traditions older sisters were to be the first to get married and since they never did, the rest of the children couldn’t get married either.

There were seven children in the family. They were not religious any longer in their adulthood, I must say. They were educated and secular people. David Voliovich, the oldest son, born in the 1860s, moved to America in the 1910s. This is all the information we had about David. He never wrote a single letter, and I don’t even know whether he ever reached America.  

The brothers Srul, Simkha and Lazar remained unmarried. Srul, born in the 1870s, finished a cheder. He assisted his father in the grain trade and took over the family business after Kelman died. Srul was a sickly person. He died in the mid-1930s.

Grandfather Kelman came from a small town, Orgeyev, from a poor family. I can’t be sure, but I don’t think he studied elsewhere besides a cheder. I would think he was a smart person and kept learning to become a successful and respectable man. He wanted his children to get education and took every effort to implement this dream of his. Simkha and Lazar got a good education abroad. Simkha was a pharmacist. A few years after the tragedy, Simkha moved to Belgium. He lived and worked in Brussels. Simkha often wrote to us and sent us parcels. During World War II my uncle participated in the Belgian resistance movement and perished.

Lazar Voliovich, born in 1886, finished the Geneva Medical College, returned to his parents’ home in Kishinev and opened a private office. During World War I Lazar was a doctor in a regiment. In 1940, when the Soviet power was established in Kishinev, he was summoned to the NKVD 5 office. He was accused of having been a colonel of the tsarist army, but Lazar replied with his common humor that a doctor in a regiment wasn’t quite the same as a colonel. Lazar was a popular children’s doctor in Kishinev and they left him alone.

The old residents in Kishinev still have grateful memories about my uncle: Lazar helped them and their children, where other doctors were helpless. There were always people crowding before the door to his office. He earned well and was a rather wealthy man. Lazar also worked for free in the Jewish hospital and was a consultant in the hospital of the Jewish Health Care Society established by the Joint 6 in Kishinev in the 1920s. Lazar lived with his sisters Ita and Hava, supporting and assisting them. During the Great Patriotic War 7 he and his sisters evacuated to Central Asia near Bukhara, and after the war they returned home. Hava died in the early 1950s, Ita died in 1960, and Doctor Lazar Voliovich died a few years later. They were buried in the town cemetery in Kishinev.

My father Moishe, born in 1883, assisted his father in the grain trade. He studied in cheder like his brothers. Moishe was raised to respect Jewish traditions like his brothers and sisters. So his brothers and sisters were shocked when he got married after the pogrom, ignoring the tradition. He was head over heels in love with my mother, whom he had known before the pogrom.

My mother’s family was also wealthy. Grandfather Itl Kniazer, born in Kishinev in the 1850s, owned a butcher’s shop, the first one in the butchers’ line at the biggest market in Kishinev on Armianskaya Street. My grandfather had an employee to cut meat, and my grandmother Nesia was also there helping my grandfather. She was a cashier since she wouldn’t have entrusted counting money to anybody else. My grandmother was a beauty, when she was young. She married my fifteen-year-old grandfather, when she was just thirteen. She was still young and strong, when their children grew up. She had a stern and strong character, more masculine than my grandfather’s. My grandfather Itl had died before I was born.

The Kniazer family lived in a big apartment of a two-storied building on Podolskaya Street. The synagogue of butchers was located on Izmailskaya Street, where Grandfather Kelman went, not far from where Itl lived, so my father may have met my mother at the synagogue. [Editor’s note: Men and women are seated separately in synagogues. She may have seen him there, however, the meeting couldn’t have taken place inside the building.] My grandfather and grandmother went to the synagogue and observed Jewish traditions, followed the kashrut and celebrated Saturday [Sabbath]. However, business came first with my grandfather, so the family didn’t consider it a sin to sell meat to their customers on Saturday. Grandmother Nesia died in the early 1930s.

There was one son and a few daughters in the family. Ruvim, the oldest, born in 1870, took over my grandfather Itl’s store after he died. Ruvim died in the late 1930s. His older son Monia, who had been ill since childhood, also died in about this same period. His wife Leya, their daughter Nina and son Israel evacuated during the Great Patriotic War and after the war they returned to Kishinev. Nina died shortly after the war. Israel lives in Israel. He has a wonderful family, and we keep in touch.

The daughters were beauties. Ita, the oldest one, born in the early 1870s, a very beautiful girl, married a much older wealthy Jew at the age of 14 or 15. Her husband took her to Moscow where Ita had a son. This is all I know about Ita or her son, except that she died at the age of 28, long before I was born.

Riva, the next daughter, also married a wealthy Jewish man. His surname was Tsymsher. They moved to Moscow before the Revolution of 1917 8. Riva died before the Great Patriotic War, and her two sons, whose names I don’t remember, returned from the front and lived in Moscow.

Polia married a wealthy Jewish doctor. I don’t remember his name. They moved to the Soviet Union in the 1920s, when Bessarabia was still under the Romanian rule 9. I don’t know any details, though I know that many families were moving to Russia at that time by bribing frontier men. Polia and her son Joseph lived in Moscow. I visited them there in the 1950s. They were rather wealthy. Joseph was involved in commerce and Polia had all kinds of delicacies on her table. My son couldn’t tear himself from the food. Polia died in the late 1950s. Joseph has also passed away. His son Edward lives in Israel.

Betia was the only one of them to get university education: she finished a Dental College in Moscow. She worked in Moscow till she turned 80. Her family name was Orik. I have had no contacts with her son Boris: he was also involved in commerce like Joseph.

Tsypa, the next sister, was the ugliest of all the sisters. She married Samuel Rozenzweig from Kishinev, and they moved to the lovely Romanian town of Braila on the Danube where she lived till 1940. [Braila is a major Danubian port in Romania.] Samuel owned a big store and they were very wealthy. Their daughter Ida, named after Grandfather Itl, finished a gymnasium [Editor’s note: probably ‘gymnasium’ refers to the former school system used to be called ‘lyceum.’] in 1939 and studied at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Bucharest University.

In 1940 the Rozenzweig family moved to Kishinev, immediately after the Soviet power was established 10. They had hopes for a better and more just life. [Editor’s note: Most probably they fled from the large-scale pogroms in Romania, lead by the pseudo-Fascist organization of the Iron Guard.] Of course, they regretted it almost at once, but they couldn’t go back. Ida moved to her uncle in Odessa to continue her studies. Tsypa refused to evacuate. She and her husband perished in the Kishinev ghetto 11. My cousin Ida evacuated to Alma-Ata [today Kazakhstan] where she graduated from university and moved to Moscow to her aunt Betia. In Moscow Ida married a Jewish man from Bessarabia, who worked in the editor’s office of a magazine. Ida became a Romanian and French teacher and wrote a few textbooks. She died in the mid-1990s. Her son Alexandr lives in Canada.

Sonia, the youngest and the most beautiful of all sisters, married Isaac Bein, a pianist, who became a wonderful conductor and worked in the opera in Bucharest until 1940. They moved to Kishinev in 1940, after the Soviet power was established. He conducted our symphonic orchestra before the Great Patriotic War. He evacuated to Central Asia with the Philharmonic. From there he moved to Moscow where Isaac became the conductor of the orchestras of two popular theaters: Stanislavskiy and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theaters 12. At the age of 90 he established an opera team in the huge machine-building plant named after Likhachev, the Likhachev plant 13. Sonia and her family lived in a small room in a communal apartment 14. Sonia was very kind and happy about anything they had in life. She died an instant death from a heart attack in the early 1980s. In 1989 Sonia’s daughter Mariam died. Isaac died in the 1990s.

My mother, Leya Kniazer, was the same age as my father. She studied in a Russian gymnasium in Kishinev, but she never finished it for some reason that I don’t know. She knew Russian, though at home the family spoke Yiddish. Mama had a wonderful voice, which was common in the Kniazer family. She sang Jewish songs beautifully. They still sound in my heart, though I can’t repeat any due to my lack of musical talents. Mama was helping her mother about the house before she met my father. She and my father were bound with real deep love, ‘until the coffin,’ as was commonly said at the time. Fortunately, the Kniazer family didn’t suffer from the pogrom.

I don’t know how soon after my grandfather Kelman Voliovich died my parents got married, but in 1904 they were already married. They never told me anything about their wedding. By the way, I heard about the family tragedy and my grandfather’s death from my uncle Lazar, when I was already a grown up. I discovered the details in the archives in Kishinev in the 1990s. My parents probably wanted to keep the cruel story secret from me. Considering that the Kniazer family was also very religious, my parents must have had a traditional wedding with a chuppah at the synagogue of butchers. However, no relatives on my father’s side attended the wedding: his brothers and sisters repudiated him for ignoring the tradition. He studied the profession of a stockjobber and this became the job of his lifetime. Stockjobbers worked and stayed at a café on Alexandrovskaya Street, which was actually their office, where they made all their deals.

After the wedding my parents settled in a small apartment that my mother’s parents rented for them. They were rather poor, I’d say. A stockjobber’s life depended on many factors: crops, weather, price rates, political situation, etc. The life of our family was like a boat shaken by the waves. In some years my father earned all right, bought my mother expensive clothes and hired housemaids, and at other times Mama had to pawn our silver crockery for Pesach.

My mama’s first child died in infancy and so did the second one. The third son, born in 1907 and named Kelman after my grandfather, reconciled my father’s relations with his family. This was when my father’s sisters and brothers opened the doors of their house to my parents. However, they didn’t let my father join in the family business or have a part of what they had inherited from their parents.

After Kelman, my mother had a few miscarriages. Then in 1920, 13 years after my brother was born, I came into this world. I was named after my deceased grandfather Itl; the name of Ida sounds a lot like Itl. I remember my wonderful childhood. I remember our apartment on Alexandrovskaya Street [Lenin Street during the Soviet period and Stefan cel Mare at present], number 51а. I remember this particularly well since there was a lovely confectionary at number 51, on the corner of Izmailoskaya Street. We often went there, and its owner, a handsome Russian man with a big beard, attended to us. There were Jewish, Russian, Greek and Armenian store owners in Kishinev.

The owner of our house was Danovich, a Jewish man, a big manufacturer. He owned a down and feather manufacture, and there was a feather storage facility in our yard. Our small apartment was far to the back of the yard. There were two rooms and a kitchen in our apartment. There was a common toilet in the yard. There were Jewish and Moldovan families in our house. The children played in the yard, going home just for a meal. There was no national segregation from what I can remember. There was a croquet site in our yard.

Growing up

My friend was Mira Argiyevskaya, the daughter of our Moldovan neighbors. Her father was a barber. The boys Misha and Andryusha, the sons of our Ukrainian neighbor Kozhukhar, were also friends with us. My most loved friend Tzylia Blinder, a Jewish girl, lived in an apartment in the back of the yard. Her father owned a shoe shop where he had about ten employees working for him. The Khodorovskiye brother and sister, living in the house next to ours, became my lifelong friends. Danovich was a wealthy man and his daughters were older. We only followed them as they walked by, wearing fashionable gowns. 

My parents loved me dearly and my father just adored me. My brother Kelman, or Koma, as we called him at home, studied in Chernovtsy [today Ukraine]. My brother entered the Medical Faculty there, but after he visited the dissection room for the first time, he realized medicine wasn’t for him and switched to the Law Faculty. My parents also got along well with our neighbors. My father was an extraordinarily kind man and many people even took advantage of this feature of his. When he was carrying two chickens home before Sabbath, a poor man would approach him saying, ‘Moishe, you have two chickens and I have none,’ and my father didn’t hesitate to give him one chicken. My mother was also very kind. There was always a poor man joining us for Sabbath. We also followed the kashrut. Mama strictly followed kosher rules and never entrusted cooking to anyone else. At the same time my parents were modern people. Mama didn’t cover her hair. My father only wore a kippah to go to the synagogue. He also had his tallit and tefillin to take with him.

I liked Jewish holidays very much. Pesach was my favorite. Mama started scrubbing, cleaning and washing long before the holiday. She took expensive Pesach crockery and cutlery from a box, and at the times when my father didn’t earn well and Mama had pawned the crockery, she koshered our everyday crockery by boiling it in a tub. We always had guests at the table: they were Jewish soldiers from the town garrison. This was a custom with Jewish families. This allowed following the tradition [You are supposed to have guests at the table at Pesach] and also, the soldiers had a chance to celebrate the holiday. Since my brother was in Chernovtsy, I asked my father the four traditional questions and then looked for the afikoman to get a gift for finding it. We left a glass of wine for Elijah ha-nevi, and I couldn’t fall asleep, when I was small, fearing that the door would open at any moment to let the Prophet in.

I also liked Purim. I liked hamantashen: little pies with poppy seeds that my mother baked, but I liked fluden even more; waffles with layers of honey and nuts. On this holiday the rules required giving treats to the poor. There was a poor shoemaker Shir with his two daughters living across the street from us. They had no mother. Mama always sent me to them with a tray full of delicacies and I enjoyed doing this chore. I remember getting to their house across the snowdrifts one winter, when there was a lot of snow in Kishinev. When I studied in the gymnasium, we, the girls, used to arrange Purimspiel performances at somebody’s home.

There were beautiful holidays in fall – Rosh Hashanah, when we had delicious fruit, apples and honey. I also remember Yom Kippur. My father bought a hen and I went to the synagogue, where the rabbi conducted the kapores ritual, turning a hen over my head. Then I took the hen to the shochet, watching him hanging it on a hook to have the blood drip out of it. My parents always fasted on Yom Kippur. I remember the nice holiday of Sukkot. We didn’t have a sukkah, but before the holiday an attendant from the synagogue dropped branches onto the floor in our apartment. My father brought lemons [the interviewee probably means etrog], figs and some strange looking beans. We also visited our neighbors Khodorkovskiye in their sukkah. I had all these holidays in my childhood, but later I switched to other interests.

At the age of about six I was sent to the Jewish elementary school near the synagogue on Izmailovskaya Street. When I fell ill with measles, I had to stay home for some time, but I never went back to the Jewish school. I was a very independent girl and I was full of energy. Mira Argiyevskaya, who was two yeas older than me, studied in a special applied science school at the Pedagogical School. This school was established in 1919, when many Romanian intellectuals moved to Bessarabia to organize Romanian schools, vocational schools and colleges to improve the educational system. [The reason for this was to introduce the Romanian language in public as well as higher education in the previous Russian province].

The secondary school at the Pedagogical College was absolutely similar to Romanian rural schools. Students of the Pedagogical College were trained in this school as well. Florika Nizu, the headmistress of this school, was one of the developers of the educational system in Bessarabia. There was grade one and grade three in one classroom [there are usually no more than ten children of the same age in a village, and for this reason children of several grades studied together in one classroom, due to lack of facilities and teachers]. Besides, girls and boys studied together, while in Kishinev there were separate schools for boys and for girls. Florika Nizu interviewed me and approved my admission. They didn’t even ask my nationality. They treated me well at school. The pupil’s success was what mattered rather than his or her nationality. There were Moldovan, Russian and Jewish children at school. Quite a few known people finished this school. Thus, Mira’s classmate was Lusia Shliahov, who became a well-known physicist in Israel and the USA. All nationalities were respected at school.

When I turned eleven, I started earning money. Uncle Ruvim’s neighbors asked me to give private classes to their daughter, who was rather stupid. I prepared her for the first grade. In 1931 I finished elementary school. I tried to enter the state gymnasium where education was free, though they gave preference to Moldovan girls from rural areas to have them work in their villages later. It’s not that they didn’t admit Jews, but I’d rather say, they wanted to get bribes from them. So it happened that I failed to enter this gymnasium, despite my excellent marks from the elementary school. Florika Nizu helped me again. Her husband was the director of the French gymnasium and he helped me to enter it.

This gymnasium for girls was of shared private and state ownership and they charged a minimal educational fee in it. We studied French and many subjects were taught in French too. Our classroom tutors only addressed us in French. I still have a very good command of French. There were many Jewish girls in this gymnasium. When Christian girls were having their religion class, Jewish girls went to the Jewish history class. Our teacher was Yakov Miaskovskiy. I made new friends at the gymnasium. My favorite teacher of Mathematics, Nadezhda Kristoforovna, who was Greek, became my closest friend. I finished the fourth grade of the gymnasium in 1935.

By this time we’d moved house. My brother Kelman finished the Law Faculty, had two years of practice with one of the best lawyers of the town of Soroca, returned to Kishinev and decided to open a law office in town. My father either earned or borrowed money for him from Uncle Lazar, and shortly afterward we moved to a big four-room apartment on Benderskaya Street, across the street from the market. This was a big beautiful house with a front-door entrance. There was a dining room, a bedroom, my brother’s office and his bedroom in the apartment. I slept in the living room.

On the evening of 5th March 1935 my father rang the doorbell and I opened the door. He got into the room and complained of feeling ill. I ran to notify Uncle Lazar, who lived nearby, but when we rushed back, my father was already dead. We sat seven days of mourning after he died [shivah]. I remember that we made cuts on our collars. I cried, but one has to stop crying one day. I decided to read instead – the rules allowed it. I read ‘The Insulted and Injured’ by Dostoevsky 15.

When my father died, I realized that I had to get a good education – I was responsible for my mother. I decided to enter the Romanian gymnasium, the so-called Liceul ‘Principesa Natalia Dadiani’ [‘Princess Natalia Dadiani’s Lyceum’]. Princess Dadiani was a Russian lady from Bendery, a Moldovan town. She became a Princess after marrying a Georgian Prince. Before getting married she was a teacher of biology in the gymnasium, but when she became rich, she decided to open a state-run Russian gymnasium. She invited well-known architects to build this gymnasium, which houses the Museum of Arts nowadays. Princess Dadiani died at the age of 38 in 1903, but the gymnasium named after her prospered. It was a Russian gymnasium before it became a Romanian gymnasium in 1919. The Russian teachers, who had a command of the Romanian language continued to work. The director was Raisa Galina, a Russian lady.

I passed exams for the fourth grade and was admitted to the fourth grade of the gymnasium. I submitted the so-called ‘certificate of poverty,’ confirming that I was an orphan, to obtain exemption from educational fees. Jewish girls constituted almost half of the class and I made lifelong friends there. In those years Bessarabia was rapidly switching to the Romanian language in all spheres of life. My mother tongue was Russian and I communicated with other girls in Russian. However, I also understood Yiddish, since my mama and father spoke their native language to one another at times. I also knew Romanian. There were notes ‘Speak Romanian’ in public places, state offices, big stores and markets or in the streets.

We wore uniforms: black robes with collars and the letters LPD – Princess Dadiani Lyceum and our numbers embroidered on them. Once, my friend Zina Kogan and I spoke Russian, when we came out of the gymnasium. A teacher of the gymnasium for boys and secretary of the scout organization was passing by. He didn’t say anything to us, but on the following day our headmistress Raisa Galina invited us to her office and told us off slightly for speaking Russian. She apologized and suspended us from the gymnasium for a week. We were happy – we had a whole week for doing nothing and reading our favorite books. We read a lot of books by Russian and foreign writers. There was a library of salesclerks nearby and it had a nice collection of books. [Probably, as for the above mentioned synagogues, this library was also maintained by a guild.]

Mama often felt ill after my father died. She became secluded and stayed at home, saying little. My brother Kelman got married: This was a real marriage of convenience. He married Dora Fridman, a wealthy, but stupid and ugly woman. He also had a mistress. My brother named his son Mikhail after our father. My brother supported us, but he couldn’t give us more money, having to ask his wife each time. I started giving private lessons. There were two stupid Moldovan girls in my class – one was a daughter of a bishop, and the other one – a daughter of a merchant. The girls’ parents paid me 500 Lei for my doing their homework with them [at that time the average wage of a worker in Romania constituted 1500-2000 Lei per month, this was sufficient to have a good life. To go to the cinema cost 18 Lei, a kilo of bread about 10 Lei and a tram ticket cost 3 Lei]. This was sufficient for my mother and me. I also gave lessons to other girls.

I made a number of friends in the French gymnasium. There were Jewish, Russian, Moldovan friends: Chara Shapiro, Marah Itkis, Yakov Sorokin, an excellent violinist, the Ukrainian Nikolay Sadnyuk and the Moldovan Anatoliy Bezhan. We had common interests. Rahmil Portnoy, a wonderful, smart and well-educated person, a lawyer and philologist, who lived in our town, tried to give his knowledge to young people and interest them in literature and culture. He established a club that we attended twice a week to study literature. He read to us in Yiddish, since we couldn’t read Yiddish – Sholem Aleichem 16, and other Jewish writers. He analyzed the works of Russian and foreign men of letters too. I called him ‘Behelfer,’ a teacher in the best meaning of this word in Yiddish.

Fascism spread in Romania in the late 1930s, Fascist parties appeared – the Cuzists 17, and the Legionary Movement 18, propagating racial hatred. A bunch of my friends got gradually involved in anti-Fascist activities. We joined an underground Komsomol 19 organization [Editor’s note: There was no Komsomol organization in Bessarabia before the Soviet power was established in 1940, perhaps this was the organization of supporters of the Komsomol, since members identified themselves as Komsomol activists], supporting the MOPR [International Organization for Aid to Revolutionary Fighters] 20. Our major goal was political education. We read the classical works of Marxism-Leninism: proletariat and Soviet writers that agents from Moscow supplied. We were also responsible for distribution of flyers propagating Communist ideas and describing successes of the USSR. Besides, we collected money for political prisoners kept in Romanian jails. I asked my wealthier friends to make contributions and they asked their parents to give them money. These contributions were sent to prison to pay for provision of hot meals for prisoners. We were fond of Socialist ideas, believed in Communism and in our bright future. We didn’t know about the arrests and persecutions in the Soviet Union [Great Terror] 21, and believed that the socialist society was perfect.

My mother and I grew further and further apart from each other. She was still grieving over the loss of my father and didn’t notice that I had new friends and different interests. I didn’t care about Jewish traditions any longer, while my mother demanded that I observe them. However, my mother with her attachment to traditions unwittingly saved me from being arrested. One day in spring 1938 we appointed a mass meeting out of town. My friends observed strict conspiracy, but there was a provocateur among us. All those who went to the meeting were arrested, but I wasn’t there. This day was Friday and my mother insisted that I washed my hair, dressed up and celebrated Sabbath with her. I begged Mama to let me go, but she didn’t give up. Her mother’s heart must have had a premonition.

Chara’s mother didn’t allow Chara to go there either. My friends Tsylia Blinder, Mara Itkis, Yakov Sorokin and Anatoliy Bezhan were arrested. They were sentenced to one year in the colony for the under-aged. Besides, they were expelled from the gymnasium without the right to return there after serving their sentence. My friends didn’t betray me and I wasn’t even summoned to interrogations. I was afraid that my friends might suspect that I was the provocateur, but fortunately, this never occurred to them. One year later they were released and we were reunited. This was a wonderful time: we were young, full of hopes, attractive and in love. I was seeing a Jewish guy – Yakov Grossman. We spent our vacations in a big company of friends. We traveled to spend time in Budacu de Sus [Transylvania, Western Romania], and had a great time there.

I finished the gymnasium in 1939 and was awarded the Bachelor’s degree. [This degree is not the equivalent of BA in the United States, it’s a high school graduation certificate.] I passed a very important exam in front of a commission from Romania. Its chairman was Domnul [‘Sir’ in Romanian] Votez, professor from the Iasi University [Iasi University named after A. Kuza, Romania, was founded in 1860. The Iasi University was an important educational center. Its scientific and educational achievements were highly valued and acknowledged in Romania.] My first teacher of Mathematics, Nadezhda Kristoforovna, came to support me there. Natasha, a Moldovan girl, and I were given the highest grades: 8.3 out of 10. I decided to enter the Medical Faculty since doctors were well-paid. However, I needed money to continue my studies. Chara convinced me to talk to my uncle Lazar and ask him for the money. She even went to see him with me. Lazar congratulated me on my graduation from the gymnasium, and said that since I was an orphan, I had to forget about university education, but get a profession as soon as possible to start earning money. Chara shamed my uncle and said that I was the best student in town and just had to go on. She asked Lazar to lend me 1000 Lei. Lazar took some time before he agreed.

Chara, I and Tyusha Nathanzon, my other nice friend, went to Iasi to take exams to the Medical Faculty. The five percent admission quota 22 for Jews in higher educational institutions had been cancelled a few years before. So, the commission reviewed our documents, and agreed to admit us, but under the condition that we had to buy a corpse to work with in the dissection room, since Jewish students were not allowed to dissect corpses of Christians. This was the first time that I faced the state anti-Semitism. We were at a complete loss. Besides having to look for a corpse in a poor family that would wish to improve their situation, we also needed 30 thousand Lei. [Editor’s note: According to Jewish tradition, autopsy in general is discouraged as a desecration of the body. It is permitted only in certain cases. It must have been problematic to find a Jewish corpse, the only possibility were the secular and the poor.] I tried to convince Chara and Tyusha to switch to the Faculty of Biology. We were passing a long corridor, when I saw Domnul Votez, the chairman of my commission in the gymnasium, walking toward us. He remembered me and started telling me to go to the university. He even spoke for me there and I was awarded a 1500 Lei state stipend. So I became a student. Chara and the others could afford to pay for their education. 

This was the brightest year of my life. Chara and I rented an apartment. Once a month our mothers sent us a parcel with sales agents: Madam Shapiro bought food products and my mother took over sending us parcels. There was also a cheap canteen in the university, where students worked as cooks, which made the meals rather inexpensive. In Iasi we continued our underground Komsomol activities, distributing flyers and Communist self-education. I even copied the history of the Communist party of Russia in Russian in my own handwriting and distributed it among my friends. I fell in love with the secretary of the district underground Komsomol committee, Velvl Pressman, whose underground nickname was Volk [Wolf, in Russian]. We spent all our free time together.

During the war

On 26th June 1940 we were walking together and Velvl went to a secret address for a few minutes. He wasn’t like himself, when he came out of there. He said the USSR had declared an ultimatum to Romania and is preparing to come to Bessarabia. I decided to go back home immediately. Chara and other friends were already in Kishinev. The following day my loved one saw me off to the station and we said our good byes. It didn’t even occur to me that I should have stayed with him. I was eager to go back to Kishinev to greet the Soviet Army. The train made many stops on the way. Then the train stopped at some station and passengers had to get off and walk about 20 kilometers to Kishinev.

On 28th June, when I reached home, the Soviet Army came to Kishinev and the Soviet power was established peacefully. On the 29th I went to the Komsomol Central Committee, introduced myself and told them about our underground activities. I adapted to the new Soviet way of life promptly: I got involved in the district committee, met and made friends with its secretary Alexei Fesenko and his wife Frida, a Jew. We were intoxicated with the expectation of changes. They followed, but they turned out to be different from what we had expected. Literally on the third day all the food products disappeared from the stores: they were sold out to the residents of Ukraine from Pridniestroviye [Transnistria], the nearest area along the Dniestr River, pouring into the wealthy Bessarabia [those people came from Soviet areas where stores were empty]. Then arrests began: they arrested everybody related to the Zionist movement, manufacturers and traders.

Things were absurd at times. They arrested Tsylia Blinder’s father, a ‘manufacturer’ who owned a little shoe shop. He, his wife, Tsylia and her brother were deported to Kyrgyzstan. Even the fact that Tsylia had been arrested previously for her underground activities didn’t help them. Tsylia returned to Kishinev after the war. She died in the early 1950s. Actually the new authorities treated us, underground activists, with suspicion. Chara got married that summer. She and her husband Mikhail Grossman went to work in a village.

My new Komsomol friends convinced me to go to study at the History Faculty of the Pedagogical College. I finished the first year. I was still to take a few exams, when Chara’s husband arrived at a medical conference. He invited me to the banquet dedicated to the closing of the conference. We had a great time in nice company. We had fun and laughed a lot. Mikhail took me home way after midnight. I slept a few hours and woke up from the roar of bombs: they were falling on Kishinev. This was the early morning of 22nd June 1941, the beginning of the war.

Girls from our course were sent to a medical nurse course. We were given white robes and we forgot about our summer exams. The college was preparing for evacuation and we were told to bring our luggage to the building. Once I went to my college after our class in surgery. I was missing it a lot. I met our teachers, who were going to Tiraspol, and went to the railway station with them. I went in a carriage with them, and we kept talking. It was some time later that I noticed that the train was moving. So it happened I came to Tiraspol, with no clothes, just with my bag with the robe in it with me. Mama didn’t know where I was. I went to the Tiraspol district Komsomol committee that sent me to Kishinev with a secretary. Mama laughed and cried, when she saw me. She had already buried me in her thoughts. This happened in late June.

It was quiet in the town until 10th July. We seemed to be able to escape the ordeal of the war. Our relatives and many friends had gradually evacuated. Only Tsypa was staying. Frida’s husband Alexei Fesenko, who had already evacuated his wife, talked to me about urgent evacuation. He didn’t tell me openly that they were going to blast the town that night, but he told me and Mama to come to the building of the cinema that night – this was Friday – from where we were to depart. Mama started again, ‘Let’s wash ourselves, nothing will happen till morning anyway!’ So we stayed.

Early in the morning I heard explosions – many buildings were blasted. Mama and I grabbed our documents and left the house. Mama only made me put on my coat that my uncle had sent from Belgium. She also had her coat on. This was all we had. On our way we came by aunt Tsypa, trying to convince her to join us. She refused, saying that I had to evacuate being a Komsomol member, while they were fed up with the Soviet power and were going to wait for the Romanians. My brother Kelman was in the army. His wife Dora and her child also stayed. She and my nephew Mikhail as well as Dora Fridman’s father perished in the Kishinev ghetto in 1941.

Mama and I went to the railway station. On the way a Red Army military truck picked us up and we drove to Tiraspol. We went to my college, where my friends also got together. Chara had already evacuated. She was in the sixth month of pregnancy. We boarded a train for cattle transportation. At stations we were provided some meals. After the Debaltsevo station in Ukraine I had kidney colic and had awful pains. Mama, Tyusha and I got off the train at the nearest stop. Haya and Nyusia also got off with us. I got some medical aid at the medical office at the station and the pain subsided.

The chief of the station helped us to get on a train to Kuibyshev where my college had evacuated. It was a passenger train and we seemed to get into paradise from hell. It took us five days to get to Kuibyshev. Mama stayed at the railway station and we went to our college. We were told that Kuibyshev was a military strategic town, closed for residents of the newly-annexed areas. We were sent to Kinel station, where we were given some food and sent to a kolkhoz 23 in Bashkiria [today Russia, about 3000 km from Kishinev]. The kolkhoz accommodated us in a spacious room. Mama stayed at home and Tyusha, Haya and I went to work at the threshing machine, feeding it sheaves.

August was ending and Tyusha, the smart girl, mentioned: ‘Girls, are we going to continue our studies?’ We switched to working at the elevator, where we were paid money and grain for work. Tyusha went to Birsk, the nearest town, where she found a college. Mama, I, Tyusha, Haya and Nyuma took a bag of grain each, and moved to Birsk up the Belaya River. And we got lucky again: we met Nathalia Agasina, the instructional pro-rector of the Kishinev College, in the corridor. She was happy to see us and invited us to stay with her for a few days. We were admitted to the college and accommodated in the dormitory. Mama was employed as a janitor. We washed ourselves and did our hair – life was going on. When the first semester was over, Agasina told us that the Kishinev Pedagogical College was being reorganized in Buguruslan [today Russia] and it invited its former students. In summer 1942 we arrived in Buguruslan. There were other students from Kishinev, Leningrad and other towns there.

My brother found me soon. He was demobilized from the army like many other Bessarabians, whom the Soviet military didn’t trust. Kelman arrived in the town of Kagan near Bukhara [today Uzbekistan] where my uncle Lazar and aunts Ita and Hava were staying. Kelman convinced me to have Mama join him there. He wrote he would support her. During the summer vacations I moved Mama there, but I still can’t forgive myself for having done this. My brother and uncle were away from Kagan on some business and Mama stayed with the aunts. Some time later my brother wrote to me that they had sent Mama to an elderly people’s home. In early 1944 Mama died. Shortly afterward my brother Kelman died from enteric fever. Before he died he wrote that Bessarabia would be liberated soon and then we would see each other again.

I have warm memories about my students’ years. Despite the hardships we were friends, and coped with whatever we had to go through, together. We rented an apartment and bought winter clothes. Somebody gave me a coat and I bought valenki [warm Russian felt boots] in Birsk. Tyusha found her father, who supported us with money. I knitted sweaters for officers’ wives and they paid me for the work. Tyusha read lectures. In the evening we got together, recited poems and sang Soviet and Jewish songs. There were 16 students from Bessarabia and we were friends. We celebrated the liberation of Odessa in 1943: there were students from Odessa at our course. In 1944 there was the first graduation and we even had a prom.

The Soviet army liberated Kishinev on 24th August 1944. In September we boarded a train and arrived in our hometown on 30th September. The town was quiet and ruined. There were other people living in our apartment. I had lost my mother and brother to the war. However, I was quite optimistic. I went to see Frida and Alexei Fesenko. They were happy to see me and invited me to stay with them. Alexei offered me a job. I went to work as a history teacher at the conservatory and music school.

After the war

I stayed with Frida for ten days. One day I opened the door and saw Nikolay Novosadyuk, my pre-war friend. He was tall, handsome, wore leather trousers – I liked him at once. After seeing each other a few times we realized we were in love. Nikolay was Ukrainian. I think he came from a rather common Ukrainian family. Nikolay finished an agricultural college and worked as a zoo technician [responsible for the implementation of new technical innovations in cattle breeding, health care, vaccination], in a kolkhoz before the Great Patriotic War. When the Great Patriotic War began, he evacuated the cattle and transferred it to the authorities in Rostov [today Russia]. He was wounded during a bombing and taken to hospital. After the hospital he was acknowledged to be unfit for military service. He moved to Georgia, where he worked as a zoo technician.

Nikolay said he wrote to the information center in Buguruslan looking for me, but funnily enough, they replied they had no information about me, though I was in town. Nikolay kept looking for me in Kishinev. His neighbor, an NKVD officer, found me. Nikolay introduced me to his mother. His mother Frania Petrovna, a common Ukrainian woman, gave me a warm welcome. Nikolay and I registered our marriage in November 1944, and that evening Frania Petrovna arranged a wedding party. My dowry was an aluminum spoon and a plate and a pair of fancy shoes that I had bought on my miserable savings in Buguruslan. Frida and Alexei gave me a pillow. Nikolay and his mother lived in two rooms in a private house. They kept hens, ducks, a vegetable garden, a dog, a cat, and finally I felt at home.

My husband worked in a kolkhoz about 50 kilometers from Kishinev and he left shortly after our wedding, while I stayed to live with my mother-in-law. I went to see Nikolay on the New Year. We spent a few wonderful days and nights together and I conceived our first baby. In 1945 our son Vladislav was born. After his birth, I started work as a history teacher in the higher party school 24 of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Moldovan Communist Party. The ideology secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, my good acquaintance, whom I met in Buguruslan, helped me to get this job. It’s amazing, though, that they employed a non-partisan Jewish woman. This job was a great support to us. In 1946-1947, during the famine, when my mother-in-law went to stand in lines at five o’clock in the morning to get bread for our bread cards 25, I brought home rationed Party food packages including red and black caviar, ham, etc., besides common food products.

At this party school I had a nice group of future Moldovan Soviet Party officials and writers, whom I taught the history of the CPSU in Moldovan. A year later the Moldovan department was closed. I worked the following two years in a Russian secondary school near our house and then switched to a Moldovan school, where I was deputy director for teaching work. In 1951 my second son Yuri was born. Nikolay was working in forestry in Western Ukraine. Some Bandera 26 partisans robbed the storage, but the court accused Nikolay. I hired an attorney for my husband, but he failed to have my husband discharged. He was sentenced to ten years in a high security camp. This happened in 1952. I had to take care of the two children and my mother-in-law. I found an additional job in a pedagogical school out of town and my mother-in-law rented out one room: we needed money.

However, trouble never comes alone. In 1954, after Stalin’s death – by the way my husband told me how happy the prisoners were about Stalin’s death after he was released – during summer vacations I was summoned to the public education department. Its head, Makarov, a Russian man, told me that though he knew me as a good employee they wanted to have the national staff working for them – that such was the requirement of the time – and offered me a job in an evening school. This was the second time that I faced state-level anti-Semitism in my life, but the first time it happened in the Fascist Romania, while this second time it occurred in the country claiming that it followed the Communist principles of equality. I refused, telling him that I had been sent to strengthen the Moldovan school as a national employee.

I was furious. I went to see Chara, who lived nearby, and instantaneously wrote a letter addressed to Beriya 27 in Moscow. I addressed him as an ideologist in national issues, requesting him to review my case. I sent this letter to my cousin, requesting her to take it to the Ministry of Home Affairs. A few days later I heard about Beriya’s arrest and was horrified that now they would arrest me. A few weeks later I received letters from Moscow and from Kishinev. They stated that the officials had no right to fire me. When I returned to work after the summer vacations the director of my school apologized. I worked at this school till I retired. Now I am chairman of the council of veterans.

Nikolay was released following an amnesty. [Prisoners were granted freedom before term for appropriate work performance, proper conduct, at the discretion of their chief wardens, upon review of their relatives’ requests or for other reasons]. He was kept in the camp near Kotlas, where he was chief of the cultural department. He was treated fairly well. In 1955 I went to see my husband. When I arrived there, the prisoners had made a little hut by the gate of the camp for us to stay there, while I was visiting. It was a surprise for me.

In 1956 Nikolay was released. He started work at an artificial leather factory, where he worked until his last day. Nikolay earned well and we were doing all right. We had no car or dacha, though, but in summer we often went to the seashore with the children or rented a dacha 28. Nikolay was fond of hunting. He often went hunting with his friends and brought home trophies. We had many friends – they were mainly those whom we had known since our young years. We celebrated Soviet holidays together and went to parades. In the evening we went to theaters and followed whatever new publications were available. We were living a full life.

My sons Vladislav and Yuri chose their father’s nationality. [In the USSR the ethnic identity was indicated in citizens’ passports. The situation in the Soviet Union was such that Jews had problems with entering higher educational institutions, finding jobs, traveling to foreign countries 29. It was a natural decision if they wanted to enter colleges. However, they identify themselves as Jews.

Vladislav has written poems and articles since his childhood. He decided to dedicate himself to journalism. When he was in the army, he had publications in the army newspaper. Vladislav graduated from the Spanish department of the Faculty of Foreign languages of Moscow University [M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, the best University in the Soviet Union, also well known abroad for its high level of education and research]. He has worked as a journalist in newspapers and magazines and now he works for the television. Vladislav lives in a civil marriage with Margarita Zvit, a popular TV presenter. She is a Crimean Jew. He has no children of his own. He is raising his wife’s daughter from her first marriage.

Yuri finished the Viticulture Faculty of the Agricultural College in Kishinev. After finishing it, he finished a postgraduate course and defended a candidateship dissertation 30. Yuri’s wife is Ukrainian. Their daughter Liya, named after my mother, finished the Faculty of Italian in Leningrad. She works as a tour guide and interpreter in Rome. I’ve visited Romania and met with my first love – Velvl Pressman. His wife and I became friends. We often call and write each other.

We’ve always taken a great interest in Israel. Firstly, my husband and I never failed to understand that Jews needed a state of their own and secondly, because gradually our friends happened to have moved there. Emigration had never been an issue for us: Nikolay loved Bessarabia, his own country. My husband died in 1992. It was a terrible loss for me. I couldn’t adjust to the thought that he is no longer here. Yuri took my documents to Moscow to arrange a trip to Israel for me. I went to visit my dear friend Chara. I’ve been to Israel five times, visiting my friends and relatives. I love Israel, but Moldova is my homeland. I also loved the huge Soviet Union. I felt at home in Moscow and in Leningrad. However, now I know that the independence of Moldova is a fact of life and it can’t be ignored. If my children feel all right, I do, too. Yuri works for an American company where he earns well. Vladislav also has a good job. My sons care for me well.

I didn’t observe Jewish traditions after the war. Nowadays many of my compatriots and I are rediscovering our Jewish roots. I am a client and a volunteer for Hesed 31, I often read lectures in the daytime center. I took much interest in the history of my kin and I’ve spent a great deal of time in the archives, looking for information about my relatives. I’ve written a few articles about my ancestors for Jewish newspapers and digests, but my biggest pride is that I’ve immortalized the name of Princess Dadiani. When the school where I’d worked was turned to a lyceum, I insisted that they gave it the name of Princess Dadiani. The school headmistress, my former student, and I went to the monument of Princess Dadiani in the cemetery. I told her much about the Princess and we managed to get the lyceum named after her. By the way, the then President of independent Moldova, Petru Lucinski, attended the opening ceremony of the Princess Dadiani Lyceum.

Glossary:

 Josif Kamhi
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interviewer: Dimitar Bojilov
Date of interview: October 2004 

Josif Kamhi welcomes us in his newly-renovated home in the center of Sofia, inherited from his father and located very close to the Jewish Community Center. He has dedicated his life to technical sciences and has made significant contributions to the technical development of a number of industrial companies. His designs are widely sought and are considered the best even nowadays. He is retired now and spends his days doing housework and visiting the home of the Jewish Community in Sofia.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

My family background

My family comes from Spain. My ancestors settled on the Balkans a number of centuries ago [cf. Expulsion of the Jews from Spain] 1. My paternal great-grandfather, Albert Kamhi, was born in Turkey. He lived there for some time and at the end of the 19th century came to Sofia. I suppose that happened before the liberation of Bulgaria 2, in 1878. My paternal grandfather, Perets Albert Kamhi, was born in Sofia.

My father’s house was on Pozitano Street in the center of Sofia. When I was a child, my grandparents, some of my father’s sisters and my father’s family lived there. I remember vaguely that my great-grandmother – my grandfather’s mother – also lived with us. One of my father’s sisters, Adela, was very kind to us and loved us very much. Unfortunately she was deaf-mute.

The house, where I was born had two floors, and each floor had two rooms and a small kitchen. There was also a big yard with some trees which we climbed all the time. My paternal grandparents lived on the upper floor and we on the ground floor. My mother took care of the housework and cooked on a stove using wood. We had a toilet inside the house. We had electricity and water. I lived there until I was eight years old. Then my father bought by installments the apartment in which I live now.

My paternal grandparents also moved to live in another place, in the Batlova Vodenitsa district. This district is very close to the Jewish neighborhood Iuchbunar 3. That place was not far from the center of the town and from our new apartment.

I remember that my grandfather loved gathering the grandchildren and offering us pieces of water-melon. There was a big yard and a well, where he placed the water-melons to cool. He also liked to drink 100 gram of rakia 4. My grandmother, Dora Kamhi, also indulged us and made us delicious cakes.

They dressed in fashionable city clothes – my grandmother wore long dresses and my grandfather put on coats. They were not religious and I never saw them going to the synagogue. One of the houses next to them was owned by Bulgarians and the other by Jews. They got on very well with all neighbors. There was a mezuzah placed high on the door of my grandfather’s house. There is a mezuzah now in our home, too.

My grandfather Perets Kamhi had a butcher’s, which he probably passed on to my father. It was on Klementina Blvd, present-day Stamboliiski Blvd and on Paisii Street. I do not remember if they sold kosher meat. My father was forced to move from that store, because he had only rented it. Another butcher took the store, probably by offering higher rent. He continued selling meat and working with the customers that my father had attracted.

My father opened another butcher’s but it was further away from the center and he did not have so many clients. So he went bankrupt. That happened around 1940. He started work in a factory processing leather. Before he went bankrupt, my father earned good money. When he moved the shop, our financial situation worsened. At that time we also had to pay a big sum every month as installment for our new apartment. We managed to pay all the installments by 9th September 1944 5.

My grandfather rarely came to visit us in our new apartment, but when he came they always sent me to buy 100 gram of rakia from the tavern in the neighborhood. Once my grandfather asked me to buy something else besides the rakia. But I forgot and came back only with the drink. Then he joked that someone should have bumped into me so that I would remember.

Mostly my brother and I did the shopping in our family. We preferred Zhenskia pazar [‘Women’s Market,’ the central market in Sofia] and the grocery store near our house.

My father had two brothers and three sisters. The eldest one was Matilda, who married in Sofia and no longer lived in our house when I was born. The others were Jacques Perets Kamhi, who died in the 1920s, Samuel Kamhi, who had a shop for shoemaker’s materials, and Sara and Adela, who I think were married to Jewish merchants.

We lived separately and did not visit each other very often. Mostly my father’s sisters visited us. All except for Jacques left for Israel during the Mass Aliyah 6 between 1948 and1950. My family kept in touch mostly with Adela, who was deaf-mute, Sara, and my mother’s sister Luisa.

My family often told us a story involving the husband of my father’s sister Sara. Once he hired a cart and porters and went to a textile store during the weekend. He broke open the shop, loaded the cart with textiles and drove away. He was caught and sentenced, but it seems that he spent little time in prison.

During the Holocaust they were interned to Ruse 7. After 9th September 1944 he committed some crime again, this time while at work in the police, and he was sacked. During the totalitarian regime they left for Israel and as far as I know they got divorced there.

My mother Berta Kamhi also worked but from home. She had a sewing machine and made handkerchiefs and singlets. We, the children, helped her. My brother Perets Albert Kamhi and I went to the central market and sold the so-called ‘ikonomia’ – very fine sand, which was used in dish washing. We offered it packed. We also sold toothpicks, paint and shoelaces. We sold them by going from house to house, and we got the goods from the merchants who owned shops.

My mother’s parents lived in the center of Sofia in a two-story house. It was owned by my mother’s brother, Nissim Koen, who was relatively rich, because he had a factory for leather processing. Their living standard was higher than ours. My mother’s brother lived on the first floor and his mother on the second floor. My mother and I often visited them.

My mother had three brothers and three sisters. The eldest was Bohor Koen, who was a merchant and had six children. Next were Nissim Koen, whom I already mentioned, Miriam, Liza, who had an ironware store with her husband David, Matilda and David, who left for Palestine in 1926. They all had families and children but I have met only David’s son Yoske, whom I met during my visit to Israel in 1985.

During the Jewish holidays we did not gather with other families. Everyone celebrated in their own house. When we lived with my father’s parents, we gathered on Pesach. In 1934 we moved into our present apartment, and my mother made the preparations for the Jewish holidays.

We observed the Jewish traditions to some degree. During Pesach it was obligatory to eat only matzah, but that meant that we should buy it. The matzah I bought was finished on the second day, and we had to buy more. But they asked me to buy bread and gave me a dark bag so that the neighbors would not see me buying bread.

We did not observe Sabbath because we were short of money and we had to work on Sabbath. They gave us a big packet of handkerchiefs which had to be ready in a number of days and we worked on them the whole day. My mother did the sewing and when she took a break, we worked instead of her. We took pieces of cloth which we folded at the ends and the handkerchief was ready. Before my mother married, she had bought a Singer sewing machine for 20 golden levs. She sewed for herself and for her family.

We did not make special meals for the holidays. But for Pesach we always had matzah and burmolikos, which was made from matzah and eggs and was then fried. It can also be covered with jam. Maybe because my father worked in a butcher’s, I did not like meat much. There were meatballs, cheese pastries and cakes. My paternal grandmother made a very nice sponge-cake. When my father had the shop, we always had good meat on the table, but when he went bankrupt, we did not eat meat much.

Before the holidays my brother and I often went to sell small goods on the streets and earned enough money to buy some stuff to eat. Once we bought smoked fish and surprised our parents in a pleasant way by arranging the table.

We could not afford to go on vacation. But my father often took us on excursions to Vitosha [mountain near Sofia]. Once, when we did not have any money, we went on foot from Sofia to Boyana Lawns [a region in Vitosha]. The distance is around 10 kilometers. We carried food, spent the whole day there and returned by tram. We really must have been in a bad financial state if we could not afford to go there and come back by tram.

Growing up

When I was a child, I was sent to a nursery in the central Jewish school. We learned songs and games there. In Sofia there were two Jewish schools. One of them was in the center and the other in the Jewish neighborhood in Iuchbunar. I was not very good at foreign languages there. I was not able to learn Ivrit well, neither French, nor any other languages.

Ivrit was taught after the fourth grade in the Jewish school. We started with general subjects in Bulgarian – natural studies, history. Honestly speaking, we did not learn spoken Ivrit there; we only read texts from the Talmud. We did not have any foreign teachers. Our Ivrit teacher’s name was Margolis. I did not know any Ivrit before I started going to school.

There were two classes in the school. The rich children studied in one of the classes. I studied in the other one together with the poorer children and those from the Jewish orphanage. But there were many excellent students in our class. I was best at maths. We studied for seven grades in the school.

I was a member of the rightist organization Betar 8. In fact, I understood nothing about politics. It so happened that the brother of a classmate of mine was chairman of Betar and he gathered a group of us and made us members of Betar. He told us about Herzl 9 and the founding of the Jewish state.

We studied in the Jewish school for half a day and then we could stay in the yard to play sports. We played various games, mostly tag and marbles. All of my friends were from the Jewish school.

When I graduated from the fourth grade, every following summer I worked as an upholsterer. I mastered that craft soon and applied it at home. We had a small sofa with sagging springs and I repaired it. One of its sides was askew, but it was very comfortable. 

Life was calm when we lived on Pozitano Street. I remember only one occasion when there were many policemen on horses on our street. That must have been in the 1930s. Maybe it was 1934, the year when there was a military coup in Bulgaria 10.

During the War

The outrages against Jews started in 1939 with fascism coming to Bulgaria. In 1940 I was already in high school. There were Branniks 11 walking along the streets, beating us with sticks and breaking the windows of the Jewish shops. After the Law for the Protection of the Nation 12 was adopted, all Jews had to wear a yellow star 13.

In 1942 I became a member of the UYW 14, because the Branniks had started harassing us a lot and the UYW members protected us. They invited me to some meetings and I took part in the spreading of leaflets against fascism. All the time the Branniks tried to beat us.

My brother’s name is Perets Kamhi. He also went to the Jewish school. When he graduated from the 7th Men’s High School, he started working in a foundry producing door handles. Then he was mobilized to a labor camp in 1942 15. I do not know the exact place where he worked, but I know that he built roads. He had to break down large stones into gravel, with which the roads were covered. The work was very hard.

After that my brother was interned with us to Kyustendil. In Kyustendil he was also obliged to do hard labor for free. He did the same job – digging gravel for road construction. My brother was a UYW member in Sofia and he contacted his friends from the capital. Some months later he decided to escape and he became a partisan in the squad of Slavcho Transki. 

My sister Donka worked as a clerk in the post office. After 1944 she did some administrative work for the Bulgarian Army. Now she lives in Sofia. She married a Bulgarian and now they live in a village. They have two children – Beatriche and Ivan.

I was a member of the UYW in high school. We gathered and talked about fascism in Bulgaria. We spread leaflets against fascism. That was dangerous and we hid from the police. We also made a demonstration. That happened on 24th May 1943 16. The UYW organization decided to organize a protest against the internment of Jews and the Law for the Protection of the Nation. At the time of the demonstration it had already been decided to intern us.

A lot of people gathered in front of the Jewish school. There were also speakers. Then we headed for Klementina Blvd [present-day Stamboliiski Blvd.]. We marched towards the center, but when we reached Opalchenska Street policemen on horses surrounded us and dispersed us. A young man and I managed to escape by telling a policeman that we lived in the area. And my friend really lived on Stamboliiski Blvd. We went to his place. Many people were arrested at the demonstration.

At the same time my father worked in a leather processing factory and was on his way back home from work. The police detained him for a while in the afternoon, but when they realized that he was not directly involved in the protest, they released him. They had also arrested some colleagues of his. Their work involved working with chemicals and the smell about them proved that they had been at work. Previously my father had worked for a short time in the leather processing factory owned by my mother’s brother. But at the time of the protest he was working in another one.

On 27th May we received the notice that we were to be interned to the town of Kyustendil. I think that someone came to tell us that in person. At that time we wore yellow stars which showed that we were Jews. I had been wearing such a star since 1940. If we had not worn them, we could have been sent to a concentration camp. We were allowed to keep our houses but most of the Jews sold away their possessions.

We arrived in Kyustendil by train and we were accommodated in the Jewish school. We slept on the floor on blankets which we brought from home. We ate from a big cauldron where they prepared some food for us. Shortly after, I started work. At first I was a waiter in a cafeteria for the meager sum of 20 levs a day – the price of one loaf of bread.

Each evening the interned Jews gathered in the Jewish school and once I was told that I could go and take part in the digging of a river path, which was much better-paid. So, I started working there. The first day I was so tired, I could hardly walk. Then I got used to it and even dug much more than the others.

My father also came to work with me. We could afford better housing and rented an apartment. My brother was in a labor camp and came back at the beginning of 1944. He escaped at the beginning of May and became a partisan.

Soon people found out that my brother was not returning home. One of our landlady’s sons worked in the police. My father was arrested to be questioned about his son. He did not say anything and spent 20 days in the police station, where he was beaten. At that time I was the only one who worked – we had to bring him food to the police station and pay our rent. We managed to keep ends meet because my employer paid me regularly and was a very honest man.

Something interesting happened one day. I had to dig an area one meter deep, seven meters long and four meters wide. But the supervisor deliberately measured the width of my excavation right to its very limits where it was 20 centimeters more shallow. His son also worked there and he probably wanted to write down that his son had completed my work. But the technician saw that, corrected the measurements and paid me the full sum. I was very happy with the organization of labor there.

At the beginning of June 1944 our whole family was interned to Pleven, the Kailuka area, where a concentration camp had been built 17. We were shut in a wooden shed. They put it on fire during the night and my mother was burned alive. My mother had a long dress which got stuck between the boards of the house and she could not get out. I tried to pull her out, but I could not.

We were released on 21st August 1944. We went to Pazardzhik first, to Liza’s place. Liza was my mother’s sister. My father was sent to a labor camp in Enikioy 18. My sister and I waited for our father and our brother to return. My father came back at the end of August 1944 and we celebrated 9th September 1944 there.

Long after 9th September we waited for my brother to appear. There was information that his squad had gone to Yugoslavia with the partisans there. Some men of his team had really gone there after one battle. We hoped that he was there, too. My sister went to Yugoslavia but learned nothing. It seems he had died as a partisan.

After the War

We came back to Sofia and found our apartment completely plundered. We had left the furniture there before we moved. Besides, some man had used the apartment as a storehouse for wood material. He quickly collected his things and left.

In 1946, I graduated from high school and started studying in the Polytechnic [it was named State Polytechnics then and now it is Technical University]. My sister Donka started work as a typist. My father once again started work as a butcher. He retired in this job.

I met my wife, Venezia Kamhi [nee Konorti], in Kyustendil. She was also interned with her family. We went out in the same company. We gathered in the Jewish school in town and had a great time. We married in 1950. I was still a student then. In 1951 I wrote my diploma and a year later I graduated. My diploma was on secondary connotation of a post station. That means distant management and protection of the high voltage of thermo-electric power plants.

When I graduated I started work in the designers’ company ‘Promproekt.’ In October 1952 I had to do my military service and was stationed in Dimitrovgrad. But after 15 days the commanding officer received an order from Sofia that five people had to return to Sofia for a course in radio location. It turned out that I was the only electrical engineer at the base. I went to Sofia and spent three months in the course on radio location, which was taught by a Soviet specialist.

Two more courses on radio location were organized after that and I taught them. One of them was for officers and the other for soldiers. The course was in Chepelare. I taught them for three months.

Then I was assigned to head a repairs workshop. There was a Soviet colonel there, who insisted that I stay on a termed service in the military, and not on a permanent one. He advised me to write that all my relatives were in Israel. I did what he told me and they kept me only one month at that job.

The job in the military was not a promising one. The technical equipment in my base was not good. We were given some appliances to repair, but we could not do it because we did not have any modern equipment.

Once a colonel came with a device to be repaired and got angry with us that it was not ready. I told him that we didn’t have the equipment to identify the malfunctioning part. He said that we did nothing the whole day and we did not need equipment for that. It was not easy to explain to him that we could not do anything without the necessary equipment.

After the service in the army I started work in the designers’ company, which split into two, and in 1957 I continued to work in one of the two new companies – Minproekt, where I designed the electrical installations of the Maritsa mine complex and the Kremikovtsi metallurgic plant. I was happy with my job and working conditions.

We could afford to go on holidays, though we did not have a car. We also went to the mountains and to the seaside. We went to the best resorts such as Borovets and Nessebar [a town in the Black Sea region with a multitude of splendidly preserved Byzantine architecture]. We were given pre-paid vouchers from my work, with which we spent two weeks at the resort.

Once I designed a project for a resting home of the miners in Nessebar on the Black Sea coast. That was the second resting home there. When it was finished, the miners gave our organization the bungalows in front of the station. We used to go there together with five more families from our organization.

At my work I did not have any problems for being a Jew. When I designed the project for the Maritsa mine complex I made model designs so my employers decided to place me in such a department. A model department is a mixed department in which architects and technicians work together on the designs.

We made model mobile electrical connecting posts, electrical boards, designs for companies. The electrical installations in the plant for metal-cutting machines in Sofia were also designed by me. The design was very practical and afterwards many companies from the country wanted to use it.

In the 1970s I continued work in the model department of Niproruda. This is also a designers’ company working mostly in the area of ore output. We had to design the underground electrical installation of a mining complex near Kyustendil. I retired in 1982. Then I started receiving commissions at home to design the electrical installations of various companies, mills and silos. I was much respected as a designer. I also educated young specialists who are working in this area now.

My wife Venezia is also of Jewish origin. My generation of Jews was brought up to sympathize with our fellow men in Israel. She was born in Sofia, but her parents are from Kyustendil. Her family was more religious than ours. Her paternal grandfather was very religious and read books in classical Hebrew. Her parents knew many songs in Ladino 19. My wife also knows some very nice songs in Ladino.

Her brother Mordohai Konorti lives in Israel where he went with their mother during the Mass Aliyah between 1948 and1950 when the government of Georgi Dimitrov 20 allowed Bulgarian Jews to move freely to their new state.

My wife worked as a seamstress after 9th September 1944 and later started making designs for clothes companies such as Osvobozhdenie, Zoya, and Lada.

My daughter Beti was born on 13th July 1952. She studied in a Bulgarian school. After 9th September 1944 the Jewish schools in Sofia were closed. My daughter was raised Jewish and feels Jewish. She did not learn Ivrit, but understands Ladino.

I also tried to raise my daughter in the ‘Jewish spirit’ and encouraged her to have Jewish friends. She also liked to mingle with other Jews. I have always lived in a Jewish environment. I still have Jewish friends from my childhood. My daughter and granddaughter have a wider circle of friends than me.

At that time, in the 1970s, Jews were scattered throughout Bulgaria and my daughter married a Bulgarian. She graduated from the Higher Polytechnical Institute in the specialty thermotechnics, but now she works as a computer specialist.

When my daughter was a child and my wife had to go to work, my wife’s aunt Matilda Miuhas helped us in looking after her. She was very religious. She observed all Jewish rituals and her husband went to the synagogue regularly. Thanks to them my daughter learned Ladino and I did not have to explain to her what it means to be Jewish. Matilda even went to the meetings of the parents’ council at my daughter’s school instead of us.

I have been a member of the [Bulgarian] Communist Party 21 since the 1950s. I approved the intervention of the Soviet Union during the crises in Hungary [in 1956] 22 and Czechoslovakia [cf. Prague Spring] 23. If someone had tried to intervene against the socialist progress in Bulgaria, I would not have approved it.

No period before or after 9th September can match the rate of construction we had then. There were people who suffered from the regime, but no one in my workplace was persecuted. The Niproruda organization consisted of more than a thousand people.

I did not keep in touch with my relatives in Israel during the wars there 24 25. It was not possible at that time. After the wars the Israeli citizens were allowed to travel and they could visit us in Bulgaria. I went to Israel for the first time in 1985. There I met my cousin Yoske, who is the son of my mother’s brother. He is older than me and left Sofia for Palestine before I was born.

During the communist regime, thanks to my wife, we always observed the Jewish holidays – mostly Pesach and Chanukkah. We celebrated them at home and we always bought matzah from the synagogue for Pesach. My wife made almond cookies and burmolikos. The [Great] Synagogue 26 in Sofia was open, but we did not go there. My family was not very religious.

Now we gather at home for Pesach and Chanukkah with my daughter’s family. We prepare a rich table. We have a chanukkiyah. My daughter’s husband is a Bulgarian and during the major Christian holidays my wife and I used to visit them at their place.

After the political changes in Bulgaria from 1989 27 life, in my opinion, became harder. That has not changed nowadays. The situation is very difficult for the retired people and the unemployed. In our designers’ company even the most ordinary draftsman went on holiday at the seaside or in the mountains. We often went to the theater and to the cinema. But nowadays with our small pensions we cannot afford to visit a cultural event.

The change in Europe can be a positive one in the long term, but it is still not such. I cannot see the end of the conflict between the Arabs and Israel and in the Middle East. Young people are still brought up to be terrorists and suicide bombers there.

For fifteen years my wife and I spent every summer in the village of Zhedna, Radomir municipality. There we were involved in agriculture and breathed fresh air. We were even members of the agricultural cooperation and received 500 square meters of land which we cultivated. We planted potatoes, beans, pumpkins, maize, sunflowers, tomatoes and other vegetables. We also had some hens but one day they were stolen. Some years ago we stopped going there.

I mostly spoke in Ladino with my wife’s aunt. When I was on a trip to Cuba in 1955-1956 I had no difficulties in understanding the language there. I designed some electrical part there and the automated system of a company producing raw material for porcelain. I was sent to supervise the process and I had to correct each one of their mistakes.

I have a dictionary in Ivrit at home, but I cannot use it very well. It is a gift from my wife’s brother, who lives in Yafo. My wife has been to Israel five times and she can speak Ivrit a little.

At the moment I spend more time at home, doing shopping and the household chores. My wife is more sociable than me and visits every event organized by the Jewish People’s Home. She also visits the ‘Golden Age’ club and the Ladino club several times a week. There they speak and practice our old Spanish language by singing songs and learning poems.

The Health club is visited by a physician and a gym instructor. I visit the Bet Am 28 only at noon from Monday to Friday when I meet friends from my generation.

Glossary

Lvov
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Orlikova
Date of interview: December 2002

One can get to Irina’s apartment through an iron gate to a dirty and stuffed yard. There are balconies from apartments in the apartment building built by Polish builders in 1930s inside the yard. They haven’t been repaired since then. We climb a wooden spiral staircase onto the 4th floor and enter a cold apartment with no heating. Their water supplies last for a couple of hours in the morning and evening. There are two big rooms in the apartment and tiled stoves that are not sufficient to heat them. This is a typical apartment in the center of Lvov. It doesn’t make an impression that people living here feel happy. Irina is very friendly and nice and is willing to answer all questions.  Her husband Ivan Doroshkov came at the end of our interview. It is evident that these two people have nothing in common even though they have lived together for about 30 years. Their life together is more a matter of routine than love and understanding. Irina stays with him due to her fear of being alone. 

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary      

My family background

My family’s roots go to Berdichev, a town between Zhytomir and Vinnitsa in Ukraine 200 km from Kiev. In the past there were palaces of Polish lords and beautiful cathedrals in this town. There was about 80% of Jewish population in the town that kept a number stores and shops. [This percentage is specified in the Jewish encyclopedia issued in Jerusalem] Owning a store was a business in itself including management, accounting, supplies, etc. Inhabitants of Berdichev were mainly leather tanners, tailors, locksmiths or tradesmen.  Before 1917 the main language of communication in Berdichev was Yiddish.  There were few synagogues in the center and in the outskirts of the town. My father’s parents lived near a synagogue in the vicinity of the town.

My grandfather on my father’s side Henry Mazor was born in Berdichev in 1870s. He was a tall man with a gray beard. He always wore a cap. My grandfather was a poultry slaughterer at the synagogue. This was a responsible job that was trusted to those Jewish men that had knowledge of turning a live chicken into kosher food. He slaughtered chickens in the corridor of his house. I was small and was afraid of looking at the chickens hanging on a crossbar. I was just a small girl and felt sorry for little chickens, but it had really no impact on my religious feelings later. Slaughterer had to be a very religious person. My grandfather prayed in the morning and in the evening. He was a very serious and responsible man. My grandfather was also very religious. He studied at cheder and knew numerous prayers and read religious books in Hebrew. My grandfather’s family spoke Yiddish, but he also knew Russian. He spoke Russian to me since I didn’t know Yiddish. I know that grandfather went to synagogue regularly, but at the time that I remember – 1930s – the synagogue was closed. Older Jews got together in one another’s homes. I remember once they came to our house. There were candles burning and there were about ten of them. They dipped bread in wine and ate it, musing something. I can’t say whether they were praying or just came to celebrate a holidays. I was taken to the yard promptly. 

My grandmother Brukha Mazor was born in Berdichev in the late 1970s. From what I remember she was a tall gray-haired woman wearing a skirt gathered at her waist and a kerchief. In her room I saw a photo of her when she was young with a wig of a high hairdo. My grandmother only cooked kosher food – I remember it well since her ‘advanced’ children that were not religious used to laugh at her when she emphasized this. My grandmother went to synagogue and took me with her once. There was a synagogue in the outskirts of the town that functioned in 1930s and we went there.  We came to a big building and went up on a staircase onto a balcony where there were quite a few other women. My grandmother opened her book of prayers in Yiddish – the language that I didn’t know. I got bored and I looked down from the balcony at old men that murmured something [praying] with white shawls with black stripes on them [thales]. This was the only time that I went with my grandmother and this is all I remember.

My grandfather and grandmother observed all Jewish traditions and rules and had a very orderly life in this respect. I never visited them on holidays. My parents didn’t take me there to avoid any religious impact on me. They had a traditional Jewish wedding with a rabbi and a huppah. I know about it from what my grandmother told me. She was also distressed that the old times were gone. This is all I remember from what my grandmother told me.  My grandmother and grandfather lived in a one-storied house, but there was another family living in that house with an entrance from another side. There were such houses in Berdichev and there was a small porch at the door of every neighboring family. The door led to a small hallway with a primus stove 1 on a table where my grandmother used to cook. There was no kitchen, but just a door that led to the room from the hallway.  The room was heated with a stove that was also used for cooking. My grandparents led a modest life. They had a beautiful carved wardrobe, a big steel bed with a number of pillows, a small settee with photographs over it and a table covered with a tablecloth. My grandmother had a small kitchen garden where she grew corns and sunflower plants – this is all I remember that she grew. They had a small folding bed where I slept when I came in summer to spend my vacations. My grandparents Mazor had 12 children – 6 of them survived: four sons and two daughters. All boys studied in cheder. As for the girls, my grandfather taught them to read and write in Yiddish. When the children grew up they left their parents’ home. At the beginning of the Great patriotic War 2 in 1941 they evacuated from Berdichev. They were certainly too old survive in the hot climate of Middle Asia. They died and were buried far from home in Middle Asia.

Their older son Joseph, born in 1902, left home when he turned 17. He got very fond of revolutionary ideas and left his parents home in 1919 joining the Red army units. He was in the army during the civil war and later he settled down in Odessa. I only saw his picture. I don’t know what he did for a living in Odessa where he lived until the Great Patriotic War. He perished at the defense of Odessa in 1941. I met his wife Manya Koifman and daughter Tsylia in the evacuation.

I never saw my father’s sister Tsylia born in 1903 either. At 20 she married a Jewish man from Kiev Aaron. He was an accountant. They had three children. Their older daughter Nina, a prettiest girl, was 15 before the war. Aaron perished at the front and Sarah and her children perished in the Babiy Yar 3. My father’s sister Rieva, born in 1906, lived in Kiev before the war. She was a laborer at the plant where her husband worked as a worker. Laborers had no professional education and had the lowest qualification doing all kinds of manual work at enterprises. Workers did skilled work operating equipment according to their qualification.  In 1930s workers’ trades were valued more than intellectual skills in the Soviet society.  They had a daughter named Irina. In 1941 Rieva and Irina evacuated to the Ural with the plant. Rieva’s husband perished at the front. After the war Rieva and Irina settled down in Berdichev. Aunt Rieva died in Berdichev in 1994. Irina is a pensioner – she lives in Berdichev.
My father’s youngest brother Lessia, born in 1912 also perished at the front in 1942. He was single. Of four brothers only Leo, born in 1908, returned from the war. He was a beekeeper and lived in a village near Berdichev, He had a wife and a daughter. His daughter Natalia died from a heart disease at 36. His wife had a stroke in 1950s and she died shortly afterward. Leo was a diabetic. He did in 1978. This was the end of this family.

My father Moisey Mazor (called Misha at home) was born in 1905. Like his other brothers my father went to cheder. My father was raised to observe all Jewish traditions and celebrate Jewish holidays. My father’s mother tongue was Yiddish. He was eager to study and went to a Russian primary school when he turned 5 years of age. His parents had no objections to his urge for education. They wanted their children to have a better life than they had. Only during the Soviet time my father realized that he couldn’t afford to study and had to go to work. He worked as a shop assistant at a haberdashery store. In the evening my father studied at a rabfak school 4 and then attended a preparatory course to the only institute in our town – Pedagogical Institute. My father was good at physics and mathematic and he specialized in these subjects. My father was a reserved, just and calm man. He wouldn’t have involved himself in any Party activities if he hadn’t met my mother, a devoted communist.

My mother Hava Ozer (she changed her first name to Eva, but she didn’t change her last name and was proud of it) also came from a Jewish family in Berdichev. Her parents died of enteric fever in 1914 when my mother was 6 [she was born in 1908]. My mother had dim memories of them, but she didn’t know what her father Nakhman-Leid was doing for a living. She didn’t even know her mother’s first name. She only remembered that she was a great housewife and was very good at sewing. The house was clean and calm when her mother was alive. My mother also recalled that her mother had fair hair and gray eyes and her father was a tall dark brunet. There were no relatives willing to adopt five children and they were all sent to a children’s home. This was a home of the Jewish community. There was a very influential Jewish community in Berdichev that kept the life of the town under its control. Wealthier families made contributions to support the poor. The children’s and elderly people homes were also funded from this money. The elderly members of the community could go to the elderly people’s home if they had no children to look after them. Children in the Jewish children’s home were raised Jewish. They studied Yiddish and Jewish traditions. Girls studied housekeeping. The community tried to give children some professional education [crafts] and provided girls with a dowry for them to marry successfully. Regretfully, my mother told me little about this period of her life. The children lived like commune in this home. They had no personal belongings. In the Soviet society all people including children were to behave and think alike. To be different was a bad-mannered and wasn't appreciated in any Soviet institution including children's homes. In the Jewish children’s home the situation was more loyal than elsewhere, but still, it developed severity and independence in my mother.  She didn’t like talking or thinking about the past. She believed one had to think about the future rather than look into the past. My mother and her fellow comrades were raised atheists and internationalists and forgot about their Jewish identity. They believed that it was narrow-minded to focus on one’s identity when the soviet power gave people freedom, equality and happiness to all nations. 

My mother’s oldest sister Reizl (aunt Rosa), born in 1898, married Misha Lieberson, a Jewish man, a shoemaker through a matchmaker. He happened to be an alcoholic – ‘Aidish shyker’ – Yiddish for ‘alcoholic’ – such a disgrace for a Jewish family! They lived in Odessa. Reizl brought her children to Berdichev in summer: she had two boys – Lyova and Grisha and a girl – Maria. The boys went to the army when the Great Patriotic War began and perished at the front. Aunt Reizl and Maria evacuated. I don’t know what happened to her husband. He might have died before the war. After the war the family settled down in Berdichev. Aunt Reizl was a cook at a canteen. My mother helped Maria to enter the Faculty of mathematic at the two-year Pedagogical Institute. Upon graduation she got a job assignment in Chernochiye village near Tiraspol and later she was a teacher of mathematic in Tiraspol. She was a very good teacher and a well-respected person. Maria married David Zinger, a Jewish man in 1950s. He was an invalid of war and worked at the factory in Tiraspol that manufactured wine boxes. Aunt Reizl lived with Maria. She died in 1983. Maria and her family live in Israel now. They left after my aunt died in 1987. We correspond with her. When they went to Israel in the early 1980s David fell ill and the government in the country gave them a room in a special building for older people. There are good conditions there to have a good life, but they, unfortunately, have weak health.

My mother’s older brother Leizer, born in 1900, was a big strong man. He lost his hearing in infantry and he couldn’t get any education due to this handicap. Leizer worked as a slaughterer at the meat factory. He married a shy Jewish woman. She learned to communicate with him well. They had three daughters. During the war Leizer and his family were responsible for moving cattle to PreCaspian steppes. They stayed in evacuation there. In 1945 after the war they returned to Berdichev. Leizer’s was the only family of all mother’s relatives that strictly followed all Jewish traditions.  Their daughters and sons-in-law spoke Yiddish and their families also followed all Jewish traditions.  They baked matsah and lit candles at Shabbat. Their grandchildren were circumcised. They were wealthier than our family. Leizer provide well for them. Leizer died in Berdichev in 1985 – he was very ill. His children live in Berdichev, but we do not keep in touch with them.  Leizer quit his job at the meat factory in 1973. He and his family always followed the kashrut. My mother and our family were ironic about this. We couldn’t understand why people didn’t give up their outdated habits in the new Soviet period.

My mother’s youngest brother David was born in 1910. He finished a Jewish school during the Soviet time. He was very fond of animals and  entered the Veterinary Institute in Kirov [Viatka at present], Russia in 1000 km from Berdichev. Upon graduation he got a job assignment to Cheliabinsk region where he worked as a vet. He had a wife – Rieva and son Slavik. At the beginning of the war David was released from service in the army, but he wasn’t eager to go to the war. He looked after livestock in a collective farm. At the end of 1942 when Slavik turned two David went to the front. He was a vet there, too – there were horses in the army. After the war he returned to Berdichev with his new wife 14 years younger than he was. She was Russian. I have no information about what happened to his family. David was a vet in Berdichev and was very skilled in his work. He didn’t have any more children. David died in 1989. Rieva died in the Ural shortly after the war. I didn’t keep in touch with her son Slavikand I wasn’t acquainted with her second son that was born in the Ural. I have no information about them. They never visited father in Berdichev. 

My mother’s youngest sister Teibl (Tania), the prettiest one, born in 1912, vanished at the children’s home. Nobody knew where she disappeared. My mother tended to believe that one of the families leaving for America during the Civil War 5 might take a lovely smart girl with them, but there is no confirmation of this guess. The war was a tragic period in the life of all people living on the edge of survival. Hundreds of people were missing and there was no possible way of getting any information about them.  My mother and Leizer took after their father – they were both dark-haired, and David and Reizl a looked like their mother: they were fair-haired blonds with gray eyes.

My mother was the core of the family. She was a very wise woman and people always came to ask her advice: she helped them to live in peace with their relatives, told them where it was better to send their children to get education and how to spend money wisely. She was a wise and smart woman. She willingly shared her ideas and experiences with other women helping them with routinely matters such as cooking, looking after children or house. Whatever one’s convictions were there were neighborly relationships that my mother cherished, always trying to help and support other people regardless of their nationality. My mother had very warm memories about the children’s home.  She had many friends from there and they corresponded. My mother was a young girl during the October revolution and Civil war but communist ideas became her religion. My mother believed in the Communist Party as if it were God and believed that socialist life was the best. She got free education and a place to live. The Soviet propaganda was so strong that people strongly believed that everything good they had inn life was given to them by the caring Soviet state. When she was very young she became a typesetter at a printing house. She knew Russian and Yiddish and set texts in these languages. She studied simultaneously – she studied continuously. My mother was happy to be an independent woman and not to have to marry for convenience. She became a Komsomol activist and later – an activist in the guild of printers before she turned 16. At that time 15-16 years was an active age. Many children became independent getting a profession and took an active part in the Komsomol and communist movement. Such activists had all chances to make a good political career or even hold commanding posts in the army.  There was a popular slogan of this period ‘Communism is the youth of the world and it is to be built by the young!’  She was sent to take a training course at the All-Union Council of Trade Unions in Moscow. After finishing this training my mother became director of the municipal library in Berdichev and a lecturer-propagandist. She lectured at various enterprises explaining advantages of the socialism and communism to workers. My mother joined the Communist Party in 1929 when she had just turned 20.

She went to various organizations in town to explain the policy of the Party and the Soviet government. Somewhere at the crossroads of her activities my mother met my father who was a student of the Pedagogical Institute. He fell in love with her. In their relationships my mother always played the leading role – my father did what she wanted. My father was devoted to my mother and did what she told him. My father wasn’t a member of the Communist Party. Firstly, he wasn’t as active as my mother, and secondly he was a son of a slaughterer – servant to religion and such people were not admitted to the Party, but my father wasn’t really willing.
When they decided to get married at the beginning of 1930 any talks about religious wedding were out of the question. There wasn't even a wedding party. My parents got married at the town registration office. My grandfather and grandmother were very upset about it. This was the first wedding in their family without a rabbi or a huppah.  They were rather unhappy to have a communist activist for a daughter-in-law. There were tense relationships between my mother and her in-laws. My parents and I visited my grandparents, but they tried to avoid visiting them on Jewish holidays.

Shortly after their marriage my mother received an apartment where they moved since my mother lived at a hostel and my father lived with his parents before. It wasn’t a big apartment, but it was all right. It was in a house in Krikinskiy Lane (before the war since later it was renamed to Pionerskiy). Grandmother and grandfather kept using an old name of the street. We had two rooms and a common kitchen – there were 3 other families living in the apartment. My mother cooked on a primus stove and stoked stoves with wood and coal. 

Growing up

I was born in October 1930. I got my name Irina just because my mother and father liked this Russian name – Irina, they wouldn’t have named me after one of deceased relatives that was a custom with Jewish families. I was born in Kiev. My mother had a poor heart and had to be watched by good doctors during delivery of the baby and it was believed that the best doctors were in Kiev. She went to a maternity home in Kiev and then returned to Berdichev with me. My mother went on working a lot and entered the pedagogical Institute to get a higher education. Of course, she had no time to do housework. We had a housemaid – Marusya, a Ukrainian girl from a village. She was my first nanny.

My father worked at a Ukrainian school upon graduation. He was a teacher of physics and mathematic and deputy director for the school curriculum. My mother also involved him in lecturing, but he lectured on scientific and technical innovations. It might seem that my parents should have been wealthy people working so much, but I remember well the famine of 1932-34 6. Now historians call this period ‘forced famine’. I remember lying in my bed and crying of hunger. A piece of sticky brown bread dipped in some water and sprinkled with a little sugar was a favorite delicacy in my childhood. My mother tried to do her best to feed me, but she didn’t always manage.

I wasn’t raised religious. Now I realize that there were mostly Jews in my surrounding, but my parents never discussed this subject or focused on it. I had no idea about being Jewish or non-Jewish. All people had the same nationality, as I imagined. We spoke Russian in the family and with my parents' friends and acquaintances. This was a state language in the Soviet Union. My father conducted his lessons in Ukrainian working in a Ukrainian school.  There were also Russian and Jewish schools in Berdichev, but the only difference between them was the language of teaching, and school programs were the same.  In late 1930s Jewish schools were closed. There were Ukrainian and Russian schools functioning.

We lived in a two-storied house and there were two other 2-storied buildings next to ours. We had many Jewish neighbors. I remember some of last names: Yasha and Sarah Getlerner, brother and sister, we played together. I also remember Lilia – a Russian girl.  My mother had her principles of raising a girl and the basic factor was to be shy and no different from other children so that nobody could say that – God Forbid! – that the daughter of a party activist has something better than other children. I had few toys and a doll among them. It was a simple doll. Some girls had dolls that closed their eyes or bicycles.  I never had those and I never asked my parents about buying me toys or clothing. I was a shy girl and made use of what I had.

My mother had a very busy schedule. There were meetings or parties at the library where she invited actors and singers – they were very interesting parties. My father and I attended them every now and then. I liked to watch parades on 1 May from the balcony of the library located in the central square. There were riders and tanks on these parades. People carried portraits of Lenin and Stalin, but I remember only portraits of Stalin. I enjoyed the parades waving my hand to the participants.

I didn’t go to kindergarten. I spent my early years with my nanny Marusya. Now I know that during the period of famine villagers were trying to escape to towns looking for rescue and a job to survive. Marusya was happy to be staying in our family where she could have plenty of food and was treated like a member of the family. I liked this slim girl with dark eyes a lot. Marusya told me about famine in her village and taught me to cherish bread and food. Even now I wouldn’t throw away even a breadcrumb.  About once a month I was taken to my grandparents, but my parents never left me to stay overnight with them to protect me from hearing Yiddish or getting interested in Jewish traditions. My grandmother was always happy to see me. She usually asked me what I felt like eating and I said ‘Lotkes’ – potato pancakes. I liked them, but nobody made them at home. I also remember buckwheat with milk.  

In 1937 when I turned 7 I went to a Russian school near our house in the center of the town. I remember an event at school when I was in the first form. We had portraits of Yakir 7, Kossior 8 and other military commanders and Party activists. Once our teacher told us that they were ‘enemies of the people’ and we painted them over with ink 9. I don’t remember any details, but I remember that my mother was called to some office and I heard some big shot yelling at her ‘Which enemy has worked on you?’ My mother stood in his office and then she grabbed an inkpot and threw it at him. Thank God she wasn't arrested but they were trying to get a confession from her – I don’t know about what. I remember a terrible tension at home – my parents hardly spoke a word.

I became a pioneer when I was in the 3rd form (1940). At the ceremony we were told that we had become Young Leninists and offered to learn a poem. I learned the poem ‘Five days and nights’ in which the country was grieving for the loss of Lenin. I remember some lines ‘…And crowds of people were flowing carrying flags to look at the yellow profile and a red order on his chest. They were flowing. And the earth was freezing as if he had taken with him some of the warmth…’ and at this I burst into tears and felt very ashamed about it. These were tears of grief and despair, but I was ashamed to be crying in front of the audience not being able to pull myself together and finish reciting the poem that came right from my heart.  Then our pioneer leader came to tie our neckties and show us how to salute. It was a very festive ceremony.

We rarely had guests. The only birthday celebrated in the family was mine. I had to invite every attendee saying ‘You are invited for a cup of tea on my birthday’. Those were not my friends that were invited, but my mother’s colleagues and their children. We had tea, cakes and candy. There was also music on a wireless with a handle. We had a stove in one room, a sofa where my nanny slept, a table where we had meals and a cupboard. In another room there was my parents’ nickel-plated bed and my bed, a radio – a big black plate, a big mirror on the wall and a big rubber plant.

We had ordinary food – I don’t remember any specialties: clear soup, borsch, cutlets, potatoes and macaroni. This was all Marusya could cook. My mother could make stuffed chicken that Marusya couldn’t do, but my mother made it rarely. We had a good life and my father was happy about it. He had an office at school since he was deputy director. He took me once to look at his office.

During the War

I had finished the 4th form successfully when my mother told me about the beginning of the great Patriotic War on 22 June 1941 10, announced on our black plate radio in our room. But the previous morning I was woken by a roar over my head. My mother said ‘Go back to sleep – it is just another military training’. But no – those were German planes flying in the direction of Zhytomir and Kiev. In a day my mother ran home from work and told my father that Party dignitaries and their families were leaving the tom the following night, but my mother wasn’t on that list. My parents packed a suitcase, grabbed me by my hand and we ran to the center of the town where my mother’s friend Bertha lived. She worked at the Party town committee and was on the list.

We stood all night in her cold corridor waiting for a vehicle to pick us up. I was used to sleeping at night in my bed while I had to stand there waiting. In the morning a car arrived and we got in there.  At the station we got into a freight railcar. My father was an only man and women didn’t let him come inside and he was on a platform near the exit door of the railcar. The train headed Stalingrad in 1200 km from Berdichev. The trip took us a whole month. We had bags of sugar and tinned meat and got water when the train stopped.  It was hot in the railcar and children got thirsty begging for water.

At first we arrived in Rovenki, Ukraine, 350 km from our home. We were accommodated in a school building where we stayed for two weeks. We were thinking of staying there hoping that the war would be over soon, but Germans were approaching. My mother got concerned and we went on by a passenger train. When we arrived in Stalingrad all passengers of the train were taken to the stadium.  This was August and the heat was oppressive. There were tarpaulin tents installed on the stadium, but they didn’t help much. We stayed there few days until my mother managed to obtain a permit to Frolov town near Stalingrad. We got accommodation in an apartment of a Kazakh woman. Her daughter slept with us in the room. My mother got a job of director of stationary store. My father received a subpoena from the Frolovsk military registry office– they recruited him to the front. He went to Kazakhstan where he was trained to operate with Morse alphabet. After finishing the course he went to the front as a radio operator. He was a private, but served in a special communications battalion. We received letters from him until February 1942. My mother wrote to commanding officer of the regiment where he served requesting him to give her information about her husband. He replied: ‘Your husband left for a military mission on 13-14 February and never returned. He is missing. [During the years of the war this response was worse than death notification since such people might be suspected of treason.] But my father vanished and whatever effort we took after the war to find out what happened to him we couldn’t get any information in this regard. There were only his letters left full of love towards me and my mother.  He adored my mother. My father was a very nice man. His colleagues and students liked him a lot. My mother was a nervous woman and often lost her temper, but my father was very kind. He knew how to deal with her and forgive her.

We stayed less than half a year with the Kazakh woman before we had to move on since the front was coming closer. We didn’t face any anti-Semitism. I had friends among my classmates – only our family had to leave. My mother wrote her brother David in Cheliabinsk region and he replied that we could come to join him there.

We arrived at a small provincial town of Emanzhelinsk in the Ural, in 2500 km from Berdichev. David lived in a barrack where we got a room and a kitchen. There was a big Russian stove in the kitchen and we, children, used to sit and play there. My mother’s sister Reizl and her daughter Maria and my father brother Joseph’s wife Manya Koifman and her daughter Tsylia came there shortly afterward, too. There were many children: the youngest Salavik, David’s son – he was 2, Tsylia – 5 years old, I – 10 years old and 12-year-old Maria. Maria told us fairy tales and read books. I attended the 5th form at school in the town in the Ural where I was behind all other children in mathematic since I missed a lot.

I heard the word zhydovka 11 for the first time in the Ural. Children called me this name when I was going home from school. I asked my mother what it meant, but she seemed to be reluctant to explain to me what it meant. She went to talk to parents of these children, but this didn’t change much. I don’t know whom these children got this name from. There were no Jews in this area whatsoever. Other girls and I played with dolls together– we wrapped some grass into a cloth, painted eyes and mouths and made them clothes from leftovers of fabrics. I mean to say that nobody ever paid any attention to my nationality. Only I knew that I was different and I felt like being no different. 

My mother was a propagandist there, too. The collective farm was located in several villages and my mother went there to tell villagers about the situation at the front and about the policy of the Soviet Union. She read a lot and was aware of all events at the front. We didn’t starve – our parents took every effort to provide sufficient food for us. Aunt Reizl was responsible for cooking and Manya, Joseph’s daughter, sewed to earn some additional food or money.

In 1943 my mother was appointed as director of school in Selizianki village near Emanzhelinsk. This was a small school.  We got accommodation – a small house with a high porch with one room. There was no kitchen. My mother learned to bake bread since there were no bread supplies to the village. She mixed flour and grain wastes that pricked on the tongue when eaten. In spring the collective farm administration allowed us to dig potatoes in the field. They were frozen but my mother still brought it home and learned to make potato pancakes on cod-liver oil –there was no other oil available.  It tasted awful, but we were hungry and had no choice, but to eat it.

I went to the school where my mother was director. People treated us very nicely. I was a success with my studies and helped my classmates. I remember my classmates getting together in the house of one of our classmates Shurik. His mother used to tell us fairy tales and there was a kindling burning in the room. We had a big map of our country on the wall in our room at home and we always marked which towns were liberated from fascists. I don’t remember whether we had newspapers, but we had a radio. In the evening I used to read with an oil lamp on. We made this oil lamp by ourselves: poured some kerosene in a bottle and made a wick from cotton from a blanket. I was fond of reading and read a lot. I mostly read Russian and foreign classic literature.

My mother never discussed the issues of our Jewish identity or told me about mass shootings of Jews in the occupied territory. We got to know it after the war. I knew, though, that my father’s brothers were at the front. We had no information about them or their families.

Berdichev was liberated in the late fall of 1944 and we returned home in March-April 1945. My father’s sister Riva and aunt Reizl, my mother’s sister, returned to Berdichev with us. Our house wasn’t ruined and we returned to our apartment – only our belongings were gone. The windows were broken during air raids and window frames were stolen, but we were glad to have a roof over our heads. This was more than many other people had. I went to the 7th form at my former school. I remember Victory Day on 9 May 1945 – how happy people were that the war was over. They came onto streets singing and crying and greeting each other.

After the War

After the war my mother taught history at school and continued her lecturing activities.  On certain days she lectured at some organizations telling them about international situation and the state policy. I don’t know whether she was paid for this, but I believe she was. My mother did understand more than she mentioned. At 16,when I was in the 10th form, I went to a registry office to obtain my passport. I didn’t have any document since we left all documents at home when we left for evacuation hastily. I had to visit a doctor to have him confirm my age and other details. A day before my mother told me to have my nationality written as Ukrainian. I obtained my passport where in the item line ‘Origin’ was written ‘Ukrainian’. My mother was a Jew, though, and she never changed any information in her passport. I was to enter an institute and she new that there were admission restrictions for Jews. My mother never discussed this subject, but she was eager to help her daughter. My mother strongly believed in communist ideas like millions of her contemporaries without giving a thought to contradictions that were growing: anti-Semitism among them. She loved me dearly and wanted me to have a better life, but she knew that Jews were facing problems in the post war Soviet Union: problems with getting a job or entering an institute. She didn’t think about assimilation. 

After the war the number of Jewish population reduced dramatically. So many were exterminated by fascists in September 1941. Villagers from surrounding villages moved into vacant apartments that formerly belonged to Jews. Those Jews that were returning from evacuation were not welcome. This tendency was quietly supported by the town authorities and militia. There were no Jews holding official positions in the town and Jews found no support in their efforts to get a place to live. 

In 1947 two major events happened in our life: I entered the Pedagogical College [with 2 years of studies: this was a teachers’ training college; its graduates could only work in village schools] and my mother got married. At that time this institution was referred to higher educational institutions, but actually it was similar to high school. 

My mother’s husband Ilia (his Jewish name was Gilel) Inber also returned from the war – he was assistant doctor in a hospital at the front. His wife and daughter perished in Berdichev during mass shooting of Jews by fascists during the war. He worked as an accountant at school after the war where he met my mother.  It was good for him to meet my mother – he had a weak character and was no fighter. Can you imagine that this kind of a man survived the war while my father didn’t. He didn’t have any education and my mother made him go to study by correspondence at the Pedagogical Institute in Kiev, but I don’t believe he ever finished his studies. He went to work as a marker  at a plant and I guess he earned good money. This was one of high-skilled professions that required accuracy and patience. Marker was to mark dimensions on a unit to be manufactured. Such marking nowadays is made by electronic equipment.

I graduated from the institute in 1949 and was even glad to get a job assignment in Solotvin village, since there was too little space at the place where we lived.  I remember numerous meetings at the institute where attendance was compulsory. They blamed and accused ‘rootless cosmopolites’ 12 at the meetings. I was 19 and didn’t give much thought to what it was about and what it had to do with me. At home we didn’t discuss newspaper publications or political subjects. My mother came home tired and didn’t feel like talking at all and I couldn’t care less about any political subject. My friends and I were more interested in parties and dancing. At one such party I met extended service man Alexandr Penkin.  

Alexandr was Russian. He came from Riazan. He was born in 1924. He looked very handsome and nice to me. My mother didn’t care about his nationality and He, when I told him that I was a Jew replied that it didn’t matter to him. We got married in 1949 after I graduated from the institute. We had a small wedding party on the day when we registered our wedding at the state registry office where we invited our friends and relatives. I went to work at school in the village and my husband left the army and went to work as milling machine operator at a plant. He also attended a ballet class.    He studied at a dancing school in Moscow before he went to the army. He was a very good dancer.  He also earned additional money by teaching dancing at clubs. They danced Russian, Ukrainian and Moldavian dances, but not Jewish. Alexandr lived at the hostel of his plant, but he often visited me in the village. 

Solotvin was a very poor village. I rented a room from a village woman. The owners of the house slept on their oven bench and I had a plain plank bed. The mistress of the house also made me some food since I had no place to cook or have meals. The school was housed in three one-storied houses quite at a distance from one another. There were one-two classes in one house. Children didn’t know Russian – they spoke Ukrainian – their mother tongue. They made so many mistakes in Russian that it drove me crazy. There were no textbooks and a notebook was a luxury. They were starved and underdeveloped children and I had to do my best to teach them what I could.

In 1952 my son Vladimir Penkin was born in Berdichev. I went to have a baby in Berdichev where my mother was. It was scaring to hear from friends and acquaintances ‘don’t go to this doctor or beware of that doctor – they are all involved in murder and poisoning’. The majority of people believed that everything in official publications was true. People didn’t trust Jewish doctors while there was a number of them in Berdichev. This was the period of ‘doctors’ case’ 13 when there were many scaring publications in newspapers that people believed. I was very concerned since I, too, believed that my baby might be murdered on purpose. I didn’t go to a Jewish doctor. However, I had a nice and healthy baby.

I didn’t go back to the village. My husband and I received a room in a hostel for families. There were 4 families in a block of rooms (one room for each family) and a communal kitchen.  We had central heating and a kitchen that was heated, too. The toilet was in the yard.

In March 1953 I was having a walk with my baby son – he was in a pram, when I heard mourning music on the radio and then it announced that Stalin died. I stopped feeling stunned. Stalin was our life and future and all of a sudden he was gone. He was my mother’s idol, too. It was a tragedy and we felt it like a tragedy. 

Vladimir, when he grew old enough, went to a kindergarten and I went to work as a Russian teacher at a Ukrainian school near the sugar factory not far from where we lived. It was located in the outskirts of the town and there were Ukrainian children studying at this school. I also studied by correspondence at Zhytomir Pedagogical Institute. Life seemed to be improving when I faced problems in my family. My husband was a drunkard. I didn’t notice it at the beginning: nobody ever drank in our family and I had no idea what it was like. We had rows and he even hit my mother once when she was visiting us. I don’t even feel like talking about it. I got a divorce in 1960 when our son was in the 4th form. My ex-husband met a woman that was in love with him when she was young. She felt sorry for him and took him to the Crimea where she lived, but she couldn’t do anything about his alcoholism. When my son grew up he went to visit his father, but when he returned he only said ‘Mother, you were right to divorce him’. Alexandr Penkin died in 1983.

My son was a success at school and was a smart boy. He finished school in 1969 and we wanted him to go to an Institute. He chose the Polytechnic Institute in Lvov. We were so worried when he was taking his entrance exams. I didn’t want him to be in Lvov by himself – he was just a boy.  A friend of mine moved to Lvov and I went to visit her. She convinced me to try to move to Lvov. We exchanged our apartment to Lvov since there were no vacancies at school.  Work with smaller children wasn’t quite interesting for me, but it was quieter. Director of the kindergarten wasn’t satisfied with me. Although I was written as Ukrainian in my passport she must have identified that I was a Jew and never left me alone picking on me about minor things. Director of the kindergarten was anti-Semitic and didn’t even conceal this. My son and I shared a room and my mother and her husband lived in another room.  

My mother continued to be a Party activist – she worked with children. There was a club in our neighborhood where children came to play and read. She was retired. Later she began to work at a newsstand where she was selling newspapers earning some additional money. Her husband went to work at a storage facility where they kept some expensive things and lamps that were stolen and he was accused of theft. My mother helped him finding money to pay for the stolen things and he quit his job. He went to work as a lighting operator at the circus where he worked for many years. My mother worked for a long time and then, at 72 she grew old abruptly: she lost her hearing and began to have eyesight problems. She was devoted to the Communist Party to her last days. She always listened to latest news – she believed it was her duty to know since she was a member of the Communist Party. She was almost deaf and dumb and we turned on the radio for her to hear it. In 1990s my mother and stepfather decided to move to Israel and submitted their documents. It was amazing that my mother accepted perestroika considering her old age and her devotion to the Party and communist ideas.  She still strongly believed in communism, but took much interest in the changes that were coming into people’s life. She recalled her roots after so many years. I didn’t care about perestroika either since I never took any interest in political occurrences.  In late 1980s the Jewish way of life began to revive and we began to get more information about life abroad. My mother wanted to see Israel. She wished she could live in a kibbutz since it was so much like a commune!  She watched all programs about Israel [there were no programs about Israel before perestroika or if they mentioned this country at all they always did it with negative attitude]. My mother always watched new developments with interest and never condemned anyone. Mother died in January 1994, few months before her departure to Israel. She was so eager to leave for the land of our ancestors. She believed that she would get better there. We buried her at the town cemetery in Lvov. My stepfather moved there alone – he died in Israel in 1999. Prior to his departure he gained back his Jewish name of Gilel. His sister, her children and husband live there, too.

My son Vladimir married a Russian girl upon graduation from the Institute. I tried to talk him out of it. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her, but I believed he was too young to get married. Well, he didn’t listen to me. She got a baby, but she continued to study at the Institute and he stayed with the baby and at night he made drawings for her. Tania knew that he was half Jew when she met him, but it didn’t matter to her. I didn’t care about her nationality either. I believe that most important was that they got along with one another. They have two sons. Andrey was born in 1976. He also graduated from the Road Faculty of Polytechnic Institute. He lives in Israel and likes it there a lot. Their younger son Sergey born in 1981 is a student of the Lvov Polytechnic Institute. Vladimir is a very good son and we are very good friends. He works for a construction company.

In February 1976 I met Peter Doroshkov, a car mechanic, born in 1921, Russian. He came from Siberia [Krasnoyarsk region]. He was divorced. I had lost my husband ten years before I met him. He seemed to be a nice man. I married him and changed my last name from Mazor to his last name. He was all right at the beginning, but his character has changed to worse. He knew from the very beginning that I was a Jew and it seemed to be O’K with him. We lived all together: my mother and her husband and my husband and I. We had a modest life and never went on vacation or had nothing else that was more than we could afford. We only celebrated Soviet holidays. But once I read a letter of my husband’s ex-wife, although I still pretend that I never read it: ‘You’ve never liked Jews, so how could you marry a Jewish woman?’ He didn’t reply her, but I can feel between lines that he might think ‘Don’t you forget I didn’t tell you anything when you mentioned to me that you were a Jew’ meaning that it was quite an act on his part to marry me. He thinks he would be better off if things turned out differently. At the beginning we had a good life. He loved me, but later we grew aloofness in our relationships. He wasn’t an anti-Semite, but he wasn’t particularly fond of Jews that is typical for all Russians.  He was eager to move to Israel. There is a joke ‘A Jew is not a luxury, but means of transportation’.  Many locals, especially ignorant ones, are convinced that they would have a good life if they manage to leave their country for whatever price. By the way, this is an opinion of people that have never been abroad. He was thinking about Israel, and that it is a Jewish state was just a minor nuisance for him. When my mother and her husband decided to leave we were going to follow them, but my mother passed away and my son can’t make up his mind about moving to Israel and what would I do without him? I wish I visited a foreign country, but I couldn’t afford it before and now I wouldn’t travel due to my health condition.

Few years ago my neighbors told me about Hesed. They had to find confirmation of my origin since I was Ukrainian by my passport. They did all necessary investigation and now I can attend Hesed.  I received food packages, but when I fell ill I was assigned to the daytime center in Hesed.  I attend it twice a month. We discuss religious and other subjects. I am interested to know about the history and culture of the Jewish people. We watch films. It didn’t even occur to me how many spiritual riches our people have, how many scientists were Jewish and a lot more [The interviewee begins to cry heavily].  I feel myself a Jew and I appreciate all care that I get in Hesed – this is so very important for me.  I wish I were I had been closer to my people. I enjoy going there and I have made new friends. It is so important for older people since older people have an only communication with a TV set. I watch every program about Israel. Every terrorist attack is like a knife stabbed in my heart.

Glossary

Communella Bunikovskaya
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Inna Zlotnik
Date: January 2003

Communella Bunikovskaya lives on the 2nd floor of a 3-storied house in Vetrianyie Hills in the outskirts of Kiev. She has a small apartment: a living room, a bedroom a kitchen and a toilet.  Communella looks young for her years. She is a hospitable woman full of energy. She is short and slim; she wears her hair in a knot. She has gray eyes. She has trousers and a blouse that she made herself.  She also makes toys for her granddaughters. She has also made nice pillows that she has on her sofa. She has pictures of embroidered flowers on the walls made by her younger granddaughter. She has many photos of her mother and father, sister, son and her granddaughters. She has a big collection of books: about Jewish culture, biology, fiction and books about Jewish artists.  Communella looks forward to spring when she can go to the Jewish library, attend exhibitions and visit friends.  She seldom goes out in winter; the road is slippery and it gets dark early. Her granddaughters and her son visit her on vacation. Her son lives in Odessa. Her sister calls from Israel on Fridays and she talks with her friends on the phone. In spring Communella will read lectures about Jewish artists at the library in Sretenskaya Street and meanwhile she gets prepared.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary 

My family background

My grandfather on my father's side Abram Lyova Bunikovskiy was born in Priazovie, in 1870s [a Jewish agricultural colony near Mariupol] 1. He moved to Mariupol when he grew older where there were more opportunities to get education or a good job. He managed to get professional education and became a hat maker. The majority of population in Mariupol was Russian and Ukrainian. There was also Greek, German and Bulgarian population. There were not many Jews in the town. I remember my grandfather at the age of over 60: he was a strong man with straight hair with a parting to the left side and moustache. My grandfather was religious, but he didn't wear a kippah or a beard. After the revolution in1917 2 it was quite common in Mariupol that Jews changed their traditional looks. My grandfather's dream was to move to Palestine and he paid a high price for this dream; he was repressed as a Zionist in 1937 and perished in Stalin's camps. I don't really know whether grandfather was involved in any arrangements for departure or whether he was a member of Zionist organization, but I guess, he was. We didn't discuss this subject in our family and had no information about when or where he perished. After Stalin died in 1953 I tried to raise this subject. I wanted my father to get some information about my grandfather, but he didn't do anything about it.  

My grandmother Sarah Bunikovskaya was also born in Priazovie in 1880s. I don't know how or when she moved to Mariupol. My grandfather and grandmother got married in 1900s. They had a traditional Jewish wedding. They settled down in Mariupol. My grandfather supported the family and my grandmother was a housewife. They had four children: my father Moisey, born in 1905, David, two years younger, Isaac born around 1910, and sister Rosa, born in 1913.

I often visited my grandmother and grandfather before the World War II. I remember that they lived in a 2-storied house. I guess they owned this house since I never saw any neighbors or a different owner of the house. I remember a stair-case and a big dining-room. I also went to the melon and watermelon field, but I don't remember whether it was their field or they just took me to an agricultural colony. My grandmother was a short fat woman with gray curly hair. She was a very quiet and reserved woman. I loved her dearly.

My father told me that my grandparents observed all Jewish traditions before the revolution: they only had kosher food, celebrated all Jewish holidays. My father and his brothers finished cheder. They went to the synagogue with their parents. After the revolution the Soviet authorities struggled against religion 3 and in 1930s when I came to visit them there were no religious signs in the family, though I am sure that they remained religious people in their heart. I guess they prayed in secret. The last time I came to Mariupol in 1938 I didn't know that I would never see my grandmother Sarah and my father's brothers David and Isaac and their sister Rosa. In the end of 1941 they evacuated from Mariupol, but got in encirclement and were exterminated by Germans.  In 1950s I found a sheet of paper with my mother's notes: 'In summer 1941 my husband's family: his mother, sister Rosa, brothers David and Isaac and Isaac's daughter was martyrized by fascists during a mass shooting of Jews in Mariupol. The family of my cousin Meirah Fine also perished at that time. They resided in a Jewish agricultural colony. She and her husband, children, brothers and sisters were killed. My cousin sisters Luba, Nyusia and Rosa Lvovskiye and their families were thrown into mine pits in Donetsk'. This was how I got to know about the death of my father's family. 

My father Moisey Bunikovskiy was born in Mariupol in 1905. My grandfather wanted his older son to become a rabbi. My father finished cheder. Perhaps he would have become a rabbi if it hadn't been for the revolution. My father didn't want to go to yeshiva. He ran away from home at the age of 14 at the beginning of the Civil War 4. He got to the Caucasus. He was strong and managed to get a job in the circus as an athlete. I don't remember exactly in what town he stayed in the Caucasus. He studied law and then entered a military infantry school in Vladicaucasus. He moved from one town to another for 10 years before he returned to Mariupol where he began to work as a legal adviser. Once he saw a picture of a young pretty girl in the family album and fell in love with the girl in the picture. She turned out to be his distant relative living in Stalino [Yuzovka at present - a regional industrial town] Donetsk region. My father went to Stalino where he found out my mother's address. He went to meet my mother. My mother returned his feelings and they got married in 1930. Nobody ever told whether they had a religious wedding. 

My mother Gita Bunikovskaya, nee Dubrova, was born in Yuzovka town in Donbass on 7 November 1909. Her father Mordukh (Mark - this name sounded more Russian fashion and the surrounding people called him by this name) Dubrov was presumably born in a Jewish agricultural colony near Mariupol in 1860s. My mother also wrote in her notes that his father Shaya Dubrov resided here. Grandfather Mordukh was a blacksmith - I only saw his photo. He was a big strong man with short hair and moustache. He owned a forge located in Sobachka, a poor neighborhood near Yuzovka. When I came to Yuzovka after the Great patriotic War there was housing construction where Sobachka used to be. At the beginning of XX century Yuzovka was a town of workers in Ekaterinoslav province. In early 1900th Jews were allowed to settled down there and I believe it was at that time that my grandparents moved there.  

My grandmother Faina (or Fania how all the Russians people called her) Dubrova - I don't know her nee name - must have also been born in a Jewish agricultural colony near Mariupol in 1886. My grandmother was a beautiful woman: she was of average height, slim and had big eyes. She was reserved and quiet and had a great sense of humor. I remember her saying after she climbed the fifth floor and became short of breath 'I am short of breath as if I were an old woman'. She didn't like black clothes. Neither my grandmother Fania nor my paternal grandmother Sarah had any national accessories in their clothing when I knew them.  

My grandparents had five children: there was a boy born in 1907 - he died of tuberculosis in 1915, my mother didn't remember his name. Alexandra (he was called Shura) born in 1908 was a housewife. I guess her husband a Jewish man, Turlianskiy perished during the Great Patriotic War [World War II]. She had three children: Murah, born in 1928, Semyon, born in 1931 and Konstantin, born in 1941. She earned their living by sewing and working as a room maid at a hotel. Murah and Semyon live in Israel now. Semyon is an engineer and composes music at free time. Konstantin, his wife and daughter live in Germany and their son lives in Donetsk. Shura lived her life in Donetsk. She died in 1990s.

Anna (or Ania how she was called) was born in 1911. She finished Physical culture College in Dnepropetrovsk and worked as a trainer in calisthenics at the Physical Culture School. Ania was popular in Dnepropetrovsk: for many years afterward there were contests named after Anna Dubrova in this town. Ania was married and had a son - Mark, born in 1941. She died in Dnepropetrovsk in 2001. Mark lives there with his wife and two children. 

My mother's younger sister Clara was born in 1913. She lived in Donetsk and was a typist and stenographer at the Regional Party Committee in Donetsk, she was a member of the Party or otherwise she wouldn't have been able to work for the Party, but as far as I know, she wasn't a devoted Communist. She was married and had two children: son Michael and daughter Larissa. Michael is a mining engineer. He lives with his wife and daughter in Germany. Larissa graduated from the Conservatory. She lives in Donetsk. Clara died in 1980s.

My grandfather died of diabetes in 1914 when my mother was 4 years old. My grandmother had to raise five children. Her mother also lived with them. Grandmother Fania could read and write in Yiddish, knew all Jewish rituals and rules. Yuzovka was a small patriarchal town and my grandmother was almost the only Jewish woman with education. She read prayers to women at the synagogue on holidays (and other women were listening and repeating after her) and earned some money in this way. Grandmother Fania also grew poultry supplying fat and down to wealthy families. The children made boxes for a match factory. In 1920s, after the Civil War, my grandmother leased the forge to an Austrian captive blacksmith.

However poor they were my grandmother took girls to the theater. It was her dream that my mother would learn to play the piano and Ania would become a ballerina. Shura and my mother studied in a Jewish private grammar school for 2 years. This was grammar school for girls: they studied Hebrew and religion, manners, housekeeping and general subjects like mathematic and literature. They studied in Yiddish.

My grandmother strictly followed Jewish traditions: my mother told me that they spoke Yiddish, had kosher food and on Friday my grandmother lit candles. They had special tableware and utensils for Pesach. Children always got some new clothes at Pesach. They had plentiful Seder and all traditional Jewish food on their table.  Before Pesach all children got involved in searching chametz and its removal from the house. During Pesach the children searched for afikoimen: a piece of matsa hidden in a pillow. The children got a reward when they found afikoimen. At Chanukkah the children got few coins - Chanukkah gelt. At Purim my grandmother made gomentashy. There were 3 synagogues. I don't know how big they were and I was too small to ask any questions about it.  There also was a charity community to support poor Jews and a Jewish cemetery. In late 1930s the synagogues were closed and the rabbi was exiled to Siberia.  

My grandmother Fania left us to live with Ania in Dnepropetrovsk. She helped Ania to raise her son Mark. She lived her last years with Clara in Donetsk.  Her daughter was a communist working with party organizations. She was a stenographer, but regardless of her position if her colleagues found out that she observed Jewish traditions she might have problems, get arrested or even sent in exile.  My grandmother couldn't observe any traditions living at her home.  

My mother believed that if it hadn't been for the revolution of 1917 their family would have remained poor and that she owed everything she had to the revolution. Her sisters were doing well. Ania got a higher education. My sister and I and my mother's nephews and nieces also got a higher education.

My mother had to go to work when she was in her teens. In 1924 an employment office sent her to the plant at the Mining institute. My mother became an apprentice in a shop, but when her supervisor noticed that she had a nice handwriting she became a ship forwarder for shipment of casting. Since my mother was a clerk she couldn't enter a higher educational institution since they only admitted workers and children of workers 5. She didn't have any certificate or diploma and to get a document about some education she went to study at a course of Roentgenologists. After she finished this course she got a job related to her profession where she worked several months, but she had an urge to literary activities: writing poems, in particular. She used to say that poems were reflection of life. My mother was a self-educated woman, but she was smart and intelligent and had intelligent friends. She attended a literary club and all meetings with poets that came on tours. She knew some Ukrainian and Russian poets.

In 1929 the plant where my mother worked was shut down. This was when my father came to Stalino. They met and fell in love with each other. They got married in 1930. My mother moved to Mariupol and they settled down with my father's parents. My father worked as legal adviser and my mother got a job with a small newspaper 'Priazovie Proletarian' that didn't exist long. 

Growing up

On 9 April 1931 I was born. My mother named me Communella - she liked extraordinary and beautiful names. My mother said that Communella was the name of a daughter of an Italian writer - I don't remember his name. I was born in Stalino - I guess, my mother came to Stalino to have me born there. My place of birth is stated 'Stalino' in my birth certificate and my parents' name stated there are Jewish: Gita and Moisey. Old Jewish names were not popular at that time and many Jews took Russian names to keep up with the trends of time. In 1933 my mother changed her name to Vladia and my father became Michael. Shortly after I was born my mother went back to Mariupol and continued to work for the newspaper. At the beginning of 1934 my parents and I moved to Stalino: my father got a new job at the regional department of NKVD 6. I don't remember where we lived in Stalino. On 9 October 1934 my younger sister Inessa [Inna short from Inessa - her family called her by this name] was born.  In summer 1935 we moved to Makeevka, a small town of miners near Stalino. My father got a job and received an apartment there. My father worked at the Attorney office, but in 1936 during the period of repression 7 he became head of legal department at a plant. My mother worked for the 'Worker of Makeevka' newspaper. Makeevka is a small provincial town in the east of Ukraine - in 700 km from Kiev with the population of about 50 thousand people. The majority of population was involved in coal industry. There were few mines, cinema theaters, schools and hospitals in town. There were few multi-storied buildings in the center of the town.

We lived in a 3-room apartment (there was a living-room, a children's room and a study in the apartment) on the 2nd floor of a 4-storied building in the center of Makeevka. This house was cold the 'House of doctors and engineers' since there were families of intelligentsia living in it. We had a nanny that I have dim memories of. I remember bookshelves by two walls in our living room: classic books and dictionaries. Besides Russian classic there were books by Sholem Alechem 8 and other Jewish authors in Russian. My mother and father communicated in Yiddish, but my father forbade my mother to teach my sister and me Yiddish. He believed that this language would die out and Jews would get assimilated. Our mother sometimes tried to tell us sayings in Yiddish that she learned from her mother and grandmother, but my sister and I didn't understand them. We didn't observe any Jewish traditions in our family. This was the period of struggle against religion 9 and I don't remember any other Jewish families observing traditions at that time.  

My parents' friends' doctors, engineers and lawyers often got together at our home on weekends.  They listened to music, danced and talked and children played in our room. We only had a radio at home and guests often brought a wireless and records with them.

There were Jewish and Ukrainian families in our building, but we didn't care about nationality at that time. I had a friend Era Butylskaya, a Jewish girl.  I remember we played in the yard once and a ball hit me on the head injuring me. I was worried that my father would be angry with me. Our neighbor washed and dressed my wound. My father got angry, but he didn't reproach me. I don't remember any toys. My parents often brought a wattle table in the garden for children to play table games. I remember a children's domino plated with acorns on them.  We also liked to draw with color pencils. In summer my parents rented a summerhouse at Udachnaya station near Lisichansk to the north from Donetsk where we spent our summer vacations. I remember a river and a forest. My mother taught the names of flowers, trees and birds. We picked raspberries and wild strawberries in the forest. We also went to see our grandparents in Mariupol.

I went to school in 1937. I was 6 and a half year old while children were admitted to school at the age of 7. Director of the school said that since classes were full he could only admit me in the class for children that remained in the 1st form for the 2nd year. My father agreed to this condition. I studied in a Russian school. I don't know whether there were Jewish schools in Makeevka, but our father wouldn't let us go to a Jewish school anyway. Besides, neither my sister nor I knew Yiddish. Our mother knew Ukrainian and my sister and I spoke fluent Ukrainian as well. I don't remember any teachers from my primary school. We studied reading and writing in Russian, handwriting, and calligraphy. I did very well at school. There was no anti-Semitism at school before the war. 

During the War

In 1939 my father went to the army. He took part in the establishment of the Soviet power on the territory of Poland that had joined the USSR shortly before. He was dismissed before term for some reason. When the war began on 22 June 1941 10 my father wasn't recruited to the army since he was in reserve. My parents probably didn't believe that Hitler would attack our country since they went to a resort in Sukhumi at the end of May and returned home few days before the war began. There were trenches excavated in our yard where we hid during air raids. 

In September 1941 we evacuated with the plant where our father worked to Barnaul Altaysk region [over 4000 km from Kiev].

We didn't take any warm clothes since we believed that we would come back home in a short time. There was a big carpet in our living room where my parents stored photographs, documents and some other papers and just few items of clothing. We traveled in a freight railcar in for about 3 weeks. We passed by a bombed train - I remember the frightening sight of wounded and dead people. We had a one-liter packet of caviar with us and this was all we ate on the road - there wasn't even bread; since then I hate red caviar.

It was freezing in Barnaul when we arrived. Some people that came in evacuation had their ears or noses frost bitten on the first days. Few plants evacuated to Barnaul were installed together to form one bigger plant of tank engines. My parents worked at this plant. During the war my father became a member of the Communist Party. At the beginning of 1942 our father volunteered to the front. Our mother was assistant human resources manager at the founding shop. We stayed in a room with a stove in a wooden barrack in the outskirts of the town. This stove didn't provide sufficient heating - in the morning our hair was iced to the wall so cold it was. We lived on the second floor and our window faced a work farm. In the morning trucks brought dead bodies of inmates to dump them in a pit and we could hear the sound of dead bodies hitting the frozen ground. Evacuated families received small plots of land from the plant. We grew potatoes, sunflowers, pumpkins and beans on our plot of land in the vicinity of the town. Our mother came from work late and my sister and I got starved waiting for her to bring some food. She usually brought frozen potatoes, but sometimes she got sugar beetroots. We used to bake slices of beets and pumpkin - they were delicious. My mother used to call it a 'dinner of a tsar'. My mother managed to write poems and arrange a literary club at the plant. She wrote mainly about patriotism of the Soviet people, hard work in the rear and about husbands and sons struggling for freedom of their Motherland. Unfortunately, my mother's notes were lost during the war and in the process of moving to various locations.  She took part in compilation of collection of poems 'Plant in Altay' where her poems were published, too.

My sister Inna had tubercular peritonitis before the war and received a food package for children with tuberculosis: half a kilo of cereal or coconut oil. Once she got a bar of chocolate instead of sugar, and we ate this chocolate: it was an unseen delicacy for us. Inna went to school in Barnaul. We didn't have school bags and tied our books to belts. My classmates were naughty children: they greased a blackboard in the classroom, or put thumbtacks on the teacher's chair, or applied glue on the chair, but I remember the time when we were all struck and even the most notorious children got quiet: our teachers went to a field to get sugar beets for us and our teacher of mathematic (he came from Leningrad) froze to death.  We liked her a lot.

In autumn 1944 my mother got a job invitation from 'Pridunayskaya Pravda', a regional newspaper in Izmail [the south of Ukraine in 600 km from Kiev]. We went there.

My father was a military correspondent. He got an opportunity to come and see us and rented a room in a private house (of a Bulgarian family) in Bolgrad [40 km from Izmail]. My mother was an editor in Pridunayskaya Pravda [a small weekly communist newspaper]. Inna and I went to a Russian school This area was populated with Moldavians, Bulgarians, Rumanians, Russians and Ukrainians, but there was no anti-Semitism and children played and studied together. 

After the War

On 9 May 1945, Victory Day, we were in Bolgrad. This was the happiest spring in my life. After the war was over my father demobilized and got a job of director of the town library in Izmail. We moved there to join him. I became a Komsomol member in Izmail. Inna and I studied in a secondary and music school. Our mother was an editor in the 'Pridunayskaya Pravda' newspaper - she also headed a literary club there. 

My father was free-lance lecturer of the Republican Bureau of lecturers. In 1947 he got a job offer in Kiev and we moved again. We rented an apartment there. I went to the 10th form of Russian school #145 for girls. Soon my father received a room in the basement of a building. The house annexed to a hill on one side. We descended stairs to the verandah where the front door to our room was and an opposite wall of the house was built in the hill. The room was dark and damp. We had no running water or toilet in the room. In 1948 I finished school with all excellent marks, but one or two good marks in my school certificate. I got a '4' in composition - there was also a comment 'indistinct development of the subject'. This was the result of prejudiced attitude towards me due to my nationality, but I decided not to argue with school commission of teachers. 

I submitted documents to the Faculty of Biology at Kiev University. At the entrance exams I wrote composition on the same subject as at school and received a '5' for it. We took 7 entrance exams and I got all '5' marks and one '4'.  Only one girls Ida Kachurova, a Jewish girl, passed all exams with '5' grades. 75 students were to be admitted: 25 school graduates with medals (they didn't have to take entrance exams) and 50 applicants that took entrance exams. I was in the group of leading applicants by the results of exams, but I wasn't admitted and nobody could explain why.  My father refused to go to see rector to find out the reasons and my mother went there. The Rector's office suggested that I went to Pedagogical Institute and they would assist me with admission.  My mother went to the Ministry of Education and they promised her that I would be admitted as soon as there came an opportunity. On 1 September I went to the University - I attended lectures, but I didn't get the status of a student. I was doing so well that even lecturers kept asking me when I would be given the status of a student. Then there were two students transferred from other faculties to our faculty while I was ignored. At the end of November a girl I knew was going to be transferred to Medical Institute in Vinnitsa and she told me to try and take her place. I went to talk with the Dean and he promised me to go to the Rector with me to talk about my chances. He stayed in the Rector's office for an hour while I was sitting at the reception. When he came out of there he announced that I was enrolled and could receive my student's certificate on the following day. On 5 December, when the rector's order was issued I went to the Human Resources office to obtain the documents, but they refused to issue any to me. They said there were no photographs in my file. I brought them photographs and they told me to come back in few days. Every time I went to see them they told me to come again. I lost my patience and said that I was going to see their manager. His secretary didn't let me into his office, but I almost pushed her aside. Donets, Human resources manager, said 'You've never been and never will become a student of University. You were expelled from Mechanic and mathematic Faculty for non-attendance'. I assured him that I didn't miss one class at the Faculty of Biology. He told me that I had no right to attend the Faculty of Biology since I was a candidate to the mechanic and mathematic faculty. My mother wasn't told that they were talking to her about a mechanic faculty. I came home crying and told my parents what happened. My mother went to see the Dean She said to him 'You are a communist - tell me what is going on'.  The Dean was a decent man. He promised to have everything arranged. On the next day he told me that there was an order issued about my expulsion from the Mechanic and Mathematic faculty. I replied that I wasn't notified about the Mechanic and Mathematic Faculty and passed my entrance exams for the Faculty of Biology. He brought me my student's card record book in few days. In few days the Dean told me to pay for my studies in the first half a year, since they charged for education at that time. I replied that my father was an officer and I was exempt from payment. I also mentioned that I submitted a required certificate for such exemption to administration. He told me to submit another certificate for exemption. I got one and submitted it to them giving me the right for free education. This was quite a story of my admission to the University. I was an excellent student in all 5 years of my studies at the University.

My mother couldn't get a job associated with her literary activities. All offices required a diploma and she didn't have one. She had miscellaneous jobs; statistics inspector at the polyclinic, tuberculosis clinic, and she continued writing poems. She wrote poetic greeting to her friends and acquaintances on holidays and on their birthdays.

My father worked as legal adviser at the Kiev Art Fund. He also lectured on 'Communist Morale', 'What is an intellectual/', about romanticism, etc. 

Inna finished music school and passed her graduate exam with excellent results, but never again she sat to play the piano. She wasn't fond of music. She also finished secondary school with excellent grades and wanted to enter the University. At the exam in physics she got a bad mark, though she knew it very well. She took entrance exams to the faculty of radio engineers at Kiev Polytechnic Institute. She attended classes in the evening and during the day she worked at the radio station in Bykovnia [in the vicinity of Kiev]. She was an excellent student and administration of the Institute kept promising her to transfer her to the daytime form of studies, but then they didn't keep their promise and she stopped trying and finished her studies at the institute by correspondence.   

On 5 March 1953 Stalin died. I was a five-year student. I remember that my former classmate and I walked along streets in Kiev shedding bitter tears. Students at the University wore black-and-red armbands. My father was a devoted communist and this was a hard blow for him even though he was repressed and also, he was more informed about 1937, but he never changed his convictions even after denunciation of the cult of Stalin and never discussed this subject with anyone.

In 1953 I graduated from University. Resume of my diploma thesis on protection of plants was published in the 'Information Bulletin' of the Botanical garden of the Academy of Sciences. A request for such specialist was sent to the university from Middle Asia, but they replied that didn't have one available. I graduated the university with all excellent grades and wanted to go on with research work, but I became a schoolteacher. I got a job assignment at Krasnodar region and worked at school in the district town of Khadyzhensk [1200 km from Kiev]. It was a small town with about 2000 families living there. There was one school housed in a shabby building. There were 30-40 pupils in one class. There was no cinema, library or any other entertainment in the town. I lived in a one-room apartment for two years. My job assignment was for 3 years, but when my mother fell ill with myocarditis I was released after two years.  

I couldn't find a job in Kiev. We had an acquaintance that was head of gynecology in a holiday helped me to be employed as laboratory assistant in her hospital on a temporary basis when their lab assistant went on maternity leave. When she returned from her leave they terminated my employment although they had a vacancy at the laboratory.

Inna, my sister got married in the middle of 1950s. Our grandmother Fania came to her wedding from Donetsk. There was a civil ceremony in a registry office and a wedding party in a restaurant in Kiev with many guests. Inna's husband, Misha Goldshtein, also a radio engineer, is a very smart, witty and cheerful Jewish man. Inna and Misha's friends were also intellectuals and very interesting people. Misha and Inna were fond of tourism and canoe sailing.

I got a job of biologist at the sanitary-epidemiological facility. In Krasnodar I became a candidate to the Party, since I realized that I had to be a communist to make a career. I became a member of the Party at the sanitary facility and when I went to the district party Committee to obtain my diploma they asked me why I wasn't working at school in a district town. They said 'Communists have to work at critical jobs rather than relax in laboratories'. I replied that I had passed my exams to the post-graduate school and was waiting for their decision. They said that I had to work at school rather than continue my studies at the post-graduate school. They confirmed my admission to the Party, but demanded that I went to work at school. I was not admitted to the post-graduate school and tried again next year. Both times I passed my exams with excellent grades and both times I wasn't admitted.  They didn't explain why, but I understood that it happened due to my nationality.

I went looking for a job to the town of Slaviansk in Kuban at Krasnodar region, in 30 km from Khadyzhensk. It was a small provincial town slightly bigger than Khadyzhensk.  I couldn't find work at school and went to work as teacher at a kindergarten. I got married in 1957. I met my husband Evgeniy Kostyuk when working at school in Krasnodar region back in 1954: we corresponded through this period. When I happened to come to the vicinity where he was we began to see each other. When we decided to get married we had a civil wedding ceremony.

My husband was born in Tuapsei. He is Russian by his passport, but he has Russian and Ukrainian ancestors. His profession was oil specialist. He was a very developed person: he was an amateur actor, was fond of drawing and making sculptures.  In 1959 our son Pavel was born in Kiev where I was staying with my parents - I decided to go to Kiev to have the baby believing there were better doctors and medical services in Kiev. Besides, I wanted to be closer to my mother. My parents were very happy to have a grandson and had no problem that my husband wasn't a Jew. My husband came to see me in Kiev and got a job offer from the Institute of hard alloys. We lived in our damp and cold room in the basement. 

When I decided to go to work after my son was born I couldn't find a job again. When I came to the district department of education they told me to find a vacancy at school and let them know. I found a vacancy and informed the department. They told me to come in few days, but when I came they declared that the vacancy wasn't there any longer. I went to the district party Committee and said 'Is my son and I supposed to starve to death or what?' They told me to find a vacancy. I found one in an evening school and went back to the district Party committee. I asked them to help me get this vacancy telling them about my previous experience. They helped me to get his vacancy at the evening school and I worked there for many years as a teacher of biology.

In 1963 my husband, Pavel and I received a 2-room apartment in Vetrianiye Hills in the outskirt of Kiev since my husband fell ill with tuberculosis and had the right to move out of the damp basement room where we lived before. Shortly afterward my husband and I separated, but I don't feel like talking about it.

My parents lived in that basement room for 20 years. The Soviet propaganda authorities promised to give them an apartment every year before elections to make them vote, but after elections they seemed to forget their promises. Many years passed before we decided to have the floors replaced in the room and it turned out there was swamp and frogs underneath. When my mother saw it she collected all father's awards from district and regional town committees and went to the District party committee. Only in 1967, before 50th anniversary of the USSR, they received a 2-room apartment in Hydropark [a neighborhood on the left bank of the Dnieper River]. My father received a very low salary in the last years before he retired and a miserable pension, but he managed to save for newspapers and magazines. He read a lot.

My parents' friends often got together on 7 November, Victory Day, birthdays and came to greet my parents on their wedding anniversaries.  They often had discussions about hardships of life in the USSR, but my father had strong convictions and almost always gave his argumentation speaking for the Soviet power. My mother supported him in public, but she had her own opinion on life matters. She saw the drawbacks, but she also thought there were numerous achievements. My mother was a very intelligent and knowledgeable woman and all our family members Inna and I, our children and grandchildren] used to address her with any disputable issues.  My mother, Inna and I, raised my son. He was doing well at school, but he never put much effort into his studies. After he finished lower secondary school [8 years] I made him enter Mechanic metallurgical college. He studied at the faculty of installation and set up of control and automation systems. He wasn't doing quite well and I was afraid he wouldn't be able to enter an Institute. He wasn't probably very fond of this subject, even though he was good at mathematic and technically smart and a very handy guy. After finishing the College he worked a couple of months and was recruited to the army. He was sent to the war in Afghanistan 11. I asked him how this happened and he said that their unit was lined and they were told to make 3 steps forward those that wanted to go to Afghanistan, but it wasn't the matter of whether one wished to go there or not. If somebody didn't make a step forward he was subject to a penal battalion. And the commandment reported to higher authorities about a high feeling of responsibility of Soviet soldiers and their unanimous striving for performing their international duty.  

On 30 March 1980 our father died. We buried him at the Jewish corner of the town cemetery. Several years after he died his employers from enterprises called our home to invite him to lecture - that was how much they valued him.

Pavel returned from Afghanistan shortly after my father died. Of 2 years in the army he spent 1.5 in Afghanistan and it certainly had an impact of him. He wanted to enter the faculty of biology at the University - he wanted to study biophysics. He had no problem with his nationality since he is written as Russian in his passport. He was admitted to University. He also composed poems and music. After he returned from Afghanistan he composed a 'Merry song' and sang it playing the guitar. He got married shortly after he entered the university. His wife is Russian. Her family came from a wealthy family in Kiev. She is a very arrogant and demanding person. His wife insisted that he studied by correspondence to be able to work and provide for the family. There was no biophysics at the evening department and he entered some other faculty. He went to work at school; he was a teacher of biology and was a tutor at the tourist club. Children liked him, but his colleagues were jealous about his popularity with the children.  He had to quit school. 

He changed jobs afterward: was a worker and went in for speleotourism. He traveled a lot. He also worked at a dog training school. Since he was in Afghanistan he received an apartment. This dog training business was under control of some people that didn't like that he didn't charge people for his work and that he didn't develop aggressive behavior in dogs. They pushed him out of this business. He had his articles published in the 'Animal market' newspaper: 'I like dogs', 'Animal trainer', your dog is your friend and guard' and others. His acquaintances placed information about him in the Internet. He participated in contests: in 1999 he took the 1st place in animal training in Ukraine, in 2000 he took the 1st place in animal training in the CIS countries [Commonwealth of Independent States] and in 2002 he took part in the international contest in Slovenia. 

Pavel has two daughters: Anastasia, born on 1 February 1982 and Sophia, born on 23 November 1990. Pavel divorced his first wife when Anastasia was 8. He remarried and when his 2nd daughter was born he tried to keep the family ties between them. Anastasia's mother has Byelorussian and Polish ancestors and her father has Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish roots. She is a very talented girl.  Pavel wanted to send Anastasia to a Jewish grammar school, but she wasn't admitted there since her mother is non-Jewish.  Anastasia went to a Jewish camp for young people several times: she brought her father's birthday certificate to prove that he has Jewish roots and this was sufficient evidence of her Jewish origin. In her father's certificate it is written that his mother, that is to say I, is a Jew. Anastasia also attended a Jewish club for young people where they celebrated Shabbat. She knows Jewish Anastasia is a 4th year student of the institute of Public economy-Faculty of information systems and technologies. She also goes to work. 

When Sophia, Pavel's younger daughter was born, they had two dogs. Pavel made a small cart where he harnessed the dogs to ride the little girl outside. Sophia is 12. She studies at the lyceum of international relations.  She reads a lot. She had a brilliant memory. She wants to become a designer: she designs clothes for her Barbie doll and asks me to make these clothes. Sophia calls me 'The Super Granny Shop'. Sophia's mother is Ukrainian, but there is Polish, Ukrainian and German blood there. When somebody says to Sophia 'What a smart girl you are!' she replies 'How can I be smart when I have such a mixture of blood'. Sophia and I attended celebration of Purim and Chanukkah and she knows the history of these holidays. So, both girls are close to the Jewish way of life and traditions.

Pavel and his family reside in Odessa. He was glad to leave Kiev after he divorced his 2nd wife and lost his job. He got a job offer there, but those people didn't keep their promise. He prepared some materials for training dogs. He had his film and photographs shown on TV. He had an agreement with somebody that they would advertise his business and when they have enough clientele they would share the profit, but when it came to sharing, that man cheated on Pavel. If you ask me what Pavel is doing now, I can tell you honestly - I don't know. He doesn't discuss this subject with me. Pavel got married for the 3rd time in Odessa. He visits me whenever he has a chance - once or twice a month, with his two shepherd dogs: they are very nice and kind dogs.

Perestroika that began in 1980s brought us hope for a better life and more opportunities.  Although life became more expensive young people got an opportunity to start their own business, read any book they wish, listen to music they like and speak their mind - I think these are important things in life.  At that period I threw away my party membership card since I didn't need it any longer.

In 1988 I became a teacher of biology and chemistry at the Jewish boarding school. Besides, I read lectures in school from the 'Knowledge' association of lecturers. I retired in 1998. I was a member of the association of lovers of books and read lectures for children in libraries and schools. I read lectures on art. Just to give you an example I told children about artists that make cards. I began my volunteer activities 8 years before Hesed was established. I read lectures to Jews about great Jewish artists: Levitan, Serov, Antokolskiy, Bukst, Kibrik, Tyshler, Anatoliy Kaplan [graphic artist that illustrated books by Jewish writers Sholem Alechem, for example]. Probably under my mother's influence I got an idea to prepare a number of lectures on the following subject 'Jewish contribution into the world art'. I have a collection of books about artists, sculptors and graphic artists.  

My mother passed away in 1999 at the age of almost 90. We buried her near father's grave at the Jewish corner of the town cemetery. She left good memories: she was a very kind woman, but she had her principles and opinion. She wrote poems all her life. My mother was a member of the 'Coziness' poetic club for pensioners in the library here. She recited her poems at their meetings. Inna's friend in Moscow had a book of my mother's poems issued and although there were only two books published, my mother was very happy about it. My mother wrote poems on Jewish subjects in Russian, especially in her last years. Here is an excerpt from her poem 'Inexhaustible subject':

Jews - this subject is like a boil,
They never give up looking for the signs of freaks in us,
While a powerful outburst of progress
Has an input of our people.
Being proud of the Soviet origin,
Loving our Motherland with all heart,
We suffered from the pain of our orphanhood,
Failing to understand its grounds.
And in spite of the ABCs of Marxism,
In spite of everything we knew,
Being unaware of Zionism
We paid for its sins.

My mother always read a lot. She had a brilliant memory and was interested in everything that was happening around. She loved live and took part in all kinds of activities in her surrounding.

Don't remember my mother going to synagogue in my childhood or after the war. She didn't celebrate Jewish holidays, but we attended celebration of Jewish holidays in Hesed that opened in early 1990s. There were gathering of Jews - we were told about Jewish traditions, taught to celebrate holidays. We gradually came closer to our own culture.

I have many books about the Jewish culture and traditions. I celebrate Jewish holidays on a common level, but I do not follow all traditions strictly. I read lectures on Jewish subjects: 'Jewish ritual silver', Jewish ritual bronze' [about dishes for rituals, candle stands and description of when and how they are to be used] 'Jewish memorial art' [about Jewish cemeteries and gravestones]. I read these lectures at the Jewish library in Hesed, and in Hesed. I go to the 'Warm house' [where single pensioners can get free meals provided by Hesed] of our neighborhood and the Jewish library. I tell people about Jewish holidays and we celebrate them there, I don't observe any traditions or celebrate holidays at home. 

On 28 April 2001 my sister Inna and Michael moved to Israel. At least 25 people came to the railways station to say 'good bye' to them when they were leaving. They are pensioners and live in Richon Le Cion. Michael used to fix TV sets and radios for his friends and acquaintances here and in Israel he continues to do this for free. Inna and Michael go on tours and attend symphony concerts in a club. They have a great collection of classic music. Inna calls me every Friday. Unfortunately, I cannot afford a trip to Israel, but I hope my sister will help me make this dream come true. 

My granddaughters also spend their vacations with me. I receive a pension of 151 hrivna 84 kopeks [about $30] and assistance from Hesed. This is hardly enough to buy food, but I can manage.  I also receive food packages provided by Hesed and get free dinner twice a week. Well, I am not starving, that's what I can say.

Glossary

1. Jewish farming colonies were founded in the 1840s to develop new territories.  Jewish families from smaller towns and villages of Byelorussia and Ukraine moved to richer lands hoping for a better life. The first colony was populated in Alexandrovskiy [at present - Zaporozhiye] district in 1846 and by the end of the century their number reached 17. About half of farm fields grew wheat, barney, corns and sunflower. About     42 % was occupied by pastures and 6 % were farmsteads. Those colonies got Russian names: Zatishiye, Trudolubovka, Nadyozhnaya, etc.

2. In early October 1917, Lenin convinced the Bolshevik Party to form an immediate insurrection against the Provisional Government. The Bolshevik leaders felt it was of the utmost importance to act quickly while they had the momentum to do so. The armed workers known as Red Guards and the other revolutionary groups moved on the night of Nov. 6-7 under the orders of the Soviet's Military Revolutionary Committee. These forces seized post and telegraph offices, electric works, railroad stations, and the state bank. Once the shot rang out from the Battleship Aurora, the thousands of people in the Red Guard stormed the Winter Palace. The Provisional Government had officially fallen to the Bolshevik regime. Once the word came to the rest of the people that the Winter Palace had been taken, people from all over rose and filled it. V. I. Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, announced his attempt to construct the socialist order in Russia. This new government made up of Soviets, and led by the Bolsheviks. By early November, there was little doubt that the proletariats backed the Bolshevik motto: "All power to the soviets!"

3. In those years it was not safe to go to the synagogue. Those were the horrific 1930s - the period of struggle against religion.  There was only one synagogue left of the 300 existing in Kiev before the revolution of 1917. Cult structures were removed; rabbis, Orthodox and Roman Catholic priests disappeared behind the KGB [State Security Committee] walls.

4. CIVIL WAR 1917-1922 By early 1918, a major civil war had broken out in Russia--only recently named the USSR--which is commonly known as the civil war between the 'Reds' and the 'Whites'. The 'Reds' were the Bolshevik controlled Soviets. During this time the Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist party. The 'Whites' were mostly Russian army units from the world war who were led by anti-Bolshevik officers. They were also joined by anti-Bolshevik volunteers and some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. During this civil war, the Bolsheviks signed a separate peace with Germany and finally ended Russia's involvement with the world war. 8 to 13 mln people perished in the war. Up to 2 mln. people moved to other countries. Damage constituted over 50 billion rubles in gold, production rate reduced to 4-20% compared with 1913.

5. One of communist slogans in the USSR said: 'Who was a nobody will gain it all'. The USSR was declared to be the country of workers and peasants. Therefore, children of workers and peasants had advantages to enter higher educational institutions. They were to become builders of the new communist society. If a person had worked at a plant for few years he had no problems with entering an educational institution.

6. People's Committee of Internal Affairs; it took over from the GPU, the state security agency, in 1934.

7. In the mid-1930s Stalin launched a major campaign of political terror. The purges, arrests, and deportations to labor camps touched virtually every family. Untold numbers of party, industrial, and military leaders disappeared during the 'Great Terror'. Indeed, between 1934 and 1938 two-thirds of the members of the 1934 Central Committee were sentenced and executed.

8. SHOLEM ALEICHEM [real name - Shalom Rabinovich] [1859-1916], Jewish writer. He lived in Russia and moved to the USA in 1914. He wrote in about the life of Jews in Russia in Yiddish, Hebrew & Russian.

9. In those years it was not safe to go to the synagogue. Those were the horrific 1930s - the period of struggle against religion.  There was only one synagogue left of the 300 existing in Kiev before the revolution of 1917. Cult structures were removed; rabbis, Orthodox and Roman Catholic priests disappeared behind the KGB (State Security Committee) walls.

10. On 22 June 1941 at 5 o'clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring a war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War.

11. Civil war in Afghanistan 1978 after the coup conducted by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan [founded in 1965; scientific socialism was declared an ideological base foundation of the Party]. The Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan in 1979 to establish the Soviet dictatorship. They took part in the war [until 1989] on the side of the new government that took the power. In 10 years of this blood shedding was the Soviet army lost over 300000 soldiers and officers.
 

Venezia Kamhi
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interviewer: Dimitar Bozhilov

After the political changes in Bulgaria of November 10, 1989, life became harder for my family. Everything we had built and fought for started to fall apart. I value Eastern Europe's opening to the world. History goes on. We had capitalism, then socialism, and now a democracy. Life goes forward, and that is how it should be. Changes are natural, but they are very hard for us.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

My family and life after the War

After 1989

My family background

My ancestors came from Spain two centuries ago. They belong to the Sephardi settlers’ group that came to the Balkan Peninsula in the 18th century. My paternal grandfather and grandmother lived in Sofia. My paternal grandmother and grandfather were born in Sofia. My mother's parents were born in Kiustendil, and so was my mother. My paternal grandfather, Mordohai Konorti, was born in the 1840s in Sofia, which was then under Turkish rule. I do not remember exactly what my father's parents' occupation was, because I was a little girl when my grandfather died in 1938. I do not remember my grandmother, Lucia Konorti, either; she died before I was born. She was born in the 1850s and was probably a housewife.

I remember my grandfather Mordohai sitting in the courtyard and reading big books in Hebrew. He used to give me 1 lev every Saturday to buy something for myself – he gave money only to me probably because I was his youngest granddaughter. He spoke Ladino and Bulgarian. He used to wear casual clothes. He didn't work at the time that I remember him.

We used to lay a big table every Saturday after Grandfather came back from the synagogue and the whole family used to gather around it. My mother, Regina Konorti, used to cook chicken soup, chicken with rice and traditional meat pastry. My grandfather used to perform the whole ritual for Pesach. Our neighbors loved to visit us for this holiday because my grandfather and my father were very good singers.

My father had a younger brother and a sister, Baruh Konorti and Buka Konorti. Baruh was a barber. He went to live in Palestine in 1926. He had a lot of difficulties there and he wrote many letters to my father asking for help. He had to leave Palestine and come back to Bulgaria in order to go to Israel in 1949; he settled in Akko.

My mother's parents were from Kiustendil. My maternal grandfather, Israel Lazar, was born in 1872 and died in 1945 in Sofia. He was a merchant. My maternal grandmother, Venezia Lazarova, was a housewife.

All my mother's relatives moved from Kiustendil to Sofia after my grandmother died. My older uncle Buko Lazar got married and gathered the whole family in a big house on Serdika Street in Sofia. This house belonged to an aunt of my mother's; unfortunately I do not remember her name. My older uncle lived there, together with his two brothers and two sisters. My mother also lived there before she got married. Later, everybody moved with his or her families to Israel. Only two sisters-in-law of my mother's kin remained in Sofia. My uncle Albert Lazar got married in 1940 and his daughter was born in 1943. Uncle Buko died in 1942. My youngest uncle, Nisim Lazar, got married in 1946 and he moved to Israel in 1948. Buko and Albert Lazar had a fruit shop. I think my grandfather in Kiustendil had been in that trade, and my uncles inherited that profession from him. Nisim Lazar was in the clothing trade, and Aunt Matilda was a housewife.

My father, Avram Mordohai Konorti, was born in 1900 in Sofia. He had studied in the Jewish school. He spoke Ladino, Hebrew, Bulgarian and a little Italian, because he had been a captive in Italy during World War I. He had a command of Hebrew and Bulgarian, spoken and written. My mother was illiterate. She learned to read and write when my brother and I started school. My father was a carter. He transported goods from the railway station to different factories and shops. I suppose that my mother and father got married in 1921-1922, because my brother was born in 1923. They didn't get married before the registrar; they had only a religious wedding.

My parents wore traditional European clothes. My father used to wear a jacket, trousers and an overcoat, my mother, dresses. There was nothing special about their clothes.

My father went to the synagogue, mostly on holidays. He dressed elegantly. He wore a hat, and he had a tallit. He used to take his Jewish prayerbook and go to the synagogue. We prepared the festive table before his return. The Jewish community wasn't that well organized at that time, as it is now. Then 5,000 Jews lived in Sofia. We are only that many in the whole country now. We had a Jewish community center, Bet Am, a school and a synagogue. The strict organization of Bulgarian Jews now is mostly a consequence of the small number of Jews in the country. The people want to feel Jewish, but, let us admit, step-by-step the Bulgarian population assimilated us.

Growing up

My first home was in the Jewish neighborhood in Sofia, on Dr. Zlatarev and Odrin Streets. The house was destroyed and now there is a block of flats on its place. My daughter lives there now. My father was born in that house. Half of the house belonged to my father and the other half to my aunt. The house itself was not big: a one-story brick house with one large room, one narrow corridor and a small room where my grandfather lived. We had an entry hall where my mother used to cook, and we also received guests there.

We had a big courtyard with a garden and hens. There were flowers in the garden, mostly. The hens lived in the corner of the yard and laid many eggs. We also had a goat whose name was Roska. I was very slim as a child and my parents were told I had to drink goat milk. That’s why they bought the goat. My father was a carter, so we had a horse and a special building for it. All the courtyards in the Jewish neighborhood were connected via small doors and we could go from one house to another without going out on the street. Even during the blockade in 1923 [a year of coups d'etat and curfew] people could go and visit their neighbors. The blockade was so strict in June 1923 that when my mother was giving birth to my brother, Mordohai Avram Konorti, on June 9 [coup d'etat when prime minister Alexander Stamboliiski was overthrown], soldiers came to verify that my mother really needed a midwife before they would let her come to our house.

There was electricity and water in the house. We used coal-burning stoves for heating. The mornings when I got up early for school were very pleasant. My mother used to get up earlier and fire the stove, and it was "roaring" and its light was blazing; it was lovely on the ceiling.

We lived in the Jewish neighborhood on the western side of Opalchenska Street. There were Bulgarians living together with us, of course, and we got along very well. When my mother left for Israel in 1949, she asked our Bulgarian neighbors to take care of me. They have always been very friendly and gentle with me. They used to call me Vizka. After my mother emigrated, they felt somehow obliged to take care of me, as I was not old enough to take care of myself alone. I was only 20 years old.

When I was a child, most Jews were merchants. Of course, they practiced other professions, too. My father, for example, was a carter; there were craftsmen, too. Jewish people belonged mostly to the middle class, but there were very rich people, too – factory owners, tradesmen with big shops. Most people had a good occupation until 1939 when the "National Defense Law" was accepted. After 1939, Jews did not have the right to own shops or have prestigious jobs, and that is when privation and limitations began. The National Defense Law was very harsh on the Jewish people.

There was a Jewish community in the neighborhood. The synagogue was on Osogovo Street. The Jewish school was also there. This building is a school once again and it is a bit larger now. There was a very small synagogue in the school. Many parties were organized in the school, and there was a lot of singing and dancing. This is where I heard the famous singer Mati Pinkas for the first time. I had seen her as a very young girl when she used to visit one of her aunts who lived on our street.

We observed Shabbat. We usually worked during the day, but in the evenings we observed Shabbat. Pesach was my favorite holiday. All the children in the neighborhood used to meet and play with walnuts. We used to arrange carnations and quinces, and they smelled lovely. We spent eight days enjoying a happy holiday. Our neighbors used to visit us on Pesach and everyone used to have their own table. Many younger families used to come to us as they did not know the Pesach ritual. At my house, Grandfather used to perform the whole ritual. My mother used to wash all the dishes with soda in a big cauldron every year before Pesach, and the dishes became really bright. She did that because my grandfather insisted – he was very religious. She used to do that every year – she cleaned everything and after that we brought matzah. During Pesach we used to eat only matzah for eight days, no other bread. After I got married, I did not observe those rituals that strictly anymore.

We used to celebrate Frutas – a holiday of fruits – which is also in the spring, after Pesach. On this holiday seven or nine kinds of fruits are mixed on a big plate. Afterward, we put the fruits in bags and gave them to children. My granddaughter also enjoys that holiday very much. Another holiday when we used to gather was Hanukah. We used to light eight candles on eight consecutive days: the first day, my grandfather lit the candle; the second day, my father; the third day, my mother; the fourth, my brother; and after him, it was my turn to light my candle.

I had a happy childhood. My parents got along very well and the atmosphere at home was calm. I got new shoes and clothes for every holiday. I remember that my father sent my mother and me to the town of Dupnitza to visit his brother, and that was my first journey by train – in the 1930s.

My family was wonderful. My father loved to sing, and he really sang very well. He, my brother and I used to sit on the bed in the bedroom on Sundays and sing songs from songbooks. My father sang songs in Ladino. The texts were very romantic.

I do not speak Hebrew. I have been to Israel five or six times, but I only know some 100 words. I did not study at a Jewish school. I don't know why I started at a Bulgarian general school directly. I graduated from Vassil Drumev primary school, which still exists now in Baltova vodenitsa. Afterward, I studied at High School No. 13 and I graduated night school. I have a very pleasant memory of my first teacher, Mrs. Darina Alexandrova, who came to live in our quarter and used to visit me even after my daughter was born.

As I did not have grandparents living outside of Sofia, I had to spend the holidays at home. In the 1930s, when I was a child, we used to amuse ourselves a lot by going to the Odeon theatre, which was then on Vaptzarov Square. I recall many beautiful weddings in the synagogue. There was an empty space next to our house and the children used to meet and play different games or perform theatrical recitations.

I was only 15 years old when my father fell very ill and was bedridden for a year and a half. My brother owned a brush workshop on Pozitano Street at that time. My father died of cancer. He left us very early.

My brother, Mordohai, is six years older than me. He was born on June 9, 1923. He studied brush-making in a craft school before World War II began. He did not graduate because we were interned outside of Sofia. He went for an exam after September 9, 1944, and he became a master and got the right to open his own shop. He left for Israel, together with my mother, in January 1949. My mother thought that was the way it should be: the mother should go with her son and he had to take care of her. I begged her to stay with me, but she left with him. My brother got married late, after my mother died. He was 40 years old then. Now he has a family and two daughters – each of them has three children.
 

During the War

On May 24, 1943, there was great unrest. Members of the Brannik organization appeared on horses in the town. They did not have any restrictions – they could beat and destroy, and we were very oppressed by them once Hitler started the war. At that time, Jewish young men gathered in the Central Synagogue and organized protests against the National Defense Law. I was a little girl, but my brother and my future husband took part in these protests. These were youth protests mostly; my father didn't take part in them. Right after that, we started to receive notes about the internment. According to these notes, we had to leave for Kiustendil; we had the right to take only 20 kilos of luggage. We started to get rid of our household belongings. The whole neighborhood brought their belongings out to the street to sell them and earn some money, and so did we.

We got the message to leave Sofia on May 24, 1943, and on the 25th-26th, we were already on our way to Kiustendil. There was not enough time to pack properly. We put only clothes and blankets into those 20 kilos of luggage. The officials sent us a message with the date and time we had to go to the railway station. People said we had to be assembled in different towns so that they could easily transport us to the Aegean region. The 11,000 Yugoslavian Jews who were deported there had died. Meanwhile, there were many protests by the Bulgarian public against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews to Poland. A great part of the population protested: religious organizations, the vladika [Bulgarian church leader], Petar Dunov [famous Bulgarian philosopher] who was very close to Czar Boris III. More than 50 members of the Parliament signed a petition against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews to concentration camps in Poland and that's how we were saved.

In Kiustendil, a friend of my mother's took us to her house; that was where we lived. My mother suffered from stomach aches and she was ill all the time, so we had to buy fresh milk for her. But at that time, we didn't have the right to buy even one liter of milk. One of our neighbors offered to buy one bottle from the milkman for us. The courtyards between the houses were separated by low fences, so she could easily pass it to us. She did not realize what could happen if somebody saw her. She took the bottle of milk and passed it to us. Brannik members saw her and came to our house. We did not even have an oven at home. We only had one small hotplate in the corridor, where my mother used to cook. The Brannik members rushed into the house and started to kick the hotplate and spilled the milk. They were very aggressive. Fortunately, this organization stopped after September 9, 1944.

We, the Jews, by God's law, have to help the other Jews. This is a mitzvah. If you have 1 lev only, you have to give it to the poor – never mind this is all you might have. You may give only 1 stotinka [the smallest Bulgarian coin], but you have to help the poor. That is how the Joint works now in Bulgaria – the rich Jews gather money to help the others. This is the core of the mitzvah, to help your fellow men. We do that in our Jewish organization. Tomorrow, for example, I will visit a sick woman. Usually we take 5 or 6 leva from the community funds and give them to the person in need. Every one of us donates 1 lev every three months for sick people, for birthdays and other occasions. I am the treasurer and I report at the end of the year.

At the beginning, when we moved to Kiustendil, we had food from the common cauldron, as did all the newcomers. It was in the Jewish school of the town, where we were settled first. After that we moved to my mother's friend's house. My mother was ashamed to go and get food from the cauldron because Kiustendil was her native town and everyone there knew her. My father also did not want to do that. My brother was often absent from home as he was sent to work somewhere else. I used to take my bag and saucepan and go to the Jewish school where they fed us with beans and potatoes. Life was really miserable in Kiustendil.

When I was a student in the first class, Czar Boris III's son Simeon was born. To mark the occasion all the students got excellent marks. [Six is the highest mark in Bulgaria.] Some even got seven! Another political matter we discussed in the family was Hitler's rise to power. After that, the Jews began to wear special badges. My parents thought that was a Jewish tragedy. When Bulgaria entered the Tripartite Pact – Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo – we started to fear for our lives. We had a foreboding that something terrible was going to happen, that we might not be here now. They were on their way to leaving for the crematoria.

I started to work very young. I began to work during school vacations. I started at a small hatter's shop. I went on working at a hatter's in Kiustendil. I studied the craft in my mother's cousin's shop. I did not like to sew in the beginning, but that became my profession for life. After we came back to Sofia, I started work at a tailoring factory named Osvobozhdenie [liberation] that was built by the Joint. Meanwhile, I studied at a night school. I married my husband, Josif Kamhi, in 1950– the year I graduated.

My family and life after the War

I met my husband in 1943 in Kiustendil, where we were interned. All the young Jews used to meet at the Jewish school in the town. We used to play volleyball or narodna topka and chat in the evenings. Despite the poverty and the persecutions, we managed to have our happy moments. We used to gather in one of the Jewish schools where many Jewish families were settled. Several families used to share one room equipped only with mattresses. We used to carry on philosophical conversations, discuss books. I had my first New Year's Eve without my family. We didn't have enough money then and everyone used to give whatever they could to prepare for the celebration – flour and other products. The girls prepared the meal. I had an admirer in Kiustendil who used to sing songs in Spanish and play the guitar. He used to call me "the goddess of my happiness." Since then, my friends started calling me "the goddess."

When we came back from Kiustendil to Sofia, our house in the Jewish neighborhood had been robbed. Even the windows were missing. I traveled 24 hours on my way back to Sofia alone on a freight train. I thought that my brother would meet me at the station, but he had misunderstood and waited for me on a different railway station. When I got off the train, it started to rain heavily. A carter saw me and offered to take me home. Our neighbors helped me to unpack my luggage. A friend of my mother's, who had already settled, sheltered me at first. In a few days we managed to reconstruct the house; we put in doors and windows and dried my wet luggage.

We started to study and work again. I kept in touch with my friends in Kiustendil. My husband and I got married in Police Department N1, opposite the Rila Hotel in the center of Sofia. My mother and brother had already moved to Israel and didn't attend the wedding. I did not go to Israel in 1949 because I already had a serious relationship with my future husband. I saw my mother and brother again in 1957 when I managed, with great efforts, to buy tickets and take my 5-year-old daughter to Israel with me. That was the last time I saw my mother.

My husband was born on June 29, 1926. My husband's parents were also Jewish. His father was a butcher and his mother was a housewife. His family’s house was on Pozitano Street. He was interned to Kiustendil, just like me. He had been in the concentration camp Kailaka in Pleven. There was arson in the camp. His mother saved him; she told him to run away immediately while she died in the flames. He tried to save her. He tried to pull her away when her long skirts got stuck between the beds. But the roof went down; melted asphalt poured down on her.

My husband studied in a Jewish school; after that he went to a secondary school for boys. He graduated after September 9, 1944. He studied in the mechanical and electrical technical institute in Sofia and became an electrical engineer. After he had graduated, he worked on many different projects. He has always been respected and highly esteemed by his colleagues. He worked on a project for the electrical installation of a factory in Cuba and he spent nine months there.

My husband and I were members of  the Revolutionary Youth Union [formed before the coup d'état of September 9, 1944]. We both thought we had progressive political convictions. Now I think that was a youthful aberration. We shared the same ideals, we lived in privation and worked hard, but gradually I concluded that all this was useless. We used to go on youth brigades every Sunday, we wanted to build a beautiful country, and we wanted Bulgaria to have successful industry. But it all has crumbled to nothing, and now I ask myself why we have wasted our lives that way.

My daughter Beti was born on July 13, 1952. I always tried to bring my daughter up in the "Jewish spirit" and I always encouraged her to have Jewish friends. She herself also wanted to be in a Jewish circle as we, her father and I, did. I have always lived in a Jewish circle. Ever since my childhood, I have had Jewish friends. My daughter and granddaughter have a much wider circle of friends than mine. The Jewish people were quite scattered at the time, so my daughter married a Bulgarian boy.

My aunt Matilda used to look after my daughter. Aunt Matilda was very religious. She observed all the Jewish rituals. Her husband used to go to the synagogue regularly. They both spoke Ladino and my daughter learned a little Ladino from them. Thanks to my aunt and uncle, I did not have to explain to my daughter what it means to be Jewish. I used to tell stories about our life during the war, to my granddaughter mostly. When my daughter was a child, I had to work so Aunt Matilda looked after her. Aunt Matilda even used to go to the meetings of the parents’ committee in my daughter's school.

I started work in the Osvobozhdenie factory after World War II; I worked there from 1945 to 1949. After that – from 1950 to 1955 – I was a librarian in the Jewish students' reading room. I worked as a dressmaker in the Zoya dressmaking factory from 1955 to 1958. Later I worked in a dressmaking establishment named Vitosha, from 1958 to 1968, and after that in the state company Texim until 1975. My next workplace was in the Center for New Goods and Fashion, Lada, and from 1980 to 1982, I worked in a design factory again. I left work in 1982 to look after my newborn granddaughter Anna. I retired later, because in 1982 I was still not at the age required for retirement.

Life became much calmer in the 1950s. Our salaries, homes and work became more secure. That is why I value that period so much. Whatever I dreamed of, I bought it. Now I cannot even think about that. Nowadays, I go short of even the smallest things. My profession, a dressmaker, is valued as “third category” labor; that is why I have a very low pension – only 68 leva. It is good that my husband gets more – 150 leva – so that we can make ends meet. I try not to bother my daughter, because I know that her life is not easy.

I was always afraid that something bad might happen to my relatives in Israel during the wars in 1967 and 1973. All my relatives live there. When I went Israel before, I had to go to the Swiss Consulate to get my tickets certified. I am very happy now that there is an Israeli Consulate in Sofia. I have been to Israel six times. The first time was in 1957, and the last time, in 2000. The last time, a friend of mine provided a whole apartment for my husband, my daughter and me. Every time I go there, all my relatives and friends come to visit us. They all are very friendly, and I feel surrounded with love and attention. I do not have enough money when I travel to Israel, so all my relatives there – my husband's and mine – help us. They even give us money for bus tickets.

People in Israel live with war. When I was there for the third time, the son of my best friend there was a soldier in the army. One day she saw a car of the Red Cross [Magen David Adom] driving to her house, and she ran out, very worried, to see if they had brought bad news about her son. That is how people in Israel live. They worry and fear that something horrible might happen to their children. People there are ready to give anything for their country. They believe in that! My two nieces have been soldiers in the desert for two years. We, the Jews, should have our own country! We are spread all over the world, but when we have our own country we feel safe. Otherwise we could be persecuted and humiliated everywhere. If I were persecuted in Bulgaria now, I would go to live in Israel because this is my land!

I did not have any trouble calling my brother, even during the wars in Israel. I phone him seldom now, as it is quite expensive for me. My brother calls once a month. Many friends and relatives also call us. They are my life and I always keep in touch with them. The war in Israel did not affect my life directly. Anyway there was a certain distant attitude to us because we are Jews. We couldn't organize any events spontaneously. We only had a formal Jewish community since 1989.

People revealed their Jewish origin depending on their profession and their position. For example, my husband's aunt worked in the military services and she had to refrain from pointing out her Jewish origin and saying in which countries her relatives lived. I myself had a very ordinary state job, and I didn't worry about talking about my relatives in Israel at all. My husband and I didn't hide the fact that we had relatives there.

I still observe all the Jewish holidays. I observe Christmas and Easter only when I go to visit my daughter's family; her husband is Bulgarian and they celebrate these holidays. I prepare Easter cakes every year. I live in Bulgaria, after all, and I do not want to feel different in this way. I have a special vessel to boil milk and a special baking dish for almond cookies. I use those dishes not because of religious reasons but for practical reasons only.

After 1989

After the political changes in Bulgaria of November 10, 1989, life became harder for my family. Everything we had built and fought for started to fall apart. I value Eastern Europe's opening to the world. History goes on. We had capitalism, then socialism, and now a democracy. Life goes forward, and that is how it should be. Changes are natural, but they are very hard for us. Parting is something that is very difficult. I was very happy when the Berlin Wall fell and many people could meet again. I know very well what parting means.

We have a special group within the Jewish community in Sofia where we learn Ladino once a week. We meet to read and talk in Ladino. We have a study group in Hebrew at the Jewish organization "Shalom" in Sofia. I don't go to these lessons because they only practice the language there and do not exactly study it. I visit the "health" club twice a week and I am a cashier there. We gather in the “third age" club on Saturdays. The leader of the club has many contacts in the cultural and artistic circles. He organizes different events for us: discussions, celebrations, singing, concerts. I am a very sociable person, and I love talking to people. That is why I attend all the events in the club. I am a member of the volunteer group in "Shalom" that takes care of the sick people in the community.

All the Jews who have very low pensions are supported by the Joint. This foundation helped build a factory that provided Jews with jobs immediately after the coup d'etat of September 9, 1944. The foundation also helped people go on holidays. I have been on holiday in Borowets.

I have met Russian Jews in the "health" club and they told me stories about how they were persecuted and terrorized. I remember how much we trusted Stalin; we thought he was an idol. We did not realize the truth. We were such idealists in the years between 1944 and 1953 that we believed him utterly and didn't realize he was a dictator. We only knew that he had borne the whole brunt of the war. Later we learned that he had built many concentration camps, everywhere in Russia and especially in Ukraine, and many Jewish people were killed there.