Travel

Minna Birman

Minna Birman
Odessa
Ukraine
Interviewer: Natalia Rezanova
Date of interview: November 2003

Minna Mordkovna Birman lives with her single daughter Yekaterina in a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a 1956 house called ‘Stalinskiy’ design. A big old mirror in a carved frame catches my eye in the hallway. This mirror and two very old wardrobes are family relics. Minna received them from her parents. The rest of furniture was bought in the 1960s. There is a big round table covered with a tablecloth in the middle of the room. Minna Mordkovna is a hospitable hostess and it is next to impossible to refuse from pastries she has made particularly for this occasion. There are medications on a low table by her sofa. Regardless of her diseases 80-year-old Minna Mordkovna delights me with her young lively voice and inexhaustible jokes.  She loves talking and laughs at this fondness of hers. She speaks emphatically with theatrical pauses and jests. She was enthusiastic about this opportunity to tell the story of her family of which she is very proud. 

All I know about my paternal grandfather Moisey Birman is that he was born in the Jewish neighborhood in Warsaw in the 1860s. He was a melamed. He was an expert in Torah and Talmud readings and this is all he could do. The only language he spoke was Yiddish. He died in Warsaw in 1915.

I don’t remember my paternal grandmother’s name or date of birth. All I know is that she was a housewife and took care of the household and the children. After my grandfather died my grandmother lived with her daughter’s family in Lodz. When her daughter died in 1936 my grandmother, her two granddaughters and her son-in-law moved to my grandmother’s sons in Paris in 1926. During WWII, when Germans occupied Paris and announced registration of all Jews my grandmother refused to go and didn’t allow her granddaughters to follow this order. Her son-in-law and one of her granddaughters went to this registration, though. They never returned home and were never seen again. My grandmother and her granddaughter Malka found shelter in their neighbor’s apartment during German raids. Their neighbor was an immigrant from Italy. My grandmother corresponded with my father till the end of her life. I remember my father saying once that my grandmother had sent us an invitation to a world exhibition in Paris. She died in the late 1950s.

My father had two brothers and two sisters. I don’t know much about them. His older sister, whose name I don’t know, died in Lodz in 1936. My grandmother raised her two daughters. My father’s brothers Iosif and Shmil were born in Warsaw in the early 1900s. My father’s younger sister Rieva was born in Warsaw in 1912. All children had education.
After the October revolution 1 the family stayed in Poland that had separated. In 1926 Pilsudski [Editor’s note: Yuzef Pilsudski (1867 – 1935), actual dictator of Poland after the military coup that he headed in May 1926. In 1926-1928, 1930 – Prime minister of Poland] came to power. Iosif had to go to the polish army. He didn’t want it and was thinking of moving to the USSR. At this time Pilsudski executed a treaty with France that needed workers and many Polish workers moved to France.  Both brothers were glove makers. They were both married and decided to move to France with their families. In Paris they rented a room on the top floor of a house. Top floors were commonly accommodated by servants. They worked at home and also gave work to other Jewish immigrants. Sister Rieva worked with her brothers in Paris. She married French Jew Moris and they had a daughter named Rachel. 

During WWII my father’s brothers and families left Paris. Iosif and Shmil took part in the Resistance movement [Editor’s note: national liberation anti-fascist movement against German occupants during WWII]. Before departure they assigned their shop to their neighbor, an Italian immigrant, since Germans took away Jewish property. During occupation this Italian man cooperated with fascists and expanded his business. After the war, when Iosif and Shmil returned to Paris, this neighbor reassigned all rights for the shop to them. Iosif’s son married this Italian neighbor’s daughter.
In the 1950s my father’s brothers belonged to middle class and had houses on the outskirts of Paris. Iosif, Shmil and Rieva and their spouses and children came on tour to Odessa in 1961. This was the first ship with foreign tourists in Odessa. Almost all passengers were former emigrants from Russia and there was a crowd of their relatives meeting them on the seashore in Odessa. My husband and I and my mother and father came to the pier, but we had no idea whether we would recognize them. They recognized me since Rieva’s daughter Rachel and I were as like as two peas in a pod. This is all I know about my father’s relatives from France.  After he died in 1976 I lost contact with them.

My father Mordko Birman was born in Warsaw in 1895. He was the oldest child in the family and there were numerous children born after him, which was a usual thing with every poor Jewish family. Grandfather Moisey said that there was no need for my father to go to cheder.  A poor Jew had to learn his craft. My father was educated at home and the only language he spoke was Yiddish. He became an apprentice of a Jewish shoemaker. At 17 my father joined the Zionist Jewish socialist party of workers [Paolei Zion] [Editor’s note: the social democratic party Paolei Zion (workers of Zion) was founded by Ber Borokhov in Poltava in 1906. In April 1917 it branched a radical socialist party Paolei Zion. The seat of its central committee was in Odessa. The social democratic party Paolei Zion adopted the doctrines of Bolshevik ideology and existed in the USSR until 1928. Soviet authorities liquidated it]. My father was a shoemaker’s assistant for some time. He gave his mother his earnings and paid Party fees. He had tuberculosis since childhood. They used oxygen enrichment to cure him. As a result, my father had only one lung left.  He wasn’t recruited to the army due to his health condition. In 1913 my father was sent in exile to Siberia for his revolutionary activities. He was to accommodate in a village in Verholensk district of Irkutsk province [Editor’s note: Verholensk district of Irkutsk region was a place for criminal and political convicts in czarist Russia (from the second quarter of the 19th century)]. My father made cone stocks in the taiga and was paid for his work. My father’s younger sister Rieva told me how my father sent them some money to them in Warsaw  and they could buy potatoes and herring and she went to buy some coal from a coal seller. It was like a feast. In 1917 the term of my father’s exile was over and he decided to go to Odessa to improve his health condition in the south. He was hoping to have no problem finding a job at the shoe factory in Odessa. During his trip back my father felt ill. He started hemoptysis and arriving in Odessa my father had to sit at the railway station all exhausted. This was where my father met my future mother.

My maternal grandfather Mordko Gredenitski was born in Gradanitsy village Ovidiopol district Odessa region in the 1860s. In the 1880s he moved to Odessa and got married. Grandfather Mordko was a small stockjobber dealing in wheat. He wasn’t doing very well. I heard in my childhood grandfather calling his family ‘kaptsans’ [‘beggars’ in Yiddish]. I visited my grandmother and grandfather when they lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the same house where we lived. They had beautiful furniture. My parents told me that in 1912 my grandfather made good money and bought new furniture. I have a mirror in the carved fame and a wardrobe from this set of furniture in my apartment. When I visited my grandparents I opened the wardrobe to pick pieces of matzah wrapped in a tablecloth. I remember that grandfather Mordko was a handsome old man with a gray beard. He wore casual clothes common with townsfolk. He was religious. He attended a synagogue and spoke Yiddish at home. My grandfather died in a hospital in Slobodka [Neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa.] in 1927. He was buried in the 3rd Jewish cemetery in Slobodka.

My grandfather Mordko had two sisters. I know little about them. They lived in Tiraspol (in Moldavia presently) where they got married.  After the NEP 2, was over their husbands lost their business and they all moved to their relatives in Odessa. His younger sister lived with our family for some time. I remember that she was called ‘bobele’ [‘grandmother in Yiddish].    She didn’t have children. Bobele died shortly before the war. The second sister, whose name I don’t remember, left Odessa after her husband left her.  This is all I know about their life.

My maternal grandmother Ghitl Gredenitskaya (nee Kerzhner) was born in Akkerman [Belgorod-Dnestrovski since 1918] in the 1850s. When living in Odessa she was a housewife. Grandmother Ghitl also cooked for our family. At Pesach she made dishes from matzah. Grandmother Ghitl was very religious. She went to the synagogue in Pushkinskaya Street, but she did it in secret to not spoil the reputation of my parents who were Party members. She wore dark modest dresses and a kerchief tying it over her ears. The only language grandmother Ghitl talked was Yiddish. She spoke poor Russian. Ghitl had brother Yakov and sister Sopha. I don’t think I know anything about them. Ghitl died in 1930. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery

My mother Sophia Gredenitskaya was the only daughter n her family. She was born in Odessa in 1893. At that time my grandfather had a three-bedroom apartment. My grandfather let one room to a Jewish teacher who was only allowed to teach Jews. This teacher helped my mother to prepare to study in a grammar school. My mother went to the 7th grade in a grammar school in order to save money and receive a certificate as soon as possible.  After finishing the 8th grade in grammar school students were allowed to teach. My mother wanted to continue her studies, but her family couldn’t afford it.  During WWI all relatives of veterans of the war were issued a permit for free education. One of my mother uncle Yakov’s sons was at the front during the war. He sent my mother confirmation that he was at the front and my mother managed to enter  the medical Faculty of Novorossiysk University in 1915. In 1917 a revolution began. My mother got involved in revolutionary activities ad quit the university. Her fellow students were involved in revolutionary activities and they involved my mother. My mother’s friends were Jews from Foreign collegium [Editor’s note: collegium of foreign propaganda in Odessa regional committee of the Communist party of Bolsheviks  (December 1918 - August 1919) – an underground Party group formed at the decision of the central committee of the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks to conduct revolutionary propaganda in interventionist troops in the south of Ukraine during the Civil war. This group was shot by Denikin troops in 1919]. Its member was Jacques Yelin [Editor’s note: Yakov (Jacques) Yelin (1888 – 1919), one of organizers of the foreign collegium. Shot by French interventionists in 1919], Shtivelman among them and she knew many other members.  These young people couldn’t enter a university in Russia due to the quota. They went to study in France, came to Russia on vacation and when the Civil War 3 began they couldn’t go back to France.

My mother also had ties with the Zionist socialist working party. Once in 1917 she heard somebody saying ‘A comrade has returned from exile. He has hemoptysis and is staying at the railway station’. My mother and her friend Manya Gombakh went to the railway station to pick up a former convict. Manya was an orphan. She lived with her brother and there was no space for anybody else in their dwelling.  My mother took my future father to her home. Grandfather Mordko and grandmother Ghitl didn’t mind. They helped my mother to look after my father. The young people fell in love with each other and began to live in a civil marriage.  They also belonged to the same party. At that time left procommunist wings separated from bourgeois Jewish socialist parties and united into a Jewish communist union that supported Bolsheviks. My father was a member of the committee of the union and my mother was his messenger. When Denikin troops 4 came my parents went into the underground with Bolsheviks. In 1920 when the Soviet regime won over they officially joined the party of Bolsheviks. My father was sent to the Romanian border. During the famine of 1921 5 many people tried to leave Russia for Romania and there were many arrests. My father had unlimited authority. He could even cancel arrests of ChK 6. Later he started hemoptysis and had to return to Odessa.

My grandmother and grandfather wanted my parents to have a religious wedding and convinced my parents to enter into one. My mother and father went to the synagogue. There was a chuppah at their wedding. However, I’ve never seen any document from the rabbi’s office. When in 1921 my father was a member of the regional committee of the Communist Party there was a Party purge. My mother was trying to tell my father to keep the fact of their wedding at the synagogue since she had already been through it and told them everything. However, my father didn’t understand such things. He wrote the truth in his report and was expelled. He lost his position, but he had ties with Jewish organizations. They valued him and during the famine in 1922  my father was appointed a Joint representative in Yelisavetgrad of Odessa province. My mother went with him. She was manager of a women’s department. My parents were paid in golden 10-ruble coins. They sent some money to my father’s mother in Poland. 

They stayed there through 1922 and 1923. I was born in Yelisavetgrad [Kirovograd from 1924] on 2 January 1923.

In early 1924 my father came to Odessa. The period of famine was over and Joint ended its activities in the USSR. My father was appointed chairman of the party committee at the shoe factory. Holding this position he took over the Brodskiy synagogue [Editor’s note: one of the biggest and most beautiful synagogues in Odessa. Its origin goes back to the arrival of Jewish migrants from Germany and Halitsia in the early 1820s in Odessa. They were called ‘Brodskiy’ Jews after the name of Brody town. The synagogue was open in 1940. This was the first choral synagogue in Russia. Construction of the building of the synagogue started in 1863 under supervision of architect F.Kolovich. It was funded by contributions. Since 1925 the Brodskiy synagogue housed Odessa regional archive] to make a factory club in it. Once I asked my father ‘Why did it have to be the Brodskiy synagogue?’ and he replied ‘It was the most beautiful one and I wanted poor Jews  who had lived in basements and had never had an opportunity to go to this synagogue to come to this beautiful club and feel human there’. He frankly believed it was a noble deed on his part.

On 19 February  1927 my brother Ilia was born in Odessa. We lived in 12, Lenin Street then. My mother was ill after childbirth and the baby screamed all the time. I remember coming to his bed and dumping all my toys into his bed: it was a doll crockery tin set. My parents talked me off since I scratched the baby. Ilia’s birth was a trauma for me. I believed he was loved more. At the age of 3 I went to the kindergarten of leather craftsmen in 25, Yekaterininskaya Street. The kindergarten was one block away from where we lived. I remember my father teaching me to be on my own. He didn’t hold me by my hand, but walked fast ahead of me. I followed him gazing at his gray head. There was a noise orchestra in our kindergarten. We played triangles, castanets and tambourines. In summer the kindergarten went to a dacha. We lay in the sun, bathed in the sea, played and had meals outside. My mother always shaved my head to avoid the risk of fleas.  

In 1930 –my mother was sent to study in Odessa College of Tinned Food (present Refrigeration Industry College). This same year I went to school. People’s commissar [minister] of education issued an order to witch to the Ukrainian language of teaching at schools.  There was one Russian school left in each district of Odessa. For some reason my parents sent me to Ukrainian school #4 on the corner of Troitskaya and Preobrazhenskaya Streets. I was a miserable pupil since I didn’t know Ukrainian. My Ukrainian teacher used to say ‘Is this a girl? This is a boy and isn’t he a bad one!’ considering my short haircut and bad marks. Once my teacher told me to tell my mother to come to school for a talk. My mother was so busy that I decided to tell her nothing. Instead, I stopped going to school. I left home in the morning and went to walk along Alexandrovski Prospect where I played with cobbles. Then I went to Troitskaya Street and waited until schoolchildren began to leave school and I went home. This lasted for a month and a half.  

My friends from our yard Vitia Degtiar, Volodia Chudinov, Nadia Shyriaeva, Volodia Shtubes, Boria Sovietov studied in Russian school #25, in Bariatinski Lane (present Nakhimov Lane). My friend Nadia Shyriaeva tried to pull strings for my transfer to her school.  Her teacher Maria Isaakovna said it was not possible. The port was sponsoring his Russian school and children had their school parties in the port club. Nadia invited me once to a party. The entrance to this club was on the first floor from Lastochkin descend and exit from the concert hall was from the second floor down a very narrow staircase. When we were going in somebody yelled ‘Fire!’ and everybody ran to the exit door.  Only noticed the beginning of panic and when I came back to my senses  I saw Nadia standing over me crying and Maria Isaakovna standing beside her.  When Maria Isaakovna saw me opening my eyes she sighed with relief ‘Hey, she is alive!’ I had a hemorrhage in my eye. After this happened Maria Isaakovna felt sorry for me and convinced my mother to send me to school #25.

The famine in 1933 didn’t have an impact on our family. We even had extra food. My father was director of mixed fodder plant and received good food rations there. Besides, he was a member of the association of former political convicts [Editor’s note: for some reason (1921 -1935) was founded in Moscow and had over 50 affiliates in various towns of the USSR. It published the ‘Katorga and ssylka’ and ‘Bulletin’ magazines] and all members received food at the regional Party committee food department. My mother was in the Tinned Food College that had ties with tinned food factories. She also received food packages and lunches. My parents also had additional food cards as members of the party. I know that my parents gave their extra cards and food to their relatives. I also remember that there were many homeless children at this period. There were asphalt containers in the streets. They were for melting asphalt and kept warm for a long time. At night those children slept in them. Once my friend and I went to a confectionery store in 12, Deribassovskaya Street. It was in the basement and there were bars on its windows.  There were homeless boys sticking to these bars. One boy untied his clift, a quilted cotton wool coat, and we saw that he was absolutely naked underneath.  What happened was that they were taken to a children’s room in the railway station. They took their clothes for sanitary treatment and then it turned out there was no place to accommodate the children. All children’s homes were overcrowded. They gave them these quilted coats and let them go. My friend and I grabbed the boy and brought him to my home. My parents decided that my father would try to pull strings for the boy to go to a children’s home, but then my mother said: ‘Let him stay and this means that we will have three children’. The boy stayed with us for some time. My parents gave him good clothes, but once he told our housemaid Fenia that he was going to look for his brother. He left and disappeared.

We had a two-bedroom apartment. The bigger room had an area of 30 square meters. My mother liked everything in the apartment to be nice. She bought a beautiful silk shawl and ordered a lampshade to be made from it.  There were curtains on the windows and there were woolen strip carpets on the floors. There was a beautiful mirror in a carved frame over the sofa and a big Ukrainian woolen carpet in red roses on it. There was a big table in the center of the room. My mother didn’t do any housework. She couldn’t cook. Our housemaid did the cooking and served meals to us. Our first housemaid Emma was German. She came from a family of dispossessed German colonists 7. Then we had housemaid Fenia. She was also German. Our neighbors used to say to my mother: ‘You pay your housemaid everything you earn’. My mother replied that she preferred to go to work and feel an active member of the community. We didn’t often have guests, but they came to us after a parade on 1 May and 7 November [October revolution Day] 8. The table was covered with two white tablecloths. After a meal the guests sang revolutionary songs and danced. My father danced very well. He was an artistic, easy-going and very sociable person. He was very thin due to his disease. My mother was a tall grand lady. She liked to dress nicely and never had enough money left for food. My mother wore crepe de Chine dresses and hats. My mother’s dressmaker made clothes for her and for me. Every year I had a fancy dress made for me. After wearing it for a year I began to wear it to school and had a new fancy dress made for me. I remember going with my mother to a hat shop to order a new hat for her. This was the only time she took me there and I was so happy that I felt like floating beside her. My mother chose a pink felt hat with silk bands. My mother was so beautiful! She always had her hair done and her nails manicured. Once her colleagues commented that a member of the Party wasn’t supposed to have manicured nails and my mother replied with defiance: ‘Would you feel better if I had black nails>’ –You will be expelled from the Party!’ – You just try!’ My mother was never afraid. She had this kind of character.

My mother and father were so different: she was noisy and had a loud voice, she could even slap us if she was in this kind of mood. My father was quiet her opposite: he never raised his voice and spoke quietly and was against physical punishment of the children. My parents were very kind and sympathetic people. My parents hardly spent time with us. My mother was at work until late. She worked in the trade department of the town Party committee and didn’t have time for her children. I came from school and my brother came from his kindergarten and we played in the yard until my father came home from work. My mother came home at six o’clock. By this time we had to be at home and have our hands washed.  The family got together for dinner and our housemaid was at the table with us. After dinner my mother went back to work and stayed there until nine o’clock. My father often left home in the evening. He spent time at the association of political convicts and was involved in social activities.

In the early 1930s my father and other communists were sent to a district town to organize collectivization 9. My father was reluctant to be involved in this and didn’t accept any forced measures toward farmers. This became known and my father was called back for a discussion in the town Party committee. At this time he had hemoptysis again and my mother didn’t allow him to go there. She sent my father to a tuberculosis recreation center in Gagry. When he returned home this incident was forgotten.  
We had portraits of Marx 10, Engels 11 at home and a photograph of Lenin 12 on the table, but we never had any portraits of Stalin. My mother called him ‘a man with moustache’. In 1934, when Kirov 13 was murdered my parents had a hot discussion about how this could happen and where his guards where at the time. They thought it was different from what an official version described.  

In 1936 Ushrovich, director of Odessa Torgsin 14 stood in public court. The charges against him stated that he was a provoker since the time when he was in exile in Siberia. Ushrovich managed to prove that all these charges were false. Beginning from middle 1937 [Great Terror] 15 many of my classmates’ relatives were arrested. There were children of 12 nationalities in my class. Galia Panaioti, a Greek girl, had her mother and father arrested in 1936. Luba Turchenko, a Ukrainian girl, her mother was arrested. Her mother was chief of political department of Chernomorsk shipyard. Ania Gavrilchenko, Ukrainian – her uncle was arrested. Galka Dyomina, Russian, her father was arrested.  Our Ukrainian teacher Polikarp Lvovich disappeared. Later he returned and continued teaching. He never mentioned what happened to him. My friend Rogovaya’s father worked in railroad shops and was a Party organizer of the association of political convicts. He was arrested in 1936 and he disappeared.

My parents discussed the subject of arrests in 1937 whispering at night. Their loud whisper woke me up sometimes and I heard their conversations unintentionally, but I didn’t tell anybody.  My mother was strict about the family order: the children were not allowed to talk about any talks or happenings at home. I remember my mother once punishing my brother with a belt for blurting something out in the yard that my father was grabbing her hands screaming ‘Sophia, you will kill him!’ My parents sorted out their collection of books. There were political books that my father collected and they had to get rid of them. There were works by Trotskiy 16, Kamenev 17. They threw them out.

My father was arrested in 1938. He was accused of wishing to assist Hitler and Japan to attack the Soviet Union. What else could they accuse him of?  Shortly before arrest our janitor Gidulian told my father that he knew very well who was the next to be arrested. Before arresting a person NKVD 18 officers visit a janitor under pretense that they intend to check a housing roster, but actually they ask questions about the tenant that interests them. The janitor said that they’ve come to see him and asked about our neighbor Rhubel, director of a recreation center in Kholodnaya Balka town, but this Rhubel was away from home. The janitor respected my father and advised him to leave home as well, but my father ignored it: ‘Where can I go? We don’t have money to travel!’  By that time he was fired from work. However, we moved to the dacha where he was arrested on 8 June 1938. Young NKVD officers came to arrest him. My mother and father slept on the terrace and my brother and I slept in the room. They made a careless search and my mother managed to put some Party documents into my pocket.  They didn’t search us and we kept these documents.
  
Somebody named Melnichenko had something to do with my father’s arrest. I remember this name very well even now. He probably wanted to have a big Jewish trial in Odessa and all arrested Jews were kept in the town. This saved many Jews, including my father. My mother wrote a letter to Stalin. She told my brother and me that Stalin’s office would send this letter back to Odessa and my father would stay in town until they clarified all circumstances. My father stayed in prison for about two years and returned home. He was very lucky to have been arrested on 8 June 1938 and Yezhov [Editor’s note: N.I. Yezhov (1895-1940) – people’s commissar of home affairs in the USSR in 1936-1937] had been replaced with Beriya 19. During the Yezhov rule prisoners were beaten and put on conveyor like they did in the past.  Beriya issued an order to stop beating and tortures. When my father was arrested the housing authorities gave one room to a woman whose husband was also arrested. My mother didn’t get along with her. They argued and my mother called her a whore. When my father was released she sued this woman to have her out of our apartment and the court took a decision for this woman to move out. Then all of a sudden my mother declared that however bad this neighbor might be she was the wife of a prisoner and we couldn’t throw her out. This woman stayed to live with us.  

After my father was arrested I left school and entered a Jewish Machine building Technical School. My mother felt positive about it. She was afraid of being arrested and hoped that they wouldn't send my brother to a children's home now that I was a student. I received a stipend at school and I could learn a profession soon. Prisoners’ children were thrown out of educational institutions, but when filling up my application form in the line item ‘father’ I wrote ‘my father doesn’t live with us at present’. I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell the truth either. Later it became known that director of my school knew that my father was in prison, but she kept silent about it. I studied at school for three years. I didn’t join Komsomol 20, since I didn’t want to join an organization of executioners. I thought: Komsomol and Party members were involved in beating my father and I couldn’t be in the same organization with them. My mother argued with me. She thought this was dangerous conduct, but I stood my point.

Through this whole period my classmate Revmir Cherniak gave me moral support. He was my future husband.  He often came to my home and helped me with everything. Revmir was born in Odessa in 1923. His parents Isaac and Torah Cherniak came from Lithuania. They were also involved in the revolutionary movement. His father was sent in exile in Arkhangelsk region before 1905 and his wife followed him there. Later they moved to Odessa. They were tailors. Revmir had two brothers: Israel and Mikhail and sister Mariana Aihenvald in her marriage.  They were much older than Revmir. Mikhail, their youngest, was born in 1910. Revmir finished school in 1940 and entered a military school in Leningrad. I corresponded with him.

On 21 June 1941 [Great Patriotic War] 21 I went to the dacha to visit my father’s friend from Kharkov Shura Poplavskaya. The weather was bad on the next day that was Sunday. It was raining. All of a sudden we heard Levitan’s 22 voice on the radio at 12 o’clock: ‘All radio stations of the Soviet Union speaking’. He announced that fascist Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Everybody knew that there was going to be a war, though. Shura said that we had to buy tickets to Kharkov. Shura and I went to the railway station. It was awful there with crowds of people trying to buy tickets. Shura managed to buy a ticket and went to Kharkov. On the first day Levitan announced that Odessa and Sevastopol were bombed. I didn’t see any bombing in Odessa on that day. The first serious bombing was on 22 July. German planes were combing streets on a low level flight.  I was going along Grecheskaya Street to my friend when I heard explosions and jumped into an entrance of a house. There were trams #23 moving along Grecheskaya Street. Streetcars rushed up and down the street at full speed so that sparks were falling from wires. Passers by told each other that many young men and women perished in Primorski Boulevard. I ran home to make sure that my family was all right. On my way home I saw Pushkin’s house [A.S. Pushkin museum] on fire. There was nobody home. My parents were at work.

My father was again director of mixed fodder plant and my mother worked in the trade department of the Party town committee. She said that members of the Party were not allowed to evacuate, but they received evacuation cards for members of their families. She obtained cards for us and her cousin sister Vitia who was her close friend as well.  I said we were not leaving without her. Our neighbor Lisa Alevenshtein didn’t want to evacuate for a different reason. She said: ‘Where would I go? I have no husband and I have three small children and my old mother. I have no money’. She was very concerned about expensiveness of life. There were rumors in Odessa that evacuation was very expensive, that a bagel cost 5 rubles. We were going to leave Odessa in the direction of Nikolaev along with army troops. Once during another air raid I was hiding in an entrance with a woman. She asked me why we were not leaving and I replied that we were planning to leave with army troops. She said: ‘I am from Pereyaslav [present Pereyaslav-Khmelnitskiy]. The army left it. They don’t even take officers’ wives with them! This is not even a Civil War, you know!’  I felt scared. When I came home I told my mother that we had to leave immediately. My mother made jute sacks for each of us to be able to walk with our luggage. My father couldn’t leave the town due to his orders. While we were waiting for him we found out that Germans had come to Nikolaev and Odessa was in encirclement and there was the only way out by sea. My mother’s acquaintance from the Party town committee gave us boat boarding tickets to Novorossiysk [700 km to Odessa by sea].  

My mother’s cousin sister Vitia Vishnevskaya said when my mother brought her a ticket: ‘My daughter-in-law (she was Russian) is not allowed to quit her job and I cannot leave her with a baby and go!’  Aunt Vitia and her younger son Yakov stayed in Odessa. Once, when they were out, her bitch of a daughter-in-law took their gold from a hiding place in their apartment and aunt Vitia’s good coat and left for Nikolaev with her baby. Aunt Vitia stayed in Odessa during occupation 23. Aunt Vitia didn’t even have a coat to go to the ghetto. Her neighbor gave her a coat. Her daughter-in-law came to their apartment in 1942 during occupation and took away all their furniture. Their neighbors told her off and she threatened them: ‘If you talk much I will go to the town office and report that you help Jews!’ At this time other people were rescuing aunt Vitia’s son Lazar Vishnevski. He was captured and when Germans ordered: ‘Communists and Jews make a step ahead’ Lazar was standing in the second line and wanted to step forward, but the men standing in front of him didn’t let him. Lazar asked him to move aside, but he replied: ‘Go to hell!’ ‘I am a Jew!’ ‘What the hell, you are Vishnevski, a Polish!’ «Russians saved his life another time as well. Prisoners were to go to a bathroom. Lazar said to his fellow prisoner: ‘What do I do now? I am circumcised!’ He gathered few reliable men and they shielded Lazar so that a guard didn’t see him. They saved his life.

Two Russian women living in our house Berezovskaya and Rogova cooked cereals every day, took buckets of water that they carried on a yoke and went to the ghetto in Slobodka. They brought food for the family of Lisa Alevenshtein and our neighbor Rhubel. Rhubel’s two sons were at the front. Before going to the ghetto she left two suits with Berezovskaya in case her sons returned from the army and had nothing to wear.  The Alevenshtein family and Rhubel perished. They were probably shot near our house where there is the Park of Lenin. There used to be a ravine and now there is a pond in this spot.

From Novorossiysk we were taken to Ust-Labinsk of Krasnodar region. We didn’t have any money and my mother went to a district Party committee looking for a job. Secretary of the district committee said: ‘Why do you want to get a job here? Germans are advancing. They are almost near Rostov. Move farther to the east of the country!’ My mother said we didn’t have money. The secretary arranged a free train trip to Kropotkin town and gave us a note addressed to commandant of Kropotkin requesting assistance for us. Nevertheless, we stayed in Ust-Labinsk for about two weeks. We worked in a kolkhoz: my brother mowed grass and I worked in a vegetable crew. Chairman of the kolkhoz gave us some flour: this was our earning, he said.  The owner of the house where we stayed, a Kazak woman, baked us some bread and gave us some cheese. She said: ‘I don’t know what is going to happen to us. What if we have to escape and then somebody will help us?’   

I faced anti-Semitism for the first time in my life during this trip. I was sitting on a platform at the railway station in Kropotkino when a train from Caucasus arrived. Some recruits came onto the platform. They asked me: ‘What’s the news?’ I began to tell them about the situation when one of them asked all of a sudden: ‘What’s your nationality?’ I said: ‘I am a Jew’ and he said: ‘Can’t you hear that she burrs her ‘r’?’ I felt like doused with boiling water.  Nobody ever said anything like that to me.  At that moment a young man, a Russian blond with blue eyes, came up to me and said: ‘Don’t listen to this idiot. He cannot talk himself. Don’t be afraid. We shall beat Germans and you will go back home. All the best to you!’ and he shook my hand. I shall never forget this.  

We finally arrived in Tashkent [3.200 km from Odessa in Uzbekistan] We immediately obtained a residential permit and received a 14-square-meter room at reasonable cost. Later we exchanged this room for another room in a private sector. Here we also paid reasonable fees for the room and power. My parents were treated well. My father worked as a controller of water gauge facilities.  He inspected water jets. My mother worked as an accountant. I don’t know in what organization she worked.  My brother Ilia went to a vocational school where he received a uniform and was provided meals.  I went to work at the Tashkent agricultural machine building plant that manufactured shells and repaired tanks at that period. There were vacancies in a foundry and I went to work there.  I was a core rod installer installing core rods into shells. We worked 12 hours per day. There were Uzbek workers as well. They didn’t speak Russian and didn’t understand anything.  They were constantly scolded. They had to carry such heavy loads that we felt sorry for them, even though our life was as rough. Thus, I heard some Uzbek talking about ‘zhydy’ [abusive word for a Jew] behind my back on a bus. I turned to them and said that in that case they were ‘sarty’, abusive for Uzbek people. They were about to beat me.

In Tashkent we received 800 grams bread per day per our bread coupons and workers of the foundry received a free lunch and additional 200 grams of bread. It was a miserable lunch with flour prevailing in dishes. There was a spontaneous market near the entrance to the plant where workers were selling their ration of bread. 800 grams was the weight of a loaf of bread. I went to the market once and found out that selling one loaf I could buy enough food for my whole family. I sold a loaf every other day buying rice and even plant oil. Uzbeks delivered milk to houses. They sold it on credit. We were surprised, but our landlady explained that there were no local customers to buy it anyways and all they wanted was selling it one way or another. I also donated blood and received additional food for it. Some time later my father went to work at the Tashkent town executive committee, but their ration of food was small and my father was swollen from hunger. My mother and I had pellagra [Editor’s note: disease caused by lack of nicotinic acid and some other vitamins of B group]. My parents and I wore our winter coats that my mother had packed into our sacks back in Odessa. My brother also received a quilted coat and boots in his vocational school. There were very cold days in Tashkent. Once my brother caught cold. He felt ill, but he went to school for a meal. They even had meat for lunch. He was told that he could take his food home. His ration of food was enough for three of us.

My brother Ilia studied at school for a year and became a car mechanic. He and other graduates were sent to work in the Ural. There doctors discovered that my brother had tuberculosis and sent my brother back to Tashkent. On the way to Tashkent he was robbed somewhere in Kazakhstan. He went to commandant of a town and since he looked older than he actually was this commandant sent him to a medical check up and from there my brother was sent to a march company. Since he was educated they made him a clerk. He stayed in Kazakhstan for four months.  Then he returned to Tashkent. Ilia was eager to go to the front. He continuously went to a military registry office requesting them to send him to the frontline. Chief of the registry office got so tired of him that he burned Ilia’s passport, wrote that his year of birth was 1926 and sent him to the army in 1944. Ilia studied in a sniper school in Kushka. Then he studied in Volskoye technical school and after finishing it in 1945 he was sent to an aviation regiment that moved to Austria. Ilia was a technician in a squadron. At the end of the war he was in Austria. After the war Ilia served in the army for 7 years.  He finished his service in Grozny where he married a local woman. Her name was Taya Shubina. He moved to Odessa with his wife. We made Ilia finish the 10th grade. Is wife didn’t want to live in Odessa and they moved to Grozny. Ilia finished the Oil College. His wife worked as a seamstress. In 1956 their son Igor was born.

My parents and I returned to Odessa in 1944. There were other tenants in our apartment. We went to court. We felt anti-Semitic attitude toward us. Since my mother and father were members of the party since 1919 and they wrote a complaint to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine they managed to obtain a residential permit for us to live in Odessa. They returned one room to us. The judge said: ‘This is sufficient for three people’. My brother was at the front. I didn’t work at first. I donated blood and received a food package and a meal for it. My mother began to work in the city finance department and father soon got a job of inspector in savings-bank. 

My fiancé Revmir was at the front near Moscow in 1941. He was wounded and was taken to hospital with his legs frost-bitten. Gangrene started on one foot. It was amputated and he was sent to a hospital in Kazan. After he was released he was sent to Podolsk infantry school where he taught artillery. He continuously requested to send him to the front and he finally succeeded. In 1943 he took part in Kursk battle 24, and then in Korsun-Shevchenkovskiy operation [Editor’s note: 24.1 – 17.2 1944, in the course of struggle for Pravoberezhnaya Ukraine Soviet armies of the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts П (army generals N. F. Vatutin and I.S. Konev) encircled over 10 armies of the South group German armies (General Field Marshal Manstein) and crushed them], he was awarded an order, he also took part in battles near Yassy and was awarded another order. He sent me his officer’s certificate for allowances. Revmir was in Banska-Bistrica in Czechoslovakia when the was over. He arrived in Odessa in autumn 1945. We became a husband and wife, but we didn’t register our marriage.

In 1946 our daughter Yekaterina was born. Only then we registered our marriage to obtain a card for the baby. It was a card for 400 grams of bread. My husband entered the Mechanic Faculty of Odessa Polytechnic College. I entered Communications College and received a stipend. In 1951 our son Mikhail was born. We didn’t doubt that my husband would get a job assignment 25 in Odessa after finishing his college since he was an invalid of war and had two children. : However, he was the only one of all graduates to be sent to Petropavlovsk [in Kazakhstan] in the north. Of course, this had to do with my husband’s nationality. It took us quite an effort to have them change my husband’s job assignment. We moved to Kaspiysk [in Russia now]. I commuted 20 km to work in Makhachkala. I worked as senior technician of international telephone communications. I continued my studies as extramural student in Odessa Communications College. 

In 1953 in Kaspiysk we got to know about Stalin’s death. The only thought I had had about Stalin was “Let him die!’ I lived with a constant oppressive feeling as if the sky was on my head.  When Stalin died I felt as if this sky lifted up. I felt so happy! However, my husband cried. He easily subdued to influences. When he joined the Party I asked him how he could do it and he replied: ‘My commissar was so good and we were friends!’ ‘But you laughed at him saying that a political officer was nobody!’ 

In Kaspiysk our daughter Yekaterina went to school in 1953. I went to take my exams in Odessa.  I had all excellent marks, but they didn’t give me a diploma. I had to complete practical training and I failed to find a job of telephone operator in Odessa. So I never got my diploma. My husband completed his mandatory term in Kaspiysk and we returned to Odessa in 1955. We lived with my parents. An acquaintance of mine helped me to get a job of assistant accountant in the jute factory storeroom. In 1956 it was decided to remove our house in Lenin Street. We received a billet for a two-bedroom apartment for six of us.  My husband was on the list for receiving an apartment as an invalid of war and I thought we had to fight for receiving two apartments, but my father, my mother and my husband were telling me that we had to agree. Their major argument was ‘There is a bathroom in the apartment!’ I tried to tell where I was going to have my children sleeping – in the bathroom?', but they didn’t hear my point.   Since then we’ve lived in those two rooms in Gamarnik Street.

Our family had a difficult life, but we were seeing changes to better during Khrushchev rule 26. Khrushchev was a good person. He gave apartments to people living in basements and earth-hoses. It was impossible to make a living on pensions before Khrushchev, but he made pensions to enable people to live on them. However, the state level anti-Semitism became stronger during Khrushchev rule. My husband and I did face it. He left his job and it took him a month of searching before he managed to get another job. Nobody was employing him!  The human resource manager of one Odessa plant, who formerly worked in a labor camp employed him and his director asked him ‘How come you you’ve employed a Jew?’ and he replied ‘I had a vacancy of an engineer and he is an experienced engineer! I didn’t look at his passport, I don’t care about his nationality! There were Jews and Ukrainians in my camp and they were all equal!’ Later somebody told my husband this story. Our daughter and son also faced negative attitudes at school, particularly our daughter since she happened to be the only Jewish pupil in her class. 

In the late 1950s my brother Ilia, his wife and their son moved to Odessa from Grozny. They came to live with us. There were 9 of us living in two rooms. It was awfully hard. Ilia’s wife Taya turned out to be greedy. She used to nag to her husband for a whole week that he dared to spend three rubles without her permission. My mother offered them money for them to rent a room, but Taya didn’t want it. She felt as a hostess in our apartment. After another row I opened the door and said: ‘Get the hell out of here or I will throw you out with all your belongings!’ They left. My parents gave them money to buy a one-bedroom cooperative apartment that they bought in Filatov Street. Ilia fell under his wife’s influence and became as greedy as she was.

In 1961 my mother died. She was buried in the 2nd Christian cemetery. My daughter Yekaterina finished school in 1964. She tried to enter the Chemical Faculty of Odessa University four times and only the fifth time she was successful. She is sure that these failures at the exams were not incidental. Yekaterina managed to enter an evening department. She never got married.  

In 1965 my father traveled to Paris at the invitation of his brothers Iosif and Shmil. It took him quite an effort to obtain a permit to go abroad. He had to go to various authorities to prove his right to visit his brothers. Life abroad made a great impression on him. He used to criticize the soviet regime, but after he returned from France he said that even workers had very decent life there. My father wanted to move abroad and his French relatives offered their assistance, but he didn’t want to go there alone and my family wanted to stay at home. My husband thought that he had reached his status here, he was an engineer and if he decided to move he would have to stand by a desk cutting fur for gloves. Uncle Iosif sent me an invitation to France. I went to the foreign passport office where they told me that people were allowed only to visit close relatives and uncles were not considered as such. I wasn’t allowed to go.

After finishing school in 1968 my son went to serve in the army. He served in Volgograd and Khabarovsk region. After the army in 1972 Mikhail entered the Mechanical and Mathematic Faculty of Odessa University. After graduation he couldn’t get a job due to his nationality. He picked up all kinds of jobs that he could get. In 1978 he married Marina Solodovnikova from Moscow and moved to live in Moscow. There he found a job of programmer that was his specialty. Irina is Russian. In December 1981 their daughter Olia was born. Irina works as a librarian at school. Her sister emigrated to Germany a long time ago. They could move there as well, but they didn’t want to change their life. My granddaughter Olia studies at the Faculty of Sociology in a Pedagogical College. Unfortunately, I do not get along with my daughter-in-law. For this reason my granddaughter does not visit me. 

In Brezhnev’s epoch [1960s – 1970s] our life consisted of trying to get food and clothes. There was no meat or butter and there were no beautiful clothes. My son and I got up at six o’clock in the morning and went to the market. We stood in two lines waiting for meat to be delivered.  If we managed to return home at three in the afternoon with meat we felt happy. My husband was allowed to buy food in special stores for invalids of the war. We called these stores ‘thank you, Hitler’. We were allowed to buy 6 kg of miserable meat per month, some other products and clothes.   

During Brezhnev regime I didn’t vote in principle. My husband and I always had arguments because of this. He was very law-obedient and he couldn’t believe it when I told him that somebody else would use my voucher. Once, for the sake of experiment I came to the polling station 15 minutes before their closure. A woman on duty told me that Minna Birman had already voted. I was indignant and they gave me a blank form. So I proved to my husband that I was right and never again went to vote. Our family was always interested in politics. We discussed all political news at home. Our children read a lot and were thoughtful personalities. We often took our son and daughter to theaters and museums.  

When in the 1970s people began to move to Israel I was eager to go there, too, and obtained several invitations, but my children didn’t want to go and here I am. 

In 1976 my father died. He was buried in the 2nd Christian cemetery by my mother’s grave.  They lived their lives together and they lie beside each other.

In 1985 my husband died. Revmir was buried in the Tairovskoye cemetery [international town cemetery]. After my husband died my daughter and I had a difficult life. My brother Ilia didn’t support us, although he could have. He worked as chief engineer of the Kislorodmash plant. We had an argument when in 1982 he refused to contribute 1992. His wife Taya lives in Cheryomushki in Odessa. She has a two-bedroom apartment. Ilia’s son Igor and I are friends. He often visits me. Igor is married to Tatiana, a nice Russian woman. He has a daughter named Lena. Igor is a computer specialist. He works in a private company.

My daughter Yekaterina changed few jobs. She worked as a chemist in Probirnaya Chamber, an engineer in design office ‘Kinooborudovamiye’ (cinema equipment) and an environmental chemist for sewerage facilities. During perestroika 27, when there were economic problems and she didn’t get her salary regularly my daughter finished an accounting course.  She worked as an accountant in Filatov Institute for 8 years. In 2002 Yekaterina retired, but she continues to work as an accountant in a trade company. 

I accepted the beginning of perestroika with understanding. I think that Mikhail Gorbachev 28 is a very decent man. People blame him that perestroika failed, but I believe he did everything he could. He initiated changes, though in his position of the secretary he would have sufficient for the rest of his life. The situation couldn’t develop any differently. The USSR lived on oil needle that was like drugs. It crashed, but Gorbachev has nothing to do with it. I felt negative about the breakdown of the USSR 29. It was all right for Baltic Republics where the mentality is different. I’ve always thought and believe it now that Ukraine lost from separation. There is no oil or woods, the coal is expensive and all industries were tied to the USSR. We argued a lot about it. My children told me that Ukraine gave Russia bread and we were feeding the USSR. I cannot say for sure whether perestroika failed or not.  It failed in Ukraine. Life is better in Russia. Much failed because the Russian Empire was always enslaved whether it was serfdom or Stalin’s regime. People are not used to freedom and independence. I felt more comfortable living like that as well, but I realized that it was wrong. However, one felt rather calm receiving a fixed salary and knowing that employers wouldn’t fire their employees.  

Worked as an accountant in Chernomorniiproject for over 20 years. I literally worked for two. According to all existing standards I needed an assistant. I submitted requests for one many times, but nothing came out of it. I had to quit since I didn’t get along with my boss who was a militant anti-Semite and it was difficult for me to work with her.

I live with my daughter. My son works as a programmer in Moscow maintaining computer networks of few companies. They are not considering moving abroad. The main reason is that they feel that they won’t be able to follow the Western standards and merge into a different life.   They identify themselves as Jews, but they are far from Jewish traditions. We do not celebrate Jewish holidays. I am not religious and my children aren’t either. Back in the early 1980s I once went to the synagogue in Peresyp [in an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa]. I went to see how Jews celebrated Pesach. They sent me onto the balcony where I was standing behind other women where I couldn’t see anything from behind. Another time I went to the Osipov synagogue some time in 1999. I went there to subscribe to the Jewish newspaper ‘Shomrei Shabos’. It was a day off and there was a man on duty. I asked ‘May I come in to look?’ He replied ‘Come in, are you a Jew?’ ‘Can’t you tell?’ ‘Come in!’  I came in and looked around. It beautiful, but it didn’t stir any religious feelings in me. 

I’ve been in touch with Jewish charity organizations for a long time since the early 1990s. At first I received humanitarian aid in the Palace of Culture named after Lesia Ukrainka in Tiraspolskaya Square. When Gemilut Hesed began its activities I was almost the first one to enroll on its lists. My daughter and I receive food packages there. My daughter and I do sympathize with the rebirth of Jewish life in Odessa. We began to attend the Jewish center when it resided in the house of medical employees in Grecheskaya Street ]late 1980s]. We also enjoyed attending concerts of cantors and performances of the Jewish Theater ‘Shalom’ that came on tour to Odessa several times. I am very much interested in the Jewish history and culture. I am now putting in order our family archive that is of interest to the community. Sometimes historians come to talk with me. I want to be of help to people.

Glossary

1 Russian Revolution of 1917

Revolution in which the tsarist regime was overthrown in the Russian Empire and, under Lenin, was replaced by the Bolshevik rule. The two phases of the Revolution were: February Revolution, which came about due to food and fuel shortages during WWI, and during which the tsar abdicated and a provisional government took over. The second phase took place in the form of a coup led by Lenin in October/November (October Revolution) and saw the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

2 NEP

The so-called New Economic Policy of the Soviet authorities was launched by Lenin in 1921. It meant that private business was allowed on a small scale in order to save the country ruined by the Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War. They allowed priority development of private capital and entrepreneurship. The NEP was gradually abandoned in the 1920s with the introduction of the planned economy.

3 Civil War (1918-1920)

The Civil War between the Reds (the Bolsheviks) and the Whites (the anti-Bolsheviks), which broke out in early 1918, ravaged Russia until 1920. The Whites represented all shades of anti-communist groups – Russian army units from World War I, led by anti-Bolshevik officers, by anti-Bolshevik volunteers and some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. Several of their leaders favored setting up a military dictatorship, but few were outspoken tsarists. Atrocities were committed throughout the Civil War by both sides. The Civil War ended with Bolshevik military victory, thanks to the lack of cooperation among the various White commanders and to the reorganization of the Red forces after Trotsky became commissar for war. It was won, however, only at the price of immense sacrifice; by 1920 Russia was ruined and devastated. In 1920 industrial production was reduced to 14% and agriculture to 50% as compared to 1913.

4 Denikin, Anton Ivanovich (1872-1947)

White Army general. During the Russian Civil War he fought against the Red Army in the South of Ukraine.

5 Famine in Ukraine

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.

6 ChK – full name VuChK – All-Russian Emergency Commission of struggle against counter revolution and sabotage

the first security authority in the Soviet Union established per order of the council of people’s commissars dated 07 December 1917. Its chief was Feliz Dzerzhynskiy. In 1920 after the Civil War Lenin ordered to disband it and it became a part of NKVD.

7 German colonists

Ancestors of German peasants, who were invited by Empress Catherine II in the 18th century to settle in Russia.

8 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.

9 Collectivization in the USSR

In the late 1920s - early 1930s private farms were liquidated and collective farms established by force on a mass scale in the USSR. Many peasants were arrested during this process. As a result of the collectivization, the number of farmers and the amount of agricultural production was greatly reduced and famine struck in the Ukraine, the Northern Caucasus, the Volga and other regions in 1932-33.

10 Karl Marx (1818 – 1883)

the son of the Jewish lawyer who had converted to Christianity. Young Marx studied philosophy at the University of Berlin. He became a founder of so called “scientific socialism”. His Communist Manifesto ends with such words: “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, united!” The Marx’ doctrine gained a great popularity by the Russian revolutionaries.

11 Engels, Friedrich (1820-1895)

Philosopher and public figure, one of the founders of Marxism and communism.

12 Lenin (1870-1924)

Pseudonym of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the Russian Communist leader. A profound student of Marxism, and a revolutionary in the 1890s. He became the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party, whom he led to power in the coup d’état of 25th October 1917. Lenin became head of the Soviet state and retained this post until his death.

13 Kirov, Sergey (born Kostrikov) (1886-1934)

Soviet communist. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1904. During the Revolution of 1905 he was arrested; after his release he joined the Bolsheviks and was arrested several more times for revolutionary activity. He occupied high positions in the hierarchy of the Communist Party. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, as well as of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. He was a loyal supporter of Stalin. In 1934 Kirov's popularity had increased and Stalin showed signs of mistrust. In December of that year Kirov was assassinated by a younger party member. It is believed that Stalin ordered the murder, but it has never been proven.

14 Torgsin stores

Special retail stores, which were established in larger Russian cities in the 1920s with the purpose of selling goods to foreigners. Torgsins sold commodities that were in short supply for hard currency or exchanged them for gold and jewelry, accepting old coins as well. The real aim of this economic experiment that lasted for two years was to swindle out all gold and valuables from the population for the industrial development of the country.

15 Great Terror (1934-1938)

During the Great Terror, or Great Purges, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison. The major targets of the Great Terror were communists. Over half of the people who were arrested were members of the party at the time of their arrest. The armed forces, the Communist Party, and the government in general were purged of all allegedly dissident persons; the victims were generally sentenced to death or to long terms of hard labor. Much of the purge was carried out in secret, and only a few cases were tried in public ‘show trials’. By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the Party and the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary. Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union until his death in March 1953.

16 Trotsky, Lev Davidovich (born Bronshtein) (1879-1940)

Russian revolutionary, one of the leaders of the October Revolution of 1917, an outstanding figure of the communist movement and a theorist of Marxism. Trotsky participated in the social-democratic movement from 1894 and supported the idea of the unification of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks from 1906. In 1905 he developed the idea of the ‘permanent revolution’. He was one of the leaders of the October Revolution and a founder of the Red Army. He widely applied repressive measures to support the discipline and ‘bring everything into revolutionary order’ at the front and the home front. The intense struggle with Stalin for the leadership ended with Trotsky's defeat. In 1924 his views were declared petty-bourgeois deviation. In 1927 he was expelled from the Communist Party, and exiled to Kazakhstan, and in 1929 abroad. He lived in Turkey, Norway and then Mexico. He excoriated Stalin's regime as a bureaucratic degeneration of the proletarian power. He was murdered in Mexico by an agent of Soviet special services on Stalin’s order.

17 Kamenev, Lev Borisovich (1883-1936)

Soviet communist leader, member of the first Politburo of the Communist Party after the Revolution of 1917. After Lenin's death in 1924, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Stalin formed a ruling triumvirate and excluded Trotsky from the Party. In 1925 Stalin, in an effort to consolidate his own power, turned against Zinoviev and Kamenev, who then joined Trotsky’s opposition. Kamenev was expelled from the Party in 1927, but he recanted, was readmitted, and held minor offices. He was arrested in 1934 accused of complicity in the murder of Kirov and was imprisoned. In 1936 he, Zinoviev, and 13 old Bolsheviks were tried for treason in the first big public purge trial. They confessed and were executed.

18 NKVD

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

19 Beriya, L

P. (1899-1953): Communist politician, one of the main organizers of the mass arrests and political persecution between the 1930s and the early 1950s. Minister of Internal Affairs, 1938-1953. In 1953 he was expelled from the Communist Party and sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of the USSR.   

20 Komsomol

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.

21 Great Patriotic War

On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

22 Levitan Yuriy Borisovich (1914–1983)

he famous wartime radio announcer. During the Great Patriotic War read the news from front.

23 Romanian occupation of Odessa

Romanian troops occupied Odessa in October 1941. They immediately enforced anti-Jewish measures. Following the Antonescu-ordered slaughter of the Jews of Odessa, the Romanian occupation authorities deported the survivors to camps in the Golta district: 54,000 to the Bogdanovka camp, 18,000 to the Akhmetchetka camp, and 8,000 to the Domanevka camp. In Bogdanovka all the Jews were shot, with the Romanian gendarmerie, the Ukrainian police, and Sonderkommando R, made up of Volksdeutsche, taking part. In January and February 1942, 12,000 Ukrainian Jews were murdered in the two other camps. A total of 185,000 Ukrainian Jews were murdered by Romanian and German army units.

24 The Kursk battle

The greatest tank battle in history of WWII occurred at Kursk. It began on July 5th, 1943 and it ended ignominiously eight days later. The Soviet army in its counteroffensive crushed 30 German divisions and liberated Oryol, Belgorod and Kharkov. During the Kursk battle, the biggest tank fight – involving up to 1200 tanks and mobile cannon units on both sides – took place in Prokhorovka on 12 July 1943, and it ended with defeat of the German tank unit.

25 Mandatory job assignment in the USSR

Graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated. After finishing this assignment young people were allowed to get employment at their discretion in any town or organization.

26 Khrushchev, Nikita (1894-1971)

Soviet communist leader. After Stalin’s death in 1953, he became first secretary of the Central Committee, in effect the head of the Communist Party of the USSR. In 1956, during the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev took an unprecedented step and denounced Stalin and his methods. He was deposed as premier and party head in October 1964. In 1966 he was dropped from the Party's Central Committee.

27 Perestroika (Russian for restructuring)

Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s, associated with the name of Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev. The term designated the attempts to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized, market-oriented economy. Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratize the Communist Party organization. By 1991, perestroika was declining and was soon eclipsed by the dissolution of the USSR.

28 Gorbachev, Mikhail (1931)

Soviet political leader. Gorbachev joined the Communist Party in 1952 and gradually moved up in the party hierarchy. In 1970 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, where he remained until 1990. In 1980 he joined the politburo, and in 1985 he was appointed general secretary of the party. In 1986 he embarked on a comprehensive program of political, economic, and social liberalization under the slogans of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). The government released political prisoners, allowed increased emigration, attacked corruption, and encouraged the critical reexamination of Soviet history. The Congress of People’s Deputies, founded in 1989, voted to end the Communist Party’s control over the government and elected Gorbachev executive president. Gorbachev dissolved the Communist Party and granted the Baltic states independence. Following the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States in 1991, he resigned as president. Since 1992, Gorbachev has headed international organizations.

29 Breakup of the USSR

Yeltsin in 1991 signed a deal with Russia's neighbours that formalized the break up of the Soviet Union. The USSR was replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Emma Balonova

Emma Balonova
St. Petersburg
Russia
Interviewer: Natalia Vassilyeva
Date of interview: February 2005

I met Emma Mikhaylovna Balonova in her room in the communal apartment 1, situated in the center of Petersburg. Emma Mikhaylovna is short and active.

She is slope-eyed, she looks very young. Emma Mihaylovna is that kind of person in a thousand who attracts attention of her interlocutor from the first minutes of dialogue.

Her relatives, friends, former colleagues, and neighbors - they all love Emma Mikhaylovna very much.

All her life long Emma Mihaylovna had to overcome hardships. Misfortunes followed her. She lost her younger son and her beloved husband.

But she kept optimism, interest in surroundings, and desire to be useful to people.

  • My family background

I know about my paternal great-grandmother and great-grandfather almost nothing. I only know that my paternal relatives lived in Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia. In Belarus there is a small town Polotsk. My father often told us about their life in Polotsk, about his father and grandfather. 

According to father, they lived very poorly, almost in abject poverty. If my memory does not fail me, my father’s father and grandfather taught Jewish children in cheder.

Parents paid for their children’s studies, but only those parents who were able to do it. The total sum was beggarly, because all Jews there were poor. But my father’s father and grandfather had no other profession. Well, and my great-grandmother kept their house. 

I visited my grandmother and grandfather only once. At that time we lived in Minsk, and Daddy made a business trip to Polotsk. He took me with him to show me grandmother and grandfather, to introduce me to them. I do not remember the date when it happened. I remember that I was very little. I also remember their big wooden house, where they lived with their children. They had a lot of children: 6 or 7. 

Family of my paternal grandfather was very religious. My grandfather held a post in the synagogue. I do not know how it was called, but I know that he assisted rabbi.

He had payes and a long beard. And he never was bare-headed. His name was Israel Kalmyk. He was a long-liver: he died when he was over 90 years old. 

My grandfather did not serve in the army. Grandfather's first wife Sore-Zelde Kalmyk died early in life, and he married for the second time. His second wife took care of her own children and the children of her husband and was nice to all of them absolutely equally.

For example, my father got to know that he was brought up by a stepmother when he was already an adult. She was a very good woman! It is a pity that I do not remember her name.

My daddy left home when he was very young, and began to earn his living. He was not educated: finished only cheder, but he was a person of capacity. He had very good memory, and he was gifted in general. He coached pupils from rich families, helped them to get prepared for school, and then to span gaps in their knowledge.

His name was Mendel Kalmyk. He was born in 1897 in Vilno region. He died in Gorky in 1943 in evacuation.

Regarding my mother’s parents I know even less. You see, they both died very early in life. They had 11 children, and all of them became orphans.

My mother's father was called Rafael-Abram (Jewish name Folye-Avrom). It is interesting that Mum had a sister Nekhama, they were twins. And you see, on my mother's tomb it is written Sofiya Abramovna, and on my aunt's one Nekhama Rafaelovna.

My Mum Sofiya Balonova was born in 1895 in Vilno region, too. She died of cancer in 1946 in Leningrad.

The rest of my maternal relatives I remember better, because all of them are my relatives twice: I married the son of my mother’s brother, i.e. my mother's nephew or my cousin.

My mother's family lived in Riga. As I already told you, parents died early in life and children had to make their own way in life. Riga was a big European city. There lived very rich families, most of them were German. Many girls, including mother’s sisters, worked for rich German families making clothes for all family members. My mother-in-law and her sisters did the same when they were young. They also lived in Riga.

My mum’s brother Yakov was a very qualified shoemaker. He had a great success making shoes. He also lived in Riga. By that time managers of a shoe factory in Petersburg decided to improve their production process making better footwear. They wanted to invite highly skilled experts. Several managers from that factory came to Riga to find the best shoemakers.

Among others, they invited my uncle, who became my future father-in-law. By that time he was already married to my future mother-in-law and they had a son (my future husband) Isaac Yakovlevich Balonov. They considered themselves to be lucky, when Isaac got an invitation to the Petersburg factory: they did not want to remain in Riga as they were disquieted by rumors of the coming war, they had temptation to go to Russia.

The factory gave them a good apartment, and their family settled there. Later Yakov’s younger sister Emma came to their place too.

My Mum lived in Petersburg since she was a young girl, but I do not know the way she got there. Unfortunately at present there is nobody to ask about it. I guess her brother and his wife invited her to live with them. I remember that sometimes she spoke about her work at a knitting factory when she was very young.

My future mother-in-law and her sister were very good dressmakers. At that time my father lived in Vilno, he arrived in Petersburg on a business trip and met Emma. They fell in love with each other and were going to get married. But it went ill with them: the bride got sick with typhus and died. According to Jewish laws Daddy had to marry her sister, my Mum.

Daddy named me Emma in honor of his lost bride. You may consider their marriage to be a shotgun one, but they lived in harmony all life long. I guess they got married in Belarus. I do not know exactly, but Mum and Daddy left for Belarus as a groom and a bride. I guess my parents did not marry in the synagogue: by that time Daddy already was a bellicose atheist.

My father served in the tsarist army. I know no details about his service, but once father's photo in his uniform stroke my eye. He told me that he took that photograph before leaving for the army. By the way, during his service in the army father had been ill with typhus and lost his hair. Since then he had to cut his hair close to the skin. People thought that he did it in conformity with the latest revolutionary fashion of those years.

Having got married, my parents lodged in a small town in Belarus (I’ve forgotten its name). Soon they moved to Minsk. And I was born on April 17, 1920 in Vitebsk. Mum did not want to give birth in Minsk, because she was afraid that father would not allow arranging bar mitzvah for the newborn boy (she was sure a boy would be born). But it was me who was born, and our family remained in peace: I already told you that my father was an atheist.

When he was a child, he used to sing at the synagogue because he had got a good voice, but when he grew up, at the age of 19, he broke with religion and became a communist. He always told me and my sisters that there was no God. And it went without saying that our family members could arrange no bar mitzvah for newborn boys.

Through habit I go on saying my sisters, but in fact I had only one sister. Now I’ll tell you how my second sister appeared in our family. In 1921 in Samara people starved and suffered from cholera epidemic. Two Mum’s sisters lived there, they both died during that epidemic. One of them left 3 little children; each of them was taken by the families of their uncles and aunts in order to avoid children's home.

That was why Mum’s niece lived in our family as mother's sister. But unfortunately 4 children of the other Mum’s sister got to a children’s home somewhere in Belarus. From time to time my Mum took them home, and we made good friends. They were always hungry and ragged.

Once I even got frightened, when I went out and saw a dirty child in the street (it happened in Minsk). I came back home and said ‘Mum, I am afraid to go out, there is a homeless boy over there.’ When that boy came into our court yard, I recognized my cousin David. Later he appeared to be a very talented person; he graduated from the Leningrad University through a correspondence course and became a school director. Everybody loved him very much.

My younger sister Klara was born in 1923, and my elder cousin sister was born in 1912. Her name was Mirra Goman.

My father joined the Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party of bolsheviks in 1919 and soon became a professional Party worker. [The Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party (of bolsheviks) appeared in 1917. In March 1918 it was renamed the Russian Communist Party, in 1925 renamed All-Union Communist Party, and in 1952 - Communist Party of the Soviet Union.] He worked there almost all his life long, only in his later years he became a director of the Evening Pedagogical Institute in Gomel.

In Minsk he worked as the first secretary of MOPR 2.

  • Growing up

I can’t recall very well our apartment in Minsk. For some reason now I can hardly recall our family life. I guess we rented a small house. Our neighbors were Belarusian families. We all lived in peace and friendship despite different nationalities. I do not remember anybody coming to oblige. Otherwise Mum would have not sent me to the kindergarten. I liked my kindergarten.

The only crumpled rose-leaf was absence of my sister Klara there: she was too little for it. I cried so bitterly that they allowed her to attend my kindergarten with me as a guest.

In Minsk I went to school, and studied there 5 years. We studied Belarusian language and loved that subject very much. As a result, we spoke it very well, we could read and write in Belarusian language. We were also interested in Belarus literature and knew many poems by heart.

What an odd mixture is human memory! I do not remember the number of rooms in our apartment, but can recall some political events clearly.

Probably it was connected with my father’s work. Well, in 1927 two Italian communists Sacco and Vanzetti were executed because they were communists and were in touch with the Soviet government.

[Nikola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italians by birth were workers and revolutionaries in the USA. In 1920 they were charged in murder, brought in a verdict of guilty and sentenced to death penalty.]

In Minsk there took place a great manifestation of protest against that execution. I remember the large square in the central district of Minsk. It was overcrowded with people carrying banners and slogans. Leaders of the city mounted the rostrum, and my father was among them. He even made a speech. And he took me (what a mercy!) with him to the rostrum. It was impossible to be forgotten!

My elder sister was a very active member of the Komsomol organization 3. At the Officers’ House there was a local Komsomol organization.

Its members arranged different recreational events: dancing, choral singing, theater performances. Sometimes my sister took me there, and I enjoyed it very much. In summer my elder sister used to work in pioneer camps as a pioneer leader.

[Pioneer camps were out-of-town establishments for children - members of the Pioneer Organization 4.]

She always took me with her. But mum never allowed my younger sister to go with us, because her health was very poor: at the slightest provocation she immediately fell sick.

At my school in Minsk I had 2 friends: Sara and Rachel. We remained true friends till now. After we graduated from our colleges, one of us moved to Moscow, another one stayed in Minsk, and I moved to Leningrad, but we visited each other every year. By the way they came to me on the occasion of my wedding in 1940.

In 1932 when I was 12 we moved to Gomel. At that time my younger sister was 9 years old, and my elder sister was already 20. She entered a technical school. [Technical schools appeared in the USSR to prepare employees of middle level for industrial, agricultural and other organizations.]

In spite of the fact that Daddy was a Communist Party worker, we lived in a communal apartment. At that time party workers had no privileges in compare with benefits which appeared later on. We lived in a four-room apartment: 2 rooms were occupied by us, 2 rooms - by our neighbor.

Our rooms were very large; we also had a vast balcony. The apartment was very good. There was central heating, but we heated our bathroom with firewood. I remember Daddy chopping firewood. It is interesting that in our apartment there was a big Russian stove 5. Mum always made very tasty pies, because Russian stove was very good for baking.

Mum did everything about the house and my elder sister helped her. My younger sister and I never assisted them. When I was a child I washed not a single handkerchief myself. Parents told us that we had to study, and that was all. The only assistant to Mum was a laundress, who came to us once a week: she used to work all day long.

Our neighbor sang fairly well: she appeared in concert halls with Jewish songs. I also sang delightfully, therefore she started teaching me to sing Jewish songs. And I knew the language, because I lived in a Jewish city.

In Gomel we lived in one of the central streets in a big house. In Gomel there lived many Jews. There were no special Jewish zones of residence: one could hear people speaking Yiddish all over the city. I do not remember any manifestations of anti-Semitism, I do not remember anybody talking about nationalities. The same was at my school: we never discussed it.

We chose friends following different preferences, but we never thought about nationality. One day when we were already adult, we tried to recollect who of our classmates was Jewish, but did not manage. I remember the synagogue in Gomel, but nobody of our acquaintances visited it. The synagogue building was a big, uncared-for, painted dark grey. I never got in.

Besides the secondary school, I attended a musical one. Therefore I could not spend all my time with my friends though I wished to: all my school friends did their homework and were able to do anything they wanted till the next day. As for me, every evening I had to go to my musical school. But on holidays and days off we visited each other at home, listened to music.

All my friends (especially when they grew up) liked to discuss political topics with my Daddy. Daddy used to deliver public lectures on international situation. A great number of people gathered to listen to him; his speech used to come across very well. By the way, my father could speak Yiddish, Russian and Belarusian languages very well.

All of us liked our form-master (a teacher of chemistry) very much. Her name was Nina Fominichna Guseva. She was very strict, but very good. Half of our class became enthusiastic about chemistry and entered chemical colleges (and I was one of them). Here you see what a large part a teacher can play in the life of their pupils!

We never celebrated Jewish holidays. We even did not celebrate the New Year day. Our favorite holiday was November 7 [Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution - the main state holiday in the USSR] and May 1 [the Day of the International Solidarity of Workers - the state holiday in the USSR].

On that days Daddy always took us to take part in demonstration. In Gomel there was a very good drama theatre. Moscow theater troupes often gave performances on tour there - we never missed them. Daddy had free-of-charge pass to all theatres. But most of all we liked when Daddy was at home with us, we considered it to be a great holiday. We loved him very much and never called him father, only Daddy.

I remember that when we lived in Gomel, Daddy often went to Moscow on business trips. In order to reach the railway station he always took a cab. We (Mum, my sisters and me) always went to the station together with him. At the railway station there was a very good restaurant and before the train departure we all used to have supper there, then saw off Daddy and walked back home. The railway station was situated not far from our house, but we liked to keep that order.

In the summer we used to go on vacation to one of nearby communes. [Agricultural communes were first created in 1917 by workers and farm laborers (they worked together). It was a form of agricultural production co-operative, later (in 1930s) Soviet authorities transformed them into collective farms.]

When the commune members got to know that my Daddy was a Communist Party worker, they asked him to be their adviser, to help them solve various problems. He easily made friends with people; he was a highly educated person, easy to get along with and had a good sense of humor.

Among the important political events of that time I remember the murder of Kirov 6. That murder initiated the Great Terror 7. Late at night some people from the local Communist Party committee came to us, woke my father and said that Kirov had just been killed in Leningrad. It was like a bolt from the blue.

Daddy jumped out of bed, dressed quickly and left. Later in 1937 mass arrests and executions began. Daddy was not arrested by pure accident. Later we got to know that he was in the list, but he was lucky to be at the bottom of it. By that time Yezhov 8 was already dethroned and executed by shooting in Moscow, and after that many cases were closed. But many of our acquaintances were arrested and lost during that period, including the best teachers from our school.

I finished ten-year secondary school in Gomel and got only excellent marks. Having got excellent school-leaving certificate pupils were exempt from entrance examinations. I sent my documents to the Leningrad Technological College and became a student of the chemical department.

In August I arrived in Leningrad for interviewing. They placed me in the hostel, and I did not come back to Gomel any more (it was rather expensive to go from Leningrad to Gomel and back). Do you know the song ‘Daddy was a man of honor, but of a very modest income’? You see, these words could be said about my Daddy.

So my life far away from my family began. But in Leningrad I was not lonely: there lived my uncle Yakov (at that time I did not know that he would become my father-in-law). I visited my uncle every Saturday. I made friends with Maria, my cousin. And my cousin Isaac did not live at home: he was a military man.

He was much elder than me, and in 1936 he graduated from the 1st Medical College in Leningrad. [The St. Petersburg Medical University (former College) named after Pavlov was founded in 1897.] Among the students of their group there were 3 boys, after graduation they all were called up for military service. Isaac served near Leningrad.

Almost every Saturday he came home, bought theater tickets for me and Maria, gave us money to buy cakes. Later he started going to theatres and concerts together with us. It seemed to me that he treated me like a child. One day before his long business trip, he asked me ‘Will you marry me?’ I answered ‘Yes!’ I thought it was a joke.

Next day he left. And later I received a letter from him, where he wrote that he would be happy to marry me. Only then I understood it was not a joke, but that day I had to start on my destiny.

One boy from Gomel studied together with me in the College. We were friends at school, came to Leningrad together. People around us thought that we were going to get married. He always accompanied me wherever I went; but suddenly he noticed that several times I visited the same apartment. He asked me ‘Is that your brother you visit there?’

Later I got married, but I it was too much for me to tell him about my wedding. Therefore I asked my friend to inform him about my marriage. He cried and left our College, because it was above his strength to see me there. Later he became a doctor.

  • During the war

I finished 2 courses, and the war burst out. On July 19, 1942 the College was evacuated to Kazan, we studied and worked there. Some faculties organized production of saccharin. As for me, I worked at the faculty of pyrotechnics; there we were engaged in getting of phosphorus. It was a harmful and dangerous process. Every day I received a small amount of butter and 2 spoons of granulated sugar. It supported my organism a little.

In general, we lived in poverty. For dinner they gave us 2 spoons of mashed peas (we liked it very much). We added there an onion and ate it with a piece of brown bread. We received worker’s cards, therefore it was impossible to die having 800 g of bread a day.

Every Sunday together with my friend we went to the market and bought half a kilogram of potatoes, boiled it, ate and drank the water. Till now I can’t permit myself pouring out water, where I had boiled potatoes. So, we lived that way, but it couldn't be helped! In Leningrad people starved more 9. We knew it for sure, because a lot of us had relatives there…

Winters were very hard in Kazan. And we had almost no clothes to put on. The Kazan girls had valenki. [Valenki - winter boots made of milled wool.] And so we wore those valenki by turns. I was lucky: I had a winter coat with me. When we were at the railway station going to leave for Kazan, my mother-in-law almost threw it in my hands by force.

I remember that I was very indignant at it ‘It is summer now, the war will be finished in 3 or 4 months, why should I take it with me?’ And she answered ‘If you don’t need it, give it somebody as a present. And now take it please, don't refuse, do as I ask you.’ So I took it, because it would have been in bad taste to refuse. Till now I cannot understand, how she managed to find me that day at the overcrowded railway station. She also brought me a wadded blanket.

It is incumbent upon me to mention that in Kazan we were received very well, though a lot of colleges were evacuated there. We never heard a word of reproach, while in fact not everywhere evacuated people were met affably. We were lodged in the large basement of Kazan Chemical and Technological College. They placed there a hundred beds and a hundred bedside-tables. It was very warm there, that’s why I did not unpack my blanket.

In 1943 or 1942 they sent us to dig entrenchments [during the war all people able to work were mobilized for earthwork construction around the cities]. At that moment I called my blanket to mind and took it with me. We were lodged in a premise with an earthen floor and I decided to unpack my blanket. I undid the package and saw a blanket in a snow-white blanket cover.

And you see, the blanket cover was beautifully embroidered. Well, the girls saw it and immediately nicknamed me Countess Balonova. They called me Countess all the time we were together.

My parents and sisters were evacuated in Gorky [Nizhniy Novgorod at present]. At the beginning of the war people lost each other, nobody knew where their relatives left for. Only later we gradually began to learn about the destiny of our relatives. In Gorky my father died. He caught a cold, because they left in haste practically without clothes and had no money to purchase winter clothes.

His disease had lung complication and he died of pneumonia, because it was impossible to get penicillin at that time. And my younger sister served in the army. She was mobilized as soon as they arrived in Gorky.

She served all the war long, and after the victory day they got aboard big lorries and started eastwards. In their battalion there were only women. They all thought they were going to be demobilized. But they went on moving eastward through Moscow, through Urals, through Siberia. When they understood that they were not going home, they started shouting, crying. It appeared that Japan drifted into war 10. So my sister had enough time to fight there till the end of the war. She was there together with her future husband (he was their commander).

And my husband’s family remained in the besieged Leningrad. He managed to help them bringing food, because he served nearby. His sister Maria served in the same medical unit. One day he brought his mother a pork chop, and she said ‘Isaac, I never ate pork, so do you think now in my old age I shall eat it? Don’t feel hurt, but I won’t do it.’ She was very courageous and did not allow her relatives to lose heart. She forced them to get up in the morning, did not allow them to go to bed in the afternoon, and made them change linen and wash whenever it was possible.

In spring of 1943 I graduated from the College. They gave me my diploma written on the yellow parcel paper. They offered me to choose a place of work: Dzerzhinsk near Gorky or Zagorsk near Moscow. I chose Zagorsk, because I hoped to see my husband one day before the end of the war. I hoped that they would send him to Moscow on a business trip. You see, at that time my husband served as a medical officer near Leningrad.

The factory I worked at produced gunpowder and colored smokeless pistol-flare-lights for the front. Earlier I never saw gunpowder, and in Zagorsk I kept the keys to powder-shop. Imagine what serious responsibilities I accepted! Colored pistol-flare-lights were used first of all as a signal system and a means of communication.

For example, the red rocket was a signal to take the offensive, and the green one - to retreat. Therefore it was very important that shipment of red pistol-flare-lights never contained green ones. You see, it could cost thousands of soldiers and officers their lives.

My dream to meet my husband soon came true. He had to accompany a badly wounded pilot to Moscow. From Moscow he came to me (to Zagorsk). I cried all the night long: I was very happy to meet my husband and very sorrowful to part again. Soon I moved to Leningrad and gave birth to my eldest son Mikhail.

In 1944 Soviet armies liberated Baltic republics. My husband served in air-units and participated in liberation. He was left there to serve. I left my factory and moved to my husband together with my newborn son. Once at night some person called my husband and informed about unconditional surrender of Germany.

Early in the morning all Tallin citizens were in the Ratusha square, the main square of Tallin. They were dancing, embracing, crying, singing. They did not care about nationalities: Russians, Estonians, Jews were together there. It was impossible to be forgotten!

In Tallin we had a neighbor Anna Ernestovna. She was a remarkable woman, a real heroine. Such people are worth monuments; let my story about her be that monument.

  • After the war

When the war burst out, Anna Ernestovna lived in Pskov. Near Pskov Germans brought down a Soviet airplane, one of its pilots was wounded, managed to survive and reached Anna's house by crawling. She hid him in the cellar. Above them in the same house there lived German officers. Every evening some girls visited them, they danced. And Anna told us ‘If only they knew that they danced on the floor under which there was a Soviet pilot whom they could not find!’

Anna took care of him, fed him, and bandaged his wounds. When he recovered, he said ‘Anna Ernestovna, thank you ever so much, now I’ll go to find my relatives, they live in Pskov.’ She answered ‘Don’t go, Germans will catch you, look around!’ - ‘No, I’ll do it secretly.’ Several hours later somebody knocked at the door. She opened it and saw 2 Germans and the pilot. He was beaten within an inch of his life: she even could not recognize him! Anna always cried telling that story! It turned out that Germans caught the pilot, beat him and forced to show the house where Anna was hiding him.

So Anna, her husband and 2 their daughters were taken away into the concentration camp. On their way to the camp her husband died of gangrene. Germans moved them from camp to camp in Poland and Germany. Americans liberated them from Buchenwald 11. Anna Ernestovna also had 2 sons. They were at the front line: one of them was on our side and the other one was with Germans (in Pskov Germans forced him to become their soldier).

I told Anna Ernestovna about a beautiful song An Yiddish Mother, and my husband (he was a fighter for equal rights) said ‘Why only a Yiddish mother? And what about the other mothers?’ And Anna Ernestovna answered ‘Isaac Yakovlevich, when they brought us to the camp, all mothers had the right to take their little children with them. But Jewish mothers were not allowed to do it. If they ran after their children, Germans shot them. That is why there is a song about Jewish mother.’

When Americans liberated Buchenwald, they equipped barracks, where camp prisoners were waiting for departure for different countries, with radio. In the barrack of Soviet prisoners they listened to Soviet broadcast. And Anna Ernestovna who suffered knowing nothing about her sons, suddenly heard ‘Listen to the orchestra under the baton of Anatoly Gashnik.’ So she got to know that her elder son was alive.

Anna Ernestovna vowed to adopt an orphan, if her sons survive the war. After the end of the war she went to Pskov and went through the process of adoption of a boy whose parents were lost. She changed his name to Anatoly (her elder son’s name), therefore she had got 2 sons named Anatoly. After that her son came to Tallin to his mother and sisters and settled in our apartment, too. We made good friends with him. Soon he became a dean of the Tallin conservatory.

And that son of hers who served in the German army also survived the war. He was found in Germany, in Danzig by a friend of Anna Ernestovna: she sent her a press-cutting with an announcement about his engagement. He was afraid to write his mother: he thought (not without good reason) that it could be dangerous for her. Only many years later he came to meet his mother.  

In Tallin we lived about four years. After that my husband was sent to Germany. I did not go with him, because at that time authorities did not allow wives to go abroad together with their husbands. In Germany they started activities of the Soviet military government, where Soviet people worked to plant soviet ideas.

My husband had to teach Germans soviet methods of health protection. He said ‘God forbid them to learn it! For a hundred years we can be only dreaming about their level of public health service.’ While Isaac served in Germany, my son and I lived in Leningrad. I worked in the Institute of Toxicology.

In 1952 my husband returned from Germany and was assigned to Ukraine. I went with him. Of course our son was with us. In Ukraine they moved my husband from one place to another. During 6 years we changed 5 places of residence. We lived in Kremenchug, in Uman, and I even have forgotten names of the rest places.

In Kremenchug I taught chemistry at school. But soon I had to leave the school, because by that time there came children born during the war time. Number of such children was very small, that was why a lot of teachers were fired, first of all those ones who had no pedagogical certificate. And I was among them. In Kremenchug in 1955 my younger son Yakov was born.

During his work in Ukraine (and during his life) my husband was never oppressed because of nationalistic reasons. Possible reason was my husband’s great scholarship, compliance and sense of humor. He always easily made friends with people.

In 1958 my husband got demobilized and we returned to Leningrad as a family of four. My husband went to the State College for Advanced Training of Doctors. [The State College for Advanced Training of Doctors was the first in the world educational institution for improvement of doctors’ skill.

It was founded in 1924.] He wanted to get a specialty of radiologist. To tell the truth, he had already got it. You see, serving in Germany he did not drink vodka every evening (like others), but spent his spare time with his friend who worked in the local hospital. His friend was a radiologist; he taught my husband fine points of his profession.

In Leningrad he studied at the advanced training courses for half a year and got a certificate of radiologist. And he worked in one of the Leningrad hospitals as a radiologist for about 30 years. We all lived at my mother-in-law in her large five-room apartment. She put a room at our disposal. And I went to work at the Chemical and Pharmaceutical College.

There I worked 5 years. But before I went there, I made an attempt to return to the Institute of Toxicology, where I worked earlier. I did not go to its personnel department; I addressed my former laboratory head directly. He said ‘You’d better find some other place to work now, but when it becomes easier from the certain viewpoint, I’ll call you, and you will come.’ It was absolutely clear for me what he was talking about: at that time they were not permitted to take Jews.

He called me 5 years later (in 1964), during the so called Khruschev Thaw 12. I came to the Institute and worked there till 1979. I had the right to retire on pension at the age of 45 (because we worked with chemical agents dangerous to health, though pension age in the USSR and in Russia was 55), but I worked 14 years more. I came across no manifestations of anti-Semitism: I worked under very pleasant conditions, though I knew that it was practically impossible for a Jew to find work in our Institute.

It is interesting to mention that a veto was put only on newcomers of Jewish nationality. In the institute there worked a lot of Jews, almost all of them occupied leading positions: managed laboratories, directed scientific investigations, etc. I retired on pension in 1979, and did not work any more.

As in our Institute we worked with chemical agents dangerous to health, each employee received a free-of-charge place in any recreational center he liked one time in 4 years 13. But every year we used to go for vacation to the South: sometimes to Crimea, sometimes to the Caucasus.

During the year we saved money to have an opportunity to go for vacation in summer. My sister’s husband was military (a colonel), he was one of the major executives and used to go for vacation to very good sanatoria every year. Being in sanatorium, he used to find and rent an apartment for his wife, his son, my little children and me. When my children grew up, they started spending summer holidays in sports camps.

Certainly in our family we did not observe Tradition in the full sense of the word. But we always celebrated Jewish holidays and never ate pork. We began buying ham only when my mother-in-law died. Nobody was such a light hand for matzah flour dishes as my sister-in-law. And my mother-in-law was a real master in stuffing fish!

All of us wanted to educate our hands to it: we breathed down her neck watching, and then tried to repeat. No, we never managed. My mother-in-law always put on the table horseradish sauce (to eat it with fish). We used to make horseradish sauce ourselves. We tried to make everything ourselves, not to buy.

First, it was tastier to make yourself, and second, we never had money to spare. Our house was open for friends. When we were young, my husband’s friends often visited us, and we all drew round the table and had dinner. But on holidays we did not invite quests, we liked to be in the family circle.

My son Mikhail was born in 1944 and Yakov in 1955. They were very good children. We had no problems with them, we always understood each other. They both were good sportsmen. The younger son was a volleyball player (he had a sports category), and the elder one went in for boxing and weightlifting.

Since he was an eight-class pupil, Mikhail spent each minute of his spare time reading serious scientific books on nuclear physics. He always studied extremely well. At school he had no problems connected with his nationality, excluding one case. My elder son never fought (he was not a fighter by nature). And suddenly I got to know that he had beaten a boy from his class. I asked him what happened.

Mikhail told me the following ‘Mum, he called me a dirty Jew, and I (in presence of our classmates expressing full approval of it) pushed his face in.’

When he finished his school, Mikhail expressed a wish to enter either the Leningrad University or Polytechnical College [these higher educational institutions were among the best ones in the country]. But he understood how difficult it would be for him to enter [in the USSR higher educational institutions often did not accept Jews, the Polytechnical College in Leningrad was one of them]. Therefore he became a student of the Shipbuilding College.

He finished the 1st course and came to a dean of the Polytechnical College. He showed him his student's record-book (there were only excellent marks in it). Mikhail asked the dean if it was possible to change my College for the Polytechnical one having such marks. The dean looked at his marks and at Mikhail (he was fair-haired and did not look like a Jew) and said that they would be glad to have him as their student if he would pass through 3 extra examinations.

My son got 3 excellent marks and came to the dean again. Later Mikhail told me that the dean looked sadly at his passport, where his nationality was written in black and white. But he appeared to be a decent person and did not take his word back.

Yakov also studied at the Polytechnical College. Since his earliest childhood he was crazy about cars. So he did not graduate from the College, left therefrom and became a taxi driver. He was happy. Sometimes he picked me up after his work to bring me somewhere I needed. I said ‘Yakov, you have already worked 14 hours, have a rest now.’ And he answered ‘Mum, now I’ll have a rest at the driver’s seat.’ Yakov died early in his life from heart disease. And Mikhail works in Vienna now, he had been working there for 7 years.

He signed a contract with the International Agency for Atomic Energy. You know that 20 years ago there happened Chernobyl disaster [Chernobyl disaster was the largest damage of nuclear power station in the history of mankind: it resulted in atmospheric contamination in all European countries], and Mikhail was an expert in that sphere.

At present they invite him from all over the world. Recently he went to Washington to give a report and was awarded a medal for it. Mikhail is a very touching boy. When he earned high money, he told me ‘Mum, I know that you dreamed to see Paris since childhood.’ And he bought us (my sister and me) tickets to Paris and we visited it indeed. Can you imagine it?

Political events never left me indifferent. To tell the truth, it was difficult to remain indifferent: Doctors’ Plot, for instance 14. One morning we got up and heard the official communiqué by radio. They said that doctors treated our leaders incorrectly, poisoned them, therefore our dear leaders died. We grew cold with terror.

You remember that my husband was a doctor, he knew all the listed doctors very well. He had no doubt about their high professionalism and understood that a doctor would never commit such a crime. Almost all listed families were Jewish, so the true purpose of that action was beyond any doubt. We understood that the government authorized pogroms. Everybody became disrespectful to Jews.

One day a soldier came to my husband for medical consultation. My husband asked him to undress to the waist, but the soldier became confused and suddenly said ‘Comrade major, they say that now Jewish doctors will not treat us, but poison.’ You see, it was terrible.

Many people say that they were very sad for Stalin’s death. I also grieved, I thought ‘Why did he die so late?! Why didn’t it happen 10 or 20 years ago? We would have been much happier!’

Regarding the Hungary revolution 15 and the Prague spring 16: I did not trust our newspapers. I understood that it was a scandal to interfere in affairs of other countries. It was shocking and impudent!

I was very much pleased with victories of Israel in its wars [17, 18]. I guess that no Jew was indifferent at that time.

When Perestroika was initiated, I admired Gorbachev 19. We could not even imagine that we would live to see, for example, the fall of the Berlin wall. [Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 to separate Western and Eastern parts of Berlin in Germany. It was demolished in 1989.]

Not many of our friends have left for Israel: 4 or 5 families. We were never going to emigrate. I was afraid of the heat, and my husband always said (for some reason) ‘Don’t even start talking to me about it.’ His work was always very important for him, probably he was not sure to find work there.

I am connected with the Jewish community of St. Petersburg for the most part through the Hesed Avraham Welfare Center 20. I receive 3 or 4 food packages a year. Sometimes they offer me clothes: once I got good winter boots, next time - a knitted suit. Recently they brought me a huge package with bed linen.

I never received help from other countries.

  • Glossary:

1. Communal apartment: The Soviet power wanted to improve housing conditions by requisitioning ‘excess’ living space of wealthy families after the Revolution of 1917. Apartments were shared by several families with each family occupying one room and sharing the kitchen, toilet and bathroom with other tenants. Because of the chronic shortage of dwelling space in towns communal or shared apartments continued to exist for decades.

Despite state programs for the construction of more houses and the liquidation of communal apartments, which began in the 1960s, shared apartments still exist today.

2. MOPR (International Organization for Aid to Revolutionary Fighters): Founded in 1922, and based on the decision of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, the organization aimed to protect workers from the terrorist attacks of the Whites and help the victims of terrorism. It offered material, legal and intellectual support to political convicts, political emigrants and their families.

By 1932 it had a membership of about 14 million people.

3. Komsomol: 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.

4. All-Union pioneer organization: a communist organization for teenagers between 10 and 15 years old (cf: boy-/ girlscouts in the US). The organization aimed at educating the young generation in accordance with the communist ideals, preparing pioneers to become members of the Komsomol and later the Communist Party. In the Soviet Union, all teenagers were pioneers.

5. Russian stove: Big stone stove stoked with wood. They were usually built in a corner of the kitchen and served to heat the house and cook food. It had a bench that made a comfortable bed for children and adults in wintertime.

6. Kirov, Sergey (born Kostrikov) (1886-1934): Soviet communist. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1904. During the Revolution of 1905 he was arrested; after his release he joined the Bolsheviks and was arrested several more times for revolutionary activity. He occupied high positions in the hierarchy of the Communist Party.

He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, as well as of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. He was a loyal supporter of Stalin. In 1934 Kirov's popularity had increased and Stalin showed signs of mistrust. In December of that year Kirov was assassinated by a younger party member. It is believed that Stalin ordered the murder, but it has never been proven.

7. Great Terror (1934-1938): During the Great Terror, or Great Purges, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison. The major targets of the Great Terror were communists. Over half of the people who were arrested were members of the party at the time of their arrest.

The armed forces, the Communist Party, and the government in general were purged of all allegedly dissident persons; the victims were generally sentenced to death or to long terms of hard labor. Much of the purge was carried out in secret, and only a few cases were tried in public ‘show trials’.

By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the Party and the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary. Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union until his death in March 1953.

8. Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich (1895-1939): Political activist, State Security General Commissar (1937), Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR from 1936-38. Arrested and shot in 1939. One of the leaders of mass arrests during Stalin’s Great Purge between 1936-1939.

9. Blockade of Leningrad: On September 8, 1941 the Germans fully encircled Leningrad and its siege began. It lasted until January 27, 1944. The blockade meant incredible hardships and privations for the population of the town. Hundreds of thousands died from hunger, cold and diseases during the almost 900 days of the blockade.

10. War with Japan: In 1945 the war in Europe was over, but in the Far East Japan was still fighting against the anti-fascist coalition countries and China. The USSR declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945 and Japan signed the act of capitulation in September 1945.

11. Buchenwald: Nazi concentration camp operating from March 1937 until April 1945 in Germany, near Weimar. It was divided into 136 wards; inmates were forced to labor in the armaments industry, quarries; approx. 56,000 thousand of the 238,000 inmates, representing many nationalities, died. An uprising of the prisoners broke out shortly before liberation, on 11 April 1945

12. Khrushchev, Nikita (1894-1971): Soviet communist leader. After Stalin’s death in 1953, he became first secretary of the Central Committee, in effect the head of the Communist Party of the USSR. In 1956, during the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev took an unprecedented step and denounced Stalin and his methods. He was deposed as premier and party head in October 1964. In 1966 he was dropped from the Party's Central Committee.

13. Recreation Centers in the USSR: trade unions of many enterprises and public organizations in the USSR constructed recreation centers, rest homes, and children’s health improvement centers, where employees could take a vacation paying 10 percent of the actual total cost of such stays. In theory each employee could take one such vacation per year, but in reality there were no sufficient numbers of vouchers for such vacations, and they were mostly available only for the management.

14. Doctors’ Plot: The Doctors’ Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture.

This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin’s reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

15. 1956: It designates the Revolution, which started on 23rd October 1956 against Soviet rule and the communists in Hungary. It was started by student and worker demonstrations in Budapest started in which Stalin’s gigantic statue was destroyed. Moderate communist leader Imre Nagy was appointed as prime minister and he promised reform and democratization.

The Soviet Union withdrew its troops which had been stationing in Hungary since the end of World War II, but they returned after Nagy’s announcement that Hungary would pull out of the Warsaw Pact to pursue a policy of neutrality. The Soviet army put an end to the rising on 4th November and mass repression and arrests started. About 200,000 Hungarians fled from the country. Nagy, and a number of his supporters were executed.

Until 1989, the fall of the communist regime, the Revolution of 1956 was officially considered a counter-revolution.

16. Prague Spring: The term Prague Spring designates the liberalization period in communist-ruled Czechoslovakia between 1967-1969. In 1967 Alexander Dubcek became the head of the Czech Communist Party and promoted ideas of ‘socialism with a human face’, i.e. with more personal freedom and freedom of the press, and the rehabilitation of victims of Stalinism. In August 1968 Soviet troops, along with contingents from Poland, East Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria, occupied Prague and put an end to the reforms.

17. Six-Day-War: The first strikes of the Six-Day-War happened on 5th June 1967 by the Israeli Air Force. The entire war only lasted 132 hours and 30 minutes. The fighting on the Egyptian side only lasted four days, while fighting on the Jordanian side lasted three. Despite the short length of the war, this was one of the most dramatic and devastating wars ever fought between Israel and all of the Arab nations. This war resulted in a depression that lasted for many years after it ended. The Six-Day-War increased tension between the Arab nations and the Western World because of the change in mentalities and political orientations of the Arab nations.

18. Yom Kippur War: The Arab-Israeli War of 1973, also known as the Yom Kippur War or the Ramadan War, was a war between Israel on one side and Egypt and Syria on the other side. It was the fourth major military confrontation between Israel and the Arab states. The war lasted for three weeks: it started on 6th October 1973 and ended on 22nd October on the Syrian front and on 26th October on the Egyptian front.

19. Gorbachev, Mikhail (1931- ): Soviet political leader. Gorbachev joined the Communist Party in 1952 and gradually moved up in the party hierarchy. In 1970 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, where he remained until 1990. In 1980 he joined the politburo, and in 1985 he was appointed general secretary of the party.

In 1986 he embarked on a comprehensive program of political, economic, and social liberalization under the slogans of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). The government released political prisoners, allowed increased emigration, attacked corruption, and encouraged the critical reexamination of Soviet history.

The Congress of People’s Deputies, founded in 1989, voted to end the Communist Party’s control over the government and elected Gorbachev executive president. Gorbachev dissolved the Communist Party and granted the Baltic states independence. Following the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States in 1991, he resigned as president. Since 1992, Gorbachev has headed international organizations.

20. Hesed: Meaning care and mercy in Hebrew, Hesed stands for the charity organization founded by Amos Avgar in the early 20th century. Supported by Claims Conference and Joint Hesed helps for Jews in need to have a decent life despite hard economic conditions and encourages development of their self-identity. Hesed provides a number of services aimed at supporting the needs of all, and particularly elderly members of the society.

The major social services include: work in the center facilities (information, advertisement of the center activities, foreign ties and free lease of medical equipment); services at homes (care and help at home, food products delivery, delivery of hot meals, minor repairs); work in the community (clubs, meals together, day-time polyclinic, medical and legal consultations); service for volunteers (training programs).

The Hesed centers have inspired a real revolution in the Jewish life in the FSU countries. People have seen and sensed the rebirth of the Jewish traditions of humanism. Currently over eighty Hesed centers exist in the FSU countries. Their activities cover the Jewish population of over eight hundred settlements.

Judel Ronder

Judel Ronder
Kaunas
Lithuania
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: October 2005

Judel Ronder is living in one of the buildings constructed in soviet times in Kaunas. Judel instantly agreed for an interview in spite of feeling unwell. The door was open by a Lithuanian lady of the middle age. She said she was Judel’s custodian. He was sitting at the table. It was hard for him to get up. Judel was a tall, big man with nice facial features, sleek hair and sparkling eyes. When looking at him, it is hard to believe how old he is. Yudel starts his story. He is trying to tell as much as possible. His main storyline is about the people who perished in holocaust. No matter what he talked, he would always mention about the fate of the Jews during the war. First I was trying to make his story more customary course, but then I understood (and Judel confirmed it) that he was ‘afflicted’ holocaust, and I just listened to him closely. We were in a drawing room. We could hear that someone came in another room. It was Stepha’s daughter. When Stepha silently came in the room, it looked like she was aware of Yudel’s stories and she was worried about the fate of the Jews of her country.

I was born in Lithuanian town Kedainiai [about 100 km to the west from Vilnius]. In 1920s-1930s it was a small district town. The population was a little bit over three thousands, two thirds out of which were Jews. There were strong Jewish traditions in town.

I do not know much about my ancestors. My saw my maternal grandparents only once. It was during my childhood, when mother took her children to them. I was about 6-7. Grandfather Hirsh (his Jewish name was Tsvie) and grandmother Beila Bobtelski lived in a small town Naujamiestis [about 150 km to the west from Vilnius] not far from then German border. They were born in the middle of the 19th century. I do not know what grandfather did for a living, when he was young. When we came to see him, he was rather elderly and was not working. Grandmother was a housewife. They had their own one-storied house. We occupied one room when we came. We stayed there for about a week. I had not seen grandparents since then. I know that both of them died in early 1930s and without having lived to see the war, fortunately. 

Mother had three sisters and a brother. Mother’s elder sister born in 1875, had Russian name Natalia. Probably she had another Jewish name, but I remembered the name she was called by her kin. Natalia was married to a Lithuanian Jew Frenkel. They left for South African in early 1920s. Natalia died 1970s. As it turned out we did not have anything to speak about as we had different lives and turned out to have nothing in.

My mother’s second sister Frieda, born in 1877, lived with her husband Meishe Markson in a small town on the North of Lithuania Pilviskei. Frida’s husband was a rich merchant. She sold poultry and horses to England and Germany. Frieda had many children: Channa, Yudel, Leiba and Leya. When the Soviets came to power 1, the whole family of Marksons was exiled in Siberia [Deportations from the Baltics] 2. Leiba, who was out of town, and little Leya, who was sheltered by the neighbors, stayed. The rest family members survived in Siberia and left for Israel in 1956 from Altai. Meishe died in Israel shortly after his arrival. He fell ill in Siberia. Frieda passed away shortly after him. Frida’s daughter Channa is currently living in Jerusalem, Israel. She got married with Friedman.

Mother younger sister Tsilya, born in the middle of the 1880s, got widowed young. When her husband died, she and her son David left for Palestine in early 1920s. She died in late 1940s, and her son David got a legal education and became a prosecutor. He is currently living in Israel. He has a large family –about 15 grandchildren and great grandchildren. We do not keep in touch as they do not speak Russian or Lithuanian, and I do not know Ivrit.

Mother’s brother Mordechai, born in 1890 was the youngest in the family. In 1920s he left for Palestine, wherefrom he went to England, where he graduated from London university. He found a good match for him, a Jewish lady Frieda who was in love with the science. They had been working together all life long. Mordechai, who was called Max, held lectures in London university. Both of them were constantly occupied with research, and they seemed to have no time for having children. Mordechai died in 1950s. Frieda survived him by ten years.

My mother Leya Bobtelskaya was born in 1879. In her birth record, issued by the rabbi, Sarah Leya was written. She was always called her second name Leya. Mother went to elementary school. She could speak and write in Russian, and she practically did not know Lithuanian. Mother said when she was wooed to Kedainiai Jew Wolf Ronder, before getting married she gave her the clew of tangle threads. According to the local Jewish tradition the bride was to unravel the threads which would infer that she was patient and hard working. Mother easily coped with the task. In actuality, further on she happened to be a good wife.  

After getting married, mother moved to Kedainiai, where my father was living. I did not know paternal grandparents as they died long before I was born. I know that grandfather’s name was Menachem Rondem. I cannot recall grandmother’s name. Menachem was a gardener. He was especially good at cultivation of the cucumbers, which Kedainiai, took pride in. That business was taken over by children, my father in particular. Father had siblings and all I know about them is that they left for South Africa. I only knew about father’s elder brother Yudel. He was born in the early 1870s and died one year before I was born. I was named after him. I do not remember his wife either. She perished in ghetto. Yudel’s daughters Mina and Beile left for Palestine in 1934 with their numerous offspring. Mina had lived in Haifa all life long. She died in 1990. Beile remained single. She passed away in the 1980s. Yudel’s son Chaim Ronder was a close person for me. During occupation he managed to run away from ghetto and had been in hiding and he was by a hair’s breadth of death. In 1943 he happened to be in a partisan squad, which entered liberated Vilnius. Chaim died in couple of years after war. She was still very young. Yudel’s younger son Aba perished in ghetto.

My father Zeyev Wolf was born in 1875. I do not know where exactly he studied. I think he was literate. Father as well as grandfather cultivated cucumbers and sold them wholesale. I do not know for sure ho my parents met, but I think they had a prearranged marriage. In 1898 my parents got married in chuppah in the main synagogue of Kedainia. There were a lot of guests at the wedding, Jewish musicians. In word, it was a true Jewish wedding.

In a year, in 1899 my eldest brother Abel was born and in 1902 –David, in 1904 – Mordechai, in 1906 – Leibl, in 1910 – Menachem, in 1912 – Benjamin, and in 1914 – the only sister Beile.

In 1914 when the first world war was unleashed, the tsarist government exiled the Jews from the frontiers regions of Russian having considered Jews to be potential spies. Our family was to move to Kharkov [Ukraine, about 600 km from Kiev]. Father and elder brother were employed by tea factory. The factory was located out of town and father with his sons had to take a shuttle train. The train went past our house. At that time train speed was not high and usually on the way home father and brothers just jumped off the train being happy with making a beeline home. In 1919 the tribulation came to pass: as usual Dovid and father jumped off the train, but a handsome, 17-year old lad Dovid, fell under the train. Both of his legs were cut off. Fortunately, Dovid survived and even after his return in Lithuania in 1920 he got married and was happy in his own way. His wife Rivka, who came of a very poor family, married Dovid having deep affection towards him. She was not only a beauty, but she was also very kind and outgoing person. Besides, she was very intelligent. Dovid and Rivka had a son Volodya, who was a year and a half younger than me. He and I retreated together during the war. We were very close friends. Dovid and Rivka stayed in occupation and were killed in 1941.

In contrast to Dovid, the family life of my brother Avel was unhappy/ Shortly after his return to Kharkov Abel married Kedainia Jew Bune, who was very angry and feisty, who always threw him fits and even beat my brother. To please his temperamental wife and make money, Abel left for South Africa for seasonal work at plantation. My father went with him twice within four years. Both of them worked very hard and undermined their health. In 1930 Abel had appendicitis and was taken to the Jewish hospital in Kaunas, but it was too late and he died. He was buried in Jewish cemetery. Those were the first funeral that I remember. I took part in the mourning along with the adults. I was sitting in the torn (by the collar) attire. Bunya and Abel’s daughter Yudita moved to Kaunas and both of them perished in Kaunas ghetto.3

The third brother Morduchai finished lyceum. He married Jews Luba from Marijampole [Lithuania, about 100 km to the east from Vilnius]and moved to her. In his town Morduchai became a respectable man. He was the chief accountant at the mill. In 1941 Morduchai, his wife Luba and their baby David, were shot in Marijampole.

My adolescent brother Leibl left for Argentine to look for work. I remember him giving me a strong hug when saying good bye. This is all I remember about him. I had a bad toothache and I could not think of saying goodbye to my brother. At that time I did not understand what it was to say goodbye for good. At first Leibl wrote mournful letters, which made mother cry a lot. He wrote that he did not have a place to live, a thing to eat, and he remember tsimes mother used to make every Friday. He had to sleep in town garden of Buenos Aires. Then his things got better and Leibl found a job, married a Jew Adel from Byelorussia. They had a happy life together. Leibl’s son Kito is currently living in Israel and their daughter Channa recently died in Argentine. Leibl had a long life. He died in the middle of 1990s.

My favorite brother Menachem remained single and lived with us. He kept on working with father’s business- husbandry and sales of vegetables. He served in Lithuanian army. I have his picture in the uniform. Menachem was apolitical, he was fond of sports and he was a member of the Jewish sports organization Beitar 4. Menachem was shot by fascists in our town during the first days of war.

Benjamin, the youngest brother, was an underground komsomol member 5. When the Soviets came to power, Benjamin started working as an accountant in one of the soviet organizations. He married local Jew Miriam Ioffe. Miriam got pregnant before the outbreak of war. She and Benjamin were shot were shot during the first days of occupation in Kedainiai. along with other komsomol members.

My only sister Beila was beautiful. She got a good education – she graduated from Lithuanian lyceum. She was well educated and erudite. Beile married a rich Jew, grain trader Feivel Shishanskiy. I loved their little daughter Iona very much. I tendered her. Beila’s family was also shot by  fascists during one of the first actions in Kedainiai.

I was born, when my parents were considered elderly. Father was about fifty and mother was in her late forties. By the time when I was born (17 March 1923) my father got very sick – he had open tuberculosis. When he was dying, father asked to wait before he died to name me after him as in accordance with the Jewish tradition I was supposed to be named after him, but I was circumcised on the 8th day and was given the name of my elder brother Yudel. The baby was to be named before brit-milah. In two weeks my father died.

The house, where I was born, was one-storied long building made by grandfather Leibl, which was practically out of town, close to the gardens. I vaguely remember that place. When the family was getting larger (practically all my brothers, beside my single brother Menachem, Leibl, who left for Argentine and Morduchai who left for Meriampol) brought their wives in our house. Then started having children, there was less and less room. Then mother sold the old house and bought another one in the downtown. It was kind of angular, two-winged, two storied wooden house like most Lithuanian houses. There were seven rooms, a large kitchen, where the whole family met at dinner in the evening.. Our family was neither rich nor poor. We had a modest living, but had all necessary things my mother and brothers worked very hard. They did not have easy bread. Мenachem dealt with husbandry more than anyone else in the family. In spite of the fact that he was not the oldest, he took over father’s business. Menachem treated me very well, trying to be like a father to me so that I would not feel like being an orphan. Even now I sincerely consider him to be my second father.

I do not know for sure at what time mother got up. At any rate it was long before the sunrise. She had to take are of livestock- chicken, turkeys, cows and horses. Besides, she took care of the husbandry. The family had equipage as well as dray horse. When I was a child, I got up very early, usually at 5-6 am and went in kitchen. By that time mother was by the stove baking bread and pies. Usually Yiddish was spoken at home. In the morning, mother used to speak Russian for me to have a good command of that language. She read me children’s verses about butterflies, moths and had me memorize them. The hardest thing was to feed me. I was a very feeble child. I most likely was afflicted with tuberculosis as later on the doctors found some lung scarring. Besides, I had constant toothaches. Thus, having meals was a real ordeal to me. Mother was running after me with a spoon of soup or porridge beseeching me to eat something and promising some presents for that. The only thing I was willing to eat were the cutlets made by mother. Then she found a funny way out- she paid me 10 cents for every plate of food I ate, but still it did not always work. I was such a poor eater that is hard for me to remember what my mother cooked every day. In summer Menachem hired some people to work in the garden as there was a lot to do. When I grew up, there was a job for me as well. I packed tomatoes for sale once, when there was a rich crop of cucumbers, mother asked me to sell some of them. I was standing on the road, heading to the town and sold cucumbers to the passersby and took 5 cents for one cupa (the container where 60 cucumbers could fit in). I turned out to be a bad salesman as cucumbers got rotten and I had to throw them away in the river.

It is hard to say how religious the family was when father was alive. When he died, mother was so busy with her chores that she probably had no time for praying. At any rate, at home she did not cover her head. I do not remember her praying. Sabbath was mark obligatorily. Usually mother went to the synagogue on Friday, having put a dressy outfit on and laced head cover. Brother and I also went there. In the evening mother lit candles. I still remember how she leaned over them and put her palms on he eyes. We had a festive dinner on Saturday- chicken stew, pies, sometimes gefilte fish. Mother tried not to do anything on Saturday. Usually some Polish lady worked. She also helped with gardening. But still, there were times when mother had to work on Saturday- to milk cows, feed poultry. Thus, she had to break Sabbath rules.

Jewish charity was very developed in town. We also helped the poor for them to have the chance to mark Sabbath. I remember that we had a very poor blacksmith, who had very many children. His wife was butter fingers and managed things poor. Apart from money, Rivka sent them basket with food every Friday.

Kashrut was observed at home. When I grew up, mother often sent me to shochet in synagogue. I liked watching him how he made a precision cut on the hen’s throat and hang it on the hook with a special funnel, wherefrom the blood was trickling down. The dentist prescribed me pork’s hat. I liked it a lot. Brother Menachem came to me and brought me a piece of pork fat telling me that it was important for me to eat it to be healthy. I ate it only when nobody was looking. Especially I did not want mother to see it. When I was a schoolboy, German Neiman rented some premises from us. He owned a store, where sausages and delicious ham was on offer. I was obsessed by the smell of that ham. The German guy must have felt it. Once when I came in his store, he started talking me into having a piece of ham. I was adamant saying that it was nonkosher. Then he put pork’s fat on my lips and pressed me against the wall. He was laughing at me being pleased with humiliating me. I did not say a word to my mother about that case. Since that time I had never stopped by that place. When in late 1930s, Hitler called all Germans upon returning to their motherland and all Germans from Baltic countries repatriated to Germany. Neiman also left.

We marked main Jewish holidays at home. I loved Rosh Hashanah, when the shofars were blown in the synagogues. At home we had a festive dinner.. On Yom Kippur we fasted obligatorily. I also fasted on that day, even when I was in the lines. I liked autumn holidays. Though we did not put sukkah in our yards, but I called on my Jewish friends and we had meals in the tabernacle. Simchat Torah was a joyful holiday. We ran to the synagogue to watch Jews dancing with the Torah scroll. I became rich on Chanukkah – mother and elder brothers gave money to me. I bought deserts with some of the money and shared them with my friends and nephews. On Chanukah we lit the candles on Chanukah- a silver candlestick. Each day we added a new candle. In accordance with the tradition, the chanukiah was placed on the windowsill and the whole city was shining with the lights. On that holiday children played with the spinning top and adults played cards. We ate tasty potato fritters. On Purim mother baked hamantashen and I took them to my school friends. They also brought presents- shelakhmones to me. On Pesach mother baked all kind of Jewish dishes- tsimes, sponge cake, chicken stew, gefilte fish. There was matzah at home. We ate no bread at that period of time. We got ready for the holiday beforehand making the house sparkling clean. I was given a task to whisk the eggs and sugar for the holiday cake. All siblings with their families came to us, but nobody carried out seder as neither father nor grandfather were a live, and brothers were modern people and they did not know how to do it and were not willing to. We did not disdain traditions. We loved our parents so we tried to please them and did what we were supposed to in accordance with the Jewish traditions. I do not know why I did not go through bar mitzvah.

My brothers’ favorite pastime was to keeping a diary. I found out about their diary, when I was a schoolboy. It turned out that mother and elder brothers described important dates for the family there. I read about my birthday there, about father’s death, about father’s request to hold on with my name. There was also the information about the birth of my nephew, Dovid’s son, who was named Volf after father [in Russian Volodya]. Volodya was my closest friend and.

Kedainiai of my childhood was a quiet Jewish town, where its inhabitants had a regular life. The only culprit was one Jewish drunkard Goldberg. He even at times was lying in the street and was taken home. When I grew up, I enjoyed going shopping with my friends and buy some small things there. There were tailors, cobblers, watch menders, glazer and other craftsmen. The richer people owned either brick or stone houses. I remember pediatrician Mulyar. He had two beautiful daughters, with whom I went to school on 28 August 1941. His whole family was shot by fascists during mass execution in Kedainiai. I remember an old lawyer Abramowitz, who loved children and treated them to deserts. During the occupation rabbi was smudged in tar and chicken feathers, taken out outside and teased, Almost all Kedainiai Jews who had not deported during the soviet times, were killed. 

There were several schools in Kedainia, including Yiddish and Ivrit Jewish schools. When I was seven, I went to Ivrit 6-year school. My elder brothers insisted on that thinking that there I would get a more classic education. Before 14 I was a madcap and had did not think of studies. Having read the books by Sholom Aleichem 6 I decided to get the apples the way it was described in one of his stories. I made gadget looking like a rod a nail at thee end [I closely followed the instruction of the story written by Sholom Aleichem] and went to neighbor’s fence. Widow Schneider had an apple orchard and sold apples. Even in winter time she sat on the threshold of her house, having put warm coals under her skirt and sold the apples. I rooted under the fence with my rod and started getting the apples put in the piles. Suddenly someone snatched me. It was Schneider crying out loud. She pulled on my ear and took me home to my mother. I liked throwing stones at ‘alive targets’. Once I threw a stone at the chicken of my neighbor. She came to me that the chicken killed in non-kosher way could not be eaten. When something like that happened perturbed neighbors came up to mother and she only signed and covered their losses. My mommy never punished me. She understood that I was growing up without a father and she loved me very much.

In general, my school years fled very quickly. I had studied for six years in that school and I learnt Ivrit very well. I graduated from school in 1936. Our family had a pretty good relationship with the school principal Nisim Zaltsburg. Nisim was a friend of my brother Menachem and he decided to cram me for lyceum free of charge. In Keidanai there were no other educational institutions apart from Lithuanian lyceum and my mother did not want to hear anything about my going to any other city. I was very well crammed by Zalsburg and passed the exams preterm and entered the 3rd grade of Lithuanian lyceum. my favorite teacher Nisim Zaltsburg perished before a big action. He could not stand humiliation from the fascists and he hang himself in the room prior to execution of Kedainiai Jews.

When I began my studies at the lyceum, it seemed to me I was the unluckiest guy in the universe. At that time it was not a coed school. Girls were studying separately. There were 9 Jews out 32 students in the class. There was an ardent anti-Semitism, which was implicitly encouraged by teachers. We were teased, humiliated and even chastised. My classmate Gelsburg was so beaten that he had to keep to bed for two months. Nobody was punished, usually after such cases the principal said that all of us had to calm down without saying who was to be blamed. In late 1930s there was an anti-Semitism way in Polish and Lithuanian educational institutions. The Jews had to take separate desks, where they were supposed to be segregated from the rest. In some educational institutions certain students and administration were strongly against such discrimination. In our school there were some anti-Semitists who brought up the subject. During the Lithuanian lesson one of the Lithuanians got up and said «we, the Lithuanians, are not willing to sit with the kikes!» The teacher agreed with him. After such an offence, the Jews did not want to sit closely with anti-Semitists. We took the left side of the classroom. Then, one of the students, a Lithuanian Pole Katkyavichus, sat close to us without saying a word. I still remember that moment, the way I felt, my eyes streaming with tears from that warmth he demonstrated. I remembered that guy in my hardest days- when I was in the trenches. That reminiscence made me stronger. Katkyavichus remained in occupation, but he did not stigmatize himself with anything. After war he became the chairman of physical training committee. I met him often. We were friends.

. I was a very serious lad when I was in senior grades. I decided to get a good education, no matter what. I did pretty well. I started taking an interest in politics, listened to radio at home, I read newspapers. Of course, I knew what was going on in the world. I knew that fascists came to power in Germany and Spain, and what threat it was to the world. I was a member of Jewish youth organization A Shomer Azair  7. It was a left wing organization, getting ready the youth for immigration to Palestine, purchase of Jewish land plots, establishment of kibbutz. In general, the ideas of the organization were pretty close to communistic. I caught every piece of information about Soviet Union, thinking this country to be the domain of justice and happiness. My only dream was to leave for Spain, which was at war 8 or to go to Palestine, even if I had to walk there. I even started getting ready for the escape- bought a German backpack, stuffed it with rusks and sweets. Besides, I always replenished my stock of the rusks and sweets with the fresh ones. I also had geographic maps, torch and a Swiss knife. In a word, I took it very serious. If the Soviet had not come to power, I might have realized my dream.

I late June 1940 Soviet troops entered Lithuania 9. It was the happiest event in my life. Despite of not being a komsomol member, I was a stickler of communistic idea. I did not know what was going in the USSR, repressions 10, arrests of innocent people. When the Soviets came to power, I thought that the life would be amazingly splendid. My wise mother was very worried, she even cried saying that the land and the house might have been taken from us. I tried to calm her down and say that it was a mere trifle as compared to the fact that we would become free and equal. My pal – a komsomol member, and I went to Didzhuny on purpose as the units of Red army were positioned there and we were eager to see them. We worshiped those guys. Underground communists organized demonstration supporting the Soviets, who were met by the platoon of Lithuanian soldiers creating a mess. In general, the first days of the soviet regime were rather ardent and emotional.

Our life barely changed. Though, part of our land was nationalized, but we still had a small land plot. It was enough for our life, besides mother had some savings. The only relative of mine who was exiled was mother’s sister Frieda. As for the rest of us, we did were not affected by repressions. There was a school reform. In fall of 1940 our lyceum was made into the soviet school. Subjects were taught in Lithuanian, but our teachers remained the same. I was in high spirits, I felt inner freedom. I was not the member of komsomol, but I was friends with our komsomol leader Eisek Ioffe, who got me ready for joining komsomol organization.

On Saturday 21 June1941 we had a festive dinner at school, dedicated to the year end. The party was organized by military unit positioned in Kedainia. There was a concert of school choir. We danced, watched a movie about the life in USSR. It was a nice party. My comrade Morduchai Mulyar and I came back home at 2 am. On our way home we were singling a popular soviet song Favorite city can Sleep Quietly. Near Morduchai’s house we said: see you tomorrow, but the next day early in the morning we found out about attack of fascist Germany. I had never seen Morduchai again as he was shot during the first action.

My brother Menachem and Dovid in particular insisted on leaving the city and going to the East immediately. At that time our neighbor, my coeval Lithuanian Vitas threatened me with his feast crying out that soon I, comsomol kike would pay for everything. When the war was unleashed my mother was a rather elderly lady- she was over sixty. She had problems with the vessels on her legs and she could hardly walk. Mother, legless brother Dovid and his wife Rivka got on the cart. I, Menachem and Volodya, my nephew, followed the cart. People were walking on the road. There were people on the bikes and in the carts. All of them headed in the Eastern direction. Though, most of the Jews stayed in the city, having decided that Germans would do no harm like it happened during the first world war. Closer to the evening we reached the town of Sheta, the motherland of Rivka. Here her elderly parents were living. I had never seen such poverty in my life, such a wretched house. We spent a night there. There were other Jews from Kedainia who were heading to the east.

We could not fall asleep because of being alarmed. Dovid and Menachem had been discussing something all night long and at dawn they called Volodya and I. They started insisting that Volodya and I, the youngest, should leave the place immediately and go to Byelorussia by ourselves. Menachem could not leave the elderly people and Dovid, therefore they insisted that the younger ones should leave at once. Our conversation was heard by other young people and they also started packing. There were fifty of us. Some of us walked, others rode the bikes. We decided to take the road to Ukmerge. I was bellicose and dreamt of serving in Red Army. I even did not think of the fact that I was leaving my mother. I could not picture that I would never see her again. The brothers told me that we were not parting for a long time. Soon the fascists were to go back and we were supposed to come back soon and we’ll reunite with the family quickly. Rivka and mother found out about that and burst into tears. They did not want to let us go. Then Menachem took me aside and told not to pay attention to their rationale and to the tears of ‘silly women’. Menachem gave me his bike and wad of soviet money [I think there were 600 rubles]. Menachem took great Swiss watch Tisso from the pocket and gave it to me. He also put a waterproof cloak on me. Dovid also found as bike for Volodya and gave him money. Only later on I understood and appreciated what Menachem did. He understood that all of them were to die and did his best to save the lives of the youngest generation of the family- Volodya and I. My friend Aizek Ioffe also wanted to join us, but father did not let him go as he though that he had to share the fate of the whole family. The parents of the rest of the children did not let them go either. In general, there were the four of us who went together. I took my backpack, where I had rusks and toffees, flash light and the map of Lithuania. Mother only managed to kiss me and give me two cutlets. Those were the last mother’s cutlets I ate.

We took Ukmerte road. On our way we were stopped by the group of Lithuanians, who had become Hitler’s followers since the first days of war.. «Go where you came from, kikes!» - They were instructed not to let anyone pass. We took a minute to think and came back to Panevezhis crossroads. Not having reached it in the town Nigav, we called on an old poor Jew. He housed us in. early in the morning we hit the road. The host started asking us questions : what is going on, why are we running? – it turned out that he did not know anything about the war. We went to Panevezhis. Lithuanian ladies, who were working in the fields started throwing stones at us and saying– «Where are you running, kikes?» – We ignored them without looking up. In the morning of 24 June we came to Panevezhis. We heard the sounds of shooting and bombing. There were warehouses burning. We decided to go to the komsomol committee to ask for weapons and fight the fascist. In the building of the district komsomol committee people were fussy, running around with some papers. At first, nobody paid attention to us as there was a panic. Suddenly one man in the uniform ran up to me and arrested me. My pals were untouched. I looked like a saboteur paratrooper to him as I had a waterproof cloak and a German backpack on. Without saying a word they pushed me and took to NKVD office 11, which was located in red brick house. There was an officer sitting at desk in the office where I was taken. Judging by his shoulder straps he was a colonel. He took a pistol from the holster and put it on the desk. Interrogation started. I calmly said that I was a Jew, running away with my friends to the east to join the Red army. The colonel was not listening – «Why do you need the flash light, the map of Lithuania to signalize where the military positions are- you are a spy !».He asked for the convoy and told me to put my arms behind the back. When they walked me on the yard and could notice the body of shot tankmen. There were about six or seven Lithuanians in the basemen. Lithuanians told each other about their feats- one of them boasted of killing the tankman with a knife. I felt terrible as I understood that it was a criminal gang. I understood that nobody would look into my issue and I understood that I would be executed with those criminals. I remembered the movie called we are from Kronstadt, where the sailor tore his singlet before executing. I decided that when I would be taken out for the execution, I would sing International [Anthem of the International Worker’s Movement and of the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1943. Originally French it has been translated to most languages and has been widely used and is still used by various Socialist and Communist movements world wide.] to prove that I was not an enemy. Soon I was taken out of the basement. Hardly had I started singing saw I my pals standing by NKVD lieutenant and pointing at me. The lieutenant came up to me and asked me in Yiddish who I was. Then Volodya turned up and said that I was his uncle. Thus, I did not have to sing International as they let me go. Even now I remember about that case with humor despite of being about to die.

We went to the train station- the echelon with the fugitives was about formed at that time. We took the locomotive train. At night we headed to the east. There was such a bombing on our way that one lady ran amuck. We witnessed her hysteric laughter. Somewhere in Byelorussia, the train was stopped and all civilians were told to get off the train. That was a spy mania at that time as they were afraid that the agents might cross the border along with the fugitives. We walked along the ties and happened to be in Latvia again. We spent a might in the house of the Russians and were given there a very warm welcome. In the morning we tried to cross the border for several times. Frontier officers were in ambush behind the bushes and did not let the people cross the border. Finally we found a loophole and happened to be in Byelorussia once again. We had walked for several kilometers and stopped by the administration of some kolkhoz 12 to slake thirst and to ask for food. My mother’s cutlets and sweets from my backpack were eaten a while ago. The administration gave us water and during our respite they called the frontier officers. Again we looked suspicious. My pals tried to talk me into getting rid of my backpack, but I said I would not it in any way. We had to lean against the wall with our hands raised right in front of Stalin’s portrait.  We were checked and released. We had to walk again. I do not know how long we went on foot that our legs got swollen. So we walked barefoot. We slept straight in the field. Thus we reached Nevel, which is to the North from Minsk. There was a locomotive train at the station. There were big stones on one of the platforms. A wounded pilot, and several officers were lying on those stones. We asked them to go with them having explained that we were the fugitives from Lithuania. The guys helped us climb on those stones and we headed farther. On our way we plucked some grass and put in on the stones. It was a tiring trip. Besides, we were starving. In a while we started having lice, which always appeared in war and devastation I rolled my pants and was shocked to see that my boots were teeming with lice.

Thus we reached Sverdlovsk [about 1000 km to the North East from Moscow]. There was an evacuation point straight at the train station. We had to go through disinfection right away. I was ashamed to take my clothes off in the presence of the nurses’ aides – ladies. They were not looking at us as they were used to their work. When I was taking a warm shower, I saw that my whole body was I red bits from lice. After sanitation we were given food to eat. We started brooding on next steps. It did not take us long as the so called ‘recruiters’ came. They hired young and healthy people for work. When they saw the four of us- young and healthy all of them started talking us into working for them. Volodya and I agreed to work in one of the coal mines of the region. Here we parted with our fellow travelers and we had no idea what happened to them later.

Our passports had been taken right away and we went far in taiga. We had covered about 180 kilometers of God forsaken woods and arrived at local hamlet. We were housed in the hostel and the next day we went to the mine. It was a new mine and every day we had to dig about 6 deep pits. The waters were dripping behind the collar making it really cold. I had never worked so hard in my life. In the morning we had warm porridge without butter and then we had to toil all day long. There were a lot of drunkards in the village. Everyday the men were drafted in the army, so vodka and moon shine were gone. There was even no eau-de-Cologne from the local store. We also went to the military enlistment office, but Lithuanian people had not been drafted yet as there was no trust in them at that time. There at the mine we made friends with young man Kopelev and he decided to help with the transfer for timber cutting. We took us in his place. His mother, a kind Russian woman, gave us some food and tried to convince us that we should leave this place as we would not survive the winter here. She advised that we should go to HR department and take our passports back. It took us a long time to convince our boss. I said that I wanted to study and Volodya said that he had a heart trouble ( it was the truth). The HR manager was sorry for us and he gave us our passports back.

We took the train and headed to the South. I had spent for several days at the train station in Chelyabinks, wherefrom we left for Aktyubinsk. Finally we happened to be in Tashkent [now the capital of Uzbekistan, about 3500 km to the South East from Moscow]. We had spent several days at the train station and then left for a calm city Ferganu, located one kilometer away from Tashkent. We found a job, washed lemonade bottles. In the afternoon we had tea with rusks in the café as we could not afford anything else. We spent the night on the bench in the central park. Fall came and the nights were getting colder. We decided to look for the job offers with lodging. We turned out to be in kolkhoz 17 party congress. We were housed in covered wagon. All we had inside were quilts. We worked in the field harvesting cotton. The day norm was unachievable for us hungry people and we put the stones in the harvested cotton. Before going to work in the morning we ate the onion as there was a lot of it and had water from the dirty canal along the street. Some locals were sorry for us and gave us some food, others teased us. I remember, one time a rich man was riding a donkey and eating dried apricot and we followed him and picked up the pits. I do not know how we would survive the winter in the poor kolkhoz, but we were lucky to be demobilized in the army in December 1941. We were sent in Balakhna, Gorky oblast, where the 16th Lithuanian division 13.

I turned out to be in Balakhna in February 1942 and had stayed there for a year with the training unit. It was a joyful time as I was with my comrades- the people I knew. We were not starving. If there was not enough to eat, we exchanged the remainder of our civil things for food. Volodya, my nephew, played the violin and was assigned in Lithuanian military orchestra right away. It was formed in Pereyaslav Zalesskiy. We corresponded with him and I was looking forward to Volodya’s letters as he had become one of my closest friends by that time. Here I also met Mendel, my pal from Kedainai. He came of very poor family.

I became a combat engineer and happened to be on the leading in late February 1943. In spite of annual training, the first battle was very hard on us. We were in action on 23 February 1943 in the vicinity of Alexeyevka of Orlov oblast. The winter was very cold and snowy. Hardly had we cleared the way before the attack when it snowed again. I heard Mendel’s voice calling me in Jewish –Yudus- today is a big battle and we will win. It was his first and last battle. Mendel perished. Artillery was lacking behind and there was no training. I was lightly wounded on the first day. Fortunately it was not serious. The bullet was caught in the jersey and my hand was just slightly touched. They rendered me the first aid. The commander told me to go in headquarters, located in Novoalexeyevka, report on the status and take a rest. I could hardly move in the store, supporting my wounded hand, but I managed to reach the headquarters. When I reached the headquarters dug-out, I was about to swoon from the smell of food. The officers were sitting at the table and a young lady served just baked pancakes. I off the gasket and said while we were fighting, they enjoyed themselves. The officers calmed me down, gave me some pancakes and took to the village hut. I spent the night on soft hay in the garret and in the morning came back to my unit. In March Novoalexeyevka battles were over and were taken to the rear for reformation. By the way, there were other human feelings, including the comic ones apart from deaths and horror. I remember how we could not stand break-up spring season, when our legs were drenched. One of the old-stagers- the sergeant, advised to put gas masks instead of galoshes. Thus we followed his advise. The general from headquarters was passing by. When he saw us he commanded right away: «Attention, gases»», and we were supposed to put the gas mask on right away. We were reprimanded by our squad commander for inappropriate usage of gas masks

In June 1943 I got the letter from Volodya, where he informed of his arrival in the unit. I got ready for our meeting beforehand. I stashed the bread from my ration as I knew that musicians got much poorer nutrition that we. It is hard to put in words what it felt like when we met. Both of us were happy and sad at a time. We cried over all` tribulation as we understood that our relatives who stayed in Lithuania, perished. Before leaving, Volodya gave me his picture where he wrote in Yiddish: revenge on fascist occupants for our mothers’ deaths.

After my meeting with Volodya, our unit was transferred to the areas of Orel and Belgorod, where one of the most important battles of World War Two was being prepared. Our unit was dislocated in Kamenka village. I was included in the combat engineering intelligence group. We were to observe what changes were taking place in German units. My workmate was Lithuanian, who came of Caucasus. His name was Domark. Usually at night we approached German defense trenches. We hid in small pits which we dug out. Once I probed something hard with my digging tool. When I unburied the object, I found out that it was a hand. It belonged to the soviet solider judging by the color of the military jacket.

We observed the movement of the units, watched whether there appeared more technical equipment and tanks, and sent the messages in the headquarters. Once I saw 50 Germans marching and we started artillery shooting on command. There was time when I killed a high rank officer from my rifle when he popped out from the trench. It was easy for me to fight and I always remembered the death of my relatives and all Lithuanian Jews, so I decided to take revenge. On that day German command started their propaganda all of a sudden. By the trenches we could hear transmissions on German radio calling Soviet soldiers and officers to surrender for great well-being, well paid job and good life in Germany. Of course, we did not believe in that. Fascists threatened that there would be a major attack on 5 July and told to prod the bayonet in the earthy which would be the signal of surrender. There was propaganda on our side as well and during the breaks soviet songs were sung and fascists also enjoyed them. Domark, my workmate was anti-soviet. He dreamed of surrender and tried talking me into that. He said that he would not give away my Jewish origin though I understood that he would do it in a heartbeat. I indignantly refused and it was hard for me to stay close with the potential traitor. We parted after the first battle. As far as I know Domark died in 1944.

Once we were given a warning of the next attack. Late in the evening on 4 July Domark and I left for another task. I remember my compatriot, the Jew from Vilnius, the military doctor Dashevskiy, said good bye to me. he wished me good luck in the coming hard battle. He said he was not sure whether I would see Lithuania once again, and added that he was sure to see it. There was a bombing early in the morning and it also affected us. There were great many tanks after that. There was a fierce battle. As a result our unit was besieged. We got out of the siege in the evening. We literally were stepping at cadavers of our soldiers while walking back to our positions. When we came, Kamenka was on fire. It turned out that captain Dashevskiy and Lithuanian nurse died from the direct bomb hit. That was the war … nobody could know what would happen next minute.

I could talk about war incessantly if it had not been so painful to recall about the perished. When Orlovka battles were over, our unit was to be reorganized. We were sent to the just liberated Byelorussia, Vitebsk. I was a sergeant. Our squad was given assignment to build the bridge across Yemenka river within one night. It was a very urgent and important task. The bridge was meant for our troops to pass. We started working despite of shooting and by the morning the half of the squad had been dead. The bridge had been construction within the timeframe. At that time my friend, a Lithuanian of my age Gelaytis, died in my presence. When dying he said: «tell mother…» After war I could not find his mother. She died, but I told his sister how he died. We took the bodies to our side of the river and buried them. After war they were reburied in village Plestsi in military cemetery, where the monument was set up in their honor.

After Vitebsk we happened to be in the vicinity of Polotsk. I and two more of the girls from my department were assigned to the battalion named after Lithuanian Soviet Union Hero  14 Wolf Vilenskiy. Once he saved my life by killing the fascist who was aiming at me during our attack accompanied by «Hurrah!». In summer 1944 before the attack I wrote the announcement to join communist party and became a communist.

On 10 July 1944 there was a case which I am still dreaded by. I captured a fascist. He was a guy of my age, wearing a helmet and a mosquito net. I commanded him to drop weapon and lied down. I lied down close to him. Our conversation was short, but I will always remember it. I asked where he was from. He told me about his birthplace and added that only today their unit came to the front from Dantsig. He had never been to war before that and had never killed a man. He was awaiting death and was very scared. He put his hand on my gun beseeching me to spare his life. He even showed me his mother’s picture. I told him : «Don’t be afraid, though people like you killed my mother, but I will spare you- Jews and communists do not kill captives!» At that moment his arm was being touched by the accidental bullet. I put a bandage and repeated once again that Jews and communists were not killing the captives. Then the officer from the headquarters came to get the captives and that lad was taken away. I had never seen him again. I had speculated on that case for long. I thought that I had no right to play the master of human life, even when it goes about your enemy. It is wrong to kill eth helpless. After war I told that story to other Jews. I even had quarreled with my cousin Chaim for a long time as he argued with me through his hatred to all the Germans as he barely survived the occupation. Chaim cried out that I ought to have killed the fascist and had not right to spare his life. I asserted that if I knew that he was involved in executions and other wrong-doings, I would kill him, but that person was a mere victim of Hilter’s fanatics. I had been pondering over and over whether I was right or wrong. Many years had passed and Chaim died. I wrote the article in Russian paper in Berlin, where I described my case. In about two months I got the letter from the editor’s office. It was the German lady, who happened to be that guy’s mother. She said that her son was in Soviet captivity and came back home in 1947.He kept on telling everybody who a Jew spared his life and put a bandage on his hand. In 1954 he died from meningitis. The lady invited me for a visit. I responded to her with the polite letter and made sure that my deed was human.

The next day after that case I was wounded and was taken to the hospital in Vitebsk oblast. I was contused being almost blind and my hand was wounded. I found out about liberation of Vilnius from my letter. I had a gangrene and the Jewish doctor Krivorushko wanted to amputate my finger. I wanted to go in battle. I tried talking her into leaving my finger as I wanted to be in action. Thus, she managed to save my hand. I was hurrying home and the doctor told me: «Why hurrying as you would not find anybody at home!». The nurse wrote the request in Lithuania and I got the letter where I found the truth about my family’s perishing. Only my cousin Chaim Ronder survived and was living in Lithuanian city Pagede.

From hospital I was sent to 27 division in Latvia. I did not want to be a combat engineer and ask to transfer me in any other unit. I became a gun soldier after couple of hours of training. I was in action in Latvia for a while and then happened to be in Ukraine. I took part in liberation of Moldavia and Romania. I marked the victory day in Romania in the palace of the kind Michai the 2, where we had our quarters. I even spoke to the king’s grandmother. She kindly treated soviet soldiers. I had stayed in the army until November 1945. I got several awards - Great Patriotic War Orders of the 1st and the 2nd class 15, Red Star Order 16, two medals for «Valor» 17, medals and orders for liberation of the cities. In fall 1945 there was an order on demobilization of those who were wounded more than three times. I was classified for that. I was given a free train ticket and a ration. They asked me where I was heading. I named the most Northern city of Lithuania –Mazheike having decided that I can get off the train where I wanted on my way. I knew that my nephew Volodya was living in Vilnius. He was demobilized from the army. Chaim Ronder was living in Pagedai.

I got off the train in Vilnius. I had mixed emotions. I was happy to be in the motherland, though understanding that I was alone. I spent couple of nights in the house of some of Volodya’s distant relatives as he was out of town at that moment. I decided to go farther. I went to Pagedai,where Chaim Ronder and his wife were living. I was given a very warm welcome. We had talked with Chaim all night through. He told me how my family perished. Now I found out horrible details. When on 23 June 1941 Volodya and I left for the East, my mother could not calm down. In couple of days fascists came and put all the Jews in large stables. There were kept there for several days, even were given food and promised to be taken to work somewhere. Mother said with tears : «Why did I let my favorite Yudel go, he must have been lying dead in some ditch». In several days all Jews were taken to execution and my mother, whose legs were very sore, was buried alive straight in the yard of the stables. My poor mommy did not know that her Yudele survived and was one of the very few Kedainiai Jews who visited her grave [editor’s note:after those words Yudel burst into tears and could not stop crying for a while].

Chaim managed to escape. He was hiding in the forest, dug pits, where he sheltered himself. Some Lithuanians helped him and gave him sconce. He was about to face death for several times. Once the warden of the village so a lady brining food to Chaim and he gave him away. The found a pit where brother was hiding and encircled it. Policemen could not lure Chaim from his sconce and had been calling him kike for a long time. Chaim outsmarted them. he got out of the pit and blew politseiz up with the grenades he had. He rushed to the farmstead of the peasant Vishotskiy, who had helped the brother on a number of times. Brother was running barefoot on the snow. Visotskiy hid him in the stove. When he took a rest for a bit and looked around, he saw that the walls of his hut were covered with Torah readings. Chaim got off the stove and said that he should flee right away. He left at night and roamed for long. Visotskiy was a good man and he probably was not aware what his walls were covered with. The next time my cousin had to spend the night in Visotskiy ‘s place, he had white wall papers. Lithuanian understood that he insulted national Chaim’s national feelings. Chaim had been a partisan for a long time, took part in liberation of Vilnius. Then he worked in Kedainai militia. Then he was transferred to Pagedai.

Chaim married a wonderful lady. Sarah was married to our agnate double cousin David Gronberg. David perished and Sarah had to see inferno in occupation being in concentration camp. According to Jewish tradition Chaim married her. It was a great, kind family, where I found my home. Soon I found a job at district authorities, but got into trouble as one Jew wrote a letter saying that my parents were rich. So, I was fired. In a while, they thought batter and I was reemployed. Those were hard times – we founded kolkhozes, fought with Lithuanian gangs, who had left for the woods. I do not want to talk about that. Now the values have changed in Lithuania. I do not want my neighbors to know that I fought with the ‘patriots’. I went from village to village being authorized to found kolkhozes. The chairmen of rural councils helped me a lot. There were traitors among them. It was the time when I got the notes with the threats to lose my life. I never said in which house I stopped. I always had a pistol with me. Chaim gave it to me. I had to run away in the woods and fight with the gangs. This is all I can in regard to your question.

Chaim and I were best friends. Though, he had frazzled nerves and could not get rid of the recollections about war. At that time German captives could be seen on the roads, in towns. Once a German lady knocked on our door. She asked for food and Sarah gave her a piece of bread. Chaim was perturbed, turned that lady out and even hit her. I understood Chaim, but did not justify his actions in such cases.

I had stayed with brother’s family until 1949. Chaim and his wife moved to Kaunas, but I stayed in Pagedai. By that time I met a young Lithuanian, who was a member of former underground comsomol. We had a lot in common. We got married 1948 and the same year our daughter was born and named after my mother Liya. My wife’s name was Meybute Tamuinene (she kept her maiden name). She was born in Pagedai in 1925. She also worked for municipal authorities. My wife’s father was a communist. He was a communist, very good-natured and mature man. He treated me very well. Later on I was sorry for not having married a Jew. My wife was not anti-Semitism, but she never understood the depth of my feelings for Israel, my willingness for repatriation. It was most unpleasant for me that Meybute was an ardent stickler of Stalin and took his death as if` he was her father. In a while we started being more and more aloof, but I did not divorce my wife because of our daughter.

In late 1949 I left Kaunas and my wife and daughter stayed in Pagedai. We still were not divorced and I considered myself to be a married man. We were just separated. In Kaunas I was immediately employed for the position of the assistant to the chairman of the municipal authorities. Then I was transferred to the position of a legal advisor. I did not have a problem with employment. It was enough to come to HR department in military jacket with the awards. I never wash it and keep all awards on it. Besides, it was the time when they needed literate employees, who are fluent in Lithuanian and Russian. In a while, my wife and daughter came to me and I was given an apartment. I have been living in Kaunas since then.

I should say that state anti-Semitist campaign, deployed in late 1940s [Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] 17 and in early 1950s [Doctors’ Plot] 18 was not as active in Lithuania as in any other part of Russia. I was not affected by it in any way. Of course, it was repulsive to read and listen to about doctors poisoners and I took it hard. I was glad when Stalin died. I thought him to be a tyrant at that time. My attitude to Stalin added up antagonism in the relationship with my wife.

In 1953 I quitted my work in municipal authorities and was employed as HR manager at the factory. I entered extramural legal department of Vilnius university. I went to Vilnius several times a year. My trouble started at that time. I did not keep Jewish traditions and marked no holidays, but I never forgot that I was a Jew. I met other survived Lithuanian Jews and we went to the places of execution and collected donations for the monuments in their honor. My idea was to make a so-called archive of the people who rescued Jews and those who murdered them. I have been doing it from the moment of my return in Lithuania and until now. Probably my peculiar hobby was found out by security and I was called in KGB, interrogated and threatened. There was no imputation for me as I did well, was the member of party and my reputation was not marred.

In 1959 I went to Vilnius to another semester of the graduate year. I was supposed to write a diploma paper. It was the period of centennial jubilee of Sholom Aleichem and there was a postal stamp was dedicated to that even. I went to the post office to buy it. A lady who was in front of me in the line caught my attention. She was a well-dressed Jew. She did not look like a local. She spoke neither Russian nor Lithuanian to explain how many stamps she would like to get. I started speaking Yiddish to her and found out that she was born in Kaunas and currently living in Israel. She came to Lithuania from Moscow, where her husband Eliva was working as the second secretary of the Israeli consul. I enjoyed talking to her an she invited me to the hotel. I came there, but I did not go in the room. I asked Israeli lady for some souvenir from her country as it was sacred for me. The lady came down in the lobby with Israeli newspaper and gave it to me. We talked a little bit. We mostly spoke of Israel. After that we said good bye to each other and I went to the train station. Two men of mediocre appearance came up to me and pushed me in the car. I was taken in Vilnius committee of national security. I had been interrogated all night long asking me what information I gave to the Israeli woman, blaming me in the treason, threatening with arrest and trial. They took the paper that the lady gave to me. I still surprised how I was not arrested. Those were different times- if Stalin was alive, I would be in the camp for that. They let me go in the morning. When I came in Kaunas, I was not admitted to work. They had all the information here and I was found. In couple of days I was expelled from the communist party for loosened party vigil. I was shocked. Of course I was hurt for being expelled from the party, but the worst thing was that I was jobless and unable to provide for my family. I decided that I should write my diploma paper and graduate from the university. When I was defending my diploma, there was a person who started asking questions for me to flunk, but still I succeeded. I came back in Kaunas and started looking for a job.

Having wasted couple of months for my futile efforts to find a job, I wrote a letter to the first secretary of` the central committee of the party. I wrote that that I graduated from legal department of the university and could not find a job. I also wrote if he did not help me get a job, I would have to take a poster: a soviet lawyer is looking for a job of a janitor- and walk along Laivess alley (then Stalin street). In a while I was called by the municipal authorities and offered a job of a lawyer in a small shoe factory. I had worked there until retirement. When in 1975 I came to Israel for the first time, the lady which brought trouble on me, came in my hotel. Somehow she found out from her Lithuanian friend which problems I had and also learnt about my visit. Israeli women brought a huge boquete of roses. Then she invited me to call on their family. I met with her husband, a famous polititian at that time.

I did not have to deal with KGB any more after than. My last call there was in late 1950s. My cousin Chaim and his wife were going to leave for Israel via Poland. My cousin was very nervous as it was pretty problematic at that time. Ten days before departure Chaim had infarction and died. He was buried in Kaunas and I personally designed his tombstone. There was a Mogen David on it. In a while I was called in KGB and asked who instructed to put Zionistic symbol on it.  I said it was my idea and I would not let it removed from my cousin’s grave.

In 1960s I was fond of amateur art. There was a Jewish amateur theatre in Kaunas, which was about the only one in the USSR. We staged the plays of Sholom Aleichem, learnt and sang Jewish songs. In 1963 we gave a large concert devoted to the 20 year anniversary of the mass execution of Kaunas ghetto Jews. After that active members of that theatre were called in KGB and threatened that it would be closed down and repressed. I did not fear anything. It must have been hard to make me submissive.

In 1975 I filed my documents for the trip to Israel. At that time to go there it was necessary to get the letter of invitation from a close relative. I did not have such. With the help of my friends I got the invitation from my sister Beila who allegedly was living in Israel. My poor sister who is in the common grave with her little daughter Iona, did me the last favor. When I submitted the documents, I was called at a certain point They said they would never let me out. Strange as it may be in a while I was issued a visa either it was because of somebody’s help or they just decided to watch me. Though, my wife was in the way thinking that I would not come back to her. After having received the visa, some Kaunas Jews stopped keeping in touch with me thinking me to be an informer. One of them even wrote a letter to his friend in Israel for them to beware me. The Israeli guy, who knew me perfectly did not believe it, laugher over that letter and even showed it to me. Israel was my revelation and joy. I could not help breathing in the air of Israeli state. I met some of my distant relatives and the most important thing I saw my cousin Volodya. He married a Jew from Ukraine shortly after war. He had two sons. Unfortunately, my brother had heart trouble. It was our first and the last meeting after war. In 1976 Volodya died at the age of 51. I went to Israel three more times, two of them during the soviet times and one time 1990s.

I always dreamed of immigration to Israel, but my wife was against it and I did not want to leave my daughter. My wife died in 1989. I did not marry again. It was too late for me to leave for Israel at my elderly age. My daughter Liya identifies herself as Jew and at the age of 16 she put Jewish nationality in her passport. Liya tried entering teachers’ training university for several times and failed to it. She did not have a higher education. Liya’s personal life was not happy. She was married for couple of times. Every time she married non-Jews and I was not pleased with that. Liya has my last name Ronder. To my shame she left Germany in the 1990s which was not acceptable to me. I refused to visit her. I think that after holocaust Jews cannot have anything in common with Germans, and have their sops. Liya has two children- the elder –Dovid, born in 1976, named after my brother. He is dreaming to go to Israel with me. My granddaughter Etel, born in 1981, is studying at the university.

When I retired I had worked for couple of years for Vilnius Jewish museum. By that time I had collected a pretty considerable material about holocaust in Lithuania, about the murderers and the rescuers. And helped many of them get the title Righteous among the Nations 20. I always kept an active civil position in this matter. I always was an ardent struggler against anti-Semitism. A few years ago a Jewish cemetery was raided- the gangsters upturned the graves to find some gold, including golden teeth. Chaim’s grave was also touched. I filed a suit with the court to get spiritual injury compensation in the amount of 1 lita. This case was covered in papers, but it was not sustained as they alluded to absence of such law on spiritual injury compensation.

Several years ago I found out that one of the murderers of the Jews lives nearby. He is healthy and wealthy. I was aware of his testimony at one of the postwar trials, when they could not prove his participation in the actions and executions. Then I started writing letters to the murders for them not to sleep quietly. Once I wrote a letter to the man, where I describe his and others malefaction in detail. The letter was written by the daughter, who loved father very much and asked him to say if it was true. Father said that he was a good man, and the letter was tosh and even tried to turn it into a joke. The lady did not calm down and went to KGB. She asked for the truth. They did not tell her anything as his guilt was not proved. When she came home she found him dead. He hung himself in the bathroom. I do not have any compunction as I think it was a fair punishment for his crimes.

The global community supports me. I have a sponsors, who assists Lithuanian righteous among nations. His parents got rescued and lived for Switzerland. He is currently living in the USA. He invited me there and I accepted his invitation. I was in the States for couple of times several years ago. I gave my documents – the list of murderers and the list of rescuers of Jews – to the Museum of holocaust in Washington. Thus, I completed my mission in the world.

Now I am living in the independent state [Reestablishment of the Lithuanian Republic] 21. Of course, it became easier for the Jews to live when they did not have to conceal their nationality, but still anti-Semitism is still there, and when it is discrete it is much more dangerous than open. I am an old and a sick person. I demised my apartment to the Lithuanian lady Stepha. She is the daughter to one of the righteous among nations, whom I helped quite a lot. Stepha is a wonderful lady. She became my custodian and looks after me as my own daughter. We often talk and she is always surprised at my ardent hatred to the fascists, Germany and some Lithuanians. Then I ask her if someone killed groundlessly killed her relatives, buried her mother alive, she sits pensively and does not say anything as she loves her family dearly.

GLOSSARY:

1 Occupation of the Baltic Republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)

Although the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact regarded only Latvia and Estonia as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, according to a supplementary protocol (signed in 28th September 1939) most of Lithuania was also transferred under the Soviets. The three states were forced to sign the ‘Pact of Defense and Mutual Assistance’ with the USSR allowing it to station troops in their territories. In June 1940 Moscow issued an ultimatum demanding the change of governments and the occupation of the Baltic Republics. The three states were incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics.

2 Deportations from the Baltics (1940-1953)

After the Soviet Union occupied the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in June 1940 as a part of establishing the Soviet system, mass deportation of the local population began. The victims of these were mainly but not exclusively those unwanted by the regime: the local bourgeoisie and the previously politically active strata. Deportations to remote parts of the Soviet Union continued up until the death of Stalin. The first major wave of deportation took place between 11th and 14th June 1941, when 36,000, mostly politically active people were deported. Deportations were reintroduced after the Soviet Army recaptured the three countries from Nazi Germany in 1944. Partisan fights against the Soviet occupiers were going on all up to 1956, when the last squad was eliminated. Between June 1948 and January 1950, in accordance with a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR under the pretext of ‘grossly dodged from labor activity in the agricultural field and led anti-social and parasitic mode of life’ from Latvia 52,541, from Lithuania 118,599 and from Estonai 32,450 people were deported. The total number of deportees from the three republics amounted to 203,590. Among them were entire Lithuanian families of different social strata (peasants, workers, intelligentsia), everybody who was able to reject or deemed capable to reject the regime. Most of the exiled died in the foreign land. Besides, about 100,000 people were killed in action and in fusillade for being members of partisan squads and some other 100,000 were sentenced to 25 years in camps.

3 Kaunas ghetto

On 24th June 1941 the Germans captured Kaunas. Two ghettoes were established in the city, a small and a big one, and 48,000 Jews were taken there. Within two and a half months the small ghetto was eliminated and during the ‘Grossaktion’ of 28th-29th October, thousands of the survivors were murdered, including children. The remaining 17,412 people in the big ghetto were mobilized to work. On 27th-28th March 1944 another 18,000 were killed and 4,000 were taken to different camps in July before the Soviet Army captured the city. The total number of people who perished in the Kaunas ghetto was 35,000.

4 Betar

Brith Trumpledor (Hebrew) meaning Trumpledor Society; right-wing Revisionist Jewish youth movement. It was founded in 1923 in Riga by Vladimir Jabotinsky, in memory of J. Trumpledor, one of the first fighters to be killed in Palestine, and the fortress Betar, which was heroically defended for many months during the Bar Kohba uprising. Its aim was to propagate the program of the revisionists and prepare young people to fight and live in Palestine. It organized emigration through both legal and illegal channels. It was a paramilitary organization; its members wore uniforms. They supported the idea to create a Jewish legion in order to liberate Palestine. From 1936-39 the popularity of Betar diminished. During WWII many of its members formed guerrilla groups.

5 Komsomol

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.

6 Sholem Aleichem (pen name of Shalom Rabinovich (1859-1916)

Yiddish author and humorist, a prolific writer of novels, stories, feuilletons, critical reviews, and poem in Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian. He also contributed regularly to Yiddish dailies and weeklies. In his writings he described the life of Jews in Russia, creating a gallery of bright characters. His creative work is an alloy of humor and lyricism, accurate psychological and details of everyday life. He founded a literary Yiddish annual called Di Yidishe Folksbibliotek (The Popular Jewish Library), with which he wanted to raise the despised Yiddish literature from its mean status and at the same time to fight authors of trash literature, who dragged Yiddish literature to the lowest popular level. The first volume was a turning point in the history of modern Yiddish literature. Sholem Aleichem died in New York in 1916. His popularity increased beyond the Yiddish-speaking public after his death. Some of his writings have been translated into most European languages and his plays and dramatic versions of his stories have been performed in many countries. The dramatic version of Tevye the Dairyman became an international hit as a musical (Fiddler on the Roof) in the 1960s.

7 Hashomer Hatzair

‘The Young Watchman’; A Zionist-socialist pioneering movement founded in Eastern Europe, Hashomer Hatzair trained youth for kibbutz life and set up kibbutzim in Palestine. During World War II, members were sent to Nazi-occupied areas and became leaders in Jewish resistance groups. After the war, Hashomer Hatzair was active in ‘illegal’ immigration to Palestine.

8 Spanish Civil War (1936-39)

A civil war in Spain, which lasted from July 1936 to April 1939, between rebels known as Nacionales and the Spanish Republican government and its supporters. The leftist government of the Spanish Republic was besieged by nationalist forces headed by General Franco, who was backed by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Though it had Spanish nationalist ideals as the central cause, the war was closely watched around the world mainly as the first major military contest between left-wing forces and the increasingly powerful and heavily armed fascists. The number of people killed in the war has been long disputed ranging between 500,000 and a million.

9 Soviet Army

The armed forces of the Soviet Union, originally called Red Army and renamed Soviet Army in February 1946. After the Bolsheviks came to power, in November 1917, they commenced to organize the squads of worker’s army, called Red Guards, where workers and peasants were recruited on voluntary bases. The commanders were either selected from among the former tsarist officers and soldiers or appointed directly by the Military and Revolutionary Committy of the Communist Party. In early 1918 the Bolshevik government issued a decree on the establishment of the Workers‘ and Peasants‘ Red Army and mandatory drafting was introduced for men between 18 and 40. In 1918 the total number of draftees was 100 thousand officers and 1.2 million soldiers. Military schools and academies training the officers were restored. In 1925 the law on compulsory military service was adopted and annual drafting was established. The term of service was established as follows: for the Red Guards- 2 years, for junior officers of aviation and fleet- 3 years, for medium and senior officers- 25 years. People of exploiter classes (former noblemen, merchants, officers of the tsarist army, priest, factory owner, etc. and their children) as well as kulaks (rich peasants) and cossacks were not drafted in the army. The law as of 1939 cancelled restriction on drafting of men belonging to certain classes, students were not drafted but went through military training in their educational institutions. On the 22nd June 1941 Great Patriotic War was unleashed and the drafting in the army became exclusively compulsory. First, in June-July 1941 general and complete mobilization of men was carried out as well as partial mobilization of women. Then annual drafting of men, who turned 18, was commenced. When WWII was over, the Red Army amounted to over 11 million people and the demobilization process commenced. By the beginning of 1948 the Soviet Army had been downsized to 2 million 874 thousand people. The youth of drafting age were sent to the restoration works in mines, heavy industrial enterprises, and construction sites. In 1949 a new law on general military duty was adopted, according to which service term in ground troops and aviation was 3 years and in navy- 4 years. Young people with secondary education, both civilian and military, with the age range of 17-23 were admitted in military schools for officers. In 1968 the term of the army service was contracted to 2 years in ground troops and in the navy to 3 years. That system of army recruitment has remained without considerable changes until the breakup of the Soviet Army (1991-93

10 Great Terror (1934-1938)

During the Great Terror, or Great Purges, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison. The major targets of the Great Terror were communists. Over half of the people who were arrested were members of the party at the time of their arrest. The armed forces, the Communist Party, and the government in general were purged of all allegedly dissident persons; the victims were generally sentenced to death or to long terms of hard labor. Much of the purge was carried out in secret, and only a few cases were tried in public ‘show trials’. By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the Party and the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary. Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union until his death in March 1953.

11 NKVD

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

12 Collective farm (in Russian kolkhoz)

In the Soviet Union the policy of gradual and voluntary collectivization of agriculture was adopted in 1927 to encourage food production while freeing labor and capital for industrial development. In 1929, with only 4% of farms in kolkhozes, Stalin ordered the confiscation of peasants' land, tools, and animals; the kolkhoz replaced the family farm.

13 16th Lithuanian division

It was formed according to a Soviet resolution on 18th December 1941 and consisted of residents of the annexed former Lithuanian Republic. The Lithuanian division consisted of 10.000 people (34,2 percent of whom were Jewish), it was well equipped and was completed by 7th July 1942. In 1943 it took part in the Kursk battle, fought in Belarus and was a part of the Kalinin front. All together it liberated over 600 towns and villages and took 12.000 German soldiers as captives. In summer 1944 it took part in the liberation of Vilnius joining the 3rd Belarusian Front, fought in the Kurland and exterminated the besieged German troops in Memel (Klaipeda). After the victory its headquarters were relocated in Vilnius, in 1945-46 most veterans were demobilized but some officers stayed in the Soviet Army.

14 Hero of the Soviet Union

Honorary title established on 16th April 1934 with the Gold Star medal instituted on 1st August 1939, by Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. Awarded to both military and civilian personnel for personal or collective deeds of heroism rendered to the USSR or socialist society.

15 Order of the Great Patriotic War

1st Class: established 20th May 1942, awarded to officers and enlisted men of the armed forces and security troops and to partisans, irrespective of rank, for skillful command of their units in action. 2nd Class: established 20th May 1942, awarded to officers and enlisted men of the armed forces and security troops and to partisans, irrespective of rank, for lesser personal valor in action.

16 Order of the Red Star

Established in 1930, it was awarded for achievements in the defense of the motherland, the promotion of military science and the development of military equipments, and for courage in battle. The Order of the Red Star has been awarded over 4,000,000 times.

17 Medal for Valor

established on 17th October 1938, it was awarded for ‘personal courage and valor in the defense of the Motherland and the execution of military duty involving a risk to life’. The award consists of a 38mm silver medal with the inscription ‘For Valor’ in the center and ‘USSR’ at the bottom in red enamel. The inscription is separated by the image of a Soviet battle tank. At the top of the award are three Soviet fighter planes. The medal suspends from a gray pentagonal ribbon with a 2mm blue strip on each edge. It has been awarded over 4,500,000 times.

18 Doctors’ Plot

The Doctors’ Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin’s reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

19 Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’

The campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’, i.e. Jews, was initiated in articles in the central organs of the Communist Party in 1949. The campaign was directed primarily at the Jewish intelligentsia and it was the first public attack on Soviet Jews as Jews. ‘Cosmopolitans’ writers were accused of hating the Russian people, of supporting Zionism, etc. Many Yiddish writers as well as the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in November 1948 on charges that they maintained ties with Zionism and with American ‘imperialism’. They were executed secretly in 1952. The anti-Semitic Doctors’ Plot was launched in January 1953. A wave of anti-Semitism spread through the USSR. Jews were removed from their positions, and rumors of an imminent mass deportation of Jews to the eastern part of the USSR began to spread. Stalin’s death in March 1953 put an end to the campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’.

20 The Righteous Among the Nations

Non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

21 Reestablishment of the Lithuanian Republic

On 11th March 1990 the Lithuanian State Assembly declared Lithuania an independent republic. The Soviet leadership in Moscow refused to acknowledge the independence of Lithuania and initiated an economic blockade on the country. At the referendum held in February 1991, over 90 percent of the participants (turn out was 84 percent) voted for independence. The western world finally recognized Lithuanian independence and so did the USSR on 6th September 1991. On 17th September 1991 Lithuania joined the United Nations.

Zalman Kaplanas

Zalman Kaplanas
Vilnius
Lithuania
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: February 2005


Zalman Kaplanas is an athletic, good-looking elderly man. He refused to be interviewed at home. He accounted for this by the fact that his wife was bed-ridden because of a severe illness. So, she didn’t welcome any visits by strangers. She didn't approve of my interview either. She refused to show her pictures, even those where she was young, and the pictures of her children. Zalman looks young for his age. He is dressed in an elegant vest suit. We met on the premises of the Jewish community of Lithuania. Here Zalman feels very confident. He takes an active part in the life of the community, being a member of the Committee of the Veterans of War. The way he tells his story speaks for his reclusive character. He hardly answers my questions regarding his personal life, while he dwells on the things he is interested in.

My name is Zalman Kaplanas. The ending ‘аs’ is added to all last names in Lithuania. [The ‘as’ ending is characteristic for masculine Lithuanian surnames. After the country gained its independence in 1991, in line with the national idea, people without this ending were encouraged to use it and make their name sound Lithuanian] My original surname is truly Jewish: Kaplan. I was named Zalman after my maternal great-grandfather. I was born in the small town of Jurbarkas, 200 kilometers away from Vilnius. The town had existed for 400 years by the beginning of the 20th century. Jurbarkas was built on the river Neman in the western part of Lithuania, 86 kilometers to the west of Kaunas. Back in the Middle Ages fortifications were built for the defense of cities. Thus the frontier town of Jurbarkas, bordering on Germany was built. [Lithuania was bordering with Germany until the end of WWII, when Eastern Prussia was divided up between Poland and the Soviet Union. The previous Lithuanian-German border today separates Lithuania from the Kaliningrad territory, a part of the Russian Federation].

An ancient citadel was preserved in the vicinity of Jurbarkas. There was a very beautiful park in the town. There was a palace of the Russian Prince Vasilchikov [Prince Ilarrion Sergeyevich Vasilchikov (1881-1969) was a state activist, economist and publicist. He left Russia after the Communist take-over and lived in Berlin, Paris and after 1932 in Kaunas, the capital of Lithuania at the time, and was involved in social life and economy there. He started his career as a provincial governmental leader of Russian gentry. When Soviet troops occupied Lithuania in 1940, he immigrated to Germany]. A small park not far from the Jewish lyceum was called Tel Aviv by local people, as it was the place where Jewish youth got together. There was a large Catholic cathedral in the center of the town, though half of the population of Jurbarkas consisted of Jews – the total population of the town was five thousand. There were several synagogues, two elementary Jewish schools – in one of them subjects were taught in Hebrew, in the other one in Yiddish – and an amateur Jewish theater. In the early 1920s a private Yiddish lyceum was founded, where the children of rich local and out-of-town people studied.

Jurbarkas Jews were involved in craftsmanship and commerce. They were cobblers, tailors, hatters, glazers, cabinetmakers etc. The only photography studio in Jurbarkas was owned by a Jew called Levinas. There were brilliant dedicated doctors among the town’s Jewish intelligentsia. Doctor Karlinskiy was the one who stood out. He treated both the rich and the poor. He gave medicine to the indigent. He went through the villages and assisted everybody who needed help no matter what nationality they were or what social strata they belonged to. In the first day of the Great Patriotic War 1, the Lithuanian Polizei 2, who served the Germans, came to us. The doctor was on the round in the town hospital, which was the only one in our town. His Lithuanian colleague reproached the police and tried to stand up for the Jewish doctor. He said that Karlinskiy had recently rescued his little son. The Polizei just sneered and pushed the doctor aside. Doctor Karlinskiy was doomed like his patients. He was shot during the first action against Jews in Jurbarkas.

There were rich Jews in Jurbarkas. They were merchants and manufacturers. The Jews Lemberg and Vodopian were the owners of the steam-boats. These steam-boats navigated the Neman River. Automobile transport was underdeveloped at that time, and river transport connected Jurbarkas with other cities. My maternal grandpa, Morduchai Grinberg, was among the rich Jews of Jurbarkas. There’s hardly anything I know about my great-grandpa, Zalman Grinberg, whom I was named after. All I know is that the second time he was married to a lady who was much younger than he was. His son Leibl was born in 1895. Thus, Grandpa Morduchai had a stepbrother, who was younger than some of his children. Zalman died in the early 1900s.

Morduchai Grinberg was born in Jurbarkas in 1864. Morduchai was involved in commerce. He was neither rich nor poor. His wife, Grunya, was also born in Jurbarkas. She died at a rather young age from some sort of a disease in 1905. She died and six children became orphans. Grandpa didn’t remarry, though he was a rather young man. He didn’t want his children to be brought up by a stepmother. During World War I the tsarist government exiled Jews to clean up the frontier territories as they considered Jews to be potential spies. In 1915 Morduchai was exiled to Siberia. Morduchai wasn’t only smart, but also an energetic man. In Siberia, an almost pristine business area, he started his own business and came into money. When Lithuania gained its independence in 1919 3, he came back to Jurbarkas a really wealthy man. Grandpa purchased a large house and opened one of the largest agricultural stores in town. There was a wide range of products on offer, starting from the most primitive nails to common agricultural gadgets and machines.

Morduchai’s family kept Jewish traditions and celebrated holidays. Grandfather wasn’t a very religious man as business was the pivot of his life. God and prayers were in the second place. In the course of time Grandpa got married for the second time. His children had their own families, even the youngest child, my mother, was married. His second wife’s name was Emma. Before the Soviet regime came to power Grandpa had a pretty calm living. He gradually passed his business to one of his sons. When in 1940 the Soviets nationalized Grandfather’s property, he and his wife had to rent a dark apartment in a village not far from Jurbarkas. They didn’t live there for a long time. By the vicissitude of fortune Grandfather was exiled to Siberia again 4. It happened a couple of days before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, in June 1941. The 76-year-old Morduchai couldn’t stand the hunger, cold and the humiliation. Soon his wife and he passed away. They were buried somewhere in Siberia.

Morduchai and Grunya had three sons and three daughters. The eldest son, Meyer, born in 1885, left for the USA in his adolescence. It happened at the beginning of the 20th century, before Grandmother Grunya had died. In America Meyer married a wealthy Jew. He developed her father’s pharmaceutical business and made a brilliant career and became a millionaire in the 1920s. In 1930 Meyer and his daughter Mariam, who was my age, came to Jurbarkas. We had a family reunion on that occasion. There was a joyful get-together, which lasted a couple of days, with incessant laughter and chatter. Then Meyer left and didn’t keep in touch. Meyer was a miser. He never helped neither his parents nor his siblings. He died in the mid-1960s having bequeathed the lion’s share of his fortune to his daughter and the rest to charity funds. I didn’t keep in touch with Mariam. I don’t know anything about her life.

Mother’s brother Emmanuel also immigrated to the USA. He was one year older than my mother. Since they were of the same age group they got along very well. Emmanuel immigrated to the USA in the mid-1920s. We didn’t hear from him for two years. His Aunt Beila, Grandmother Grunya’s sister, was looking for him. She went to the USA to see her brothers: one of them was called Gersh, Gary in English; I don’t know the name of the other. She didn’t find Emmanuel there. She turned things upside down and finally found out that her nephew was working in Canada as a security guard. After that they found a job for Emmanuel and took him to the USA. He worked for the company of Grandmother’s brothers. Unfortunately, I don’t know the names or the fate of my Grandmother’s siblings. Emmanuel had a wife and two children, whose names I don’t remember. He had a modest living, but in spite of that he helped out his siblings, our family in particular. During the Soviet times we didn’t keep in touch with my uncle’s family as we feared persecution and exile 5. All I know is that Uncle died in 1965.

My mother’s middle brother Joseph, born in 1890, worked in the store with Grandpa Morduchai. He had an accident and became disabled: one of Joseph’s legs was shorter than the other. In 1920 Joseph got married. His wife, Zhenya, was from Riga. In the 1930s Granddad was ill, and Joseph managed the business. He ran the store. Joseph, his wife and their small child were exiled with Grandpa Morduchai on 14th June 1941. Joseph was the only one of the family who survived. Zhenya and Robert died on their way to exile. Joseph was sentenced to eight years in camps for having been a member of the Shaulist Council 6. It was a kind of a military and sports organization. Joseph was charged with counterrevolutionary Fascist activity because he regularly paid a membership fee to the organization. Having gone through this ordeal Joseph came back to Lithuania in the post-war period, then he immigrated to Israel, where he died in the 1970s.

My mother’s sisters were married to well-off people and had a comfortable living. The eldest, Polina, born in 1893, was married to the venereal disease doctor Volgart. They lived in Riga. They had two children. Polina, her husband, and their two children perished in 1941 during Fascists actions [military execution] in Riga. The family of my mother’s sister Dina, born in 1895, was also doomed. She was married to a pharmacist, Shabashevich, who owned a large apothecary in Kaunas [the capital of Lithuania during its independence (1920-1939)] Dina had a small daughter. In 1941 they were put in Kaunas ghetto 7 and shot on 28th October during one of the Fascist actions.

My mother, Etl, was born in 1900 and became motherless at the age of six. Her elder sisters finished lyceum in Kaunas. My mother, who lived with her father, had to go to the Jewish school. In 1915 she finished school and Grandpa was exiled to Siberia. There was no way she could go on with her studies. Mother did house chores and helped her brothers Joseph and Emmanuel, who didn’t have their own families yet and worked to support their sisters. In 1919 when Grandfather Morduchai came back, my mother fell in love with my future father.

My father was also born in Jurbarkas, but into a very poor family. My Grandpa, Аbba Kaplan, was a butcher. I don’t know whom he worked for. As far as I remember from my childhood, Abba spent most of his time in synagogue. He started his morning with a prayer in a synagogue and finished his day with a prayer. He studied the Torah and Talmud almost all day long. But the knowledge of the Torah was not income-bearing, so Grandpa earned very little. From my own observations I can say that religion is meant for the poor, as the rich spend time on business.

Abba had his little ramshackle house made of darkened wood. The house consisted of two rooms and a kitchen, where Grandmother cooked. I don’t remember Grandmother’s name. She died before I was born. There were eight children in the family. I don’t know what to tell about them. Almost all my aunts and uncles and their children died in World War II. My father’s brothers were Yankel-Berl, Dovid, Meyer. Entl and Shove were my father’s sisters. All of them died in Jurbarkas. My father’s other two sisters, Klara and Riva, left for Belgium in the 1920s. They were sheltered by the Belgians during the [Nazi] occupation. Riva and her husband were found out by the Fascists. She and her son were put in the [train] cars heading for concentration camps in Poland. Riva’s son managed to escape through a hole in the train car. So, he remained alive. Riva perished in the crematorium in Auschwitz.

Klara’s fate was more auspicious. Her husband, the owner of a haberdashery factory, was killed in action during World War II. Klara survived the war. She stayed with a Belgian family. She raised two sons. One of them became the managing director of one of the rolled steel mills in Belgium. Unfortunately I’ve never met them, and this is all I can say about them. In 1961 Klara got hold of me on the phone and was even going to visit me. She didn’t manage to come over. She died in the 1970s.

My father, Moshe Kaplan, was born in 1893. He was even less educated than my mother. He merely finished cheder. Father was on odd jobs before he married my mother. He was willing to do any job. My parents fell in love with each other. Grandpa Morduchai was categorically against their marriage. He thought it to be humiliating for my mother to be married to a poor man. Then Moshe and Etl crossed the river in a boat and settled in a neighboring hamlet. They had made preliminary arrangements with the rabbi who made a chuppah for my parents. When Mother’s brothers found out about the runaways, they took the boats to chase them, but they were a couple of hours late. It was too late, the rabbi announced: ‘Amen’, so Etl and Moshe became husband and wife. First, Grandpa Morduchai didn’t recognize their marriage, and was hard on my parents. Mother was practically cut off the shilling. If she had made another choice, she would have relied on her father’s assistance.

After the wedding the newly-weds rented the apartment in Jurbarkas. It was the place where I was born on 28th May 1921 and spent my adolescence. My mother gave birth to my younger brother Mendel there in 1926. This old well-built wooden house is still there. Two stories of the house were residential and the third storey was a garret. The house was adorned with a carving. The house was owned by a Jew, who leased the apartments. There were two large apartments on the first floor, and three smaller ones on the second floor. Our apartment, consisting of two small rooms, was on the second floor. The rooms were modestly furnished. There were a table and a beautiful, carved cupboard in the largest room, the so-called drawing-room. There was a large, carved bed with a laced cover in my parents’ bedroom. The smallest room was the children’s.

Our family lived modestly. We didn’t starve, but we couldn’t even think of luxury. As far as I remember, Grandpa Morduchai tempered justice with mercy and accepted our family. I became his favorite grandson. However he gave my father a cold shoulder in a way. At any rate, he didn’t help us financially, and didn’t involve my father in his business. Father dealt with catering and retail sales of essential commodities. He purchased goods from the peasants at a wholesale price and resold them at a higher price. There were the following things in my father’s storage: a barrel with kerosene, a sack of flour, matches, soap. Father also sold herring, brought from hamlets in big barrels by shore-line fisherman. One barrel of herring cost a certain amount of money. Father sold herring by weight and it was profitable. Father’s earnings were enough for our modest living: food, a festive meal on Sabbath and Jewish holidays and decent clothes. Besides, Mother’s brother Emmanuel was assisting us. When he settled in America and got a job there, he sent us money sometimes.

Mother was a housewife like almost all Jewish women in our town. In such cities as Vilnius and Kaunas, where enlightened Jews resided, women tried to find a job as they learned about emancipation. But our town didn’t keep abreast with the times and had a conservative mode of life like the rest of the smaller towns. Our family couldn’t afford a maid. Mother had to do all the chores. Our family kept Jewish traditions. Mother thoroughly observed the kashrut. She took meat and poultry to the shochet. Sometimes she took me there, when I was small. When I went to school she thought it wasn’t becoming of a schoolboy to go to the shochet with her. We had separate dishes for dairy and meat products at home, as well as kitchen utensils such as silverware, pots and pans. Mother cooked food in the kitchen oven, sometimes she used a primus. [Primus stove: a small portable stove with a container for about 1 liter of kerosene that was pumped into burners.]

Mother cleaned the house thoroughly and baked challah before Sabbath. Mother always cooked gefilte fish for Sabbath. Fresh fish was sold in our town at a fair price, and Father was able to purchase it dirt cheap. In our vicinity fish wasn’t a delicacy but pretty affordable food. Father went to the synagogue on Friday. When he came back we, dressed to the nines, were waiting for him at the table. Mother lit the candles and Father said the prayer. After that we began our meal. Father was more religious than my mother. He had never worked on Sabbath. All Jewish stores and shops were closed on Sabbath.

Sometimes on Sabbath I went to my Grandpa Abba. On those days I carried his prayer book to the synagogue. Grandpa went to a large stone synagogue, located in the center of the town. It was a two-storied building. Women prayed on the second floor. I was mostly attracted to the old wooden synagogue – the place of interest in Jurbarkas. It was a synagogue, built in 1700, without any nails. It was a nice three-storied building adorned with carving and stained glass windows [This 250-year-old wooden synagogue, burned down in June 1941.] This synagogue was open only on Saturdays. Apart from those big synagogues there were rather smalls ones, meant for two-three families. Grandpa Morduchai went to such a tiny synagogue on Sabbath and holidays. Women weren’t permitted to go there; they had a separate small synagogue premise.

Pesach was the biggest Jewish holiday for us and for the entire town. There was a matzah bakery in Jurbarkas. Long before the holiday Father brought matzah in a big basket covered with white clean cloth. Mother cleaned the house thoroughly, laid fresh tablecloths, hung dressy curtains, cooked festive dishes. The first seder was carried out in the house of Grandfather Abba. He was a widower and wasn’t able to cook a good dinner. So, Mother brought gefilte fish, broth, chicken and laid a festive table. She made tasty dishes from matzah and even baked a cake from matzah flour. Grandpa was reclining at the head of the table. I was the one to look for the afikoman. Having found it I usually got some kind of present. Usually it was a cheap toy. I asked Grandpa the four traditional questions. Later on, when I was a lуceum student, my younger brother Mendel was supposed to do that.

I wasn’t interested in Jewish holidays. I have vague recollections of the holidays, as we celebrated them only when grandfather Abba was alive. Mother baked hamantashen with poppy seed on Purim. We played with rattlers. There was a tradition on those days to bring presents, the so-called shelakhmones. Mother put the tasty things on a tray and took them to her friends. Our neighbors also brought shelakhmones. On Purim there was a joyful pageant procession. Students of the Jewish school, the private lyceum, clad in pageant costumes, were walking along the thoroughfare with music and rattlers.

On Yom Kippur my parents fasted, but they didn’t make me or my brother fast. I don’t remember the fall holidays very well. There was no sukkah in the yard of our house. We also went to our Grandpa Abba, who made a sukkah in the yard of his modest house. On the holiday of Simchat Torah all religious Jews had fun. They took the Torah scroll from the synagogue and were dancing around it. I liked Chanukkah most of all. I enjoyed playing with a spinning top, and the tasty potato fritters. But what I liked the most was that both grandpas gave me Chanukkah money. Grandpa Abba could give me only a couple of coins, but Morduchai was very generous. That money was enough for my mother to buy me the clothes I needed and later on textbooks and books. Grandpa Abba died in 1936. He was buried in accordance with the Jewish tradition. We mourned [sat shivah] for seven days. My parents were sitting on the floor dressed in torn clothes. Father’s sisters came, they were also mourning. I wasn’t present at Grandpa’s funeral, but I know he was buried at the Jewish cemetery with all Jewish rites observed.

In 1927 I went to the Jewish elementary school. All subjects were taught in Hebrew there, and I was well up in that language. Yiddish was spoken at home as well as in the household of both grandfathers, I learnt Hebrew very quickly at school. Thus, I was fluent in both languages in my childhood. I studied for three years in the elementary school. I was a good student. It was easy for me to study. Here I met my first friends and my bosom friend Joseph, Josele, as we called him tenderly. We spent time together after school, wandering through the beautiful park Tel Aviv. When we finished school, my parents decided that I should go on with my studies. Unfortunately the Jewish private school wasn’t affordable for my parents, so I entered the state Lithuanian lyceum, having passed entrance exams rather easily.

There were different nationalities in the lyceum. There were a lot of Lithuanians and Jews. Teachers treated us very well. Back in that time Jews were protected as there were Jewish senators in Lithuania 8. There was even a department on Jewish issues in parliament. All subjects were taught in Lithuanian. The only subject we were exempt from was the Bible studies [Christian religion class]. Saturday was a school day and Jews as well as other students were supposed to attend classes. Nobody was exempt from studies [in the Lithuanian lyceum] on Sabbath. Some Jewish children weren’t allowed [by their parents] to attend classes on Sabbath. But acquiring knowledge was a priority for our family. Paying tribute to traditions was in the second place. I was truly prepared for my bar mitzvah. Grandpa Abba took me to a melamed, who taught me prayers, putting on teffilin. At the age of 13 I went though the rite of bar mitzvah in the synagogue. Mother made a festive dinner in accordance with the traditions. Mother invited our relatives and my friend Josele. My bar mitzvah was the last time I paid tribute to the Jewish tradition.

At that time a lot of political parties and groups were emerging in Lithuania. There were underground Communists. There were only five of them in the town, and everybody knew who they were. There were several Zionist organizations such as Betar 9, Maccabi 10, representatives of the Revisionist Zionism movement 11 etc. Our family was apolitical. Both my mother and father were politically dispassionate.

I was an excellent student, displaying more and more interest in history and philosophy. One of the teachers in our lyceum, a Catholic priest, who taught Lithuanian language, differed from others by his extreme left, even Communist views. He had to conceal his beliefs as at that time Lithuania was reined by an extreme nationalist party. The teacher trusted me for some reason and asked me to buy daily newspapers for him. There were three daily newspapers in Lithuania at that time, the pro-government ‘Echo Lithuania,’ the Catholic ‘The Twentieth Century’ and the social democratic ‘Izvestiya’ [Editor’s note: It is unlikely that a Lithuanian newspaper had a Russian name (Izvestiya was a major Soviet paper). Since the interview was conducted in Russian it is possible that the interviewee drew an analogy with the Soviet paper.] I bought all of them for the priest and managed to read them from cover to cover. That is why I was aware of what was happening in Germany, France and the USSR. I knew all the French prime ministers. I knew about the policies of Fascists and Hitler’s attitude toward the Jews. True things about the USSR were published in the papers, news of repression and arrests of the innocent people 12. Apart from reading papers every day I listened to the radio at home.

Europe was contaminated with Fascism. Fascist organizations appeared in Lithuania, even in Jurbarkas and in our lyceum. On 23rd March 1939 the German army captured the Klaipeda district, the so-called Lithuanian coastland 13. Hitler came to Klaipeda. It was a big shock for Lithuania, and young Fascist guys were happy that they finally were free to do as they pleased. There was one event that I would never be able to forget. Two weeks later, on 4th April Joseph came to the lyceum. He and I were the only Jews in our graduation class. There were 18 boys and three girls. I was friends with one of them, a Lithuanian, Elena Taimati. Joseph and I usually sat at the second desk. On that day it was taken by two friends, members of the Fascist party. They pointed to the last desk for us to sit there. Joseph and I kept on standing. When our history teacher came in – a pious Catholic spinster – she understood what was going on. She took the register and rushed out of the room.

She came back with the director of the lyceum, Bronis Lesas. He was an elderly man, a Lithuanian nationalist, who during tsarist times had fought for recognition of the written Lithuanian language, banned in Russia since 1864. [In 1863 Tsar Nicholas I began to carry out the policy of Russification in the Russian Empire. As a part of that, the written Lithuanian language was banned. Lithuanian children were taught to read at home by their parents.] At the end of the 19th century he was arrested and was sentenced to eight years of penal servitude. He was pardoned in 1904. At that time the director was a member of the leading nationalist party. That elderly Lithuanian, the nationalist, stood by the first desk, where my friend Elena was sitting, slammed his fist on the table, and cried out that Fascist escapades and Hitler’s ideas wouldn’t have a place here while he was headmaster. He had those boys leave our desk and told us to sit there. The whole class sat still. Elena was looking at me with her eyes full of tears.

There were no cases like that in my life. But I still remember those creeps and the humiliation I felt at that moment, and will remember it till the end of my days. I regret to say that when the Soviets came 14 Bronis was arrested and most likely shot as an outstanding nationalist, allegedly a Fascist sympathizer. I tried to stand up for him. I went to the district committee of the Party and told them about the case when he had stood up for me, but they didn’t care… 

That very year, 1939, I finished lyceum and went to Kaunas University. Elena left with me, too. There our paths diverged. Soon she married one of the leaders of the governing party – a Lithuanian with the last name Gashke. I entered the Economics Faculty of the university. I lived with Mother’s sister Dina Shabashevich. In November 1939, upon the signing of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact 15 and the annexation of Polish lands 16, Vilnius became the capital of Lithuania again 17, and the university was transferred there. On 15th December my mother and I, her favorite eldest son, came to Vilnius. My mother rented me a room from an elderly Jewish lady and paid for bed and breakfast. My landlady was rather poor like most of the Jews in Vilnius.

It was the happiest period in my life – my student’s years in Vilnius. Soon I met the Vilnius Jewish elite. Shailik Kaplanskiy, my fellow student, the son of one of the leaders of the Bund 18 in Vilnius, introduced me to his family. Their house was like a real salon, where the most enlightened Jews of the city got together. Vilnius was a true Jewish city, the center of Jewish culture. Shailik’s mother received me like her son. The entire Jewish intelligentsia got together in Shailik’s house: the Jewish theater, writers, scientists – the employees of the Institute of Yiddish Language and Culture. There was a large table abundant in hors-d’oeuvres, meat dishes. The simmering samovar was in the middle of the table. Having tea there, at that very table, must have been the best times of my life.

The start of my studies went by in a glimpse. In June 1940 I came back to Jurbarkas on holidays. The town hadn’t changed during my absence. On Saturday, 15th June, Joseph and other Jewish guys went to the forest for a picnic on the occasion of our reunion. There we saw two large trucks filled with chattels and trunks. Women and men were in the car and we showed them the way to the border, which was 10 kilometers away. When we came to the city, we saw the Soviet frontier squad. Thus, in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union.

In a couple of days we understood that things were getting worse. First, many products and goods that used to be in abundance, vanished from the stores. Soviet soldiers and officers bought out practically everything in large quantities: toilet soap, stockings, cosmetics, underwear, footwear, clothes, not to mention the food! Butter, sausage, usually sold in ten different kinds, ham, cheese, canned products, smoked fish, alcohol practically vanished from the stores. We couldn’t have imagined at that time that there was such an acute deficit of food and goods in the USSR. Nationalization commenced. They confiscated my Grandfather Morduchai’s house and store. He and his family had to move to the village. The wives of Soviet officers were walking around in the confiscated dresses and lingerie with fur boas. Outstanding religious and Zionist activists, members of the Lithuanian governing party were arrested. It was the time when the director of our lyceum was arrested. Our family wasn’t affected by the changes as Father was considered to be poor.

In two months, when I came back to Vilnius I was shocked that my friend Shailik, his parents and other members of our circle were arrested and exiled. I don’t know the details. It was perilous to try finding out anything as there was a chance that I might be imprisoned, too. On 1st September 1940 the academic year started. I was given a small, but rather cozy room in the hostel. Now, I had a place to live. A Komsomol 19 organization was founded at university. I was spurred on to enter it. I saw what the Soviet regime was doing, using high party ideas as a smoke screen, and decided not to join either the Komsomol or the Communist Party. I devoted the whole year to my studies, passed the summer term exams and decided to stay in Vilnius to work in the library a little bit longer. 

Early in the morning on 22nd June 1941 we woke up to the sounds of bombing. The hostel building was shuddering from the blast. We went down to the basement to wait until the air-raid was over. Among the students there were some Fascists. They took out knives and started to threaten the Jewish students. Early in the morning on 23rd June I left the hostel taking basic things with me – linen, some food and a student’s card, which was the only document I had. Now it took me about three hours to get to the train station, though before it was only 20 minutes. The city was in flames, buildings were collapsing. The bombing was incessant. One of my acquaintances, Rosa, a student, and a 35-year old Polish Jew were my company on the way to the train station. The Polish Jew told us what the Fascists were doing with Jews in Poland and that was the reason why he had fled in 1939 and come to Vilnius. We were even more discouraged.

It was really hard for us to get to the train station. There was a dreadful panic. People were nudging to squeeze in the car. We were lucky: at the eleventh hour we jumped in the car of the train which was leaving Vilnius. The train started rolling. Before that moment I didn’t have a chance to think over the events, remember my kin. Now, I understood that it was most likely that I’d never see neither my parents nor my brother again. Jurbarkas was occupied as it was the town close to the [German-Soviet] frontier. The Fascists entered Vilnius on the day we left.

It took us more than 24 hours to get from Vilnius to Minsk [today Belarus], though the distance wasn’t that great. We got off at the goods station. Minsk had already been bombed. The three of us – we decided to stick together – went to the university, hoping that we would join the Belarusian students. It seemed to us that the Fascist attack was a misconception and soon the valiant Soviet army would defeat them. We couldn’t imagine that horrible calamity was ahead. We walked around the city. Our appearance was really different from the rest of the people. We were dressed much better than people around us. I was clad in an elegant vest suit and yellow Swiss leather boots, carrying a yellow portfolio. My companions also significantly stood out from the crowd.

Hardly had we walked for 500 meters and we were taken to the police station. During the first days of the war people were afflicted with the spy scare. They saw a spy in any stranger, who looked different. We showed our documents. As the latter were in Lithuanian, the policeman thought us to be foreign. Thus we were immediately considered to be spies. A young officer took us in the yard of the police station, told us to lean against the wall and raise our hands … My life would have ended right here if not for a lucky chance… A police lieutenant came to the police station and asked who we were. When our documents were shown to him, he started to reprimand his subordinates. As it turned out he had served in Vilnius for a year and understood Lithuanian. He apologized and asked us to leave as soon as possible.

In the suburbs of the city we stayed in some kitchen garden for about three hours waiting for the bombing to stop. Then we joined the people who were walking in the western direction. It took us a week to reach Mogilev [300 km from Vilnius]. I saw a lot of deaths on my way. The Germans were constantly bombing. Mothers were carrying frightened little kids. Old people were driven in carts. I saw how the columns of convicts were convoyed from Minsk prison. There were mature gray-haired people, the elite of the nation. They could hardly move as their feet were chafed and bleeding. They were guarded by NKVD people 20 with dogs on both sides. It was a terrible scene. I remember it as if it was yesterday.

The three of us got on the train and went to Tambov oblast [today Russia], covering a distance of almost 1000 kilometers. Here I was sent to a kolkhoz 21. We were given lodging in the houses of farmers. It was a warm summer and we slept on a hay stack. We were mocked at, because we hardly understood Russian. When we were trying to say something our Lithuanian and Jewish accent seemed preposterous. The local people were even more captivated by our bourgeois attire, despite the fact that it was worn out from the emaciating labor and the sun rays.

I worked there for almost three months: July, August and beginning of September. I was despondent by the atmosphere in the village. Almost everyday somebody was drafted into the army, in the action lines and people got together on that occasion. It looked like a funeral and a wedding at the same time. People were dancing, singing, playing accordion and those who were to remain without husbands were crying and moaning. I understood that the locals treated me, a young and strong man, with contempt [because Zalman was not drafted]. I addressed the military enlistment office a couple of times, asking them to send me in the lines. The response was the same: wait for your turn. We didn’t know at that time that it was Stalin’s order not to draft people from the newly-annexed lands. The Soviet regime didn’t trust us.

I left my landlady the miserable money that I earned, my bourgeois clothes. She gave me a simple working jacket, pants and shoes instead of boots, a bottle of milk and rusks. I said good-bye to my fellow travelers and went to the military enlistment office for them to take me to the front. I had been waiting for the decision for a couple of days, lying on my jacket in the yard of the military enlistment office along with the rest of the guys like me. In three days, the 300 of us were aligned in columns and sent somewhere. We had no idea where we were heading.

It was horrible. Every day we had to walk about 30 kilometers, falling from emaciation. We would walk for 50 minutes and then had a 10-minute break. We were fed with herring and bread. Being starved and exhausted we were thirsty as well. So, we reached Atkarsk, Saratov oblast [today Russia], where we stayed at the draftees’ point for about three weeks. We went through some quick training here. Then, we were given the uniform, a rifle, and got on the train. I was assigned to the combat engineering separate battalion of the South-Western front. I had to go through another training session: on blasting, grenades and mines. We were in Krasnodar region, far from the front, 2200 kilometers from home.

In about a month I was called by the commander of the squad who appointed me to be signaler of the squad. When I came to the command post of the battalion with the assignment and the commander found out that I was from Lithuania, he got angry with me and cried out that I had no right to be in the lines. I was kicked out from the squad. They took my uniform and sent me to the penalty squad. In a while I came to the replacement depot. Commanders from different divisions came here to take the soldiers. This time I decided to be more cunning. I didn’t have the documents on me. When I was called and asked where I was from, I said I was from Belarus. I remembered the towns we were passing by on our way from Minsk, and recalled the town of Smilovichi. I named Krasnoarmeyskaya [Red Army] Street and a number of the building at random, understanding that streets named Krasnoarmeyskaya were in almost all towns. I also mentioned that all buildings were one-storied. Things went smoothly.

By that time my Russian was pretty good, over two years had passed since the Soviet regime had been established in Lithuania. I had to speak Russian all that time, besides all subjects in the university were taught in Russian in 1940-41. My Jewish accent didn’t embarrass anybody because before the war there were a lot of Jewish towns in Belarus, where people spoke with a strong Jewish accent.  

Again I was in the training squad. From morning till night we had a marching drill, studies on defense and assault methods. At that time the allies’ supplies system lend-lease commenced. [Lend-lease is the system of transfer (loan or lease) of weaponry, ammunition, strategic raw materials, provision etc.; supplies in terms of lend-lease were made by the USA to the ally-countries on anti-Hitler coalition in the period of WWII. The law on lend-lease was adopted by the US Congress in 1941.] Apart from food products, canned meat, ham and egg powders the army also got good uniforms. We were dressed in English things: warm uniform, underwear, fore and aft cap, boots.

We had been trained for three months and on 9th May 1942 we were supposed to be sent to the lines. At night, on 8th May I was woken up and called in the headquarters dug-out. It was dark in the dug-out. The light was coming from the table lamp. The representative of SMERSH 22 was sitting at the table. I was interrogated. I was asked questions about who I was and who my parents were. I was telling my ‘legend,’ but the lieutenant was asking for more and more details. Suddenly I heard the voice coming from the middle of the dug-out: ‘Enough fooling around, we know everything about you, who you are and where you come from!’ The captain came up to me and told me that in the best case scenario I would be sentenced to ten years in the camps 23 or sent to the penalty squad for fraud and deliberate misleading of the army commandment. I began to justify myself saying that I was lying only for one reason: to be in the lines.

I had a sleepless night. Even now I can’t comprehend how they could possibly find out about me. Probably they had a hunch. In the morning all transgressors were aligned on the drill square. As it turned out there were 180 of us. This was quite a scenic view. Before aligning us they took our new English military coat, boots and underwear and gave us all written-off uniforms. For instance, the sole of one of my boots was tied with a rope and my military coat was without one lapel. The head of the political department of the division held a speech from the pulpit. He said that we certainly weren’t the enemies, but as per order of the Defense Committee we weren’t entitled to be in the lines as we didn’t manage to command the loyalty of the party and government. We were sent to the city of Engels to be involved in construction works of the aviation plant 24.

Engels is a town located on the bank of the Volga River opposite to Saratov. We settled in the barracks close to the construction site. The hardest days of my life started here. Even now I recall those moments with a shudder. The mode was the same as in the concentration camp. We slept on the bunks without linen using our coats as a blanket. In the morning we got up early, had a bowl of soup made from semi-rotten cabbage, a tiny slice of bread, and off to work we went. Our daily standard was to overhaul four cubic meters of earth. Late in the evening we had the same soup. In a month and a half I weighed less than 50 kg. I started walking with a stick as I was so emaciated that I could hardly move. Once during work I lost consciousness and when I came around I was in the hospital. I stayed there for a couple of weeks. I was well fed and my young organism recouped very quickly. But still, I didn’t feel very well. I had another physical examination where it was decided what kinds of work I was capable of doing. I heard two Jewish ladies, the doctors, saying that I would die if I was sent to such hard labor. They were sorry for me. I think those two unknown ladies can take credit for rescuing my life. I was sent to a Lithuanian kolkhoz.

That Lithuanian settlement not far from Engels was founded at the end of the 18th century, when, during the Polish rebellion 25 of Kosciuszko 26, the tsarist government exiled entire villages here. Having passed thousands of kilometers in Russia I wasn’t surprised by the indigence and gloominess of the lives in Soviet kolkhozes. When I came to this Lithuanian village it seemed to me that I was home in my Klaipeda. There were clean well-built stone and wooden houses resembling my parental house in Lithuania, with laced curtains, flowers on the window sills and flower-beds in front of the house.

There were several large Lithuanian families in that village. We, the group of six people – five Lithuanians and one Jew – settled in the house of a Lithuanian landlady. Her name was Gaidite. She was a widow, her husband had been killed in action and her elder son was in the lines. She was very hospitable. She fed us and let us sleep on a large Russian stove 27.

One of my companions, an elderly Lithuanian, was wounded in the urine bladder and he suffered from uroclepsia. It was summer time. He put a couple of pants on and in spite of that they were drenched, producing a stench. In a couple of days the other guys left the place as they couldn’t stand the smell and left their comrade. The odor was unpleasant for me as well, but I was sorry for the elderly Lithuanian and stayed with him. The landlady was moved by my good attitude towards that Lithuanian. Once she mentioned that I was a Jew but treated the Lithuanian better than his comrades. Since that time Gaidite started treating me better than the rest. She tried to give me more food. She said that I reminded her of her son with my kindness.

We worked in the kolkhoz. It was the beginning of fall. We loaded the grain on camels and took it to the commodity point in Saratov. There was no bridge across the river in Engels. There was a ferry. Once, at the end of October I heard Lithuanian speech on the ferry boat. A man and a woman were having a conversation. I broached the conversation with them and found out that in Balakhna, a town not far from Gorkiy, there was a Lithuanian battalion being reformed. [The battalion was called Lithuanian because it was formed mostly of former Lithuanian citizens, who were volunteers, evacuated or serving in the labor front.] They told me the way. The evacuated Lithuanian government 28 was in Saratov, in Bristol hotel, and Lithuanian citizens could address their requests there. I didn’t lose hope to be in the lines, especially understanding that my kin had most likely perished. I remained by myself and had nothing to lose.

The next time I was in Saratov, I went to the hotel. At once I recognized the people who were receiving me. These were Kviadaras, the head of the Forestry Department of the Republic and the Minister of Agriculture, Mitskis. I told them my story and asked to send me to the Lithuanian battalion. Then Kvyadaras told me in Lithuanian: ‘You are a child, a boy why are you rushing in the lines? It is pandemonium there … They are moving to Stalingrad 29 now.’ I was persistent, explaining that I can’t idle around being young and strong, I have to fight the Fascists. Besides, my relatives had perished. I was issued documents, and I went to the military enlistment office. Again I had to go though physical examination and I was recognized fit for the front lines. It was January 1943.

The landlady gave me warm clothes, rusks, pig fat and saw me off like a son. I reached Saratov and from there I squeezed in the overcrowded train, as during evacuation, and went to Gorkiy, then Balakhna, where the Lithuanian squad was located. Again I had to go through an examination. There was a Jewish doctor, Epstein, who didn’t want to issue a conclusion that I was fit for the front line service. It was hard to talk him into changing his conclusion, but I managed. The conclusion said that I was fit for the front-line service.

I was sent to the second squad of the Lithuanian division #16, which was getting ready to be sent to the front lines. Again I was given a uniform. The training lasted for two weeks. After that the mandate board considered my case and it was decided that I should go to Podol infantry military school. The duration of studies was four months. In June I was supposed to graduate. At that time there was a turning point in the war. The Soviet Army was attacking and the commandment decided to prolong my studies aiming to preserve officers. We had several extensions: the first time for six months, then for three months. As a result we studied for 15 months at this school, revising the same material.

I graduated from the school in the rank of a junior lieutenant. I was sent to Yartsevo, Smolensk oblast, where the Lithuanian rifle division #50 was being reformed. I was platoon commander for 24 hours. The next day I was called by the regiment commander Churbaneyev and was assigned commander of squad. I was in that position for about a week. Then I was assigned the personal aide of the headquarters commander. I worked for a couple of weeks and then I was supposed to go through the investigation of the board consisting of general and colonels. They wanted to check me. I was asked many questions. In the end they were satisfied with my answers.

The same evening my school comrade, a Lithuanian guy named Markovich, brought me a letter from Jurbarkas [Lithuania had already been liberated]. His relatives wrote me a detailed letter, saying how my relatives perished. On 3rd July 1941 my brother Mendel was shot in the Jurbarkas cemetery together with 350 young Jewish people. Father was shot with the group of Jews in August. He had to dig a grave for himself. My dear mother, whom I loved best of all, was sent to Kaunas ghetto, where she died on 28th September 1941 during a big action. I was grieving. I was in a terrible mood. One thing to deem your loved ones to have perished and quite another thing is to know about that for sure. I was alone in the whole world.

In the morning I was called to the headquarters and told about my assignment to the post of the aide of the headquarters regiment commander. I lost control, burst into tears and said that I didn’t want to work or to live. The regiment commander reprimanded me brusquely and told me to leave. I went outside, sat on the steps and started crying. I felt that somebody was giving me a hug. It was the regiment commander. He sat next to me and started comforting me. He told me that in Ukraine his wife and children had been murdered by the Lithuanian Polizei. He said that we should survive no matter what, for our foes not to gloat over our death. He said that I was capable and would cope with work. He said he would be helping me. So, I became the personal aide of the regiment commander.
Our regiment wasn’t involved in battles that much. Our battles were of short duration and not very critical. We fought in Smolensk oblast, liberated a part of Belarus. The Fascists were hardly resisting us. They mostly were retreating. In two months, in September 1944 we were transferred to Lithuania to the prewar military camp of the Lithuanian army Gaizhuna. It was the place of a mass abandonment of post. Lithuanians left for the forests, having taken the weapons. 25-30 people left our regiment with the guns. Every morning the regiment commander asked, ‘Kaplan, tell me how many?’ and I reported how many people were left with weapons and how many of them were unarmed.

On the anniversary day of the October Revolution 30 there was a mess in the barracks. The soldiers were drinking moonshine with the local broads and at dawn many of them headed for the forests with them. It turned out that 180 deserted the regiment. It was a big scandal. The commandment and I were threatened with the camps, but what could we have done? In a couple of days, as per order of the Supreme Commander, our regiment was reformed. Our banner was taken from us, and that was it. I was transferred to Vilnius, where the capital regiment was formed from those who remained in our former regiment. In the lines I was offered to join the Party on multiple occasions. I honestly said that I was raised in bourgeois Lithuania and wouldn’t be able to give my life for Lenin and Stalin. A long time ago I made up my mind not to enter the Party.
We settled in Vilnius, where military squads were positioned before the war. The regiment commander gave me and my orderly a separate house. It was a small wooden house on Kostyushkas Street. My lodging was primitively furnished – two iron folding beds, a table and a chair. I used to have no luxury during the war. I celebrated the Victory Day 31, 9th May 1945 here, in Vilnius. I had served by the end of the year 1945 and pleaded for demobilization. I was called to the Baltic military circle a couple of times. They offered me to go to military school or academy for me not to leave the army. I didn’t want to be in the military. I intended to study at university and made arrangement to resume my studies. Finally, on 26th January 1946 I was demobilized from the army in the same rank I had after having finished military school.

I was in high spirits. I had a place to live. The house that the regiment commander gave me still belonged to me. I was to study at university and have a good job. I was offered the position of deputy head of the municipal Ispolkom 32 owing to my fluency in Russian. But things turned out to be quite different. I met my friend, Ivan Zherebtsov, in the military enlistment office where I came to take my documents. He offered me a job in the forestry vocational school as a civil defense teacher. The previous teacher, the Lithuanian Dragunas was a sot, who even drank during the lectures. He was fired and I was offered to teach civil defense instead of him. I resisted for a long time. I didn’t want to work at the vocational school as a teacher with a certain schedule. I wanted to have time for my studies. Frankly speaking, the salary was much lower at the vocational school as compared to the one offered by the Ispolkom. In spite of the fact that I didn’t give my consent to work at the vocational school, I was forced, because Ivan, without telling me, had an appointment with the head of the Ispolkom and convinced him to assign me as a defense teacher at the vocational school. My task was to establish a rigid discipline as there were bandits in the forests at that time, and students, who mostly came from villages and hamlets, were influenced by them. It was very easy for me. During the war I used to stick to military discipline and require it from my subordinates. In a couple of weeks there was an apple-pie order in the vocational school and the students didn’t only obey me, but also other teachers and the director.

Now my life wasn’t that easy. I had to combine work at the vocational school with daily studies at university. Things got even more complicated when I was assigned the monitor of the course, who was supposed to mark the attendance of students and be responsible for the discipline. Soon, I managed everything, asking some of my friends to perform my functions. When the first term was finished I was declared the best monitor. Our course had the best attendance. So I coped both with work and studies.
I didn’t know anything about my prewar comrades from Jurbarkas and Vilnius. I assumed that they had perished. In spring 1947 somebody knocked on my door, and when I opened it, I was so surprised to see Elena, my friend from Jurbarkas lyceum. She came in hastily, asked me to lock the door and told me her story. Elena Taimati came to Kaunas with me after having finished lyceum. Soon, she married the Lithuanian lawyer Gashka. He was a member of the nationalist governmental party. [As a result of the military coup in 1926 ‘Tautininki’ (nationalists) came to power and a dictatorship was introduced.] He came from a large poor Lithuanian family of eight children. They lived in a hamlet. One of Gashka’s elder brothers was a Communist. He left for Russia and became an outstanding activist of the Lithuanian Communist Party after the annexation of Lithuania to Russia [the Soviet Union]. In 1940, after the Soviets came to power, Elena’s husband was shot right away for being the activist of the nationalist conservative party.

Elena gave birth to a daughter after her husband was arrested. In 1941 she and her child were put in a freight car and exiled to Siberia for being the wife of an enemy of the people 33. Elena lumbered wood in the taiga and lived in the hardest conditions. She was young, capable and presentable, so she managed to find a job as an accountant. Then she was offered a position in the central administration of the forestry in Yakutsk. She became the chief accountant of the trust.
Once, when she was looking through the payroll, she noticed the last name Grinberg. When she met with that man, it turned out that he was Leibl Grinberg, the younger brother of my Grandpa. He also was repressed and exiled to Siberia with his whole family and had almost the same story as Elena. I didn’t keep in touch with Leibl, but he knew from Uncle Joseph [Grinberg], who also lived in Siberia, on the open land, that I lived in Vilnius. He even knew my address. So it was he who told Elena where I lived.
I don’t know how Elena managed to escape from Yakutsk as she didn’t have documents. Now she was here in my house asking for help. I sheltered Elena in my house and told her not to go out. In a couple of days I found her husband’s brother, who was the director of the Central Polygraph Department of Lithuania. Being a crystal clear man he went to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Lithuania and asked him to exonerate Elena. The minister couldn’t resolve that issue and asked him to write a letter addressed to Beriya 34. Luckily, Elena’s relative understood that he shouldn’t do that, otherwise not only Elena, but I and he would perish. Then he went to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania, Snieckus 35. Snieckus was the one who helped. She was exonerated and issued a passport. She left for Moscow in a year and entered the university. In a couple of years she wrote a dissertation on the literary activity of Lev Tolstoy 36. We kept in touch. Lena obtained the degree of doctor of science [Soviet/Russian doctorate degrees] 37. She remained single. In a couple of months after that story with Elena my uncle Joseph, who lived on open land, came back from Siberia when his exile term was over. He lived with me for a while and at the end of 1947 left for Poland, then for Israel.

In 1949 I wrote a diploma work and graduated from university. I got a mandatory job assignment 38 to the Ministry of the Forest Industry of Lithuania and was supposed to start work on 1st August. I resigned from the vocational school and was looking forward to my new job. In the middle of July I was called to the headmaster’s office. My job assignment was changed. I was shown the order of the minister wherein I was assigned acting director of the vocational school I was so happy to have resigned from. The previous director, who had practically ruined the work of the vocational school, was promoted to a deputy minister in Moscow. It was normal for the Soviet regime to get rid of negligent directors by promoting them. I was trying to resist the best way I could, but the minister promised that I would be transferred to another position after ensuring order at school. It turned out to be more than one year.

In a year, viz 1950 I was again appointed the acting director of the vocation school at the collegium of the ministry. I couldn’t be appointed director as I was a Jew, and besides I didn’t belong to the Communist Party. It was the period of state anti-Semitism. Almost every day ‘rootless cosmopolites’ 39 were stigmatized in the papers, which said that they were looking for ways to do harm. At that hard time when Jews were fired no matter what position they had, I became the acting director of the vocational school. Since 1950 the commissions from Moscow came to the vocational school on a frequent basis. Many people couldn’t abide by the fact that I was a good director. In reality, the vocational school became one of the best in its field. I moved to the vocational school. I locked my apartment, where I had a relative comfort. I lived in my office, slept on the leather couch. Back at that time such couches were the attributes of the offices. Many people burned the midnight oil trying to copy Stalin.

I followed the behavior of my students. I often went to the hostel. I didn’t allow them to drink moonshine and flirt. There was a semi-military discipline in the vocational school. Many people disliked it. My position became shaky. On the one hand I understood that I would be working there until a good Lithuanian director was found, on the other hand I didn’t like my job, but nobody allowed me to leave. In the full swing of anti-Semitism, during the Doctors’ Plot 40, at the beginning of 1953. the auditor came to the vocational school intending to fire or arrest me. But he couldn’t find a reason. The most interesting thing was when the Minister of Forestry was trying to find out from our curators in Moscow who initiated the checkup, it turned out that the checkup wasn’t coming from our system. They didn’t even know the name of the auditor. It means that other important authorities were interested in me, mostly likely it was the KGB 41. It was a terrible time. It was impossible to read those loathing articles about Jews being criminals and murderers. All people with common sense understood that it was libel and provocation. But still it affected the public opinion. People became suspicious. The Jews in the street were looking around feeling harassed.

Before the holiday of 23rd February 1953 [Soviet Army Day] 42 Elena called me from Moscow. She said that her relative who helped her out with exoneration as per assignment of the municipal committee of the party was to hold a lecture on doctors-poisoners in my vocational school. He was so worried that it made him sick. I said that I understood everything; it didn’t matter to me who would say that rubbish – her relative or a stranger. I promised that I wouldn’t be offended as it was clear to me what was going on.

On 23rd February all students got together in the assembly hall. The relative was broaching all kinds of subjects in his lecture – his fate, his career in the Party, the difference between the socialist and capitalist mode of life – and finished his speech with a laudation to the Party and Stalin. He hadn’t said a word about doctors-poisoners. Of course, Elena’s relative took a risk. If some sort of stooge leaked a word that he hadn’t fulfilled the assignment, he could have been turned out from the Party and in the worst case die.

Fortunately – and it’s not a slip of the tongue, I mean it – fortunately for me and for other millions of people, the tyrant died on 5th March 1953. I didn’t mourn over his death, but I didn’t show my joy either. By that time I knew a lot about the true persona of Stalin and repressions. Every morning I listened to Radio Free Europe 43 in my office, BBC and other western radio stations. It was impossible to black out these radio stations in Lithuania and the voice of Anatoliy Goldenberg, the BBC announcer became dear to many Lithuanian households. That year, 1953 I was given a car, a ‘Moskvich-401’ 44, for being the director of the best vocational school of the industry. I stayed in that position for another four years. In 1957 they finally found the director who met all requirements of the ministry. He was a Lithuanian and was educated in forestry. By that time I had been given an apartment by the vocational school. They told me to move out of my apartment after my resignation as it was meant for the new director. And again luck was smiling at me. The vocational school was transferred to Kaunas, so the apartment was left to me.

I had a family by that time. A wonderful girl, Sheina Volpe, lived with her mother not far from me in the house of their remote relative, my former front-line comrade, Avrum Volpe. I met her in his house. Sheina was born in 1928 in the small town of Kronis, not far from Kaunas, into the family of a merchant, Moses Volpe. A couple of days before the war the Volpe family came to their relatives in Kaunas. They were caught in the war and became inmates of Kaunas ghetto. Moses, Sheina’s father, was shot during one of the first actions. Sheina, her mother, aunt, and cousin were taken to a hamlet by one of their acquaintances, a Lithuanian called Bronis. For two years the three of them stayed in a hole under the shed sized 2.5x1.5 meters. The hamlet where Bronis lived wasn’t far from the highway Kaunas–Vilnius. There was a pond where the Fascists washed their horses and watered them. If somebody had checked the shed, where the Jews were hiding in the cellar, not only the Jews would have been killed, but also the whole family of the host.

When the Soviet Army liberated the hamlet, Sheina and her relatives were on the brink of emaciation. Aunt Mery was the one who suffered the most as her toes were frozen and she was severely afflicted with rheumatism so that she wasn’t able to walk. First Sheina and her mother Sarah lived in their town. Then their distant relative, my comrade, suggested moving to his house, not far from mine on Kostyuskas. I liked Sheina at once. She was a pretty Jewish lady. We had a lot in common: our childhood and adolescence went by in one little town, our kin perished during the occupation. Besides, I wanted to have a true family: to have our holidays and traditions. In 1955 Sheina and I registered our marriage in the state registration office, but we didn’t have any party on the occasion. Sheina moved into my apartment. In 1956 she gave birth to our first-born. I decided to name him after my father, Moshe.

At that time there was the first Israeli-Arab war for independence in Israel [Editor’s note: It was the Suez Crisis taking place in 1956, the Israeli Independence War was eight years earlier.] 45, and everybody knew the name of Moshe Dayan 46, the one-eyed Israeli general, though Soviet propaganda depicted him as a symbol of the ‘international belligerent Zionism.’ If there was an article devoted to unmasking the ‘Israeli aggressors’ his picture was always published. When the newsreel of that war was presented, Dayan was always there. He was vituperated at all party convocations, meetings of the workers and lectures.

When I came to the state registration office to register my son, I was told that such a name didn’t exist, but I was persistent and named my son Moshe. However, I had to be persistent in pushing for them to agree to put the name Moshe on the birth certificate of my son. I demanded that they show me the official stamped document where it was written how to name children, and which names were banned. Of course, such a document didn’t exist. I said that such names as Stalina [derivative from Stalin], Oktiabrina [derivative from October Revolution] and other similar names weren’t listed in any book, nevertheless I personally knew some people with such names. In 1961 Sheina gave birth to our second son, who was named after Emmanuel, one of my mother’s brothers, who was helping our family.

First, we lived in my house. It was rather hard. We had to carry water in buckets and warm it to bathe our son. Upon receiving the apartment our life was getting gradually better. By that time Sheina had graduated from the Chemistry Department of Vilnius University and was employed by a military plant. She worked there for quite a few years. After I resigned from vocational school I started working for the Design Bureau of the Light Industry and then for the Light Industry Ministry as an advisor on financial issues. I was well paid. My wife earned pretty good money as well. We had a comfortable life. We could afford good food and beautiful clothes. I still think what suit to put on and pick a tie to match the suit. In the summer time we went to the popular Baltic spas or to the Crimea and the Caucasus.

Sheina and I had arguments. In spite of inconsiderable disparity in years our views differed as she was born later and she grew up in the USSR. So, we were raised in different states: I was raised in bourgeois Lithuania and Sheina in the Soviet Union. She was a zealot of the socialist way of life; she believed the Communist ideals, while I was rather skeptical of them. The situation at the military plant affected my wife’s outlook the most. It was a certain realm where people were raised to be devoted to Communism.

In spite of the fact that after the war I didn’t keep in touch with the Jewish community, nor mark religious holiday, in my soul I was loyal to the Jews. I’ve always been a patriot of Israel. I always followed the events in Israel and my wife considered me to be anti-Soviet and that was the reason for our tiffs. When at the end of the 1970s a new immigration wave commenced, she was against our departure. For us to leave anywhere she would have had to resign from her job at the plant and work for several years at an ordinary enterprise as all employees of the defense industry had top-secret status. It was considered that they were aware of state secrets and they were banned from going abroad even as tourists. She didn’t want to quit her job. She said she had a wonderful life in the USSR and there was no need to go anywhere.

When after the breakup of the USSR in 1991 we were invited to immigrate to Israel by one of my wife’s distant relatives, Yehoshua Rabinovich [former Israeli Minister of Finance and Mayor of Tel Aviv] who was the mayor of Tel Aviv, we couldn’t leave as our passport bureau didn’t want to accept my wife’s documents for a visa. It was such a good chance for us: we were guaranteed a job and an apartment. I was one of the first who came to Israel on invitation. I am fascinated by this country. I would love to live there, but I couldn’t leave my family.

My sons were very good students at school. Both of them entered Vilnius University. Here in Lithuania, state anti-Semitism was not at such a level as in other parts of the USSR and almost all Jewish children entered universities without any problem. Moshe graduated from the Economics Department and Emmanuel from the Faculty of Applied Mathematics. Unfortunately, we have a lot of disagreements with Moshe. He married a Lithuanian and I was against it. Besides, when my wife was seriously ill, he turned his back on us as if we were strangers. I can’t forgive him for that. So, we don’t keep in touch. I know that he has a good life. He works in a computer center and has a top position.

Emmanuel is quite a different son. He is devoted to his mother. In 1995 Emmanuel immigrated to Israel. He found a very good job there. But in 1997 my Sheina, who had spent her adolescence in a damp basement, got severely ill. She was afflicted with rheumatism since adolescence and now it was recrudescent. She was operated on her knee joint. In 1998 she had to go through a complicated oncological operation. I’ve always been there for my wife. Emmanuel called from Israel every evening asking how his mother was doing. He also sent money, medicine and came for a visit on holidays.

Three years ago Emmanuel came back to Vilnius. I’m a very elderly man and it is hard for me to look after my sick wife. Now Emmanuel lives not far from us and calls on us every day to spend time with his mother. When she is in hospital, he spends most of his time with her, changes her nappies and takes her to the bathroom. That is why my son’s personal life wasn’t happy. However, I know that he has a girlfriend, but he finds it impossible to get married. My Sheina is weak not only physically, but also suffers morally. Sheina doesn’t want to see people, especially those who have known her young and beautiful. She has destroyed all her photos. I’ve loved Sheina all my life and would never leave her.

I’ve always been biased against the Soviet regime. That’s why I approved of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the foundation of the independent state of Lithuania 47. My wife and I are currently members of the revived Jewish community of Lithuania. We celebrate all Jewish holidays. I am a member of the military community of Jewish War Veterans 48. I often go to Jurbarkas, to the place where my kin perished. Only five Jews, born in Jurbarkas before World War II, remained in Lithuania. We founded a club. Now there is a group of the second generation there – children of native Jurbarkas Jews who are currently residing abroad. We also established a charity fund, where donations from Jurbarkas Jews are collected. We put up a monument at the place where Jews from my town were shot by the Fascists.


Glossary:

1 Great Patriotic War

On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

2 Lithuanian Polizei

In Russian this term refers to the local Lithuanian collaborators with the Nazi regime. Subordinated to the Germans, they were organized as a police force and were responsible for establishing the Nazi control in the country. They played a major role in carrying out the destruction of the Lithuanian Jewry.

3 Lithuanian independence

A part of the Russian Empire since the 18th Century, Lithuania gained independence after WWI, as a result of the collapse of its two powerful neighbors, Russia and Germany, in November 1918. Although resisting the attacks of Soviet-Russia, Lithuania lost to Poland the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural city of Vilna (Wilno, Vilnius) in 1920, claimed by both countries, and as a result they remained at war up until 1927. In 1923 Lithuania succeeded in occupying the previously French-administered (since 1919) Memel Territory and port (today Klaipeda). The Lithuanian Republic remained independent until the Soviet occupation in 1940.

4 Deportations from the Baltics (1940-1953)

After the Soviet Union occupied the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in June 1940 as a part of establishing the Soviet system, mass deportation of the local population begun. The victims of these were mainly but not exclusively those unwanted by the regime: the local bourgeousie and the previously politically active strata. Deportations to remote parts of the Soviet Union were going on countinously up until the death of Stalin. The first major wave of deportation took place between 11th and 14th June 1941, when 36,000, mostly politically active people were deported. Deportations were reintroduced after the Soviet Army recaptured the three countries from Nazi Germany in 1944. Partisan fights against the Sovet occupiers were going on all up to 1956, when the last squad was eliminated. Between June 1948 and January 1950 in accordance with a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR, 52,541 people from Latvia, 118,599 from Lithuania and 32,450 people from Estonia were deported on the charges of ‚grossly dodging from labor activity in the agricultural field and lead anti-social and  parasitic mode of life‘. The total number of deportees from the three republics amounted to 203,590. Among them were entire Lithuanian families of different social strata (peasants, workers, intelligentsia), everybody who was able to reject or deemed capable to reject the regime. Most of the exiled died in the foreign land. Besides, about 100,000 people were killed in action and in fusillade for being members of partisan squads and another about 100,000 were sentenced to 25 years in camps.

5 Keep in touch with relatives abroad

The Soviet authorities could arrest an individual corresponding with his/her relatives abroad and charge him/her with espionage, send them to a labour camp or even sentence them to death.

6 Shaulist Council

Nationalist and militant organization in Lithuania in the 1930s, with about 10,000 members. Later they were fighting both the Soviet and the Nazi occupiers and used partisan methods: blew up trains, assassinated military leaders and Communists. They were eliminated by the Soviet power after WWII.

7 Kaunas ghetto

On 24th June 1941 the Germans captured Kaunas. Two ghettoes were established in the the city, a small and a big one, and 48,000 Jews were taken to them. Within two and a half month the small ghetto was eliminated and during the ‚Grossaktion‘ of 28th-29th October thousands of the survivors were murdered, including children. The remaining 17,412 people in the big ghetto were mobilized to work.  On 27th-28th March 1944 another 18,000 were killed and 4,000 were taken to different camps in July before the Soviet Army captured the city. The total number of people perished in the Kaunas ghetto was 35,000.

8 Jews in the Lithuanian parliament

After Lithuania gained independence (1918) in the Seim (Parliament) about 30 percent of the representatives were Jewish. After the 1926 coup the Seim was dissolved, authoritarian rule was introduced and there were no longer any Jewish representatives in the government.

9 Betar

Founded in Riga, Latvia, in 1923, Betar was a Zionist youth movement, named after Joseph Trumpeldor. It taught Hebrew culture and self defense in Eastern Europe and formed the core groups of the later settlements in Palestine. Most European branches were lost during the Holocaust.

10 Maccabi World Union

International Jewish sports organization whose origins go back to the end of the 19th century. A growing number of young Eastern European Jews involved in Zionism felt that one essential prerequisite for the establishment of a national home in Palestine was the improvement of the physical condition and training of ghetto youth. In order to achieve this, gymnastics clubs were founded in many Eastern and Central European countries, which later came to be called Maccabi. The movement soon spread to more countries in Europe and to Palestine. The World Maccabi Union was formed in 1921. In less than two decades its membership was estimated at 200,000 with branches located in most countries of Europe and in Palestine, Australia, South America, South Africa, etc.

11 Revisionist Zionism

The movement founded in 1925 and led by Vladimir Jabotinsky advocated the revision of the principles of Political Zionism developed by Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism. The main goal of the Revisionists was to put pressure on Great Britain for a Jewish statehood on both banks of the Jordan River, a Jewish majority in Palestine, the reestablishment of the Jewish regiments, and military training for the youth. The Revisionist Zionists formed the core of what became the Herut (Freedom) Party after the Israeli independence. This party subsequently became the central component of the Likud Party, the largest right-wing Israeli party since the 1970s.

12 Great Terror (1934-1938)

During the Great Terror, or Great Purges, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison. The major targets of the Great Terror were Communists. Over half of the people who were arrested were members of the Party at the time of their arrest. The armed forces, the Communist Party, and the government in general were purged of all allegedly dissident persons; the victims were generally sentenced to death or to long terms of hard labor. Much of the purge was carried out in secret, and only a few cases were tried in public ‘show trials’. By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the Party and the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary. Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union until his death in March 1953.

13 Memel/Klaipeda

After WWI the previously German (East Prussian) city of Memel with its surrounding area was put under the administration of the Entente. It was separated from Germany and occupied by French troops, despite the fact that the majority of the city was German, with both a Polish and a Lithuanian minority. The Lithuanian army succeeded in occupying the area and the port in 1923. Lithuanian sovereignty over Memel (Lithuanian Klaipeda) was internationally recognized with the signing of the Memel Statute by France, Britain, Italy and Japan in December 1923. Memel was formally incorporated as an autonomous region of Lithuania on 8th March 1924. The National Socialists gained favor and anti-Semitism grew steadily during the 1930s. The Nazis won 26 of 29 seats on the local council in the December 1938 elections and Memel’s Jews began a mass exodus. On 22nd March 1939 it was occupied by German forces and attached to the Third Reich. Its civilian population was evacuated to the west in October 1944. The Red Army captured the heavily damaged city on 28th January 1945 and attached it to the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1947 as Klaipeda.

14 Occupation of the Baltic Republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)

Although the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact regarded only Latvia and Estonia as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, according to a supplementary protocol (signed in 28th September 1939) most of Lithuania was also transferred under the Soviets. The three states were forced to sign the ‘Pact of Defense and Mutual Assistance’ with the USSR allowing it to station troops in their territories. In June 1940 Moscow issued an ultimatum demanding the change of governments and the occupation of the Baltic Republics. The three states were incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics.

15 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which became known under the name of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Engaged in a border war with Japan in the Far East and fearing the German advance in the west, the Soviet government began secret negotiations for a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939. In August 1939 it suddenly announced the conclusion of a Soviet-German agreement of friendship and non-aggression. The Pact contained a secret clause providing for the partition of Poland and for Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

16 Annexation of Eastern Poland

According to a secret clause in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact defining Soviet and German territorial spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Poland in September 1939. In early November the newly annexed lands were divided up between the Ukrainian and the Belarusian Soviet Republics.

17 Annexation of Vilnius to Lithuania

During the interwar period the previously Russian-held multi-ethnic city of Wilno (Vilnius) was a part of Poland and the capital of Lithuania was Kaunas. According to a secrete clause in the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact (Soviet-German agreement on the division of Eastern Europe, August 1939) the Soviet Army occuped both Eastern Poland (September 1939) and the three Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, June 1940) besides other territories (Bessarabia, Bukovina, Karelia). While most of the Eastern Polish territoes were divided up between Soviet Ukraine and Belorus, Vilnius was attached to Lithuania and was to be its capital. The loss of the independent Lithuanian statehood, therefore, was accompanied by the return of Vilnius, regarded as an integral part of the country by many Lithuanians.

18 Bund

The short name of the General Jewish Union of Working People in Lithuania, Poland and Russia (Bund means Union in Yiddish). The Bund was a social democratic organization representing Jewish craftsmen from the Western areas of the Russian Empire. It was founded in Vilnius in 1897. In 1906 it joined the autonomous fraction of the Russian Social Democratic Working Party and took up a Menshevist position. After the Revolution of 1917 the organization split: one part was against the Soviet power, while the other remained in the Bolsheviks’ Russian Communist Party. In 1921 the Bund dissolved itself in the USSR, but continued to exist in other countries.

19 Komsomol

Communist youth political organization created in 1918. The task of the Komsomol was to spread 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 as uninitiated young proletarians, whereas party members had to have at least a minimal political qualification.

20 NKVD

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

21 Collective farm (in Russian kolkhoz)

In the Soviet Union the policy of gradual and voluntary collectivization of agriculture was adopted in 1927 to encourage food production while freeing labor and capital for industrial development. In 1929, with only 4 percent of farms in kolkhozes, Stalin ordered the confiscation of peasants' land, tools, and animals; the kolkhoz replaced the family farm.

22 SMERSH

Russian abbreviation for ‘Smert Shpionam’ meaning Death to Spies. It was a counterintelligence department in the Soviet Union formed during World War II, to secure the rear of the active Red Army, on the front to arrest ‘traitors, deserters, spies, and criminal elements’. The full name of the entity was USSR People’s Commissariat of Defense Chief Counterintelligence Directorate ‘SMERSH’. This name for the counterintelligence division of the Red Army was introduced on 19th April 1943, and it worked as a separate entity until 1946. It was headed by Viktor Abakumov. At the same time a SMERSH directorate within the People’s Commissariat of the Soviet Navy and a SMERSH department of the NKVD were created. The main opponent of SMERSH in its counterintelligence activity was Abwehr, the German military foreign information and counterintelligence department. SMERSH activities also included ‘filtering’ the soldiers recovered from captivity and the population of the gained territories. It was also used to punish within the NKVD itself; allowed to investigate, arrest and torture, force to sign fake confessions, put on a show trial, and either send people to the camps or shoot them. SMERSH would also often be sent out to find and kill defectors, double agents, etc.; also used to maintain military discipline in the Red Army by means of barrier forces that were supposed to shoot down the Soviet troops in the cases of retreat. SMERSH was also used to hunt down ‘enemies of the people’ outside Soviet territory.

23 Gulag

The Soviet system of forced labor camps in the remote regions of Siberia and the Far North, which was first established in 1919. However, it was not until the early 1930s that there was a significant number of inmates in the camps. By 1934 the Gulag, or the Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps, then under the Cheka's successor organization the NKVD, had several million inmates. The prisoners included murderers, thieves, and other common criminals, along with political and religious dissenters. The Gulag camps made significant contributions to the Soviet economy during the rule of Stalin. Conditions in the camps were extremely harsh. After Stalin died in 1953, the population of the camps was reduced significantly, and conditions for the inmates improved somewhat.


24 Labor army: it was made up of men of call-up age not trusted to carry firearms by the Soviet authorities. Such people were those living on the territories annexed by the USSR in 1940 (Eastern Poland, the Baltic States, parts of Karelia, Bessarabia and northern Bukovina) as well as ethnic Germans living in the Soviet Union proper. The labor army was employed for carrying out tough work, in the woods or in mines. During the first winter of the war, 30 percent of those drafted into the labor army died of starvation and hard work. The number of people in the labor army decreased sharply when the larger part of its contingent was transferred to the national Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian Corps, created at the beginning of 1942. The remaining labor detachments were maintained up until the end of the war.

25 Polish Uprising as of 1794

In December 1792 Catherine II and the King of Prussia Friedrich William II agreed on division of Rech Pospolita. On 9th April 1793 the terms of division were declared: Prussia got Great Poland with the cities of Poznan’, Torun’ and Gdan’sk, Russia – Eastern Belarus and Right-Bank Ukraine. The general uprising of Polish patriots against dictatorship of foreign states commenced on 12th March 1794 under the leadership of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, with the motto – to fully restore the sovereignty of Poland.  The insurgent army consisted of about 70 thousand people, but they were armed with hacks and scythes. By May 1794 the rebellions gained control over the major part of Rech Pospolita. Russia, Prussia and Austria decided to suppress the uprising with armed forces and make Poles recognize division of Poland. Three armies invaded the territory of Poland: Russian, Austrian and Prussian, with the total number of 110 thousand soldiers and officers. After desperate fight the insurrection was put down. The defeat of the mutiny predetermined division of Poland in 1795 and complete liquidation of Polish state system.

26 Kosciuszko Tadeusz (full nameTadeusz Andrzej Bonawentura Kosciuszko) (4th February 1746, the village of Меrechevschisna, Volyn’ — 15th October 1817, Solothurn, Switzerland)

National Hero of Poland. In 1769 finished Chivalry Academy with and stayed there to teach. Kosciuszko was an ardent stickler of the ideas of social reorganization. His ideals were the liberty of conscience, equality of social strata and democracy of the state. In 1776 Kosciuszko left for North America, where he voluntarily joined colonisers, who fought for independence from Great Britain. He stood out there as a genius military commander. Knowledge and capabilities of Kosciuszko were noticed by George Washington, who assigned him his personal aide. When the war was over in 1784, Kosciuszko returned to his motherland. In 1792 he was known as one of the bravest and worthiest Polish commanders. King Stanislav II August made Kosciuszko general-lieutenant and the government of France granted him the right of an honorable citizen of France. In 1794 general Kosciuszko became one of the leaders of Polish patriotic movement, heading Polish national and liberation uprising against division of Poland by Russia and Prussia. On 24th March 1794 he was declared  generalissimo — commander of the armed forces of the patriots being authorized for dictatorship. On the 10th of October 1794 Kosciuszko’s troops were shattered by Russian troops. Kosciuszko himself was severely wounded in action and captured. In 1796 he and other 12 thousand Polish captives were liberated by new  Russian emperor Pavel I.  Kosciuszko devoted the rest of his life to the struggle for gaining independence of Poland. In 1815 Kosciuszko moved to Switzerland, where he died in two years, at the age of 71. The ashes of Tadeusz Kosciuszko were taken to Poland and in 1819 buried in Krakov Vavel, next to the graves of Polish kings.

27 Russian stove

Big stone stove stoked with wood. They were usually built in a corner of the kitchen and served to heat the house and cook food. It had a bench that made a comfortable bed for children and adults in wintertime.

28 Lithuanian Government in Evacuation

Both the Government of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party were created in 1940 and were evacuated to Moscow as the war started. Their task was to provide for Lithuanian residents who had been evacuated or drafted into the labor army. They succeeded in restoring life and work conditions of many evacuees. Former leaders of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic took active part in the formation of the Lithuanian Rifle Corps assisting the transfer of former Lithuanian citizens from the labor army into the Corps. At the beginning of 1942, top authority institutions of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic were moved to Saratov, and the permanent Lithuanian representation office remained in Moscow. In September 1944, Lithuania was re-established as part of the USSR and the Lithuanian government moved to Vilnius.

29 Stalingrad Battle (17th July 1942- 2nd February1943) The Stalingrad, South-Western and Donskoy Fronts stopped the advance of German armies in the vicinity of Stalingrad

On 19-20th November 1942 the Soviet troops undertook an offensive and encircled 22 German divisions (330 thousand people) in the vicinity of Stalingrad. The Soviet troops eliminated this German grouping. On 31st January 1943 the remains of the 6th German army headed by General Field Marshal Paulus surrendered (91 thousand people). The victory in the Stalingrad battle was of huge political, strategic and international significance.

30 October Revolution Day

  25th October (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 7th November.

31 Victory Day in Russia (9th May)

National holiday to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II and honor the Soviets who died in the war.

32 Ispolkom

After the tsar’s abdication (March, 1917), power passed to a Provisional Government appointed by a temporary committee of the Duma, which proposed to share power to some extent with councils of workers and soldiers known as ‘soviets’. Following a brief and chaotic period of fairly democratic procedures, a mixed body of socialist intellectuals known as the Ispolkom secured the right to ‘represent’ the soviets. The democratic credentials of the soviets were highly imperfect to begin with: peasants - the overwhelming majority of the Russian population - had virtually no say, and soldiers were grossly over-represented. The Ispolkom’s assumption of power turned this highly imperfect democracy into an intellectuals’ oligarchy.

33 Enemy of the people

Soviet official term; euphemism used for real or assumed political opposition.

34 Beriya, Lavrentiy Pavlovich (1899-1953)

Communist politician, one of the main organizers of the mass arrests and political persecution between the 1930s and the early 1950s. Minister of Internal Affairs, 1938-1953. In 1953 he was expelled from the Communist Party and sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of the USSR.

35 Snieckus, Antanas (1903-1974)

Lithuanian Soviet political leader. He was active in the Communist movement before WWII and and was the commander of the headquarters of partisan movement in Lithuania during the Nazi occupation. He was First Secretary of the the Lithuanian Communist Party from 1940 until his death. He has been a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of  the Soviet Union in Moscow since 1952.

36 Tolstoy, Lev Nikolayevich (1828-1910)

Russian novelist and moral philosopher, who holds an important place in his country’s cultural history as an ethical philosopher and religious reformer. Tolstoy, alongside Dostoyevsky, made the realistic novel a literary genre, ranking in importance with classical Greek tragedy and Elizabethan drama. He is best known for his novels, including War and Peace, Anna Karenina and The Death of Ivan Ilyich, but also wrote short stories and essays and plays. Tolstoy took part in the Crimean War and his stories based one the defense of Sevastopol, known as Sevastopol Sketches, made him famous and opened St. Petersburg’s literary circles to him. His main interest lay in working out his religious and philosophical ideas. He condemned capitalism and private property and was a fearless critic, which finally resulted in his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901. His views regarding the evil of private property gradually estranged him from his wife, Yasnaya Polyana, and children, except for his daughter Alexandra, and he finally left them in 1910. He died on his way to a monastery at the railway junction of Astapovo.

37 Soviet/Russian doctorate degrees

Graduate school in the Soviet Union (aspirantura, or ordinatura for medical students), which usually took about three years and resulted in a dissertation. Students who passed were awarded a 'kandidat nauk' (lit. candidate of sciences) degree. If a person wanted to proceed with his or her research, the next step would be to apply for a doctorate degree (doktarontura). To be awarded a doctorate degree, the person had to be involved in the academia, publish consistently, and write an original dissertation. In the end he/she would be awarded a 'doctor nauk' (lit. doctor of sciences) degree.

38 Mandatory job assignment in the USSR

Graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory two-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated. After finishing this assignment young people were allowed to get employment at their discretion in any town or organization.

39 Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’

The campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’, i.e. Jews, was initiated in articles in the central organs of the Communist Party in 1949. The campaign was directed primarily at the Jewish intelligentsia and it was the first public attack on Soviet Jews as Jews. ‘Cosmopolitans’ writers were accused of hating the Russian people, of supporting Zionism, etc. Many Yiddish writers as well as the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in November 1948 on charges that they maintained ties with Zionism and with American ‘imperialism’. They were executed secretly in 1952. The anti-Semitic Doctors’ Plot was launched in January 1953. A wave of anti-Semitism spread through the USSR. Jews were removed from their positions, and rumors of an imminent mass deportation of Jews to the eastern part of the USSR began to spread. Stalin’s death in March 1953 put an end to the campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’.

40 Doctors’ Plot

The Doctors’ Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin’s reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

41 KGB

The KGB or Committee for State Security was the main Soviet external security and intelligence agency, as well as the main secret police agency from 1954 to 1991.

42 Soviet Army Day

The Russian imperial army and navy disintegrated after the outbreak of the Revolution of 1917, so the Council of the People's Commissars created the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army on a voluntary basis. The first units distinguished themselves against the Germans on 23rd February 1918. This day became the ‘Day of the Soviet Army’ and is nowadays celebrated as ‘Army Day’.

43 Radio Free Europe

Radio station launched in 1949 at the instigation of the US government with headquarters in West Germany. The radio broadcast uncensored news and features, produced by Central and Eastern European émigrés, from Munich to countries of the Soviet block. The radio station was jammed behind the Iron Curtain, team members were constantly harassed and several people were killed in terrorist attacks by the KGB. Radio Free Europe played a role in supporting dissident groups, inner resistance and will of freedom in the Eastern and Central European communist countries and thus it contributed to the downfall of the totalitarian regimes of the Soviet block. The headquarters of the radio have been in Prague since 1994.

44 Moskvitch

Meaning ‘a man from Moscow,’ Moskvitch was a Soviet-made car, popular in the entire post-war communist world. As reparation the Soviet Union received the complete manufacturing line of Opel Kadett after WWII and it was taken to Moscow from Russelheim (American Zone) in 1946. The new Soviet plant MZMA (Moskovsky Zavod Malolitrazhnykh Avtomobiley), meaning ‘Midge Car Works of Moscow’ started producing the Moskvitch 400 based on Opel Kadett in 1947. Further models were developed by Soviet engineers later on. The plant in 1969 changed its name to AZLK (Avtomobilny Zavod imeni Leninskogo Komsomola), meaning ‘The Lenin Komsomol Auto Works.’ Moskvitch cars were always somewhat sturdy but reliable on substandard roads; they were offered at an affordable price. A modernized line of Moskvitch models started in 1988. But the markets failed during the 1990s, and in 2002, AZLK went into bankruptcy. Plans to restart the factory have so far not succeeded.
45 Suez Crisis: In 1956 Egyptian President Nasser nationalized the strategically crucial and since it construction international Suez Canal. This was followed by a joint British, French and Israeli militray action. On 29th October Israel attacked Egypt and within a few days occupied the Gaza strip and most of the Sinai Peninsula, while Britain and France invaded the area of the Suez Canal. As a result of the strong American, Soviet and UN pressure they removed from Egyptian territory and UN forces were sent to the Sinai and Gaza to keep piece between Israel and Egypt. 
46 Dayan, Moshe (1915-1981): Israeli military leader and diplomat. In the 1930s he fought in the Haganah, an underground Jewish militia defending Israelis from Arab attacks, and he joined the British army in World War II. He was famous as a military strategist in the wars with Egypt, Syria and Jordan. He was minister of agriculture (1959-64) and minister of defense (1967-1974). After the Yom Kippur War in 1973, he resigned. In 1977 he became foreign minister and played a key role in the negotiation with Egypt, which ended with the Camp David Accords in 1978.
47 Reestablishment of the Lithuanian Republic: On 11th March 1990 the State assembly headed by J. Basanavichius, who became the first President of Lithuania, declared Lithuania an independent republic. The Soviet leadership in Moscow refused to acknowledge the independence of Lithuania and initiated its economic blockade. At the referendum in February 1991, over 90% participants (about 84% of the population) voted for independence of Lithuania. The western world finally recognized Lithuanian independence and so too did the USSR on 6th September 1991. On 17th September 1991 Lithuania joined the United Nations.

48 Lithuanian Council of the Jewish War Veterans

It was founded in 1988 by the Vilnius municipal Jewish community. The main purpose of the organization is mutual assistance as well as unification of front-line Jews, collection and publishing of recollections about the war, and arranging meetings with the public and youth.

Sarah Rutkauskene

Sarah Rutkauskene
Vilnius
Lithuania
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: October 2005

I was told about Sarah Rutkauskene in the Jewish community of Kaunas. I asked her for an interview and she instantly agreed to it. I came in her apartment. She is living with her daughter Lina. Her apartment is in the building constructed in the 1970s. Sarah is a rather elderly lady of sound mind. She gladly communicated with me. At times during our conversation I understood that her memory would fail her, so I assisted her with my questions which helped rebuild the verity of the story. Sarah accepted me in her room, where moved after war. She was sitting on an old couch. Her bed was not made, as she kept to bed almost all the time. Today is Sarah’s birthday and sometimes we had to stop when the children and grandchildren came with presents and dainties to congratulate Sarah. The apartment looked ramshackle, showing that was occupied by elderly ladies who had no neither efforts nor means to keep it clean and organized. I also congratulated Sarah on her birthday and wished her health, well being, quiet life and 100th jubilee.

My family background
Growing up
During the war
After the war
GLOSSARY:

My family background

My maiden name is Klug. I was given a double name Sarah Polya. I was named after paternal grandmother who died at parturition a long time ago, when she was 22. Mother’s relatives were against naming me after her as they said that I would be doomed for a short life. (editor’s note: according to the Jewish tradition, the newly born baby was supposed to be named after deceased, nevertheless it was a bad omen to name a baby after the person who died young.) My father was persistent. I had a long life. I am 89.

My paternal grandfather Benjamin Klug, born in 1859, lived in some hamlet, where he tilled the land. He had a lot of land, where he and field hands were working. Benjamin was married thrice. I do no know anything about the first wife. He had two grown-up daughters from the first marriage. I saw them couple of times when I was little. My grandmother Sarah Polya was his second wife. She died when giving a birth to the third baby- my dad. When the guys grew up, they needed to get a good education. Benjamin sold his land, house and a husbandry and bought a house in a small town Jelva, not far from Ukmerge [about 70 km from Vilnius]. My father spent his adolescence. I was born and raised there as well.

Our town was situation in a picturesque place on the river scroll. On one of the hills , at the place, where the river turned, there was a town and on another one there was a village, which was mostly Jewish families lived here. As a rule they were tradesmen and craftsmen. There were the stores in the downtown. Some of them sold manufacture goods, other groceries and pharmaceutical products. There were workshops here- tailors’, cobblers’, hatters’, glazers’ and joiners’. It appeared that the representatives of all crafts lived in Jelva. They Jews and Lithuanians not merely got along, but they were friends and trusted each other. Often, Lithuanians and Poles could not pay for the products purchased in the store. Then the surname and the amount of debt were entered in the book and in the autumn after harvesting the debtors were supposed to come to store and pay back the debt. Nobody was dishonest or fraudulent with the owners of the store.

My grandfather Benjamin Klug was a merchant. He was a grain trader. He did not have his own warehouse. Usually he went from village to village and made agreement to buy the grain from them in the fall. The grain purchased from the peasants, was taken by Benjamin to Ukrmerge in a cart. He sold it to grain traders there and had pretty good interest. I remember his wife vaguely. She had lived with us for several years and died at an elderly age.

After his wife’s death grandpa lived with one of his daughters from the first marriage, but he often called on us. He loved me very much as I was the elder granddaughter of his son. I even remember how he took me for a walk in the forest, where we made a hut. Then he put the berries on a white sheet of paper and pretended to be a chicken, which was nibbling on them and I burst into laughter. Grandpa Benjamin was loved by everybody. He was of short height, athletic, always neat and tidy. He always wore kippah and tallith when he went to the synagogue on Saturday. In summer 1922 grandpa took a usual trip to the village to agree on the grain. He felt unwell and asked a peasant for a glass of water. He had been dead by the time the peasant brought the water. He died from heart stroke instantly at the age of 63. Benjamin was taken to Jelva, where he was known and loved by people.  His body was taken to his daughter’s house. When my mother took me in her hands to take me there so that I could say good-bye to grandpa, Jewish ladies were trying to stop her. They said, in accordance with Jewish traditions, babies, whose parents were still alive, were not supposed to see cadavers or even worse say good-bye to them. my mother replied that grandpa loved me very much and deserved that I should say good-bye to him. I remember we entered the room, which was full of people in black clothes. We came close to grandfather, who was lying on the floor. Mother wiped his forehead and told me to kiss it. I was scared as it was unusual for me to see his immovable body.

Grandpa Benjamin had 5 children – two daughters from the first marriage and three sons from Sarah Polya. The elder daughter Malka, born in 1880s, in whose house grandfather had lived until he died, moved to Panevezys shortly after his death. Her husband was a furrier, a rather rich man, so Malka lived comfortably not only from material standpoint. I do not remember her husband’s name, it began with Vov. When he died, Malka and her children managed to flee from fascists. When great patriotic war was over, they came back in Lithuania, wherefrom they shortly left for Israel. Malka died in 1970е and Rosa is currently living in Israel. I cannot recall the name of grandfather’s second daughter. I remember that she lived in Ukrmerge with her husband and children. She died there with her family during the occupation 1 of great patriotic war.

Father’s elder brother Itschok was born in 1892. he was a cobbler. In late 1920s he, his wife Chiena and daughter Khava left for South Africa. There Chiena gave birth to two more children- a girl Leya and a boy. She died young, without even reaching 40. Itschok died in 1950s. Khava, who had been very beautiful since childhood, had the title of South Africa beauty queen and married a millionaire. She helped her parents and her siblings lived in her place. Now Khava is still alive. She has a large family – many children and grandchildren. Leya is currently living in Israel.

Father’s second brother Elieser ,who was two years younger than Itschok, also left for South Africa. Before his departure he married a Jew from Jelva. I do not remember her name. His sons were born in Africa. Both of them were very gifted, graduated from Cambridge. They are married and currently living in London. The elder one became a famous atom physicist. Two years ago he was in Lithuania and called on us. Elieser had a long life and died in 1980s.

My father Ieguda Klug was born in 1896. He was raised without mother, but grandfather Benjamin made home full of warmth and trust. I do not know what part his raising was taken by his third wife, but my father was brought up very well, treated people wonderfully. He was a very kind person. Father went to the elementary school, then started assisting grandfather with grain trading. He married at a young age. He was almost twenty. He was four years younger then mother, but when he saw her he fell in love with her once and for all and started courtship.

           My mother’s maiden name is Yashinskaya. Her father, my maternal grandfather Iechiel Yashinksiy was born in 1850s in some Lithuanian town. I do not remember its name. I do not know who his parents were. All I know is that the family was very religious. Grandfather went to cheder, eshiva, and then entered rabbi school. I do not know whether the latter school was. I assume it was in Panevezys. During the studies Iechiel Aria understood that rabbi were usually very poor, depending on the community and parish, who pay for their maintenance. He saw them wearing one and the same clothes all the time, their wives barely scraping through, their children wearing hand me downs. Right before finishing school, before taking final exams, Iechiel refuse to become a rabbi. He decided to be a craftsman. He became an apprentice of one very good tailor and agreed with him that he would pay for accommodation, meals and training after starting making money. My grandfather’s teacher turned out to be a very decent man and when grandfather became a tailor he took no money from him. Besides, he gave good clothes to grandpa and money to start business. In a year or two grandpa had his own tailors’ workshop, where about 8 people were working. Dad said that he paid the ladies with gold as there going to save it for their children’s training or weddings, and men were paid money.

Soon Iechiel Aria married my grandmother Leya. She was born in Dublin, the capital of Ireland and spent her childhood there. When she turned 15 or 16 , her family moved in Lithuania. I do not exactly where they grandpa and his young wife got settled. It was a small town, located not far from Ukrmerge. Here they had lived for many years. Grandfather had tailors’ business, and grandmother raised children according to Jewish traditions. There were ten of them and every year or a year and a half a new baby was born. In 1920s grandparents moved to Ukrmerge, where they lived to see the Soviets come to power 2, and then the beginning of Great Patriotic War and occupation. They died here during one of the first actions in summer 1941.

I had not known all mother’s siblings. One of those whom I knew was the eldest sister Chaya. She was born in 1885. At the age of 14 she was sent to some relatives in Canada, where she grew up, got married and bore children. This is all I know about her. Mother’s second sister Berta, who was two or three years younger than my mother, was very beautiful. She married a musician, a Jew with Polish name Kovalski. It was a love wedlock. They left for Canada to Chaya. Berta had two daughters. One of them Sarah recently wrote letters to us. I cannot recall when Berta died. She had a long and happy life.

Mother’s youngest sister Mere Sheine was born in 1900. She was a true beauty- the most beautiful the family. Neighbors and relatives called her beauty ». She fell in love with one Jewish lad Leib. His mother left for USA in 1914 due to the just unleashed World War One and could not come back. Many people were sorry for him and in accordance with Jewish traditions invited them in and fed. Thus he came home to my grandmother and Mere Sheine fell in love with him at first sight. Leib was a very tall and strong guy, a true Jewish handsome guy. They had a beautiful Jewish wedding. The whole town was there. After wedding, Mere Sheina moved to his small house beyond the river in Ukrmerge. By the beginning of great patriotic war they had two or three children. Leib and Mere Sheina did not manage to escape from fascists and remained in occupation. They had a pretty quiet living for couple of months when Germans came as they were not in the downtown, but beyond the river, where Lithuanians lived mostly. Once, Leib went in the city to buy products. He stood in the line and then asked to give him some products before his turn came. One Lithuanian went outside and called the fascists saying that a Jew «was jumping the queue». Germans took Leib in the yard and started beating him. He was not willing to give up, he took an axe from the butcher and rushed to fascists. Leib was shot dead right away. Mere Sheine and her children were killed during one of the actions in a while after Leib’s death.

Out of all mother’s brothers I knew Itschok the best. He lived in the province. He was a tailor. Our family said that he was a good one. He could make garments (including outer ) for ladies, gentlemen and for children just the way grandpa was. In the middle 1900s he left with his family for Canada. Itschok’s son Naum was a professor. He was about ten years older than me so I assumed that Itschok was born in 1880. In 2003 Naum was in Lithuania, called on me and said that father reached 90 being mentally and physically sound. He had been a tailor all his life. Another mother’s brother Kivi, who also lived with his family in a province, was killed by fascists in 1941. I saw him only once during his visit in Ukrmerge. This is all I know about him. Mother had brother Meyer, whom I do not remember very well. He lived somewhere else and once he came to us with his daughter Sima. Meyer’s family, including Sima also perished during the occupation.

My mother Riva Yashinskaya was born in 1891. She got a home Jewish education. She knew how to read and write in Yiddish and knew the prayers in Ivrit. Mother was very beautiful, but in 1914 she had chicken pox, which left the scars on her face. At that time she was living in Vilnius. Grandfather taught her the basics of sewing and she worked as a seamstress. My parents met in Vilnius. Father and his brother Elieser came here on some holiday. In spite of mother being four years older than him and with the pox marks, which she took hard, father fell in love with her. My parents got married in early 1916. I never asked them where they were wed, but I know that it was in accordance with Jewish rites.  

Growing up

After wedding, parents settled in the house, where father’s elder sister and her family, grandfather Benjamin, father’s brother Elieser were living. Parents occupied a small room. Here I was born on  10 October 1916. Life was pretty hard during the first years of my life. It was hard for my mother to live here with another family. Then there was a story which radically changed the life of our family.

Grandfather’s house was in front of Lithuanian cathedral, in about 10 steps to it. There was a padre’s home in about ten meters from the cathedral. His wife and children lived there. Unfortunately, I do not remember the padre’s name. I remember that he had a brother Petras. In 1917 or 1918, Polish army was dislocated in our town during World War One. They made plundered both Lithuanians and Jews. Once grandfather hear the cries: «Benuleki (that was the way grandfather, father and his brothers were called), help!». Father and grandfather, took what was at hand- spade, club, darted to padre’s house. There was priest’s wife on the threshold crying out as a Pole was going to cut her fingers, since she could not take her rings off in panic. My grandfather hit the guy, who was holding the lady, with a club and the second was trying to run away. Grandfather ran to the Jewish cemetery right away to hide there among the tombstones and father ran somewhere. He took a horse and rid to the village. Some strangers – both Jewish and Lithuanians- ransomed Benjamin. They had been trying to save his life all night long – exchanging cold and warm sheets. He had been between life and death for a week and finally he started getting better. When the Poles retreated, there was a calm period. During the service the padre at the pulpit told his parish that my father and grandfather saved him and he owned his life to him. Knowing that we did not have a large land plot, he cut a big land plot from the church and gave it to father. He also asked the Lithuanians to build the house for us- people started brining timber, oaken boards. Lithuanians built a nice large wooden house for several months. Father did the finishing. When the house was finished, the padre noticed that there was no room for the husbandry and gave another land plot for that, probably it was half a hectare up to road, where the was a room for the well and garden. There was a shed and a land plot with the clover for the cattle. There were nice sheds for fire wood, coops, sheds, stables. Our house was very large , consisting of four rooms and a huge kitchen. There were some more premises in the upper storey, which father leased. The cell was the house length. Since that time father and padre had become friends.

We became well-off in a large house. In early 1919 my brother Leibl was born. Then in 1920 a girl was born. She was given a Hebrew name Janina ( means dove in Ivrit). Only in five years mother gave birth to a very handsome boy, who was blue-eyed and fair-haired. He was named Benjamin after grandfather, who died several years ago. Then in 1927 Beinish was born and the youngest beautiful baby Miriam was born in 1931. Relatives, especially grandpa, loved me best of all as I was their first granddaughter. Mother said that my relatives hugged me and tossed me up saying: «wise head,beauty!»

My parents worked hard and therefore our family was very well-off. Apart from our house, father owned farm land in the village. He hired Lithuanians to work for him and paid them upon harvesting. They had very good relationship. Father paid them well. When the peasants were in Jelva, thee called on us where they could always be accommodated and fed. Father planted wheat, rye, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, beat and the whole land plot for planted. Father planted clover and other feed grains for the cattle. There were several cows in the shed. Their milk was nice and fatty. It was enough for the family and for processed products. Mother made butter, sour cream, cheese and curds. Part of dairy products was sold to regular customers. Mother also bred the poultry. There were a lot of hens, turkeys and geese. Once mother asked me to count them. When I reached 40, I was lost. Father also had horses, which he took care of with the special care. A Lithuanian man helped father with the husbandry. Living with the Jews, he learned Hebrew so well, that he even helped us, children do homework, when we were going to school. Mother had a Lithuanian cook, who learned how to cook good Jewish dishes under mother’s supervision. The kitchen was very large. There was a large stove in the center of the room. It was used for cooking and baking. Mother baked bread as she could not recognize purchased bread.

The four well-furnished rooms, taken by our family, were in the bottom part of the house. It was a good carved furniture made by good mahogany joiners. There were a large round table, chairs, couch, and cupboard in the drawing room. There two large wooden beds in parents’ bedroom. There was a small baby crib by mother’s bed, where the babies were sleeping. There were two more bedrooms- one for the boys and another for my sister Janina and I.

My parents were very religious and since childhood plied us with the religious beliefs and dogmas. Every day started with morning hygiene, prayer during which the people were turned to the east. Those who had not prayed, were not given breakfast. I remember one case during the prayer. I was a little girl and did not always get the sense of the prayers. I just memorized them by repeating after parents. There are such words in the daily prayer: «God, thank you for not creating me a woman ». Those words are pronounced by me. Once during the morning prayer I repeated those words after father. He pushed me as we were not supposed to interrupt the prayer and said that those words were to be said by him, grandpa and m younger brother. I listened to him closely and the next day repeated those words again either because of being remiss or stubborn. Father reiterated his edification. The next day I said those words again. Father just ignored me and did not say anything. Then I heard him speak to mother to bring me to reason. Mother said that I was too small and could pray the way I wished. All Jewish traditions were strictly observed in our house. Mother usually covered her head with the kerchief, when she went to the synagogue she put a beautiful cover. I am used to kashrut since childhood. There were a lot of dishes in the kitchen - 12 sets of silverware, sets of dishes and utensils for meat and milk, which were kept separately in two chests.

I loved Sabbath very much in Sabbath and was looking forward to it. On Thursday mother baked Challahs, buns and some other tasty things – cakes. At times she made a creamy cake, lekach- honey cake or meat pie. Friday morning mother stoked the stove. If it was necessary, mother bought meat in kosher store and fish. The rest we had. Mother send someone from our family to shochet, who cut one or two chickens for the festive diner. She also made gefilte fish, forshmak from herring, liver pate, chicken or meat broth, all kinds or tsimes, imberlakh. In general, we had a very rich table. We enjoyed soups. Even on Saturday mother made some soups either meat soup or chicken broth, macaroni soup or vegetable soup with beans. She made cholnt for Sabbath- it was made from potatoes and beans in a pot. There were two Jews in our street who took the cholnt for some small amount of money. They put it in the stove beforehand and gave it back on Saturday while it still was warm. On Thursday the whole family went to the bathhouse. On Friday we took bath at home and put clean clothes on. On Friday father and his sons went to the synagogue. Mother , sister and I stayed at home. When they came back from the synagogue, we sat at the table. Mother lit candles and father said a prayer. He also broke the challach and gave the first pieces to us. After dinner all of us did what they felt like. Some of us read, others went out for a walk or went to bed. The synagogue in Jelva was large, two-storied, wooden and bricked. Mother, I and later Janina prayed there on the second floor. On Saturday father picked up cholnt on the way from the synagogue. On that day we could not do anything. Lithuanians worked in the yard and the cook served the food. Rarely, when she was not at home on Saturday (her day off was on Saturday) we ate cold food. On Sabbath we could not even light a match, nothing to speak of stoking the stove. After meal, everybody took a rest. I liked reading books. Sometimes the whole family went for a walk. Usually people strolled along the bank of river Jelva ,where the Lithuanian village started. There were a lot of trees, including the fruit ones. In spring they blossomed making the air fragrant. It seemed to me like Eden. People came here with the whole families, all dressed up like it was supposed to on Saturday.

Jewish charity was very developed. Each rich and middle-class family implicitly fostered a poor family. In our house there was such a rule. On Friday, mother took two clean kerchiefs and put food there- ten eggs, curds, cheese, butter, challah, half of the hen. Being the eldest I was told to take it to poor families. As a rule I took it to poor elderly Jews Chaya and Chava, who were living nearby. If a poor girl or an orphan guy were to get married, the members of the Jewish community took care of the wedding arrangements – they collected money for that and even helped the families after wedding. It happened also in cases if someone got sick or died, God forbid – it was also on the account of the community.

My father was a very respectable man. His was kind not only to all Jews, but also to Lithuanians, Poles. Nationality did not matter for him. I remember such a case. Once there was a funeral procession passing by our house. There were people from Lithuanian hamlet, located about 12 km away from Jelva. A young was to be buried. They said he had cold beer after bath, got pneumonia and died. His wife and several children left after him. The procession went to the cathedral, where Lithuanian cemetery was located. In 20 minutes I was that the procession was going back with the cadaver. I ran after the father and he came up to those people. It turned out that a poor widow did not have time to pay for church service and funeral of her husband and the padre did not even let them inside. Father asked them to wait. Then he took a platter and put 5 litas there ( it was pretty big money for that time). Then he called on the neighbor, who also put some money there. In an hour or two father collected a considerable amount -200 litas and gave it to the widow. The procession headed to the cathedral. After that the widow knelt down in front of our house and said the words of gratitude. She tried to return the rest of the money (about 50 litas), but father said that she would need it for her children.

What happened was very strange and unpleasant to me as our family was friends with the padre and I could not get how he could act like that. Padre often invited my parents for Christmas dinner. I also was in his house. Padre was very intellectual, he knew Ivrit and read Hebrew texts. When he could not understand something, he always sent someone for me. I was well up in Hebrew since 10. I was lazy to go past our large land plot and padre’s people made hidden path. Everybody liked me in padre’s place- the servants and even big black watch dogs were affable to me. Parents did not invite padre on large Jewish holidays. When mother made gefilte fish, father always invited him as he adore that dish and even smacked while eating it. When I was 11-12, I started liking music. There was neither theater nor concert hall in our town and the only place where I could hear music was a cathedral. I often came in during the service. At times I would stand by the cathedral listening to the organ. In a while the neighbors told my father about it. I had had independent character since childhood and said that I did not listen to the service, but to the music and I was not going to reject that pleasure just because old Jews did not approve of it. Father kept silent and I think he agreed with me.

The most remarkable holiday was Pesach. We got ready for it in advance- cleaned our big house thoroughly. Children got the presents – clothes and footwear. Usually the money for it was sent by the relatives from Canada or Argentina. Several days before the holiday a delivery boy brought a large hamper with matzah from the synagogue, usually he was from a poor family. Pascal kosher dishes were taken from the garret- there was everything- both set of table dishes- starting from porcelain and up to silverware and kitchen utensils which were used only once a year. Everybody had his own shot glass. I got my tot with flower painting from uncle Elieser’s wife, when I helped her get ready for the holiday. On the eve of the holiday father carried out the rite of chametz banishment – he picked up the remaining of leaven bread and solemnly burned them in the yard. On the first day of the holiday, on the sedder all relatives came to us from synagogue as my mother the eldest daughter in law. Father was reclining on the top of the table and carried out seder. Apart from the traditional dishes (gefilte fish, chicken broth with kneydles, tsimes) there were the tastiest dishes mother could cook. There were also a lot of deserts. The wine which we had on this holiday was made by father from honey and raisons. During the sedder all traditions were observed- searches for afikoman, four traditional questions asked by younger children, awaiting Ilia, the prophet. As a rule we marked the second seder in the place of the relatives. 

The rest of the holiday did not appear to be special. There was a veranda for sukkot holiday. There was a removable roof, which was removed and covered with tree branches and leaves during holidays. The door to the house was open, the table and chair were set and we had meals there during the holiday. Children were most agog for Channukah as on that holiday they received money from all the relatives. I remember, when uncle came up to us, he gave me 2 litas as I was the eldest, the rest got 1 lita. On that holiday candlestick was lit and everyday a candle was added. It was placed on the window sill. We ate potato fritters and sang channukah song, which I still remember.

On Purim mother baked a lot of pastries- mostly triangular hamantashen. There were enough for the family and for the presents which were taken to the relatives and neighbors. We also got the presents. We had fun all day long comparing deserts and cookies, comparing which were better and always mother’s were the best. She was a unique lady- kind and strict at a time. Other ladies always came to mom to ask for a recipe or for a piece of advice. Mother always found a free time and kind word for everybody.

I started studies early. When I was five, mother told father to hire a coach for me. Father hired a private teacher for me. She taught me the rudiments of Jewish literary – alphabet and reading. I had been taught at home for two years and then father took me in cheder. I know that only boys went there. I still cannot get how father could convince the teacher for me to study there. The fact was that I was the only girl in the class of ten boys. Our teacher was disabled and he wore special shoes because of his valgoid legs, but he was a great expert in Jewish studies. I sat at a desk separately from the boys. I did very well and was quick to learn. I had studied there for three years and by the age of three was very fluent in Ivrit. When I went to the synagogue, everybody was surprised to see the girl reading prayers in Hebrew. My father took special pride in me. He often bought newspapers in Ivrit , took them home and enjoyed my reading them.

When I turned 10, father took me to Ukrmerge, where I entered Jewish lyceum. Subjects were taught in Yiddish, and I had to learn a lot of knew things. At first I lived with my grandparents Jasinskiys’, who had moved to Ukrmerge a long time ago. In about two years my parents sold their house and moved to Ukrmerge. It was the time for my younger siblings to study so they decided to be closer to children. Grandparents were elderly and got irritated with children’s noise and rattle, so in about two years they moved out.

I loved studying. It was easy for me. I had a lot of friends among my classmates. We marked Jewish holidays in lyceum, staged performances, where I took an active part. I sang well, often took part in amateur concerts.

As compared to Jelva Ukrmerge was a bigger town with the population of 12 thousand people, most of whom where Jews. There was a Jewish theatre, different organizations, in general the life became very interesting. The youth took part in different youth Zionist 3 organizations. Beitar was the most active 4. The organization was rather bellicose and I did not take part in that movement. I entered Hashomer Hatzair 5 – «young guard», which called for buyout of Jewish lands and revive Jewish state in a peaceful way. My younger brother Leibl and sister Yanina also entered lyceum. Though, my parents paid minimum fee for us – 30 litas per month, it was rather large amount for our family. I had studied there for five years and decided that I was adult and it was the time for me to help my parents.

In 1936 when I finished the fifth grade, I was employed and did not come back to the studies. My parents did not mind it. First, they needed some material support, and also I was very literate for that time as compared with other girls as they studied for 2-3 years. I was employed as a sales assistant in the grocery store. The owner of the store was a Jew, whose name I do not remember. He treated me very well as I was honest and skilled. At that time I kept attending the classes at Hashomer Hatzair and was getting more and more carried away with the ideas of revival of the Jewish state. I had new friends with whom I spent time. We went to the Jewish theater, walked in the park, discussed our future. Three years had past and I found out that there was a Jewish kibbutz in Kaunas, where the youth was getting ready for repatriation. I wanted to try a new life and I found life in kibbutz romantic. In summer 1936 I asked for permission from parents, who could not say no to me, and left for Kaunas.

Kibbutz people lived in one house in Kaunas suburb. I was welcomed in their team. I housed in the room with another girl and shortly after that they found a job for me. I was for the Jewish dentist as a governess for his child. The family was very rich. The daughter went to the Jewish lyceum and I was supposed to take her to to/from lyceum, do homework with her, go for a walk, to the library. I did not do anything as those things were taken care of the servant. I was paid very well for those times- 150 litas per month. I practically did not spend the money as I had meals in the house of the doctor. In accordance with kibbutz laws the earned money was to be given to the leader. He allocated the money in line with the needs of all people from kibbutz and the decision of the general meeting. Part of the money was spent on food. There were two people in kibbutz who cooked the food for everybody. All purchases were to be approved by the board of kibbutz. Besides, when the money was distributed, the salary of the member was not taken into account, just his needs. For two years they bought me the boots only once because I could not get to work without them. I was concerned with that. I wanted to have a private life, to be fashionably dressed, buy presents for my parents and siblings. I could not spend all my life there. Besides, I did not have money to help out my parents. I even was supposed to get the permission and ask for money for the rare trips home. Within this time many people from kibbutz left for Palestine, but I did not have enough money for that.

When I came home, the situation at home was full of love, kindness. It seemed to me that I was a little girl, whom the father was proud of. I was not willing to go anywhere. Parents did not have such a big husbandry in Ukrmerge as it was in Jelva, so father became a grain trader. By that time Janina quitted her studies at lyceum and became apprentice of the seamstress in Ukrmerge who lived in front of our house. She started earning money and gave it to the parents. Janina became rather independent. She even went on vacation to Palanga and came to me in Kaunas. Leibl went to rabbi school in Panevezhis. As his grandfather Iechiel Aria he was disappointed in the spiritual care as he saw the poverty of rabbi. He even had to wear a coat in summer as his pants were torn. Once he came home and said that he would not come back in eshiva. Leibl started helping father with work. Younger brothers and sister Miriam were still studying in the lyceum.

Upon return to Kaunas, I found another job and left kibbutz. I was the governess. I worked for a wealthy Jew Finkelstein. He owned a lot of canneries in Latvia and Estonia. He produced sprats and other canned fish. He also owned the plants in the USA. Usually on new year his whole family went on vacation to the USA for two weeks and I was given a vacation. I was the governess of his daughter Sonya and did my job very well. I had my own room in the large house of Finkelstein. I had meals there. They bought me clothes. Now my salary was 200 litas. In while I changed my job not for being unfairly treated for being offered a higher salary. Within those three years I had to change my job once again. I always worked for Jewish families. In 1939 I was invited to work for the famous timber trader. The family was also very rich.

I started thinking about my future. I was at the age when I had to think of my private life. I had friends, but I spent more time with my lad than with others- we wnet to the cinema, for strolls on the weekend. But still, I was not in love with him. I was more attracted by more solid and mature men. In summer 1940 soviet army came in Lithuania 6, and all Baltic countries were annexed to the USSR 7. My hosts worried a lot, waited for the changes and in the first days the authorities did not carry out repression. I remember my host giving me money and telling that I should buy warm footwear and clothes as they would be exiled in Siberia and I would go with them. I had a different fate.

In summer 1940, the host as usual rented dacha for the whole family and went there with them. We were living in the village not far from Kaunas. There was a wonderful nature here- woods and lakes. I often went to the lake and once I noticed one young man looking closely at me. The next day he invited me for a date. I understood at once that he was the man of my dream. He was my ideal- much older and more mature than me. Though, he a Lithuanian, but it did not stop me. Soon we became close. Benis (full name Benedictus) Rutkauskas was born in 1904 in a small Lithuanian hamlet not far from Vilkovishkis. He was a peasant. He was involved in politics at a young age and became the member of the underground communist party. At Smetona’s regime 8 in1929 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, 11 out of which he underwent. He was librated by the soviet regime. Upon his release, he was sent in hamlet for recuperation. Thus,.we met there. Within the first two week Benis did not know that I was a Jew as I looked like a Lithuanian and was fluent in that language. I had to show the document for him to believe me. When he looked at it, he said that he did not care.

We started seeing each other openly when I came in Kaunas. Benis proposed to me. His parents were dead and he had no siblings, so he needed permission from my parents only. Only Janina knew about our relationship. I took my sister and friend that she kept the secret having said nothing to the parents. In November 1940 Benjamin and I went to Ukrmerge. Benis asked for my hand. My mother stealthily whispered to me that she liked my fiancé very much as she thought that it would be better to marry such a handsome Lithuanian than a poor Jew. Mother did not share her opinion with father, who was dreaded by the fact and it was the first time I could see him in such an angor. There was a scandal and Benis was turned out. Of course, I left with him. We went to Kaunas. I was always independent and I was not going to make concessions now as I did not want to lose the person I loved. Soon Janina came to us as father turned her out having known that she was aware of our relationship and did not reveal it. Then Leibl came trying to talk me into submitting parents’ will and part Of course, Leibl was not going to kill anybody and told me about it. I did not have any secrets from Benis and told him about father’s plans. It was my most dreadful mistake as Benis had never forgiven Leibl.

On 12 December 1940 Benis and I registered our marriage in the state marriage registration authorities. We had no wedding, no rings. We were happy to start a new life. Benis held as high position – he was in charge of the communications department of Kaunas oblast, he was a respectable man and the member of the communist party, but he did not want to enjoy any benefits. We rented a room, where Benis, Janina and I lived. Janina started working as a seamstress. I did not work. Shortly after wedding I got pregnant and I had very strong toxicosis and I felt unwell.

In spring 1941 husband suggested that we should visit my parents. It was his initiative to improve my relationship with the parents. We came in Urkmerge. Parents were amiable and I understood that the reason for it was not the willingness to accept him, but the fear for him as he was on a high post and could easily affect their fate. There were a lot of repressions and many people were arrested and deported to Siberia 9. Many Jews were exiled from Kaunas, including Finkelstein and my other bosses. After war I found out that Finkelstein died in Siberia and the sank into the oblivion. Little Sonya, whom I loved so much, died in the train on the way to Russia.

During the war

We stayed in Ukrmerge for two days and went home. In couple of weeks I was told that father had been arrested. It happened in such a way. Leibl’s friend lived in our house. He was a guy from Kaunas, who rented a room from us. He was a communist, an ardent stickler of the regime. Once father argued and said that the state, which did not recognize God and the right of people for belief, was to perish. That guy informed against father right away. He was arrested and exiled in Siberia in a while. I even did not ask Benis to interfere and ask for father as I understood that he would refuse me. fortunately, the house was not sequestrated and mother had a place to live. She took her parents there as well. We did not go to Ukrmerge any more as I understood that my husband would not like to compromise himself with that trip.

Husband found out about the unleashed war right away. There was no time to wait for organized evacuation, as it was clear that fascists would enter Kaunas soon. Benis quickly organized our departure. I was in the driver’s cabin as I was 6 months pregnant. Benis and Janina got in the truck body, where the luggage was placed. On the way we picked up the family members of our driver. We were one of the first to leave on 22 June 1941. There were no bombings on our way and we rather swiftly crossed the Lithuanian border on Byelorussia. Here we made a short stop. The military took our truck in Byelorussia. Here we parted with the driver and his family. My husband talked to the commander of the military unit and indicated that I was expecting a baby. Thus, we got on the truck with the militaries and traveled for a while with them. We spent a week in a military camp, which was in the rear. We asked to send us farther in the rear, and the arrangements were made for us to take a train. We were helped to get on the locomotive train, packed with the fugitive, heading for Tartar republic. I vaguely remember the way. My husband told me to take a side berth. I was asleep almost most of the time.

We got off at Kuchmar station, which was not far from Kazan [Tatarstan, about 800 km to the East from Moscow]. We settled in a small room in the house of the locals, who treated us very kindly. Sister took care of house, and husband went to work. Here we lived two month and a half until I bore a baby. My girl came into the world in late August 1941. Husband wanted to call her Lena 10 after Lenin, but her name was accidentally written Lina. We decided that it was also a nice name as Lina means flax in Lithuanian, we still call her that name. when the daughter was born, we moved to the village Mamafe, not far from Kukhmar. It was easier to survive in a village at that time.

The four of us lived together until the New Year of 1942. Janina and my husband worked in kolkhoz 11, and got skimpy trudodni 12. Our life was hard like it was with most fugitives. Husband and sister also got bread cards 13 for working people and I was given 200 gramps as I was dependent. Janina and Benis gave all they could to me as I was a nursing mother. Benis was eager to go in the lines. He volunteered to join 16 Lithuanian division 14 as soon as it was founded. He was a rank and file in the artillery. In January 1942 he went in Balakhna, where the above-mentioned division was being formed. In about 3 months Janina also joined Lithuanian division.

I stayed with Lina. We were living at home, where five families of evacuated lived. There were no Jews among them, I was the only Jew there. Mother and daughter from Latvia, two Lithuanian old ladies, young Lithuanian with a baby and Russian family were living in one house. We were very friendly, helping each other. It would be unlikely to survive in those years without each other’s help. Our house at the end of kolkhoz orchard and I was hired to watch it along with the adjacent gardens. It was not a hard work. Besides, I was given fruit, vegetables and honey from the apiary. The deputy chairman of kolkhoz often called me over to wash the floors in his office or do some other odd jobs. Every time I was given a loaf of bread for that. When the horse was cut in kolkhoz he asked me to come over and gave me a piece of meat. In the morning we, the ladies fugitives, took the jugs and came to the shed where the milkmaids brought the milks to be given to the state. Each local lady from kolkhoz gave us a little bit of milk. at times we would get only a glass, but there were cases when I could bring the whole jug for my girl. Once, I was asked to wash the floors in the dairy premises and I was given couple of spoons of butter for that. It was a real riches. All I brought home was shared with my neighbors as they also had the kids. Benis was constantly writing to me from the front. At first he was at the leading edge, and in 1944 he was appointed to attend officers’ courses in Ufa. Straight from there he was sent in the army ,which was liberating Lithuania. Husband was liberating Kaunas- there were battles at Green Mountain [editor’s note.: one of the Kaunas districts], and entered the city with the leading units.

After the war

On the first day upon liberation of the city he was assigned the chairman of the municipal ispolkom 15. He processed the letter of invitation for me to come back in Lithuania. In September 1944 we came back in Kaunas. We were so happy to see each other. Husband took us in our house. He got a large house, which was meant for high state officials. It was a wonderful two-storied house in the downtown of the city. Before war it used to be the residence of some diplomat. There were all necessary things in the house- the furniture, kitchen with the utensils and the dishes, stove, several bathrooms, Study with a great library. All of that pertained to the state, but we could live there for the period when his position was effective. In spring 1945 I gave birth to a son, whom we called Romualdas.

This were good. I got a good food ration from special distribution. Unlike most people we did not starve after war. The only reason for my tears at night was the understanding that I would never see my relatives again. My husband found out from his contacts that all of them perished in Ukrmerge during occupation. Though, nobody knows the details or my husband has not told me. my mother, brothers Benjamin and Beinish, little sister Miriam, grandfather Iechiel Aria and grandmother became the victims of the fascists in Ukrmerge.

In spring 1945 Janina came to us. She was a military nurse at 16 Lithuanian division and underwent a valorous path at war. Benis helped get a job at the textile factory. In a year the factory was relocated in Vilnius and Janina went there. She got an apartment there , where she had lived for several years.

In early 1945 my brother Leibl found us. He said when the war started he managed to escape and the he served in Lithuanian division. He was lucky to be a cook in the army at first, only later he was transferred in the army when many soldiers died. The division was in Latvia, where the fascists were resisting hard. Leib managed to get the leave for couple of days hoping got see us and get the assistance from Benis to get demobilized or go be enrolled in support unit of the army. Leibl was very touchy and tender, totally inapt for war. He was in panic not to get in the leading edge. Husband still remembered that Leibl was to kill him and could not forgive him that. When Benis came home for lunch I told him that Leibl was in our place. Husband still remembered that Leibl was supposed to kill him before the war and could not forgive him for that. He told me that he would not stand him being at the same table with him. He even ignored my request to help my brother. Leibl and I were having lunch, when he left. In a while my brother died in Latvia. I never reproached my husband of my brother’s death. First, I could not return the past, secondly, there are situations when a human being is beside himself.

When our son was born, Benis was relocated in a small town on the bank of Baltic sea Klaipeda, where he was assigned the chairman of municipal Ispolkom. I went with him. We also were given a wonderful mansion and servants. Benis worked very hard, he never shared his troubles with me. I only could hear about Lithuanian resistance, sabotage, which were set up by them. Benis got the ulcer for being nervous. He needed fresh diary products. At that time high officials were prohibited to have their own husbandry. Husband addressed to the central committee of the party with the request to keep a cow. His request was satisfied and we bought a cow. We had fresh milk and I learnt from my parents how to make butter, curds and other things.

Husband found my father using national security channels. He got settled in Krasnoyarsk. There he met a woman, a Jew from Latvia. They lived in civil marriage. He had a good life there. He built a house, had some livestock- cow and horse. Husband arranged a permit for father to visit us. In 1946 he was visiting in Klaipeda. I talked father into staying and he was most likely attached to his second wife. So he stayed for couple of weeks with us and returned to his wife. When he came home he told the neighbors that he had an influential son in law, about our posh house and good living in Lithuania. He was called by militia and asked to repeat his story and then took his passport away and then they added that he would not be able to go to us as he talked too much. Father was so shocked that he could get it over. He became mentally deranged. Then he got a cancer. In 1951 father died. I sold the cow and sent Janina to Krasnoyask. I could not go myself because of my children. Sister was late as father was buried in the common hospital grave.

In 1947 husband was transferred to Marijampole, where he was also the head of municipal authorities. Shortly after our arrival, there was a dreadful story, which changed our lives completely. There was a coming Lithuanian holiday, for which people baked pancakes. The employee of social department invited all employees for dinner. My husband was also invited.  Benis came home and said that we were invited for dinner and had to get ready. I was pregnant with the third baby and said that I was feeling unwell. Then Benis also refused to go there. I tried to convince him saying that he was supposed to mark national holiday with the Lithuanians, but he insisted on staying with me. It saved his life. At night there was a telephone call it was the head of state security committee  [KGB] 16. He asked where Benis was. I was surprised and said that he was at home. It was a pitch dark night and Benis was asleep. Then I heard that person say to somebody: «Benis is alive». It turned out that at night the house where his colleagues got together, was attacked by gangsters and everybody was killed. The hostess and even small children, who were at home, were killed.

I was taken to the hospital as soon as I went home. Parturition started because of the stress. I gave birth to a son whom we called Andrus. Commission came from Moscow. Husband lost his job right away. He was constantly being interrogated as he was the only survivor, which looked suspicious to the soviet regime. By that time he was in black list. In about a year he was reprimanded by the party for not mentioning the leading role of comrade Stalin in his speeches. He was reminded of that. Fortunately, husband was not arrested or repressed. I think it was protected by the first secretary of central party committee Snezhkus, who had known Benis since the times of underground communism. Husband was not restored in his position as he was forbidden to hold high positions. Benis was very worried but I told him that the most important was that he was alive, our son was born and we would go on.

As soon as the party circles, one of the party activists from Panevezhis gave husband a call. He offered him a position of the brewery manager. So, we left for Panevezhis. Here we rented an apartment. Benis ran the brewery so well that it became one of the leading enterprises though it was with losses before. We had stayed there for two years. In 1949 Snezhkus called my husband and told him to come to Vilnius. Collectivization commenced 17, and again they needed people who were dedicated to the communist party. Benis was appointed the chairman of municipal ispolkom in Sirvintos, and we moved there. Since that time we often changed the places of residence. Benis was also appointed to manage crisis. Children and I were traveling with him. I had never been the member of the party, but I always listened to what my husband had to say, supported him, gave him advice. In a word, I was a real friend to him.

When in 1950s the struggle with cosmopolites started 18, I was afraid that husband would get into trouble for his wife being a Jew. In Lithuania Jews were treated much better than in Russia. There many party activists were married to Jews. Even Snezhkus had a Jewish wife. We knew about doctors’ plot 19 and of course understood that it was tosh. When Stalin died in 1953 my husband did not cry. Moreover, we even smiled stealthily. Divulgement of Stalin’s cult at ХХ Communist party congress 20 was for Benis as a breath of fresh air after being in the marsh. Husband was transferred in Jonava in 1956 where we stayed for four years. I had always been a housewife. I raised the children. I always had a baby-sitter and housekeeper, whom I supervised. We liked to mark holidays at home- our and children’s birthdays, memorable dates. We marked no religious holidays neither Jewish nor Lithuanian. I did not like marking soviet holidays. There was no use in that as we always were invited somewhere. We often marked them in the town theatre or at some companies. Benis got the invitations an I accompanied him.

I practically had no friends. I had always lived husband’s and children’s lives. In those years I did not communicate with the Jews as it was no approved in the party circles. My biggest friend was Janina. She lived in Vilnius. She worked as a secretary of agriminister. Then the minister was transferred in security , but Janina still kept in touch with him. In 1956 Janina met a famous Jewish artist Hona Goldfein. He had a problem. He and his parents filed the documents for Polish visa, wherefrom they wanted to go to Israel. They did not get a visa, so they addressed to Janina for her to contact that minister for him to assist. They even offered her money. Sister did not take the money, but asked for having a fictitious marriage with him so that she could also leave. They agreed on that. Janina convinced her friend to help with the permit for the whole family. He did not want Janina to leave motherland, but still he helped. In 1957 Janina and her fictitious husband left. I said good bye to her, but Benis did not come over for a good-bye party as he feared of getting into a trouble again. Janina an Hona had lived in Poland for half a year. Joint hardship made them closer. When they came to Israel, their marriage was not fictitious any more, they were a real couple. Hona became a famous theatrical artist in Israel. Janina gave birth to a daughter here. Hona died in 1990s having built a wonderful mansion , where Ruth, her family and Janina are living. I have been keeping in touch with my sister all those years. Now she often calls me. Benis was always interested in Janina’s fate. When there were wars in Israel, we did not talk much about it. Neither husband nor I stuck to the official point of view on the events, but I was more prone to believe what was written in the papers.

We had lived in Jonava until 1960. Husband had rather acute deceases. He had ulcer. In 1960 at the age of 56 he retired preterm. We moved to Kaunas, where we were given a good apartment. Benis got personal pension. We had enough money, but he was not used to idle and soon he became in charge of security department of Lithuanian television. He had worked there until 1970s. In his last days Benis was sick. He died in 1986. His friends, old members of party –bolsheviks - 21 came to his funeral.

My children took father’s nationality. First of all it was common, second of all they identify themselves as true Lithuanians. They went to good schools, did well. When Lina finished school, she entered Kaunas university , the history and literature department. He was fond of art and quitted her studies at her last year as she did not want to be a teacher. So, she has not got a diploma. In late 1960s Lina married the student of Medical Department. He was a Lithuanian. His name was Pupuskenyane. Their private life was not OK. Shortly after their daughter Asta was born in 1968 they got divorced. Asta finished food college, then institute. She is married. She has a wonderful husband and two daughters – Astesa and Stesya. Lina is retired. She is fond of art. She is painting landscapes. Lina is living with me. I moved to her after her husband died. Romualdas family took our big apartment.

Romualdas graduated from military academy. He served in militia, then in state security. She was the chairman of state security committee of Shaulai region. Then he worked for police. Now he is 50. he has just recently retired. He has a Russian wife Tatyana and two sons- elder Andrus, born in 1978, and younger Simon, born in 1981. Andrus followed into the footsteps of my father. He is also working in police. The younger became sports physician.

Younger son Andrus finished sanitary and technical college. Then he studied in Kaunas university , but like Lina he had not graduated from it. Now is the owner of sanitary engineering company. His wife is Lithuania Neele. They have two children elder son works as tradesman at pharmaceutical company. He is married, has two children ,and younger Algerdas is in the final class at school.

My children became true Lithuanians, patriots of their country. They know that their mother is a Jew, respect my past and commemorate the perished. They are pure Lithuanian in their conscience. Romualdas, who was friends with Jews most of all, was in Israel as he was invited there by his Jewish friends. They even paid for his trip. When he came back , he said it was like paradise, but he wanted to live in his motherland.

I remained by myself in a way as after husband’s death I did not have friends any more. I communicated with husband’s friends only. I am not needy. I get a large pension 905 lita for my husband [editor’s note: about 350 dollars]. I felt myself alone morally and I came back to my roots as if I got the call from childhood, I started going to the synagogue, mark Jewish holydays, pray. It was so easy and natural to dip into the world of values which have been dear since childhood. There is a Jewish community in Kaunas. It was open in early 1990s. I am an active member of it and I get some help from them. 1990s I regularly went to the synagogue. The last time I was there was on Pesach four years ago. My daughter Lina also goes there, she orders prayers for our kin, buys matzah on Pesach. My children come to me on holidays, paying the tribute to my Jewish roots. I am about to start praying daily like I was taught by my father. I even recalled Hebrew. Probably I had never forgotten about my roots as this is the best knowledge in my time. I read the Bible every day and recollect my childhood, our town, my parent and the Jewish world, I grew up . Today I turned 89. My children, grandchildren and great grandchildren have been visiting me since early morning. They love me, and it makes me happy.

GLOSSARY:

1 Great Patriotic War

On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

2 Occupation of the Baltic Republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)

Although the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact regarded only Latvia and Estonia as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, according to a supplementary protocol (signed in 28th September 1939) most of Lithuania was also transferred under the Soviets. The three states were forced to sign the ‘Pact of Defense and Mutual Assistance’ with the USSR allowing it to station troops in their territories. In June 1940 Moscow issued an ultimatum demanding the change of governments and the occupation of the Baltic Republics. The three states were incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics.

3 Revisionist Zionism

The movement founded in 1925 and led by Vladimir Jabotinsky advocated the revision of the principles of Political Zionism developed by Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism. The main goals of the Revisionists was to put pressure on Great Britain for a Jewish statehood on both banks of the Jordan River, a Jewish majority in Palestine, the reestablishment of the Jewish regiments, and military training for the youth. The Revisionist Zionists formed the core of what became the Herut (Freedom) Party after the Israeli independence. This party subsequently became the central component of the Likud Party, the largest right-wing Israeli party since the 1970s.

4 Betar

Brith Trumpledor (Hebrew) meaning Trumpledor Society; right-wing Revisionist Jewish youth movement. It was founded in 1923 in Riga by Vladimir Jabotinsky, in memory of J. Trumpledor, one of the first fighters to be killed in Palestine, and the fortress Betar, which was heroically defended for many months during the Bar Kohba uprising. Its aim was to propagate the program of the revisionists and prepare young people to fight and live in Palestine. It organized emigration through both legal and illegal channels. It was a paramilitary organization; its members wore uniforms. They supported the idea to create a Jewish legion in order to liberate Palestine. From 1936-39 the popularity of Betar diminished. During WWII many of its members formed guerrilla groups.

5 Hashomer Hatzair

‘The Young Watchman’; A Zionist-socialist pioneering movement founded in Eastern Europe, Hashomer Hatzair trained youth for kibbutz life and set up kibbutzim in Palestine. During World War II, members were sent to Nazi-occupied areas and became leaders in Jewish resistance groups. After the war, Hashomer Hatzair was active in ‘illegal’ immigration to Palestine.

6 Soviet Army

The armed forces of the Soviet Union, originally called Red Army and renamed Soviet Army in February 1946. After the Bolsheviks came to power, in November 1917, they commenced to organize the squads of worker’s army, called Red Guards, where workers and peasants were recruited on voluntary bases. The commanders were either selected from among the former tsarist officers and soldiers or appointed directly by the Military and Revolutionary Committy of the Communist Party. In early 1918 the Bolshevik government issued a decree on the establishment of the Workers‘ and Peasants‘ Red Army and mandatory drafting was introduced for men between 18 and 40. In 1918 the total number of draftees was 100 thousand officers and 1.2 million soldiers. Military schools and academies training the officers were restored. In 1925 the law on compulsory military service was adopted and annual drafting was established. The term of service was established as follows: for the Red Guards- 2 years, for junior officers of aviation and fleet- 3 years, for medium and senior officers- 25 years. People of exploiter classes (former noblemen, merchants, officers of the tsarist army, priest, factory owner, etc. and their children) as well as kulaks (rich peasants) and cossacks were not drafted in the army. The law as of 1939 cancelled restriction on drafting of men belonging to certain classes, students were not drafted but went through military training in their educational institutions. On the 22nd June 1941 Great Patriotic War was unleashed and the drafting in the army became exclusively compulsory. First, in June-July 1941 general and complete mobilization of men was carried out as well as partial mobilization of women. Then annual drafting of men, who turned 18, was commenced. When WWII was over, the Red Army amounted to over 11 million people and the demobilization process commenced. By the beginning of 1948 the Soviet Army had been downsized to 2 million 874 thousand people. The youth of drafting age were sent to the restoration works in mines, heavy industrial enterprises, and construction sites. In 1949 a new law on general military duty was adopted, according to which service term in ground troops and aviation was 3 years and in navy- 4 years. Young people with secondary education, both civilian and military, with the age range of 17-23 were admitted in military schools for officers. In 1968 the term of the army service was contracted to 2 years in ground troops and in the navy to 3 years. That system of army recruitment has remained without considerable changes until the breakup of the Soviet Army (1991-93).

7 Occupation of the Baltic Republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)

Although the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact regarded only Latvia and Estonia as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, according to a supplementary protocol (signed in 28th September 1939) most of Lithuania was also transferred under the Soviets. The three states were forced to sign the ‘Pact of Defense and Mutual Assistance’ with the USSR allowing it to station troops in their territories. In June 1940 Moscow issued an ultimatum demanding the change of governments and the occupation of the Baltic Republics. The three states were incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist

8 Smetona, Antanas (1874-1944)

Lithuanian politician, President of Lithuania. A lawyer buy profession he was the leader of the authonomist movement when Lithuania was a part of the Russian Empire. He was provisional President of Lithuania (1919-1920) and elected president after 1926. In 1929 he forced the Prime Minister, Augustin Voldemaras, resign and established full dictatorship. After Lithuania was occuipied by the Sovit Union (1940) Smetona fled to Germany and then (1941) to the United States.

9 Deportations from the Baltics (1940-1953)

After the Soviet Union occupied the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in June 1940 as a part of establishing the Soviet system, mass deportation of the local population began. The victims of these were mainly but not exclusively those unwanted by the regime: the local bourgeoisie and the previously politically active strata. Deportations to remote parts of the Soviet Union continued up until the death of Stalin. The first major wave of deportation took place between 11th and 14th June 1941, when 36,000, mostly politically active people were deported. Deportations were reintroduced after the Soviet Army recaptured the three countries from Nazi Germany in 1944. Partisan fights against the Soviet occupiers were going on all up to 1956, when the last squad was eliminated. Between June 1948 and January 1950, in accordance with a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR under the pretext of ‘grossly dodged from labor activity in the agricultural field and led anti-social and parasitic mode of life’ from Latvia 52,541, from Lithuania 118,599 and from Estonai 32,450 people were deported. The total number of deportees from the three republics amounted to 203,590. Among them were entire Lithuanian families of different social strata (peasants, workers, intelligentsia), everybody who was able to reject or deemed capable to reject the regime. Most of the exiled died in the foreign land. Besides, about 100,000 people were killed in action and in fusillade for being members of partisan squads and some other 100,000 were sentenced to 25 years in camps.

10 Lenin (1870-1924)

Pseudonym of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the Russian Communist leader. A profound student of Marxism, and a revolutionary in the 1890s. He became the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party, whom he led to power in the coup d’état of 25th October 1917. Lenin became head of the Soviet state and retained this post until his death.

11 Collective farm (in Russian kolkhoz)

In the Soviet Union the policy of gradual and voluntary collectivization of agriculture was adopted in 1927 to encourage food production while freeing labor and capital for industrial development. In 1929, with only 4% of farms in kolkhozes, Stalin ordered the confiscation of peasants' land, tools, and animals; the kolkhoz replaced the family farm.

12 Trudodni

a measure of work used in Soviet collective farms until 1966. Working one day it was possible to earn from 0.5 up to 4 trudodni. In fall when the harvest was gathered the collective farm administration calculated the cost of 1 trudoden in money or food equivalent (based upon the profit).

13 Card system

The food card system regulating the distribution of food and industrial products was introduced in the USSR in 1929 due to extreme deficit of consumer goods and food. The system was cancelled in 1931. In 1941, food cards were reintroduced to keep records, distribute and regulate food supplies to the population. The card system covered main food products such as bread, meat, oil, sugar, salt, cereals, etc. The rations varied depending on which social group one belonged to, and what kind of work one did. Workers in the heavy industry and defense enterprises received a daily ration of 800 g (miners - 1 kg) of bread per person; workers in other industries 600 g. Non-manual workers received 400 or 500 g based on the significance of their enterprise, and children 400 g. However, the card system only covered industrial workers and residents of towns while villagers never had any provisions of this kind. The card system was cancelled in 1947.

14 16th Lithuanian division

It was formed according to a Soviet resolution on 18th December 1941 and consisted of residents of the annexed former Lithuanian Republic. The Lithuanian division consisted of 10.000 people (34,2 percent of whom were Jewish), it was well equipped and was completed by 7th July 1942. In 1943 it took part in the Kursk battle, fought in Belarus and was a part of the Kalinin front. All together it liberated over 600 towns and villages and took 12.000 German soldiers as captives. In summer 1944 it took part in the liberation of Vilnius joining the 3rd Belarusian Front, fought in the Kurland and exterminated the besieged German troops in Memel (Klaipeda). After the victory its headquarters were relocated in Vilnius, in 1945-46 most veterans were demobilized but some officers stayed in the Soviet Army.

15 Ispolkom

After the tsar’s abdication (March, 1917), power passed to a Provisional Government appointed by a temporary committee of the Duma, which proposed to share power to some extent with councils of workers and soldiers known as ‘soviets’. Following a brief and chaotic period of fairly democratic procedures, a mixed body of socialist intellectuals known as the Ispolkom secured the right to ‘represent’ the soviets. The democratic credentials of the soviets were highly imperfect to begin with: peasants - the overwhelming majority of the Russian population - had virtually no say, and soldiers were grossly over-represented. The Ispolkom’s assumption of power turned this highly imperfect democracy into an intellectuals’ oligarchy.

16 KGB

The KGB or Committee for State Security was the main Soviet external security and intelligence agency, as well as the main secret police agency from 1954 to 1991

17 Collectivization in the USSR

In the late 1920s - early 1930s private farms were liquidated and collective farms established by force on a mass scale in the USSR. Many peasants were arrested during this process. As a result of the collectivization, the number of farmers and the amount of agricultural production was greatly reduced and famine struck in the Ukraine, the Northern Caucasus, the Volga and other regions in 1932-33.

18 Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’

The campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’, i.e. Jews, was initiated in articles in the central organs of the Communist Party in 1949. The campaign was directed primarily at the Jewish intelligentsia and it was the first public attack on Soviet Jews as Jews. ‘Cosmopolitans’ writers were accused of hating the Russian people, of supporting Zionism, etc. Many Yiddish writers as well as the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in November 1948 on charges that they maintained ties with Zionism and with American ‘imperialism’. They were executed secretly in 1952. The anti-Semitic Doctors’ Plot was launched in January 1953. A wave of anti-Semitism spread through the USSR. Jews were removed from their positions, and rumors of an imminent mass deportation of Jews to the eastern part of the USSR began to spread. Stalin’s death in March 1953 put an end to the campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’.

19 Doctors’ Plot

The Doctors’ Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin’s reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

20 Twentieth Party Congress

At the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 Khrushchev publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted the veil of secrecy from what had happened in the USSR during Stalin’s leadership.

21 Bolsheviks

Members of the movement led by Lenin. The name ‘Bolshevik’ was coined in 1903 and denoted the group that emerged in elections to the key bodies in the Social Democratic Party (SDPRR) considering itself in the majority (Rus. bolshynstvo) within the party. It dubbed its opponents the minority (Rus. menshynstvo, the Mensheviks). Until 1906 the two groups formed one party. The Bolsheviks first gained popularity and support in society during the 1905-07 Revolution. During the February Revolution in 1917 the Bolsheviks were initially in the opposition to the Menshevik and SR (‘Sotsialrevolyutsionyery’, Socialist Revolutionaries) delegates who controlled the Soviets (councils). When Lenin returned from emigration (16 April) they proclaimed his program of action (the April theses) and under the slogan ‘All power to the Soviets’ began to Bolshevize the Soviets and prepare for a proletariat revolution. Agitation proceeded on a vast scale, especially in the army. The Bolsheviks set about creating their own armed forces, the Red Guard. Having overthrown the Provisional Government, they created a government with the support of the II Congress of Soviets (the October Revolution), to which they admitted some left-wing SRs in order to gain the support of the peasantry. In 1952 the Bolshevik party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Liza Lukinskaya

Liza Lukinskaya
Vilnius
Lithuania
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: February 2005

I met Liza Lukinskaya in the Jewish community of Lithuania. As usual she came there to see her friends and discuss topical issues. Liza is a stocky, fashionably dressed woman with neatly dyed hair. She appeared to be outgoing and agreed to be interviewed at once. We met for the second time in Liza’s apartment in one of the relatively new districts of Vilnius. She lives in a house, similar to the Soviet buildings of the 1960s. Liza lives in a good three-room apartment with light wall-paper and fancy curtains and flowers that reflect the character of the owner: kind and easy-going.

My family background
Growing up
During the war
After the war
Glossary

My family background

My paternal grandfather, Leizer Abramson, was born in the middle of the 19th century in Kaunas. He was a merchant. He owned a small furniture store in the center of the city. His business was rather lucrative. Grandfather’s family was rich and they had their own house in Kaunas. Grandmother Hana-Beila was eight years younger than him. In accordance with the Jewish tradition she got married at a young age and became a housewife, taking care of their home and raising the children. I didn’t know Grandfather Leizer. I didn’t live to see him as I was born in 1920. At that time the whole family – grandparents, their adult children and their families, young single children – were exiled from Lithuania. When World War I started, the tsarist government exiled Jews from frontier territories. My grandfather’s family happened to be in Ukraine, but I don’t know where exactly. Grandfather died there in either 1916 or 1917.

I heard that Grandfather was a religious person, but not a zealot. He observed Jewish traditions, celebrated holidays, went to the synagogue and had his own seat there. I remember grandmother Hana-Beila. When the family came back to Lithuania, on holidays she came from Kaunas to Siauliai, where one of her daughters lived. Grandmother seemed very old to me. I remember that she prayed in the mornings. On Fridays she and I lit the candles on the eve of Sabbath. Grandmother didn’t cover her head, but as for the rest she totally looked like a traditional Jewish woman. She died in the early 1930s in Kaunas and was buried at the Jewish cemetery there.

Leizer and Hana-Beila had ten children – four sons and six daughters. All of them got traditional Jewish education. The boys finished cheder, then lyceum. I don’t know anything about the education of the girls. Anyway, the children of Leizer and Hana-Beila were literate people. By the irony of fate none of the daughters had children, and the brothers had two or three children. All of my father’s siblings perished during the Fascist occupation. First Hana-Beila gave birth to daughters. Then the boys were born. The eldest sister Ida, born in the late 1870s, helped her mother raise the younger children, and rejected all her fiancés. Ida remained a spinster. She never worked and lived with grandmother Hana-Beila.

When her mother died, Ida moved to her sister Fanya, who was one or two years younger. She was a famous milliner. Fanya owned a large hat store and atelier, where she and a couple of dozens of her employees made beautiful, fashionable hats. All the stylish ladies from Kaunas knew Fanya. She was married. Her husband, a Jew, Keirauskas was deported 1 and exiled to Siberia in 1940. It saved his life. Ida and Fanya died in the Kaunas ghetto 2. Ten years after the Great Patriotic War 3 Keirauskas came back to Lithuania. I don’t know what happened to him. After Fanya died he didn’t keep in touch with our family.

Liza, born after Fanya, was also married. I don’t remember her husband’s name. He died before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. Liza also perished during one of the first actions of extermination in the second Kaunas ghetto. I don’t remember my father’s other sisters. Our family rarely kept in touch with them. I know that one of them, the youngest, stayed in Ukraine. She remained single and died at a very young age.

My father was the eldest of the brothers. Then Abram was born in 1890. He was a violinist and worked in the orchestra of the Kaunas opera theater. I don’t recall his wife’s name, but I clearly remember his children’s names. The eldest, Israel, was my age. Before World War II he was a student. The younger Lev and Anna went to a lyceum. Abram’s family perished in Kaunas ghetto during its liquidation in 1944.

Samuel Abramson, born in the 1890s, followed Abram. He was a representative of a large trade shoe enterprise, Salamander, in Kaunas. This enterprise is still known all over the world. He ran the Salamander store in Kaunas. I don’t remember the name of his wife and two children. They also became Nazi victims in Kaunas ghetto. My fathers’ younger brother, Yakov Abramson, born in the 1900s, and his wife owned a hat store in Kaunas. Both of them ran the business. They had two sons, who perished in the ghetto with their parents.

My father, Isaac Abramson, was born in 1887. Having finished cheder he went to one of the Jewish lyceums of Kaunas, though I don’t know how many grades he finished. He was exiled to Ukraine with his family and in 1917 met my mother, who was from Romny, Sumy oblast [about 250 km east of Kiev]. Father also lived there at that time.

My mother’s parents were from Ukraine. Most likely they were born in Romny in the 1870s. Mother’s father, Tsal Dubossarskiy was also a merchant. He was very rich. I don’t know what exactly his business was. I didn’t know Grandfather – he died in 1922 after our family came back to Lithuania. Grandmother Anna was a housewife and brought up the children. After her husband’s death Anna moved to Kharkov [440 km east of Kiev], where she lived before the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. During the war my grandmother was in evacuation in Ural. When the war was over, she came back to Kharkov. After the war she lived only for two years. I didn’t see her then and was not able to find out about her life.

My maternal grandparents observed Jewish traditions and celebrated holidays as did the paternal ones. They also went to the synagogue, but in my mother’s words they did it because it was customary for the Jews, not because of their religiousness. They tried to raise their children – two daughters and three sons – to respect Jewish traditions, but they kept abreast with the times. Mother told me that they had governesses who taught them foreign languages and music.

I didn’t know my mother’s brothers and their children. I don’t remember the names of all of them. The eldest brother Alexander, born in the early 1900s, was a callow youth, ran away from home during the Civil War 4 and joined a Red Army squad. He fought in the cavalry and became a Bolshevik 5. When the Civil War was over, he finished the Construction Institute in Moscow and worked as an engineer at some military plant. He lived in Moscow all his life. He was appointed to high positions. Alexander had a son, whose name I don’t remember. He also lived in Moscow. Alexander died in the 1970s.

The second brother, Aron, who was one or two years younger than Alexander, was a career military. He went through the entire Great Patriotic War and then lived in Kharkov. He died in the 1980s. The youngest, Yakov, also lived in Kharkov. He worked as a chief accountant of some pharmacy administration. He was in evacuation in Ural and after the war lived with his wife and children in Kharkov. He survived Aron by a couple of years.

My mother’s only sister Katya was much younger than she. I have a picture, where teenage Katya held me in her arms. I was four months old in that picture. I don’t remember Katya. She stayed in Ukraine. She died from pneumonia in about two years after we had left. She was only 17.

My mother, Feiga Dubossarskaya, the eldest in the family, was born in 1898. She obtained a wonderful education. She finished a Russian lyceum. I don’t know what language was spoken in the family of Grandfather Tsal. My mother was proficient in Russian, both oral and written, but she didn’t speak very good Yiddish and had an accent. Mother was taught music and played the grand piano. She was good at it. I don’t know how my parents met. In 1917 they got married. They didn’t have a traditional Jewish wedding. It wasn’t the right time: the years of the Revolution 6, Civil War, hunger and pogroms 7. In 1918 mother gave birth to my elder brother Abram, and on 13th May 1920 I, Liza Abramson, was born. By that time Lithuania had gained independence from Russia 8. Many Lithuanian citizens came back to their motherland and in 1921, when I was a year and a half old, our family – my mother, father, brother and I – came back to our motherland in Kaunas, which was the capital of Lithuania at that time. Almost all of my father’s family came back there.

Growing up

Here in Kaunas my parents rented a small two-room apartment on the outskirts. I have some vague memories from my childhood in Kaunas. I remember a big round table, a large parental bed and beautiful velvet window curtains. Once, my mother asked me to give her a pair of scissors. I took them and ran to the sofa, where my mother was sitting. I fell down on them and hurt my neck. I still have a scar. I was a bad trencherman and my mother was constantly trying to scare me with gypsies. I was afraid of them for many years. When I was five or six, Father was offered a well-paid job and our family moved to Siauliai [about 200 km from Vilnius].

Father was assigned to a good position. He was a representative of the owners of the Guberniya brewery. This company is still an important brewery in Lithuania. Father was a very gifted and literate man. He was fluent in Russian and Lithuanian, both oral and written. He also knew Polish and German. He had a lot of responsibilities: starting from concluding contracts with stock houses and stores and up to quality control of beer. Siauliai was the second city in Lithuania after Kaunas in terms of population and importance. It was multinational. 30-40 percent of the population was Jewish.

I was a feeble child. When I was unwell, the pediatrician Kantorovich came over. There was also a doctor at the plant where father was working. He was a Lithuanian. He was also called, when needed, and treated our family free of charge. There were a lot of Jews in Siauliai – merchants, businessman, intelligentsia: doctors, lawyers, teachers of Jewish schools. There were two synagogues in the city. The first place we lived in was near a large two-storied synagogue, located in the vicinity of the train station. My father went to the synagogue at that time and took my brother and me with him. I liked to see my father change in the synagogue. Usually he was funny and kind. When he put his tallit on, he looked older and stricter.

There was an old building of a confectionary in front of our house. So it smelled like sweet caramel in our block. There was a military unit and an orchestra in the yard of our house. My brother and I enjoyed listening to bravura marches and waltzes they played almost every day. Our apartment was rather small, consisting of two rooms: my parents’ bedroom and the room I shared with my brother. At first, it seemed to me that father didn’t make that much money in Siauliai, as my mother did the house chores and cooking.

Soon Father was given an apartment near the brewery and we moved to a new place. The office of the brewery was located in the former mansion of some respectable countess. It was a beautiful two-storied building with a yard, fence and a gate. There was a 24-hour security guard by the gate. It was closed for the night and the guard would walk around the yard with a dog and didn’t let in any outsiders. The office of the brewery was on the first floor together with the small premises of a music school. There were several apartments for the employees of the brewery on the top floor.

We had a four-room apartment. My parents purchased new furniture. There was a beautiful carved cupboard in the drawing-room as well as a table, chairs and a sofa with silken upholstery. The bedroom furniture was made from nut wood – a wide queen-size bed, mirror, dresser and large wardrobe with a mirror. There was not too much furniture in the small dining-room: a table with chairs, a small round table, where the telephone and address book were placed. Mother embroidered very well and she decorated the room with embroidered pictures and cushions and white starched laced table-cloths.

Father started making pretty good money and we felt it. We acquired a beautiful grand piano made of mahogany. Mother played it. My brother and I were taught music at home. Besides, I had an English tutor, who came over to us. We had a housekeeper: a Russian lady, Nina, but my mother, a great cook, didn’t let her cook without her guidance. She spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Food was cooked on primus stoves – there were several of them in the kitchen. There was also a stove, where Mother baked different pies, cakes – tartlets, rolls and all kinds of desserts. I still consider her cake ‘Napoleon’ to be the acme of culinary art. Mother cooked Jewish and Ukrainian dishes. She made wonderful borscht with garlic pies, vareniki [a kind of stuffed dumpling] with meat stuffing, curds and potatoes. Puffy meat patties were always served with broth. I don’t know what kind of cuisine that is.

We had all kinds of modern novelties in the kitchen. In that period of time people started canning food. Father bought a German apparatus with jars and glass lids. Mother made stewed fruit and canned them. Then she put them in a special boiler. We had a fridge in the kitchen: a special crate, where a metal box with ice was put. The ice was brought from the brewery. When it melted, more ice was brought again in a couple of days. There was a special cooler for pickles in the cellar. Father made them. He salted tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage in large barrels and stored them in the cellar.

My parents mostly spoke Russian at home. Mother knew Yiddish, but Russian was closer to her. Of course, I understood Yiddish as my father tried speaking it with me. There was a Jewish school by the synagogue and my brother and I went there. I went to that elementary school for two years. Subjects were taught in Yiddish. There were several Jewish schools and lyceums in Siauliai. When I grew up a little bit, Father made arrangements for my brother and me to be transferred to the Jewish lyceum. Here I started studying a language that was new to me: Hebrew. It was a prestigious institution. Father had to spend a lot of money on my tuition. I don’t remember the precise amount.

The lyceum wasn’t far from home. My brother’s friend lived close by. His parents owned a cab and they usually gave us a lift with their son. Once, in winter time, when it was frosty, the three of us came to the lyceum, but my brother and I weren’t let in. It turned out that Father left on a trip and didn’t manage to make the payment. My brother and I had to walk back home across the town. When Father came back, he was furious. I had never seen him in such a frenzy. He went to the lyceum right away and took our documents. The headmaster of the lyceum understood his fault and tried to correct the situation. He came to my father with his apologies, but Father wasn’t willing to listen. He hired teachers for us, who came home and crammed us for the Lithuanian lyceum. In summer 1929 my brother and I entered it rather easily. He went to the boys’ and I went to the girls’ lyceum.

Father’s friends also belonged to the middle class. As a rule, husbands worked and their spouses were housewives. Mother’s friends came over every once in a while. They had tea or coffee with Mother’s pies, browsed fashionable magazines and played cards. Women met once a week. Each of them received guests in turns. Sometimes they went out to eat ice-cream and drink liqueur. Mother often took me with her. She was a fashionable lady. She had her clothes made by the best milliner in Siauliai. She enjoyed shopping. She liked stores that sold readymade goods and haberdashery. Mother always went to the store where threads, yarn and knitting needles were on offer. The owner of the store gave classes on needlework to beginners.

On weekend our whole family often went out together. There was a central park in front of our house. It was shady and beautiful. There was a chestnut alley not far from it. In summer Father rented a dacha 9 for us a room and veranda in Pagegiai [about 200 km from Vilnius]. It was a splendid place, with seven lakes in a row. Mother was good at kayaking. Every day she and I swam in the lakes. Sometimes she put us in the kayak. My parents were great swimmers. Special belts were made from corks for my brother and me. Soon we also learned how to swim. As a rule Father came over to us for a weekend and we had picnics in the garden or in the forest.

My parents weren’t religious, though they kept up the traditions. Meat was bought only in kosher stores. Chicken and other poultry were always taken to a shochet. Sometimes Mother bought a tidbit-pork ham. She kept it in paper and gave it to me and my brother when nobody was around so that the neighbors wouldn’t see. When I said that we couldn’t eat pork, Mother gave me a surprised look and said, ‘Where do you see pork, it’s ham!’

Sabbath wasn’t celebrated at home the way it was in traditional families. Though, my mother did her best. She baked challot, put wine and candles on the table, lit the candles herself. On Saturday there was always a festive dinner, but Father didn’t go to the synagogue, moreover he had to work as Saturday was a working day at the brewery. Only when Grandmother Hana-Beila, who celebrated Sabbath, came to us from Kaunas, the whole family was at the table, and Grandmother said a prayer. Grandmother died in the early 1930s. I was very sick at that time and Mother couldn’t leave me. Father went to his mother’s funeral by himself. Grandmother was buried in accordance with the Jewish rites. The mourning period was also observed.

We celebrated Jewish holidays at home. I remember Pesach best of all. The house was prepared for the occasion well in advance: cleaning, dusting, polishing, dressing the windows with beautiful curtains, putting a beautiful table-cloth on the table. The dishes were well taken care of. There was a special set of Pascal dishes, stored in a certain cupboard. The rest of the dishes were given to some Jews to make them kosher: they soaked them in some tub and then deterged them with sand. Matzah was brought from the synagogue in a large hamper covered with a cloth. No special rites in connection with the banishment of chametz were conducted in our house. I asked Father the four traditional questions, as I was the youngest in the family, during the first seder.

There were all traditional products on the table: eggs, potatoes, some bitter herbs etc. Of course the table was lavishly laid with festive dishes, cooked by my mother. She cooked delicious kneydlakh made of onion, fried with chicken and goose fat, eggs, matzah flour and chicken broth, boiled in chicken broth. There was always gefilte fish, chicken stew and all kinds of tsimes 10. Mother cooked great imberlakh – a Jewish dish, made of carrots and ginger, boiled with sugar before thickening, put in layers on the board and cut in different shapes. Mother also baked cake from beet with nuts, a scrumptious sponge cake from matzah flour. Well in advance Father made wine from hops, honey and raisins. Mother also made teyglakh – honey and sugar boiled in syrup with ginger and a pinch of lemon acid, made in different shapes: rolls and spirals.

For Purim my mother always baked very tasty hamantashen with curds. On those days Jews brought presents to each other – shelakhmones. Trays with desserts were brought to us from Mother’s friends and she sent presents in her turn. A chanukkiyah was lit at home on Chanukkah. It was put in the window in accordance with the traditions. Potato fritters were also made. There was a feast in the evening.

I vaguely remember the fall holidays. When we were living in the old apartment by the synagogue, there was a sukkah made by the neighbors in our yard and we also went there. I remember the holiday of Simchat Torah when Jews would joyfully carry the Torah scroll. My brother and I were able to watch those holidays, when we were living by the synagogue, but those holidays weren’t celebrated at our place.

In 1935 Mother received an invitation from my grandmother. She had all necessary documents processed and went to see her in Kharkov. Her brothers, who were serving in the Soviet Army, were Communists. They didn’t know about her visit. When Mother came to Kharkov, Grandmother sent them a telegram saying that she was severely ill and asking them to come. Mother’s brothers saw her in secret. If it was known that they had seen their sister, who was living in a capitalist country, they might have shared the fate of the thousands of those repressed 11 by Stalin. Moreover, they didn’t even talk about their mother.

When I became a student of the Lithuanian girls’ lyceum I was mostly in a female environment. I was the only Jew in my grade. Actually, another Jewish girl joined our grade two years before my graduation. I was friends with Lithuanian girls: Polina Uskaite, Gribaite, Lukasheite. We were friends for ages. My classmates, both Lithuanian and Russian, treated me very well and paid no attention to my nationality. There was only one teacher, Vishinskine, who was an ardent anti-Semite. Even during the classes that had nothing to do with ethnicity she blamed Jews for all kinds of trouble. I was very active and sociable. The girls liked me. My friends and I went for walks in the park. We gave each other hugs. Sometimes we went to cafes to eat ice-cream, watched movies. There were two movie houses in Siauliai at that time. There was the Lithuanian Drama Theater. I liked to watch performances there. I liked everything, connected with the theater and the stage. My dream was to become a ballet-dancer. I loved amateur performances. I danced on the school stage, played the grand piano and accompanied singers on the piano. I felt like fish in the water.

In the last but one grade we had a Judaic class. Less than ten students out of the entire lyceum attended that class. When I was a junior student I was a member of the Lithuanian scout organization Ptichki. I never joined the scouts for senior students. When I was a senior student, I started seeing boys. I went out with a Lithuanian boy, Eduardas Kudritskas. It even seemed to me that I fell in love with him. At home I even started bringing up the subject of marrying him. Then my parents said that they would marry me off only to a Jew.

My brother Abram didn’t do very well at school. Starting from the fourth grade Father transferred him to a Yiddish lyceum where it was easier to study. But Abram had a talent for music. He started playing the accordion, the piano. In 1938 he was drafted into the Lithuanian army and he served in a musical squad in Siauliai.

I succeeded at school and in 1938 I graduated from the lyceum ranking among the top students. I wanted to become a doctor. In order to enter the Medical Department at Kaunas University I had to take an exam in Latin. We had studied it only for two years and I was afraid that I wouldn’t pass it, so I decided to enter the Biology Department. I could enter it only via an interview and then get transferred to the Medical Department in a year, which wouldn’t be complicated. I parted with my friend Eduardas and left for Kaunas. Soon I forgot about him. Puppy love goes by very quickly. I settled at the place of my Aunt Fanya, my father’s sister. The first years flew by very quickly.

During that time certain political changes in the country affected our family. Father, a respectable man, who had worked at the brewery for a long time, got a mild hint to leave his post due to an anti-Semitic wave. He wasn’t fired. They let him choose any Lithuanian city where he could be in charge of the stock of the brewery. Thus, my parents left for the small town of Skaudville [about 200 km from Vilnius]. Father’s salary barely changed, but he suffered morally from being unjustly laid-off.

In 1939 I submitted my documents for a transfer to the Medical Department. The 1st-year-curriculum of our faculties was identical. All I had to do was to go though a physical check. The medical board declared me unqualified for a doctor’s career, though I was healthy, while my Lithuanian friend, who was afflicted with tuberculosis, was enrolled in the Medical Department as per resolution of the same board.

In that period of time Fascist youths appeared in Lithuania and a vexing incident took place at our institute. In a chemistry lecture, those youths demanded from a Lithuanian professor, who was holding lectures for two faculties – Chemistry and Technology, to make Jewish students take separate seats at remote desks. The professor refused and said that all students were equal at his lectures. There was a terrible scandal, the professor had a heart attack and was taken to hospital immediately. Neither he, nor the rector of the institute conceded to the gangsters.

I was a good student, besides I didn’t have to pay practically anything for it. My brother was transferred to another town, not far from Skaudville. We tried to use any chance to visit our parents, be it vacation or holidays. During one of my brother’s leaves, which concurred with my holidays, both of us went to Palanga. It was a wonderful month: warm, care-free and we were sporting on the coast of the warm sea, mixing with people of our age, going dancing and to the cinema.

During the war

In June 1940 the Soviet Red Army troops came to the Baltic countries and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were annexed to the USSR 12. Many poor Jews hoped for a better life and they welcomed the Soviet soldiers as liberators with flowers. Other rich Jews and Zionists 13 stood still, awaiting trouble, which soon came. Many of them were exiled to Siberia. My parents took it as a mere fact, but their life changed as well. There was a tank division with the families of the soldiers on the border with Germany, in Skaudville. My mother, a funny and sociable woman soon made friends with those ladies. She played the piano in the army club and militaries often came over to my parents’ place to listen to music and have a good time.

Our class was transferred to Vilnius University. I moved into the hostel. I had a modest life like any student from another city. As earlier, all subjects were taught in Lithuanian. We started studying Russian, which was familiar to me as my mother spoke Russian with my father. The Komsomol organization was founded 14, but I didn’t manage to join it.

The last year of peace before the war brought me joy and love. I met a wonderful Jewish lad. We fell in love with each other. Ilia Olkin was born in 1919 in the Lithuanian town Panemune. His father, David Olkin, was a pharmacist. He had his own pharmacy in the town. Ilia’s mother, grandmother and three younger sisters lived in Panemune as well. I can’t remember their names now. All of Ilia’s relatives perished during the German occupation. We started seeing each other and spent almost all our time together as Ilia also lived in the hostel. Soon Ilia became the leader of the Komsomol organization of Vilnius University. He was one year my senior. He was working at the chair and dreaming of post-graduate studies. Ilia came to Skaudville with me and asked for my hand in marriage. My parents liked him very much. Having met my parents, Ilia introduced me to his. Thus, the first year of my first true love had passed.

In late May 1941 my brother was demobilized. He came to Skaudville. Having passed our exams, Ilia and I were on the verge of going to my town to see my brother and discuss our wedding, but fate dictated different things. In the night of 22nd June Vilnius was unashamedly bombed. First we decided that it was some civil defense training, which we had got used to in the previous year. Soon, it was clear that the bombs were real. There was fire after the bombs had been released. I tried calling home, but there was no connection. On the second day I, Ilia and three of his pals decided to leave. We took some necessary things and documents – we had hardly any money as we didn’t manage to receive our scholarship – and went to the train station. It was hard to get there. The trains weren’t leaving. Then we decided to walk towards the East, to Russia. I remembered that my grandmother Anna lived in Kharkov, on Feurbach Street, and Mother often told me that I had to go to Granny in the event the war started.

We were walking on the road along with thousands of people. People with babies and old men, who could barely walk, were on carts. Many were going on foot in the Eastern direction. The Soviet troops were retreating with us. It was accompanied with bombing, during which people hid away in the bushes by the road and in ditches. After the bombing not all of them came back to the road. It was dreadful and seemed interminable. We were let in some places to spend the night. We didn’t have money and Ilia’s pals paid for us. They were much older and had money on them. On our way retreating soldiers in passing cars told us that the Germans had entered Vilnius.

We reached Belarus – I remember the name of a village: Berezovki near the town Kobylniki [150 km from Minsk]. We stayed with local peasants, whom our friends paid good money. We had stayed with those people for about a week until the moment when some of the retreating Soviet soldiers said that if they sheltered Jews, the Germans would shoot them. The host took us to Kobylniki in a cart. There we stayed for a couple of days at the place of a local Jew. We saw Fascists there. The next day there was the first Fascist action. They demanded all members of the Communist Party and male Jews to step out into the square. On that dreadful day Communists were shot and Jews were ordered to bury them. Ilia and his pals were also there. In the evening they told us about it with horror. One of the men was shocked. He didn’t see any way out and decided to hang himself. I, the only woman in our company, turned out to be the most decisive. I said that we wouldn’t be staying there any minute longer. We had nowhere to go and we decided to return to Lithuania – be it as it may, at home even walls seemed more helpful.

In spite of the curfew hour, we went out of town through back yards and alleyways, reached the forest and spent time there. On the way back we walked mostly at night, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Sometimes we were given a lift, but still we walked most of the time. A couple of times we asked some people to let us spend the night in their farmstead, but none of the hosts let us in. I can’t blame them and I don’t think they were anti-Semites. The order of the Fascists had already been conveyed to the population and they knew that they would be shot if they sheltered Jews.

So, we reached Vilnius. Our dear and favorite city bode danger. Fascists and Lithuanian polizei 15 were all over the place. We were told that the polizei were looking for Ilia as he was the secretary of the Komsomol Committee. We decided to leave Vilnius and go home. We were lucky: some cart heading for Kaunas took us. There were 25 people in it. We reached some farmstead in the vicinity of Kaunas and a police patrol stopped us. All the Jews were told to leave the carts. I started explaining that we were poor students on our way home and besought them to let us go. I succeeded in that: we were the only ones whom they let go. I don’t know why, but during the years of occupation I was really lucky when I was about to face death. It was the first time of my luck, and you will be able to see other spells of luck further in my story. We were released and we ran after that very cart and got on it. We were detained in the vicinity of Kaunas. It was horrifying as that time we were stopped by the Fascists and again I talked them into letting me go. Ilia was arrested. I could only shout to him that I would be waiting for him in Kaunas at Aunt Fanya’s place.

Aunt Fanya was alone. Her husband was exiled to Siberia one month before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. Aunt Fanya had a forlorn hope to see me alive. She told me that all men were shot and I should not hope to see Ilia again. She also said that somebody in Siauliai saw my parents and brother on the truck with the wives and children of the militaries. As it turned out later, our family was saved thanks to Mother’s hospitality and cordiality. Military guys and their wives loved her and when the war was unleashed, Russian militaries came to our house and sent our family in evacuation together with their wives. I found out about that after war. Now, when my aunt said that parents had left, I felt better. At least some members of our family could count on being rescued.

I understood that I had no place to go in Skaudville and stayed with Aunt Fanya. The first evening I stayed with her, a gypsy came over to read the cards as Aunt Fanya was very worried about her husband and started believing gypsies. Aunt, who had never believed neither cards nor fortune-telling, talked me into cartomancy. That lady spread out the cards and told me about all my life. She said that I was worrying about one young man, who was detained and that he would come to me in three days. Two men and one woman were on a long trip, also thinking and worrying about me. I would also meet them, but in three or four years. All those things came true.

Ilia came back in three days. He survived by a miracle. He was taken to prison, where Jews were detained before getting shot, but it was packed. The drunk polizei didn’t want to bother, kicked him on his back and let him go. We started living at Aunt Fanya’s place. Daily hazards and adversity made us close and we practically became like husband and wife. It was dangerous to appear in the city, especially for young men. Every day they were caught and executed. We didn’t want to venture out again. I went out to get some scarce products for our food cards. There was a curfew hour in the city, and it started earlier for the Jews than anybody else. I took silver spoons my aunt gave me to the commission shop. When they were sold, I wasn’t given any money and told instead that Jews needed no money as soon all of us would be murdered.

In July it was announced that Jews were to settle in the ghetto. First there were two ghettos – a big and a small one. There was an overhead crossing connected to the small ghetto. There were vehicles on the road and people were walking in the streets, while we were prisoners and forbidden to leave the ghetto territory without a guard. Aunt Fanya and I were in the small ghetto. My husband and I lived in one small apartment with Aunt Fanya and Aunt Ida, who moved to the ghetto with us, and some strange woman, who wanted to join us.

All ghetto prisoners were supposed to work. I and my husband did digging work at some construction sites at the aerodrome in a crew of young and able-bodied people. We were escorted by Jewish policemen on our way to work. All prisoners had yellow hexagrams on the back and on the chest. A Judenrat 16 was founded in ghetto, which was in charge of all vital issues and followed execution of the orders of the commandment. There was Jewish police in the ghetto. All craftsmen, tailors, cobblers and tinsmiths, who could be of any use, were issued working IDs.

The Fascists even had an orchestra in the ghetto, where Uncle Abram was playing. There is his picture with several members of the orchestras of ‘die-hards.’ My aunts Fanya and Ida didn’t have anything: they were housewives. In about a month Fascists made a tentative action: they cordoned off the ghetto, placed machine-guns on the bridge and ousted everybody from their houses. We stood in the square for a long time, and the Fascists just mocked us and let us go. When in a while the same situation happened again, everybody was relatively calm, thinking that they would let us go after taunting us. Nothing of the sort: it was the most dreadful action on liquidation of the small ghetto – on that day the Fascists sent ten thousand Jews for execution. On that day I didn’t go to work as I felt unwell. Ilia happened to be in a crew at the aerodrome and they were permitted not to return to the ghetto as the next working shift wasn’t released from the ghetto. I was waiting for my husband by the gate and crying, without knowing whether he would come or I would have to die alone. My Ilia came back, he couldn’t part with me.

They started classifying people: craftsmen were set aside. All of us – my husband, I and three elderly ladies – turned out to be among those who were to be taken to nowhere. At once I darted to the policemen and said that my husband and I were young and could work, and added that we were working hard at the aerodrome and would work even harder. He separated me and Ilia with the butt of his gun. We were taken to the big ghetto with a small cluster of craftsmen. In the morning we saw my aunts Fanya and Ida being taken to get shot. Then we were allowed to come to the small ghetto and take some things. I found something: a brown coat with a fur collar, given to me by Aunt Fanya, was hanging on the fence of our house, the place where I left it before the action. I took my coat and it served me for a long time, keeping me warm in wintertime, during the occupation and preserving the memory of a dear person.

We started living in the big ghetto. We could only leave the ghetto on our way to work. We settled in the place of my Uncle Abram Abramson, who had been a violinist before the war. He had a good house in Kaunas and they were given three rooms in the ghetto. Almost all musicians perished after the liquidation of the small ghetto and the orchestra didn’t exist anymore. Uncle Abram was involved in hard physical labor like all men. I lived in Uncle’s apartment by myself, and Ilia found lodging at the place of his friend. The matter is that my uncle’s wife was a greedy woman and constantly was rebuking me for eating their daily bread. Once I finished working late at the aerodrome, came home and turned on the light in the kitchen to cook some food. My aunt came in and said that I shouldn’t waste electricity at night and turned off the light. The next day I told Ilia that I wouldn’t stay with my relatives any longer. He found a room where a guy, whose entire family had perished, was living. We moved in with him. In a while Ilia and I registered our marriage at the Judenrat. In the evening we had tea with bon-bons. That was the way we celebrated our wedding.

Food was the most vital problem in the ghetto. Ghetto dwellers, who managed to keep some precious things, exchanged them for products. We had nothing: we left Vilnius empty-handed. We earned our daily bread this way: old people, who had no chance to leave the ghetto, gave us some things to exchange for products and told us what they wanted to get, we received the surplus. E.g. from exchange they wanted to get a loaf of bread or a certain quantity of grain, and what we got in excess of that belonged to us. My husband even managed to get caramel for me. I had a sweet tooth and there was some underground store in the ghetto where he bought me candies. I don’t know how the owners of the store managed to get products. They most likely had their person in the police.

The second problem was work, which was very hard. We had to work under any weather conditions: in terrible heat and in minus 30 degrees below zero. Now I had somebody to protect me – my husband, who always was there for me in adversity. Once I didn’t go to work, when the frost was severe and stayed at home. Jewish policemen found me and made me go to work in severest frost. After that my aunt literally made me go to one of my acquaintances, married to a Jew, who was a foreman of a special team, which served for Estonian and Fascist big-wheels. That lady was a nurse and she worked at the first-aid post. Before the war she was friends with my mother and even came to see my parents in Skaudville. The nurse recognized me and made arrangements for me to work in the city – I cooked food for the team, where her husband was working. I managed to get some food for me and my husband.

Once, in the apartment of some Fascist boss, where that team was repairing something, his wife let me use the telephone. I called my Lithuanian friend. She came over there and we had a long talk. Then she brought me food a couple of times. I was lucky in many things. People treated me very well. Even policemen and Fascists sympathized with me. For instance, we were sent to gather apples in one of the orchards. The German guard whispered to me in German: ‘Take apples with you, I will be scolding you in front of everybody, but you pay no attention to that.’

Once I met a Lithuanian soldier, who used to play in a brass band in our yard in Siauliai. Though he saw me when I was a girl, he recognized me. He also gave me a large chunk of bread and sausage and saw me off to the gate of the ghetto. Once I was in the group of the youth sent to harvest potatoes in the village. I was missing my husband. In about three days he came and brought me a couple of candies. My husband made it possible for me to leave work there and come back to the city. People from the ghetto were often taken to work to other cities. Some of them were even taken to Estonia. We were afraid of being included in those teams. People said that Estonian policemen were very cruel and working conditions were very harsh. People died there very quickly. At any rate, I don’t know any single survivor from those who worked in Estonia. Once I was included in that team and policemen came to get me. I was given some time to pack and they took me. I thought I wouldn’t see Ilia ever again. Shortly after that he came. With the help of his friends Ilia made arrangements for me to be released – as if I was sick and couldn’t work in Estonia. Those friends of my husband were from the underground.

By the end of 1942 my husband had become an active member of an underground organization, acting in the Kaunas ghetto. It was a strong and large organization, which had infiltrated all the authorities of the ghetto, including the Jewish police. They warned people of the coming actions so that as many Jews as possible could be saved. My husband also was on assignments of the underground. He got weapons and brought them into the ghetto. I don’t know whether the people from the underground were involved in the organization of the insurrection in our ghetto, but they had been provided with weapons by 1944.

One of the tasks of the underground was to save young people and children. The latter were stealthily taken from the ghetto to an orphanage, to Estonians, who presented them as their own children. It was so to say a global task, viz. not to let the fascists fulfill Hitler’s order on the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish question’ 17 that is the extermination of Jews as a people. It was obvious that the underground members decided not to fight within the ghetto as it led to irrevocable losses and deaths of innocent ghetto dwellers, who had nothing to do with the underground organization. It was decided to arrange escapes for as many people from the ghetto as possible.

In November 1943 my husband Ilia Olkin left the ghetto in a group of five people. The group had connections with Lithuanians. They were met and taken to Belarusian forests. My husband said good-bye to me and both of us hoped to see each other again. My husband asked his friends from the underground to make arrangements for me to leave the ghetto at the earliest convenience and take me to the place where I could wait for the Soviet Army. In a while the intermediary gave me a letter from Ilia. That man took people to Belarus. He came back for another group.

Life was hard for me when my husband left, but I thought that he broke through the ghetto, would help me leave it so that we would meet in a partisan squad and never part again. The spring of 1944 was very hard. There were constant actions in ghetto. People were taken to executions more often. In April the Fascists carried out the most horrible actions against children. Within an hour they walked from house to house and took all the ghetto children, including infants. Everybody, who couldn’t find a shelter, perished.

The underground organization also reinforced its activity. Now people were taken out of the ghetto en masse. Security guards by the gate were bribed and many people were taken via the gate. The whole network was organized. Women were taken from the ghetto in a truck as if for work and they weren’t coming back. Of course, all that cost a lot of money as both Germans and policemen were to be bribed. Unfortunately, I should admit that Jewish policemen made a fortune on the sorrow of their fellow Jews. It was important to take people from the ghetto, but it wasn’t the most important thing. People, having left the ghetto, were to be provided with shelter. Underground members also took care of that.

I was haunted by premonitions. No news was coming from Ilia. Besides, his friends from the underground paid more and more attention to me. At that time they knew that my husband had perished. I also felt it, but nobody told me about that. The underground members told me about the place on the free side, where I could go into hiding. They acted fast. They met a Lithuanian woman. Her last name was Kutorgene. She was a rather elderly lady, a doctor –ophthalmologist, who had her own practice in Kaunas. Kutorgene had already saved one Jewish girl. One of her patients was a Catholic priest, who helped her save people. That priest made arrangements in the convent to hide a Jewish lady. The only condition was for that woman to speak very good Lithuanian and not to look typically Jewish. I met all those requirements and underground members suggested that I should leave the ghetto. I met Kutorgene at a house, where I was supposed to come after my escape. At that time I wasn’t in the ghetto and I could come into the city while performing work in the service team.

Before leaving the ghetto I went to see my relatives –Uncle Abram and his wife, Aunt Liza and the rest. I said nothing of my intentions as it was dangerous. It was problematic to leave the ghetto at that time: police guards had been replaced by SS-security who couldn’t be bribed. I couldn’t leave with the team as the number of those who entered the ghetto had to be the same as those who left, otherwise the whole team would be shot. My escape was prepared beforehand. First of all, I was well dressed. The cobbler made me a good pair of shoes. I looked like a true Lithuanian, not like a harrassed ghetto woman. There were secret places in the fence made by the underground members, where barbed wire was cut and connected by pegs. It was done in an area far from the main gate, out of sight of the guards. That manhole wasn’t checked by the Fascists who thought that it was impossible to get through there as it was coming onto a street so overgrown with weeds that it was difficult to walk through. I buried my documents in a convenient place. One of the underground members, my husband’s friend, helped me walk through, he distracted the SS-guard, took him aside, while I parted the wire and crept though the hole and dashed to the impassable street. This happened one evening in late May 1944.

I saw the crew on their way back from work to the ghetto, and I hid for nobody to recognize me and call me. I managed to cross the bridge and came to the center of the city, where Kutorgene lived, near the Opera and Ballet theater. I went to her office, where the patients were received, and made an appointment. When it was my turn, I entered the office. Kutorgene recognized me immediately and took me to the living-room. Soon her consulting hours were over and she came to me. Kutorgene told me to sit at the table and we had lunch. Her son came and she introduced me to him, saying openly that I was a Jew from the ghetto. I understood that her son was aware of her anti-Fascist activity and thought that I shouldn’t be afraid of him. But Kutorgene didn’t tell her relative, who was seeing me off to the station and buying me the train ticket to the convent, that I was a Jew. She just told him to see me off, saying that I made up my mind to become a nun. On my way, the man was talking me into not going to the convent and staying in this world as I was so young! I kept silent.

I saw a lady from my lyceum at the train station and tried to hide away, for her not to recognize me. I asked the man to buy me a train ticket. I didn’t want to attract attention by the booking office. I wasn’t frightened, on the contrary, for the first time in so many years I felt free. However, I was to be very disciplined and attentive. When I tried to get on the train, a Lithuanian guy started chatting me up. I was flirting with him, having decided that if I was of a somewhat suspicious appearance, he was beyond suspicion and it would be easier for me. I talked the guy into going in the freight car, not in the passenger car. There were fewer people and it was dark in the freight car, so it would be difficult to distinguish me. We had been talking for a long time and I fell asleep. Suddenly I woke up from words spoken in Yiddish. I was speaking Yiddish in my dream. The guy was looking at me agape and I burst into laughter and said that I was learning German and spoke it in my dream.

I got off in the town of Dotnuva [about 100 km from Vilnius], the place in the closest vicinity to the convent of Saint Katrina, where I was expected. I calmly went up to the policeman at the station and asked where I could call the convent from. He took me to the director of the train station and I called the convent. I was told to wait at the station and they sent a cart to pick me up. When it arrived, it turned out that they were supposed to go to another place before the convent. I was afraid to go with them as in that place the crew from the ghetto was working and I didn’t want to be recognized. I went to the convent on foot.

They were waiting for me at the convent. The abbess, Mother Prontishke, was very affable with me and invited me to sit at the table at once. There were well-forgotten products on the table – I had even forgotten of their existence – bananas, oranges, apples, fried chicken and fish. The abbess and the priest were sitting at the table. They started asking me about life in the ghetto. I felt really drowsy as a result of fatigue and tension since my escape from the ghetto. I begged them pardon and said that I was really sleepy. The abbess took me to a room with three bunks. She tucked me into bed and said that I shouldn’t get up in the morning when the girls would be going to pray as I should rest as much as I wanted.

In the evening, when the girls came back from work, I was asleep. Early in the morning, the bell rang calling for prayer. One of the girls came up to me, kissed me on the cheek and calmly invited me for a prayer. I explained to her that the abbess allowed me not to pray today. After that nobody addressed the issue of praying. The abbess gathered all novices and told them that I was a Jew and would be in hiding there. The food would be brought into my cell and she strictly forbade everybody to say anything about me, even to their closest relatives.

I stayed in the convent until the arrival of the Soviet troops. I rarely left my cell. I started knitting to kill time. The girls brought me threads. Of course, it was sad to stay in almost all the time and I took walks in the convent garden. It was the season when the berries ripened: currant, strawberries. I enjoyed eating them straight from the bushes. Sometimes I went to the cathedral by the convent. I sat in the last pew so that the parishioners wouldn’t see me – people from local villages came to the cathedral – and I listened to the Catholic mass.

In a while another Jewish woman was brought to the convent. I don’t remember her name, though I would like to find her now. Her parents and little brother were shot. That woman was baptized in the convent and took the veil. I always wondered at how desperately she was praying. It wasn’t clear to me how one could become an apostate. Nobody compelled me to pray in the convent; moreover nobody forced baptism on me.

May and June had passed. It was early July 1944. The German army was retreating. A Fascist unit was positioned in the convent garden. I had been staying in my cell for several days. When the Soviet troops were approaching, the abbess had the girls go home as she feared repressions from Bolsheviks. I also was to go. I was dressed like a true Lithuanian peasant. Looking at me, the girls were crying and laughing at the same time, so unusual I looked. They came to love me during that period of time. We were given a cow. Thus, the three of us – a girl, me and a cow – went to her farmstead. The girl told her parents and neighbors that I was a Lithuanian teacher from Vilnius, escaping the Bolsheviks. However, one of her neighbors told her mother that I was most likely a Jew, but luckily he didn’t betray me.

When the Fascists came to the farmstead, they were sympathetic when they heard my story and ranted about the Bolsheviks. One of them knocked on my window and offered me to run away with them, when the Soviet troops were approaching. I replied that I couldn’t leave with the army and would have to go my own way. In the morning the Soviet army entered the farmstead. I was the first to come up to them. I was overwhelmed with joy. I couldn’t believe myself: three years in the ghetto were behind me. I told the soldiers that I was a Jew from Kaunas and they broke joyful news to me: Kaunas had already been liberated. On that very day I went back to the convent. I wanted to say good-bye to the girls and the abbess, who saved me. I stayed there for a couple of days, and decided to go back home. I was looking forward to seeing Kaunas, finding out something about my parents and husband.

After the war

It was the end of August 1944. The abbess kissed me and gave me some food and money for the road. I walked through the forest to the train station. On the way some cart caught up with me. I was lucky again – the cart was driven by my school teacher from Siauliai. He recognized me and took my things on the cart. I couldn’t get on it as it was full. Thus, we reached the train. There were no tickets. Only militaries could get on the train. Then some military said that I was his wife and I was let on the train. Thus, I got to Kaunas. There at once I found the underground members, who helped me leave the ghetto.

During the liquidation of the ghetto all my relatives perished: my father’s siblings. The members of the underground organization told me that my husband, Ilia Olkin, perished in spring 1944. He died by accident. A partisan squad, where he served, was dislocated to a Belarusian village. At night, on the way back from the task, my husband said the password. The sentinel shot Ilia either because he didn’t hear the password, or because it had been changed. He was severely wounded and passed away by the morning… My premonition was true. I became a widow without a chance of knowing the happiness of married life in peaceful times. My mood was terrible and I thought that I wouldn’t get married again and keep the last name of Olkin.

I decided to look for my kin. Those, who were seeking their relatives, sent letters to the municipal council of Kaunas. There I found a letter written by my father. He was hoping to find his brothers and thought that they would know something about me. My loved ones had no idea that I happened to be in Kaunas at the beginning of the war. They were looking for me in Siauliai and Vilnius, sending inquiries there. My name was Olkina at that time, but they were looking for a Liza Abramson.

My parents and brother were in evacuation in Ural, in the settlement of Kosa, Komi-Permyak oblast [1500 km from Moscow]. In 1944 they came to Kharkov, where after the evacuation Grandmother Anna was living. I sent a letter to their Kharkov address – in Russian but with Lithuanian letters as I didn’t know the Russian alphabet. Having received my letter, Father was crying and laughing at the same time, walking to and fro in the room. He called Mother from work. She was working in a pharmacy. My parents wrote me a letter, to the address of the municipal council. There was no place for me to live in Kaunas and I stayed with my acquaintances. I found out that all of them were alive and healthy.

My brother Abram had married his friend from Vilnius during the war and now he was living there. My brother’s wife was the daughter of the most famous tailor in Vilnius. My brother was seeing her before the war, but it happened so that they met again and got married in evacuation. My brother was drafted into the army and served in the 16th Lithuanian division 18. Since he was an excellent accordion player, he joined the military orchestra right away. Right after the liberation of Vilnius a Lithuanian band was founded, where my brother played the grand piano. His wife was a singer and she worked with him. I went to see my brother in Vilnius. At that time they lived on the premises of the philharmonic society. At first, I stayed with them. We slept on the floor.

I started looking for a job. My sister-in-law’s cousin Hana was a famous underground member and partisan, a member of the Communist Party. She recommended me to the secret department at the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR. The job was very serious. We received top-secret letters and orders and distributed them to different ministries and authorities. I wanted to go on with my education, at Vilnius University, but I didn’t manage to study as I was very busy at work. Being employed at a governmental institution I got good product cards – the best products available, even delicacies – while by common food cards 19 only insufficient products were given. In the postwar period life was hard and people starved. Soon I was given an apartment – a wonderful two-room apartment in the heart of Vilnius. I moved there with my brother and his wife. I sent an invitation to my parents as they wouldn’t have been able to return to Vilnius without that document. Soon they came and moved into my apartment. Shortly after that, Father found a job in the office of subsistence production.

I kept friendly relations with Abbess Prontishke at first, after the war. The convent was threatened with closure due to the politics of the Soviet regime, in accordance with the struggle against religion 20. As per request of the abbess I arranged for her an appointment with the plenipotentiary of the Council of Ministers for Religion. She came to Vilnius, stopped by at our place and met with that person. He treated the abbess with respect, but nothing could be changed. Soon the convent was broken up and closed down. The abbess left for her motherland and I never saw her again. I also saw Kutorgene. She worked as a doctor for a couple of years in Kaunas. She died in the mid-1950s.

Soon after my parents arrived I went to my hometown, Siauliai, in order to get some documents in the archive as I didn’t have a birth certificate and school certificate. The first person I saw when getting off the bus was Eduardas Kudritskas – my friend from childhood and my calf love. He was happy to see me alive. We had a long talk. Eduardas saw me off and came to Vilnius a couple of times hoping that I would be with him. But it turned out to be quite different.

There was a Soviet military unit not far from our house. My brother met three officers and invited them to come over to us. One of them, Colonel Vladimir Lukinskiy, a tall handsome man started courting me. I didn’t mind his courtship as I liked Vladimir very much. It wasn’t that I forgot about my husband whom I loved, just being young… Vladimir Lukinskiy was much younger than me. He was Russian, born in Leningrad in 1924. Vladimir came from a rich family. His mother Katerina was from a noble family. She raised her son in a wonderful way. Vladimir was well-read, educated, loved opera and classical music. I found him very interesting. While we were mere friends, my parents treated him very well. Gradually our relationship changed. We fell in love with each other and Vladimir proposed to me. All of a sudden Father opposed to that. He was flatly against my marriage to a non-Jew. He remembered Eduardas and was sorry for not letting me marry him, and again I was dating a non-Jew.

Once in winter 1946 I invited Vladimir for lunch. He brought canned products and firewood. In that period of time it was hard to find supplies. When Father found out that Vladimir made all those presents, he put everything in the garbage can. I told my fiancé the way it was. He reacted calmly to that and invited me to a restaurant. Here he ordered all kinds of delicacies: caviar and ham. Since that time Father started turning out Vladimir, when he came over. Father went on a trip and I decided to have a talk with Mother, woman to woman, and told her about our love. Mother said that I would marry him only ‘over her dead body.’ Then I took my nightie and left home without anything. In spite of the fact that it was my apartment I left everything there, even my food cards, for my mother.

Vladimir and I rented an apartment and moved in there. Once in the evening after work we were passing by my house. Mother was on the threshold and said, ‘Dinner is ready.’ Thus, Mother accepted Vladimir. When Father came back from the trip, Mother told him that I was living with Vladimir. Then Father collected all the presents he had brought me, Mother took linen, table cloth, dishes and they came to see us. Since that time Father and Vladimir became as thick as thieves. My husband never remembered how my parent gave him a hard time at first.

I insisted that Vladimir should be demobilized from the army. I didn’t want to be an officer’s wife and spend all my life on the road. He was demobilized and found a job. Our marriage remained unregistered for a while. The red-tape Soviet laws demanded either the documents on the divorce with Olkin or his death certificate. I didn’t even have the marriage certificate, issued by the Judenrat, as I buried all the documents when leaving the ghetto. I had to walk from one office of a dignitary to another and finally we were permitted to get our marriage registered. It happened in 1946.

In 1948 I gave birth to a son and named him Alexander. For a while my son and I were living with my parents. When our son turned seven months my mother-in-law – my father-in-law had passed away by then – exchanged her apartment in Leningrad for an apartment in Vilnius and we moved in with her. Our apartment was in the heart of Vilnius, consisting of two rooms and a kitchen. One room was taken by my mother-in-law and the other by my husband, son and me. My mother-in-law was a wonderful, clever and kind woman. She accepted me and loved me like her own daughter, helping me in everything, especially in raising our son.

My husband was a member of the Communist Party. I didn’t join the Party as I had been in the occupation. At that time it was disgraceful. After my son was born, I kept working at the secret department for a while and in the early 1950s, when state anti-Semitism was rampant, I was told to quit my job because I wasn’t a Communist. I found a job as an HR inspector in the Lithuanian Consumers’ Council. At that time my husband was called to the military enlistment office and drafted into the army for the second time. He was to be sent to the border with China, but he was lucky. He met his friend from the army in the military enlistment office and he offered my husband to go to Leningrad to teach at some courses for officers.

My husband left for Leningrad and I stayed with my son. It was January 1953, when the Doctors’ Plot 21 was in full swing and doctors-poisoners were the most topical issues in the papers and radio. There was tittle-tattle among Vilnius Jews that there was an order to deport all Jews to Birobidjan 22. I called my husband in Leningrad and told him about these rumors and added that if I got deported, I would leave my son with my mother-in-law. It was a very hard time. I was calm only after Stalin’s death. My husband insisted on my moving to Leningrad. We decided to leave our son with my mother-in-law and I moved to my husband. We lived in Leningrad for three and a half years.

Ekaterina Nikolaevna did well raising my son. My parents were also helping. Every day my mother came over to spend time with her grandson, but Alexander was missing his parents. I insisted that my husband should be demobilized as we had to come back to Vilnius and raise our son. In 1957 Vladimir was demobilized for the second time and we came back home. I found a job in the book-keeping department at a tinned food plant. I was promoted to chief accountant and worked there until my retirement. I left work in 1987.

My husband and I had a wonderful life together. In 1973 we got a nice three-room apartment, where I am currently living. My mother-in-law lived with us. She was a second mother to me. Ekaterina Nikolaevna died in 1976. As for the material side, we lived pretty modestly, like most people during the Soviet regime. We owned neither a car nor a dacha. But we often attended concerts, theater performances, read a lot, went on vacation to Palanga and the Crimea. We liked the village of Rybachiy in the Crimea, not far from Alushta. We made friends with a local family and went there on vacation every year.

Neither Jewish nor Christian Orthodox holidays were celebrated by us as Vladimir was a member of the Party. I often cooked Jewish dishes and laid a festive table on Pesach. While my parents were alive we went to see them on Jewish holidays. It was a family reunion: I with my husband and son, and my brother and his wife; they didn’t have children.

My father lived for 82 years and died in 1969. My mother invited an old Jew from the synagogue and he read a prayer for my dad. I couldn’t have my father buried in accordance with the Jewish tradition – without a coffin. I couldn’t picture that my father would be in the earth. Father’s funeral was secular. Мy mother died in 1986, she was buried next to my father at the Jewish cemetery of Vilnius.

My brother’s family did well. He worked at the Lithuanian symphonic orchestra and his wife was a singer at the Opera and radio. My brother was afflicted with cancer and died at the age of sixty. His wife left for Israel. She never remarried.

My son was a wonderful boy. He was an excellent student at school and he obeyed his parents. I can say that I didn’t have any problems with him as a teenager. When he came of age and was to receive his passport, the issue of nationality came up 23. Vladimir said that it was up to me. I had a talk with my son and told him that he had always been a Jew, but he should put the Russian nationality in his passport, not to feel any discrimination in his education and career. My son did as I told him. His nationality is Russian, but he is a Jew in his heart.

My son served in the army, entered the university and finished the Economics Department. During the Soviet regime he was in charge of the bureau of heating appliances of the largest plant. That plant went bankrupt and Alexander doesn’t have a permanent job. He is involved in small business. My son divorced his first wife, who bore him a daughter, Yulia. She finished the Philology Faculty. She is fluent in English. Yulia is a business lady. She has a daughter, my great-granddaughter Anastasia. My son married for the second time, a Russian woman named Natalia. The most important woman for my son is me, his mother. He loves me dearly and comes to see me every day. My son buys me all kinds of scrumptious things I like and helps me about the house. My son started taking special care of me after my husband’s death in 1998.

Since that time I am on my own. Jewish life was revived in the period when Lithuania gained its independence in 1991 24. I think it was the only positive factor of perestroika 25 and the breakup of the USSR [1991]. I don’t like the altercations in the Lithuanian parliament. It seems to me that every member of the government is thinking only of himself. Life in Lithuania became bleak, and there is no sense in leaving for Russia as my motherland is here, and nobody is waiting for me in a different place.

My husband, who had always been friends with Jews, suggested leaving for Israel in the 1970s. I didn’t want to as, unfortunately, during the occupation I saw different Jews – some of them were starving, others were making money on that. That is why I don’t want to live in a purely Jewish environment, though I have been to Israel and liked it a lot.

As a former ghetto prisoner, I receive a pension from Germany and I have a pretty comfortable life. I can even help out my son financially. Now I am a member of the Jewish community of Lithuania. Every week I come to the department of prisoners of ghettoes and concentration camps tour community and perform different assignments. I celebrate Jewish holidays with my friends. This way I revived my Jewish life. I don’t feel lonely.

Glossary:

1 Deportations from the Baltics (1940-1953)

After the Soviet Union occupied the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in June 1940 as a part of establishing the Soviet system, mass deportation of the local population begun. The victims of these were mainly but not exclusively those unwanted by the regime: the local bourgeousie and the previously politically active strata. Deportations to remote parts of the Soviet Union were going on countinously up until the death of Stalin. The first major wave of deportation took place between 11th and 14th June 1941, when 36,000, mostly politically active people were deported. Deportations were reintroduced after the Soviet Army recaptured the three countries from Nazi Germany in 1944. Partisan fights against the Sovet occupiers were going on all up to 1956, when the last squad was eliminated. Between June 1948 and January 1950 in accordance with a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR, 52,541 people from Latvia, 118,599 from Lithuania and 32,450 people from Estonia were deported on the charges of ‚grossly dodging from labor activity in the agricultural field and lead anti-social and  parasitic mode of life‘. The total number of deportees from the three republics amounted to 203,590. Among them were entire Lithuanian families of different social strata (peasants, workers, intelligentsia), everybody who was able to reject or deemed capable to reject the regime. Most of the exiled died in the foreign land. Besides, about 100,000 people were killed in action and in fusillade for being members of partisan squads and another about 100,000 were sentenced to 25 years in camps.

2 Kaunas ghetto

On 24th June 1941 the Germans captured Kaunas. Two ghettoes were established in the city, a small and a big one, and 48,000 Jews were taken there. Within two and a half months the small ghetto was eliminated and during the ‘Grossaktion’ of 28th-29th October, thousands of the survivors were murdered, including children. The remaining 17,412 people in the big ghetto were mobilized to work. On 27th-28th March 1944 another 18,000 were killed and 4,000 were taken to different camps in July before the Soviet Army captured the city. The total number of people who perished in the Kaunas ghetto was 35,000.

3 Great Patriotic War

On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

4 Civil War (1918-1920)

The Civil War between the Reds (the Bolsheviks) and the Whites (the anti-Bolsheviks), which broke out in early 1918, ravaged Russia until 1920. The Whites represented all shades of anti-communist groups – Russian army units from World War I, led by anti-Bolshevik officers, by anti-Bolshevik volunteers and some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. Several of their leaders favored setting up a military dictatorship, but few were outspoken tsarists. Atrocities were committed throughout the Civil War by both sides. The Civil War ended with Bolshevik military victory, thanks to the lack of cooperation among the various White commanders and to the reorganization of the Red forces after Trotsky became commissar for war. It was won, however, only at the price of immense sacrifice; by 1920 Russia was ruined and devastated. In 1920 industrial production was reduced to 14 percent and agriculture to 50 percent as compared to 1913.

5 Bolsheviks

Members of the movement led by Lenin. The name ‘Bolshevik’ was coined in 1903 and denoted the group that emerged in elections to the key bodies in the Social Democratic Party (SDPRR) considering itself in the majority (Rus. bolshynstvo) within the party. It dubbed its opponents the minority (Rus. menshynstvo, the Mensheviks). Until 1906 the two groups formed one party. The Bolsheviks first gained popularity and support in society during the 1905-07 Revolution. During the February Revolution in 1917 the Bolsheviks were initially in the opposition to the Menshevik and SR (‘Sotsialrevolyutsionyery’, Socialist Revolutionaries) delegates who controlled the Soviet s (councils). When Lenin returned from emigration (16 April) they proclaimed his program of action (the April theses) and under the slogan ‘All power to the Soviet s’ began to Bolshevize the Soviet s and prepare for a proletariat revolution. Agitation proceeded on a vast scale, especially in the army. The Bolsheviks set about creating their own armed forces, the Red Guard. Having overthrown the Provisional Government, they created a government with the support of the II Congress of Soviet s (the October Revolution), to which they admitted some left-wing SRs in order to gain the support of the peasantry. In 1952 the Bolshevik party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

6 Russian Revolution of 1917

Revolution in which the tsarist regime was overthrown in the Russian Empire and, under Lenin, was replaced by the Bolshevik rule. The two phases of the Revolution were: February Revolution, which came about due to food and fuel shortages during World War I, and during which the tsar abdicated and a provisional government took over. The second phase took place in the form of a coup led by Lenin in October/November (October Revolution) and saw the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

7 Pogroms in Ukraine

In the 1920s there were many anti-Semitic gangs in Ukraine. They killed Jews and burnt their houses, they robbed their houses, raped women and killed children.

8 Lithuanian independence

A part of the Russian Empire since the 18th Century, Lithuania gained independence after WWI, as a result of the collapse of its two powerful neighbors, Russia and Germany, in November 1918. Although resisting the attacks of Soviet-Russia, Lithuania lost to Poland the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural city of Vilna (Wilno, Vilnius) in 1920, claimed by both countries, and as a result they remained at war up until 1927. In 1923 Lithuania succeeded in occupying the previously French-administered (since 1919) Memel Territory and port (today Klaipeda). The Lithuanian Republic remained independent until the Soviet occupation in 1940.

9 Dacha

country house, consisting of small huts and little plots of lands. The Soviet authorities came to the decision to allow this activity to the Soviet people to support themselves. The majority of urban citizens grew vegetables and fruit in their small gardens to make preserves for winter.

10 Tsimes

Stew made usually of carrots, parsnips, or plums with potatoes.

11 Great Terror (1934-1938)

During the Great Terror, or Great Purges, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison. The major targets of the Great Terror were communists. Over half of the people who were arrested were members of the party at the time of their arrest. The armed forces, the Communist Party, and the government in general were purged of all allegedly dissident persons; the victims were generally sentenced to death or to long terms of hard labor. Much of the purge was carried out in secret, and only a few cases were tried in public ‘show trials’. By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the Party and the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary. Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union until his death in March 1953.

12 Occupation of the Baltic Republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)

Although the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact regarded only Latvia and Estonia as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, according to a supplementary protocol (signed in 28th September 1939) most of Lithuania was also transferred under the Soviets. The three states were forced to sign the ‘Pact of Defense and Mutual Assistance’ with the USSR allowing it to station troops in their territories. In June 1940 Moscow issued an ultimatum demanding the change of governments and the occupation of the Baltic Republics. The three states were incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republics.

13 Revisionist Zionism

The movement founded in 1925 and led by Vladimir Jabotinsky advocated the revision of the principles of Political Zionism developed by Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism. The main goals of the Revisionists was to put pressure on Great Britain for a Jewish statehood on both banks of the Jordan River, a Jewish majority in Palestine, the reestablishment of the Jewish regiments, and military training for the youth. The Revisionist Zionists formed the core of what became the Herut (Freedom) Party after the Israeli independence. This party subsequently became the central component of the Likud Party, the largest right-wing Israeli party since the 1970s.

14 Komsomol

Communist youth political organization created in 1918. The task of the Komsomol was to spread 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 as uninitiated young proletarians, whereas party members had to have at least a minimal political qualification.

15 Lithuanian Polizei

In Russian this term refers to the local Lithuanian collaborators with the Nazi regime. Subordinated to the Germans, they were organized as a police force and were responsible for establishing the Nazi control in the country. They played a major role in carrying out the destruction of the Lithuanian Jewry.

16 Judenrat

Jewish councils appointed by German occupying authorities to carry out Nazi orders in the Jewish communities of occupied Europe. After the establishment of the ghettos they were responsible for everything that happened within them. They controlled all institutions operating in the ghettos, the police, the employment agency, food supplies, housing, health, social work, education, religion, etc. Germans also made them responsible for selecting people for the work camps, and, in the end, choosing those to be sent to camps that were in reality death camps. It is hard to judge their actions due to the abnormal circumstances. Some believe they betrayed Jews by obeying orders, and others think they were trying to gain time and save as many people as possible.

[167] Judenfrei (Judenrein)

German for ‘free (purified) of Jews’. The term created by the Nazis in Germany in connection with the plan entitled ‘the Final Solution to the Jewish Question’, the aim of which was defined as ‘the creation of a Europe free of Jews’. The term ‘Judenrein’/‘Judenfrei’ in Nazi terminology referred to the extermination of the Jews and described an area (a town or a region), from which the entire Jewish population had been deported to extermination camps or forced labor camps. The term was, particularly in occupied Poland, an established part of the official and unofficial Nazi language.

18 16th Lithuanian division

It was formed according to a Soviet resolution on 18th December 1941 and consisted of residents of the annexed former Lithuanian Republic. The Lithuanian division consisted of 10.000 people (34,2 percent of whom were Jewish), it was well equipped and was completed by 7th July 1942. In 1943 it took part in the Kursk battle, fought in Belarus and was a part of the Kalinin front. All together it liberated over 600 towns and villages and took 12.000 German soldiers as captives. In summer 1944 it took part in the liberation of Vilnius joining the 3rd Belarusian Front, fought in the Kurland and exterminated the besieged German troops in Memel (Klaipeda). After the victory its headquarters were relocated in Vilnius, in 1945-46 most veterans were demobilized but some officers stayed in the Soviet Army.

19 Card system

The food card system regulating the distribution of food and industrial products was introduced in the USSR in 1929 due to extreme deficit of consumer goods and food. The system was cancelled in 1931. In 1941, food cards were reintroduced to keep records, distribute and regulate food supplies to the population. The card system covered main food products such as bread, meat, oil, sugar, salt, cereals, etc. The rations varied depending on which social group one belonged to, and what kind of work one did. Workers in the heavy industry and defense enterprises received a daily ration of 800 g (miners - 1 kg) of bread per person; workers in other industries 600 g. Non-manual workers received 400 or 500 g based on the significance of their enterprise, and children 400 g. However, the card system only covered industrial workers and residents of towns while villagers never had any provisions of this kind. The card system was cancelled in 1947.

20 Struggle against religion

The 1930s was a time of anti-religion struggle in the USSR. In those years it was not safe to go to synagogue or to church. Places of worship, statues of saints, etc. were removed; rabbis, Orthodox and Roman Catholic priests disappeared behind KGB walls.

21 Doctors’ Plot

The Doctors’ Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin’s reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

22 Birobidzhan

Formed in 1928 to give Soviet Jews a home territory and to increase settlement along the vulnerable borders of the Soviet Far East, the area was raised to the status of an autonomous region in 1934. Influenced by an effective propaganda campaign, and starvation in the east, 41,000 Soviet Jews relocated to the area between the late 1920s and early 1930s. But, by 1938 28,000 of them had fled the regions harsh conditions, There were Jewish schools and synagogues up until the 1940s, when there was a resurgence of religious repression after World War II. The Soviet government wanted the forced deportation of all Jews to Birobidzhan to be completed by the middle of the 1950s. But in 1953 Stalin died and the deportation was cancelled. Despite some remaining Yiddish influences - including a Yiddish newspaper - Jewish cultural activity in the region has declined enormously since Stalin's anti-cosmopolitanism campaigns and since the liberalization of Jewish emigration in the 1970s. Jews now make up less than 2 percent of the region's population.

23 Item 5

This was the ethnicity entry, which was included on all official documents and job application forms. Thus, the Jews, who were considered a separate nationality in the Soviet Union, were more easily discriminated against, from the end of World War WII until the late 1980s

24 Reestablishment of the Lithuanian Republic

On 11th March 1990 the Lithuanian State Assembly declared Lithuania an independent republic. The Soviet leadership in Moscow refused to acknowledge the independence of Lithuania and initiated an economic blockade on the country. At the referendum held in February 1991, over 90 percent of the participants (turn out was 84 percent) voted for independence. The western world finally recognized Lithuanian independence and so did the USSR on 6th September 1991. On 17th September 1991 Lithuania joined the United Nations.

25 Perestroika (Russian for restructuring)

Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s, associated with the name of the Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev. The term designated the attempts to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized, market-oriented economy. Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratize the Communist Party organization. By 1991, perestroika was declining and was soon eclipsed by the dissolution of the USSR.

Susanna Sirota

Susanna Sirota
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Orlikova
Date of interview: August 2003

Susanna Sirota is a very pleasant, energetic old lady, though it’s hard to call her an ‘old’ lady. She lives with her husband in Pechersk district in Kiev, one of the oldest and most beautiful districts of Kiev. Her spacious two-bedroom apartment of 1950s design is very clean. She has kept the furniture, carpets and crockery, bought in the 1960s, in very good condition. The white furry cat, the hostess’s favorite, is ‘master’ of the house, undoubtedly. There are many books in the house: Russian and Ukrainian classics and modern and historical literature. She is fond of new publications about Kiev and Jewish residents of Kiev published recently. Susanna and her husband are very hospitable. They have freshly made pies to treat their guests. Susanna has a very educated manner of speaking. She used to work as a guide and she is always eager to tell more details about things.

My family story
Growing up
During the war
After the war
Glossary

My family story

I come from Priluki, a quiet town in Poltava province [200 km from Kiev] on the bank of the Uday River flowing into the Sulah River that flows into the Dnieper. Once it used to be a navigable river, while now it is a clean, picturesque river buried in sedge and cane plants. The town was buried in verdure. The water was of the best quality and even now fruit and vegetables growing in the town taste different. 

There was a big synagogue with a huge dome, a very interesting building. In the 1930s the Soviet authorities closed it down like all other religious establishments [during the struggle against religion] 1. After the Great Patriotic War 2 it housed a cinema theater and in 1989 it began to operate as a synagogue again. There was no specifically Jewish neighborhood in the town. The Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish residents were good neighbors and got along well. Jews were tradesmen and craftsmen. The only pharmacy in the town was Jewish and there were Jewish doctors and teachers in the town. [Editor’s note: It was a place with a significant Jewish population. According to the census of 1847 the Jewish community consisted of 1007 people, in 1897 there were 5722 Jews.] 

My grandfather Aaron Sirota, my father’s father, was a bookbinder. My grandfather was born approximately in 1867. I don’t know where the surname of Sirota came from. We were the only family with this surname in the town. My grandfather came to Priluki from Zhytomir. I don’t have any information about his family or why he moved to Priluki. I don’t know exactly when my grandfather got married, but I think it happened before 1890. I am sure he had a religious wedding. 

My grandfather was religious. He prayed with his tallit on and he had a mezuzah at the entrance to his house. He touched it every time before entering his home. My grandfather had a seat of his own at the synagogue where he went on Saturday and all holidays. My grandfather studied in cheder and knew Yiddish and Hebrew. There were many religious books in his house. He cherished them, kept them on a special shelf and didn’t allow anybody to touch them. There were Russian classic books in the house as well. Everybody could take and read them, but not Grandfather’s books. 

I’ve never been in the bookbinder’s shop where Grandfather worked. I don’t even know whether my grandfather owned it or worked for a master. Since my grandfather had this profession he was well-read and understood that the main wisdom was to let other people live their life. My grandfather spoke Yiddish to my grandmother at home, but he also had fluent Ukrainian, the main language of communication in Priluki. Grandfather Aaron died in 1930, when I was seven. He had spent almost a year in a ‘yellow house’ – this was how we called a mental hospital in our town – before he died. 

My grandmother Nechama was a few years younger than my grandfather. She was born around 1870. She was a beautiful and kind woman. She collected clothes from wealthier houses taking them to poor families. I don’t know where my grandmother studied, but she was a well-educated woman. She had fluent Ukrainian and her favorite book was ‘Kobzar’ [‘The Bard,’ a volume of poetry] by Shevchenko 3

My grandmother and grandfather raised 13 children: ten were their own and three others were adoptive orphaned children. My grandmother was well respected in the town. Her Ukrainian and Jewish neighbors always came to ask her advice. My grandmother gave simple advice. She said that children should be raised in kindness, people should respect each other, that it is better to buy meat in the morning when it’s fresh and candy can be bought in the evening. Every day, but Saturday, she went to buy food products at the market. 

On Friday evening all her children visited them. It didn’t matter that they were not religious. My grandfather always recited a prayer and grandmother lit candles. Then the family sat down at the table. Grandfather started a meal after reciting a prayer and everybody else joined him. Nobody was allowed to touch any food while grandfather was praying. The family was big and there was a big bowl of the first course and for the second course there were beans or something and if there was meat in the soup it was eaten for the second course. 

My grandmother was a very good housewife. I can still remember that she cooked for two days on Friday leaving pots with food in the oven to have it still warm on Saturday. At Pesach they took down special kosher crockery from the attic. There was matzah and many dishes made from matzah, but I don’t know whether they baked it or bought it from the synagogue. My grandmother didn’t attend the synagogue. It’s hard to say whether she was truly religious or just paid tribute to tradition, but on the outside everything was as traditions required. My grandfather and grandmother spoke Yiddish to one another and Ukrainian to their children and grandchildren and their Ukrainian neighbors. 

My grandmother and grandfather had a house, if this is a proper word to call it, with a thatched roof that always leaked when it rained and they had to place washtubs to collect the leaking water. There was a hallway and a big room. All members of the family slept in this room and in the kitchen. There were ground floors in the house. There was a backyard and a few fruit trees, a dog and a cat. 

My father’s sister Sureh-Rieva moved to America in 1912. She sent letters before the Great Patriotic War, but our family was afraid of corresponding with her. It was dangerous to have relatives abroad, particularly, in America. We didn’t have any information about her or her family. Later we tried to search for her through the Red Cross, but she changed her surname after getting married and it didn’t seem possible to find her. 

My father’s brother Meyer was born in 1892 and was a worker at the book factory in Kiev. In the late 1930s he had an accident at work where he lost his arm and died. Meyer was single.

My father’s sister Manya, Galperina after her husband, was born in 1894, lived in Dnepropetrovsk in the east of Ukraine. She died in 1967. We lost track of Manya’s son Ilia and I don’t know whether he is still alive. 

My father’s next brother Lev, called Buzia in the family, born in 1897, was a worker at the mechanic plant in Priluki. He joined the Party in 1924, when Lenin 4 died and numbers of people applied to join the Party. This movement was called ‘Lenin’s appeal.’  He had a Jewish wife and a daughter and a son, whose names I don’t remember. 

During the Great Patriotic War he was in the underground during the occupation. The Germans captured him and shot him for his Jewish origin. Actually, he didn’t do much for this underground movement. He was killed during a mass extermination of Jews in 1941. His family managed to evacuate to Siberia with the mechanic plant, thank God. After the war they lived in Belarus. Their son served in the army in the 1950s. He visited here and we met several times in the 1960s. I know that Lev’s son has passed away and Lev’s daughter is old already. She is single and lives in Priluki. 

My father’s third brother, Iosif Sirota, was born in 1905 and had a higher education. He finished Kharkov Higher Art College and was a good landscape artist. He lived in Kharkov [450 km from Kiev] in the east of Ukraine. At some time he was chairman of the association of artists of Kharkov. Iosif died in 1995. He had a wonderful family. They had three children. His wife died in the 1980s. His children, Elena and Semyon, live in Germany with their families. They emigrated in 1994, at the time when many Jewish families were moving abroad. Elena and her husband have a son, but I don’t remember his name. They are well accommodated in Germany, in Hanover. They don’t work, they live on welfare. Iosif’s younger daughter Nelly lives in Moscow.  

My father’s third sister Esther, born in 1903, was single. She had a harelip from birth. She lived with her younger sister Polia. They were in evacuation in Omsk in Russia [1500 km from Kiev] during the Great Patriotic War. They stayed there after the war. Esther worked as a shop assistant, laborer and clerk. In 1958 Esther came to visit us for the first time after the war and died of a stroke before our eyes. We buried her in the Jewish sector of the town cemetery. 

My father’s fourth sister Ehza, born in 1907, didn’t change her surname of Sirota after getting married. Her husband was a Jew. His last name was Krendel. They lived in Voroshilovgrad [present-day Lugansk, east of Ukraine, 400 km from Kiev]. Her only son Vladimir Krendel served in the army. He didn’t get any education. He didn’t want to study. I don’t know what he does for a living. He lives in Lugansk. Aunt Ehza died in 1987. Vladimir’s son, her grandson, lives in Israel. 

My father’s fifth sister Polia was born in 1914. She was the most beautiful and my favorite aunt. Polia worked as a secretary in prison. Later she went to work at the stocking factory where she met a nice Jewish guy. He was a worker. His surname was Kostyl. They got married in 1937. They didn’t have a wedding party and it was customary at that time to have just a plain civil ceremony. Their older son Arik was born in 1936Their daughter Lena was born in 1938. Grandmother Nechama lived with Polia until she died. 

When the Great Patriotic war began Polia’s husband was recruited to the army. He perished on the first days of the war. Polia, with her sister Esther and her children, evacuated to Omsk where they stayed after the war. Polia died in Omsk at the age of 78 in 1992. Her son also passed away, regretfully, and her daughter lives in Omsk. 

There was another sister, born between Ehza and Polia, but she died in infancy. I don’t know her name. I don’t have any information about the adoptive children, either. They are said to have moved away. This was in the hard period of the Civil War 5 when it was difficult to track down people’s life.  

My father’s brothers and sisters were not religious. They gave up religion in the 1920s following the trend of the time. Their families did not observe any traditions.  

My father Avraam Sirota, the fourth child in the family, was born in 1895. My father finished cheder like the other boys in the family. This is all the education he got. My father was a painter. I remember how he climbed on the roof of the church. It was restored. It was hot and sweat was running down his face and he tied a kerchief on his forehead to protect himself from sweat. 

My father wasn’t religious and he wasn’t an atheist. He just didn’t talk about this subject. He read many contemporary books. He considered himself an advanced Soviet man. He was very happy when he bumped into a Jewish surname in a newspaper. He showed me and said, ‘Look, this Jew is colonel and that one is a writer. It wasn’t possible before the revolution, you know.’ He was grateful to the Soviet regime for having equal rights and so were many others in his circle. My father helped and supported his brothers and sisters. 

In 1921 my father went to order some medication in a pharmacy. He met Anna Ghivertz, a pharmacist. They got married shortly afterward. They registered their marriage in a registry office. They didn’t have a wedding party. It was a customary thing at the time. After they got married my parents moved to Lubny, 95 km from Priluki, probably looking for a job.

My mother, born in 1892, was an orphan and had no dowry, although her father Nathan Ghivertz lived in Priluki. I remember him. He was a fine looking, old man with a long beard, very handsome. When I saw him he was about 70 years old. They said before moving to Priluki he lived in the village of Ivanivtsi near Priluki. I don’t know how he earned his living there. He probably owned an inn or a shop. They say that at that time, in the 1900s, Nathan was wealthy and respectable. In the 1910s, probably trying to escape from pogroms, my grandfather and his family moved to Priluki. I don’t know what he was doing there. 

His first wife, my grandmother, died at childbirth, giving birth to her third baby, my mother. I don’t even know my grandmother’s name. It is known that she died before she turned 30. She was beautiful and kind. The family has preserved a photo of her. 

My mother didn’t like to recall her childhood. Probably, it was difficult. Her brother Isaac, born in 1887, and her sister Rosa, born in 1889, had Ukrainian baby-sitters, who taught them to speak Ukrainian and sang Ukrainian songs to them. I don’t know my grandfather’s second wife’s name. They had two more children, two girls, whose names I don’t know either. My grandfather’s children from his first marriage didn’t like their stepmother and played tricks on her. I don’t remember any details since the family didn’t talk about it. 

It resulted in a scandal. My grandfather ordered his older son Isaac to leave the house. Sister Rosa and my mother Anna stood up for their brother. They left the house as well, but nobody called them to come back. Isaac reached Moscow after wandering for a long time. He drank a lot and bet at the racetrack. They even said about him that every horse greeted Isaac at the racetrack. He had a big family: a Russian wife and five children. Isaac died in 1940. Some of his children are still alive. We don’t communicate with them. One daughter lives in Israel. 

My mother’s sister Rosa also reached Moscow. She married the director of a big bookstore in Moscow. In 1937, during the period of Great Terror 6, Rosa’s husband was arrested. I don’t know what the charges against him were, but he was sentenced to 25 years in exile and Rosa followed him to Siberia. They were not allowed to correspond and we didn’t have any information about them throughout these years. Rosa returned 20 years later, after her husband died in exile. She had many friends who were victims of Stalin’s terror. She visited us in Kiev and we went to see her in Moscow. Rosa lived over 100 years with a sound mind. Regretfully, she didn’t have children. She corresponded with Grandfather’s children in Kharkov.

My mother had to live on her own since the age of 14. She studied in a Jewish school for girls in Priluki, living with her aunt, my grandmother’s sister Esther. The families where my mother lived when she was a girl spoke Ukrainian and she didn’t learn spoken Yiddish and in her school she learned to read and write in Yiddish. My mother was not religious. At the age of 17 my mother became an apprentice of a pharmacist. This was a good profession, but it didn’t bring much money. My mother was poor and lived in a room in the pharmacy. 

Another effort to resume family relationships was made when I was born in 1923. He gave me this Russian name of Susanna. This was a different name and my grandfather was a different man. This effort to make up failed and my parents didn’t communicate with him, although we lived nearby. I used to visit his house. They were wealthier than we. They always treated me to nice food. I don’t remember Grandfather Nathan ever praying. He had a small silk cap on his head. He spoke little and with me he only spoke Ukrainian. In 1929 Grandfather Nathan passed away. I wasn’t at his funeral, but I know that he was buried in the Jewish cemetery according to traditions. From then on my mother or I never went to his house. 

Growing up

I was born in Lubny in 1923. It was hard to find a job at that time. My mother’s older sister Rosa lived in Lubny at that period and my parents moved there. I don’t remember Lubny. After a short while we returned to Priluki. My first childhood memory is my brother’s birth. He was born in another room in our home. Everybody was excited and I contracted this excitement. The Jewish midwife told me, ‘if you suck your finger your mother will die.’  I never sucked my finger again. I liked my brother a lot when he was small. When he grew older we used to fight, but in general we got along very well. 

My brother was born in Priluki in 1927. He was named Leonid and was called Lusik affectionately. Our family rented two rooms in a house with a porch. We had an entrance on one side and our Ukrainian landlords lived on the other side of the house. Later we moved to another apartment owned by Rachlin, a Jew. We lived there until the Great Patriotic War. Rachlin was a wealthy man and had a big family. Rachlin and his family lived in one house and he sold another house to somebody named Bodrak. We rented our dwelling from this Bodrak.  

When the Great Patriotic War began Rachlin could have evacuated, but he didn’t want to leave his riches. He even offered Bodrak a lot of money to move himself and his belongings to a safe place, but Bodrak said, ‘No, whatever may happen will. If they shoot us they will shoot us both.’ They just couldn’t believe this was possible. The Rachlin and Bodrak families perished during the occupation. Rachlin’s old mother Bobele also perished. I remember that she went to the synagogue every Saturday and she asked my parents to keep her religious books in Lusik’s room. 

My mother worked as a cashier in a store and my father picked up any job he could find: he worked as a loader or laborer. We went to a kindergarten. I can still remember the smell in it: it was so trite and I hated going there, but I had to. When I went to school I spent vacations in pioneer camps since they were free.  

I went to school in 1931. There were 13 schools in Priluki: one Russian, two Jewish ones and the rest were Ukrainian. I studied in a Ukrainian school. There wasn’t even a discussion about it. I spoke Ukrainian and this school was near our house so I went there. Children and their parents could decide where to study or send their children. There was no nationality issue at the time. I had Jewish, Ukrainian and even one Belarusian friend, but national origin didn’t matter whatsoever. We had nice textbook. I remember the phrase ‘We are not slaves, slaves are not we.’ 

We prepared for becoming pioneers 7. It was quite a ceremony. There was a large photograph of our pioneer unit in the cinema theater where we were photographed wearing our red neckties. It meant a lot for us. There was an amateur art club at school. I sang well and I remember singing ‘Kalinka’ [Russian folk song] in the choir. There was also a noise instrument band where I played the castanets. I also attended the macramé, knitting and sewing club. We spent all our time at school. We studied the Ukrainian language, which was our mother tongue, and Russian literature and language. We had very good teachers. What we learned at school made the foundations for our future life. 

In 1933 there was a famine 8. I remember my classmates fainting from hunger. My Ukrainian classmate and friend Vera Kalinichenko, whose father worked at a bakery, always brought me something to eat, always, while her hands were cold from hunger and I warmed her hands. People were like this: they were eager to help others as much as they could even when they were on the edge of death. They shared the little they had. She died in this same year of 1933.  

My father worked at the grain supply company. He loaded grain with a spade and brought home whatever got into his boots. We boiled this grain. When mulberries and elderberries grew my brother and I used to climb trees eating these berries and then we had a stomach ache. My mother’s aunt Esther lived very well, there were a few families that managed better than others. I don’t know how they did it. It wasn’t proper to ask questions about such things. Perhaps, they had valuables that they could exchange for food. My brother was four years old and I took him by his hand and we went to visit them when we knew it was the time when they were to have a meal. When we heard their spoons clicking we went in and they gave us something to eat. 

During the period of famine villagers from surrounding villages were coming to Priluki. They told their stories: ‘Communists came and took away everything. There was no food left, people were dying and buried in the yard where they lived.’ A woman and her daughter came to us from a village near Priluki. The girl’s name was Nastia. The mother returned to her village later and I don’t know what happened to her, but the girl stayed and lived with us before the war. She and I went to school together. When we evacuated in 1941 she stayed in our house to try to keep whatever belongings we had. There was a Torgsin store 9, but we had no valuables to exchange for food. I don’t know how we survived. We starved terribly, but somehow we managed.

However, we all strongly believed that those were temporary hardships and that life would improve. We believed we were the happiest children in the world living in the USSR, the country of equality and justice. We went to villages performing our concerts. There was collectivization 10, kolkhozes 11, everybody would work together and life would be wonderful! 

We went to Kiev on tour and met with Postyshev 12, who spoke nicely to us, children of workers, thanking us for our devotion to the communist system. There was a New Year celebration and we were given candy in the house of pioneers [at present Philharmonic Theater]. It was a different world. There were only horse-drawn carts in our town while in this big city there were lights, cars, streetcars and asphalted roads. We believed that it would soon be the same in our town. 

I remember the first radio transmission in Priluki. It was such an event! I remember the first bulb in the street and then power lines were installed in houses. We used to have kerosene lamps with wicks and made ink from soot. There were mute films, but then the first sound movie ‘Putyovka v zhizn’ [’Road to Life’] about homeless children who become decent Soviet citizens. Then there were other movies full of optimism and high hopes for a happy life: ‘Vesjolie Rebyata’ [‘Merry Fellows’] and ‘Tsirk’ [‘Circus’]. My father took us to the cinema. He liked movies.  

Since my parents were not religious we didn’t celebrate any religious holidays. We only celebrated Soviet holidays and birthdays. My grandmother lived with Aunt Polia. My grandmother observed traditions, but she didn’t spread her views on the children. My grandmother bought or made matzah: I cannot say for sure. She always had matzah at Pesach. 

We visited her to pay tribute to traditions. She told us about holidays, but we didn’t listen. We were atheists and learned at school that ‘religion was opium for the people.’ We thought my grandmother was so hopelessly obsolete, but we loved her, of course, and she loved her grandchildren. My grandmother died of old age in 1940. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery. I wasn’t at the funeral, but I don’t think there were any traditions or rituals observed. 

It was a confusing period, but Stalin and Lenin were our faith, religion and god, if you want. I think that the first word any baby pronounced was Lenin and not ‘mama,’ so strong the ideology was. We didn’t have any doubts. I remember that our class tutor was arrested in 1937 [during the Great Terror] as a Ukrainian chauvinist, although she had nothing in common with them. Our teacher Pavel Yasinovski had a Jewish wife. She was sentenced to death, but nobody knows for what charges, and he followed her. The secretary of the district Komsomol committee and our teacher of drawing were arrested. It was a scaring situation, but we believed that innocent people could not be arrested and that if they were arrested, then it was the right thing to do. It was hard to believe that our favorite teacher, Maria Nikolaevna, was an enemy, but she was arrested as such. Well, then it meant that they truly did something against the Soviet power. 

In 1938 I joined the Komsomol 13 believing that young people with advanced ideas had to be in the Komsomol. We were young, optimistic and enthusiastic. And, if there was a war to happen tomorrow we were ready to win a victory, this was what our favorite song said. I attended a sports school and was champion of Chernigov region in gymnastics. I tied my future with sports achievements. 

I had a fiancé named Kolia Makarov. We had been friends for five years. He was one year above me at school. He was Ukrainian. This was my first love, I was 14. It was beautiful. We went to the cinema and to the park, did homework together, dreamed about a long and happy life together and kissed, but nothing else, God forbid. I still have a strong feeling about this wonderful sensation. In 1941 he was an infantry lieutenant. That we were of different national origin was of no importance to our parents. It didn’t matter at all. His parents had a good attitude toward me. I corresponded with him and in May 1941 his parents went to visit him in Belarus and took me with them. This was the last time I saw him. Kolia perished at the front in 1942. 

During the war

I finished school on 20th June 1941. I took my championship certificate and went to enter the College of Physical Culture in Moscow. I arrived in Moscow on the morning of 22nd June 1941. Moscow was crowded at this time of the day. We got off the train and heard the word ‘war.’ I went to Aunt Rosa, my mother’s sister, living in Taganskaya Street. It was clear that I had to go back home where my mother, my father and my brother were waiting for me. Shortly afterward we received a letter that my father and other workers who were overage for service in the army moved to the Ural with their repair plant.   

It was hard to get back. Priluki was in encirclement and the railroad was under continuous bombing. Trains went as far as Nezhin [75 km from Priluki], I didn’t have any money left and I showed my Komsomol membership card to get a ride on military trains and then I had to walk. I came to Priluki at night. Our window was open and I got inside through the window. 

My mother said, ‘Why did you return? We cannot get out of Priluki.’ I don’t remember how we got this information, but we knew that Jews had to escape Germans. Kolia wrote his parents: ‘Don’t leave without Susanna.’ Kolia’s father was director of the mechanic plant. He was going to leave with the last train and take me with him. Aunt Esther said, ‘Look, you cannot leave your mother here.’ I said, ‘I shall not go without my family.’ 

The Makarovs took our family with them: my mother and brother Lusik who was in the fifth grade at school. Our trip lasted a month and a half before we arrived in the village of Darinskoye in Kazakhstan, 2400 kilometers from home. It was a big village on the Ural River. There was a Russian and Kazakh population and Ukrainians, who either arrived there during the tsarist time or escaped from collectivization. There were many people in evacuation, many Jews among them. There were no jobs and many people wanted to go to other places looking for a job. 

I went to work at school as a physical culture [education] teacher having my championship certificate. I was also a senior pioneer tutor. My mother also took to any work she could get selling things or working as a cashier. The owners of the wooden house where we were accommodated lived in the upper part of the house and there was a man, his wife Vasilisa and their two girls living in the ‘podklet’ [basement, normally used as storage] in the lower part. They accommodated us in their room. I slept with the girls, my mother slept behind a curtain and Lusik slept with this man. We lived like a family and they treated us nicely. 

My father was in Sverdlovsk in the Ural. We corresponded with him. He worked as a rigger at the Ural machine building plant. Since he was a worker he was not allowed to take his family with him. My father was mobilized to a labor army where workers were subject to military discipline living in barracks. Besides, they could be mobilized to the front line at any moment.  

On the eve of 1942 instructors from a military unit visited our school. There were radio operators showing us how radio equipment worked. I got very interested in it and they taught me the Morse code: Dot-dash: dot is ‘ti,’ dash – ‘ta.’ Ti-ti-ta is ‘a’, tititita is ‘b’ and so on. I was so eager to get to the front to defend my Motherland that it took me no time to learn it. I was dreaming of meeting my fiancé Kolia. I always had this code tapping in my head. 

By spring I finished my tractor driving training. I and another girl decided to walk to the district committee in the nearest town of Uralsk to ask them to send us to the front. They looked at us as if we were crazy. The local Kazakh population plotted whatever occurred to them to avoid the army service. They accepted us immediately. My mother didn’t mind. She wanted me to get out of that village. Later my mother realized that it was dangerous at the front. She walked with us trying to talk me out of it, but it was too late: we had taken vows. We volunteered to the front.

Since I had school education and knew Morse code and was a sports girl they sent me to a school of radio operators in Moscow. This was the Moscow School of Master Sergeant Radio Operators in Moscow region that was recently liberated from Germans. It was a school for girls and there were many Jewish girls in it. I enjoyed studying in this school and found it interesting. I was a head girl in physical culture classes and was an active student. We were hungry and ate heartily only when we were on duty in the kitchen once a month, but we were cheerful and joyful. 

After finishing this school my friend Octiabrina Bondarenko and I were taken to a partisan school. She lives in Moscow now and we correspond and greet each other on holidays. We were taken to Moscow and accommodated in a hostel. It was like paradise: firstly, we were given enough food and then there were boys and girls of over 100 nationalities. There were Jewish students as well. It was a big school for radio operators, field engineers, intelligence and other partisan experts. Our big boss was Sudoplatov Pavel Anatolyevich. During the war he was chief of the 4th partisan department of the NKVD 14 of the USSR chief of intelligence service. [Sudoplatov, Pavel Anatolyevich (1907-1989): One of the leaders of the Soviet intelligence service, chief of various operations before and during WWII.]

We were taught to act in the German rear. We studied German very thoroughly. Later I got to know that our teacher, Emma Kaganova, was a Jew and the wife of Sudoplatov. Later we were accommodated in conspiratorial apartments. We were to learn to not get lost in a strange town, escape from shadowing, establish radio operations unnoticed and come to our apartment and leave unnoticed. It was as enthralling as a game, but when they began to teach us how to have a smoke or spend a night with an officer we got scared. I said, ‘I shall not go to the rear. I shall work in a partisan unit, but not in the rear.’ 

We cried all night through and in the morning we went to refuse. Only volunteers could do this work and we stayed in a partisan unit as radio operators. There was a group of eight of us and we agreed that wherever we went our common signal would be one eighth. We were sent to partisan units to establish communications or replace a radio operator. I went only once. They protected me fearing that the fascists would recognize a Jew in me. 

We lived in Moscow and performed special tasks at a radio station. We were to receive signals from partisans and there was another station for sending signals. We were sitting at special desks listening for signals from partisans and those signals were very low. 

This was summer 1943 when we had to do a landing task. I had some previous experience. When you are twenty you do not have fear. Things are just interesting. It’s easy mechanically: after a signal ‘tu, tu’ a hatch opens and you fall out one by one. The air current catches you and you lose your breath watching the ground coming closer. Many landed in wrong places: on high trees when it is impossible to cut off parachute slings or in the wrong location when you have to find your way by azimuth, but the most awful was to get onto the enemy’s ground. However, I got lucky. This was near the village of Volki, Priluki district. We were to transfer documents to a radio station, power supply for the radio and instructions. I stayed in a partisan unit for about a week.  

I lived in a dugout with other girls. They didn’t know my name or surname or anything at all. Oksana Sizova was my code name. Everybody else had code names too. There were individuals who had to get to the town to establish communications and stay with an underground unit. Thank God I didn’t meet any acquaintances. Then one night a plane arrived to pick up the wounded to take them to Moscow. There were fires made to help it find the landing ground. I went back to Moscow on this plane.

I performed some tasks for Sudoplatov and stayed to work for him as senior radio operator. I was a radio operator of the highest category. By that time I became a candidate to the Party. This was the only way we knew we had to go: become pioneers, then Komsomol and finally party members.  

In summer 1943 young guys came to our school. One of them was Lev Markelov, two years younger than I, born in Nizhni Novgorod in 1925. He was Russian. He told me later that he didn’t know the word ‘Jew’ before he met me. When they said ‘zhyd’ [kike] he thought that it was about a greedy and evil person, but he never associated it with national origin. Lev was very talented and in no time he grasped the specifics of our profession. He had sensitive hands and excelled in transmissions. We became friends. 

Later, when the front was moving to the west and partisans also moved farther and they couldn’t be heard in Moscow, our center moved to Kiev in November 1944. When we arrived there was still smoke emerging from ashes. Lev was appointed manager of the radio station. Our facility was in Sviatoshino [district in the vicinity of Kiev at the time, now it is within the city]. We received a room at this radio station, but for some reason Lev had to give his overcoat for this. There were three of us living in this room: Lev, I and our friend Semyon. It wasn’t too bad since one of us was always on duty at work. 

Radio operators received and transmitted code messages. We didn’t know their meaning. There were five symbols, space and then the next five symbols forming columns. The deciphering department was behind bars and nobody could get in there. They brought us coded messages for transmissions. The messages were signed ‘correspondent 102.’ We didn’t know the individuals. Even when they arrived we heard ‘the 102nd has come.’ They were intelligence officers, but we didn’t know them and they were different individuals every time.  

We received a salary and food packages. We also received vodka at times. Markelov was promoted promptly. I was in the rank of lieutenant at the beginning and he had no rank, but then he was promoted to a captain. I liked him and then I thought that I was to get married some time anyway. I was 21 and he was 19. I knew from my mother’s letter that Kolia was gone and I also knew that I would never meet anyone like Kolia again. Our radio station arranged a great wedding party for me and Lev. We got trophy food products and trophy cognac left by the Germans.  

I wrote my parents that I got married. They thought Lev was a Jew – for some reason the name of Lev was considered to be a Jewish name – and were very happy for me and I didn’t give them any details. Nationality didn’t matter to me. We had an official civil registration on 11th May 1945 after Victory Day 15. I remember that happy day of 9th May 1945. It was a bright sunny day and lilac bushes were in blossom. We were feeling happy and then we saw that there was a registry office where we were having a walk and we went in there and had our marriage registered. He kept his last name and I kept mine. 

After the war

My parents returned to Priluki from evacuation. My father was in evacuation in Sverdlovsk working at a huge plant. He lived in a hostel and he never managed to have mother and Lusik join him there. My mother and brother moved to my father’s sisters Polia and Esther in Omsk in late 1942. Only in early 1945 my father reunited with them in Priluki. 

Lusik was recruited to the army in 1945 and was sent to the war with Japan 16 where he was shell-shocked and became an invalid of the war. Later he went to work at the mechanic plant in Priluki where my deceased fiancé’s father Makarov was director. The Makarovs supported my parents. Later, when I became an officer in 1943, I sent Mother my certificate to receive monthly allowances. 

In 1946 my son Valentin was born and at that time Markelov got a job offer to work in the embassy in Bucharest in Romania. Our baby was just a few months old and I was afraid of traveling with him and I went to my management to ask them to release me from this trip, but they said, ‘You can stay if you wish. We will find him another wife. Our troops there are more numerous than the Romanian population.’ While the documents were processed my baby turned eleven months and I had to go. My husband had a sensitive job receiving and transmitting messages. We had many impressions of our life abroad. It was a different world. We had everything we needed living in an embassy apartment. Our boy had nice food, clothes and toys. 

This trip ended in 1948 and we returned to Kiev. The radio station already occupied our room in Sviatoshino. We received a big room of 28 square meters in the center of the city in a crowded communal apartment 17, on the fifth floor with no elevator. Our neighbors were KGB 18 employees. Each family, regardless of the number of family members, occupied one room. There were about five families residing in this apartment. There were three gas stoves in the kitchen, one bathroom and one toilet. There was a line to get to the toilet in the morning. 

Our parents moved in with us and we partitioned the room with wardrobes and curtains. We got along well with the other tenants. When we got our first TV with a screen as big as a palm our neighbors came in to watch it even if it was time to go to bed or my husband had his work to do. Lev entered the Law Faculty of Kiev University. He was an extramural student.

After returning from Bucharest, where I was a housewife, I went back to work in the KGB. I was employed by a secret department fighting bandits. My work covered Western Ukraine annexed to the USSR in 1939 [cf. Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact] 19. There were gangs of banderovtsi [cf. Stepan Bandera] 20 in the woods. Our employees traveled there and I was to maintain communications with them. 

At first it didn’t occur to me that the attitude toward me and my Jewish colleagues was changing. Once the former secretary of our party committee advised me in a friendly manner: ‘you shouldn’t mention anywhere that you are a Jew.’ And I said, ‘How can I possibly do this if it says in my passport that I am a Jew?’ Then somebody said that I should have kept my partisan passport in which I was Oksana Sizova, a Ukrainian. I was surprised and ignored those talks at first. 

In 1948 Israel was established 20. On the one hand, I felt happy that Jews had their own country and our country supported it. On the other hand, I felt I was an ordinary Soviet citizen and this had nothing to do with me personally. Like cosmopolitans [Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] 21 that newspapers wrote about. I still piously believed in the ideals of communism and rightfulness of everything happening in my country. 

In 1951 my second son Alexandr was born. Again there were diapers, feeding, all this prose of life. A year later I felt like going back to work and my mother was to take care of the children when I realized that all Jews were being removed from our organization. They didn’t announce any reasons and were firing people due to reduction of staff. But then it was impossible to get another job. I was one of the last Jewish employees fired in 1953, after this story with the doctors when there were no Jewish employees left in organizations. 

As for the Doctors’ Plot 23, we believed at its beginning that it was true and that the Soviet power could not do the wrong thing. We thought that what happened was done rightly and if there was something wrong we believed that it happened because Stalin was not aware of it. However, looking at the surnames of those they denounced every day and finding out that most of them were Jewish names we felt uneasy. It couldn’t be true that only Jews were enemies of the people 24

My husband was more than upset about it. He couldn’t understand how people could be mistreated or become suspects for the only reason that they were Jews. He was used to value people for their human merits. He lived in my family and my parents treated him like their son. Then Lev’s management called him. He was working in the KGB 1st department: work abroad, i.e., intelligence. They told him that he should either leave his family and continue working for them or quit. They told him openly that they were firing him for his connections with Jews. He quit. 

Lev went to work as forensic detective at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He received a very low salary. My father was a loader in an exhibition hall. He was responsible for handling pictures and it wasn’t hard, but he received a very low salary as well. I washed and cleaned our whole apartment and other tenants paid me for this work and my mother looked after the children. Life was hard from both the material and moral sides.

Stalin’s death on 5th March 1953 was a big private grief for us. My father, a very reserved man, was crying and crowds of people marched along Kreschatik [the main street of Kiev] crying. They had black and red armbands on their sleeves and it felt like an overwhelming horror of mourning. It was a great personal grief for me as well. Many years were to pass and I had to read many books and meet with many people to have the scales fall from my eyes and see the horror of this regime in a different light. I was a party member and it’s non-existent now. Only uneducated people still cannot believe in those crimes of Stalin and his retinue. My husband still believes in Stalin. I argue with him, but he doesn’t understand.   

Another step to a more critical attitude toward governmental declarations was the denunciation of Minister of Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Beriya 25. It was impossible to believe that he was an ‘agent of international imperialism.’ It was another terrible lie on the highest level. Of course, he wasn’t an angel, but he was a devoted communist and the regime was trying to load its sins and evil deeds on him. He was publicly defamed and exterminated. 

During the war our intelligence and partisan movement was in his hands and we wouldn’t have won the victory if it hadn’t been for him and other dedicated communists like Beriya. When we worked in Lubianka 26. I saw him several times though he used a different elevator than other employees, but one could meet him in the corridors. He greeted everyone and made an impression of an intelligent man. I heard about all these horrors about him in the 1990s.

It was impossible to find a job. I couldn’t even imagine how hard it would feel when you came to an organization and they said, ‘Yes, yes’ and you leave your documents and the following day, they tell you, ‘We apologize, but we’ve already hired a person for this position.’ It happened many times. I couldn’t imagine this was happening to me. I went to see the secretary of the party district committee and he pretended he was furious about it and said, ‘No, this cannot be true!’ He helped me to get a job as an accountant in a construction company. 

I worked there several years until this company closed and I lost my job again. Once my former colleague, a driver, called me. He worked in the ‘Znaniye’ company developing manuals and said that I could work part-time as a typist. Since I was a radio operator and could transmit 140 signs per minute I went to work there. Later they employed me as a secretary and my knowledge of Ukrainian proved to be very useful. Here is the full name of this company: Association for Popularization of Scientific, Technical, Social and Political Knowledge. This was an ideological organization of the regional party committee. I was very grateful that my boss employed me without knowing of my Jewish identity. Later, when he found out the truth, he supported me and treated me with deep respect. 

We invited the best experts in science, engineering, art and politics sending them to read lectures in various organizations. There were also guides conducting city tours in Kiev. Once my boss called me and said, ‘Get prepared to become a tour guide.’ I was confused and replied, ‘But I have no appropriate education.’ And he said, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Go listen to tours to get trained.’ I absorbed new knowledge and my colleagues used to say, ‘You are like a sponge absorbing new things.’ 

This was my revelation: Kiev, museums, the history of houses and streets. I found it all very interesting. I had to read a lot and shuffle mounts of books. To earn a kopeck [penny] one had to talk for a ruble and have knowledge for 100 rubles. Later I got an offer to become secretary of the presidium of the ‘Znaniye’ association that employed rectors of colleges and universities. I was responsible for taking minutes of the presidium once or twice a week. I actually worked at three jobs from 6am until late in the evening. I conducted tours in the morning, then worked as a secretary and then took to the presidium business. I became a popular guide and earned more than anybody else in my family.

My mother did the housekeeping and looked after the children. We put aside a certain amount of money for each day of the month for food. Sometimes there was no money left at the end of the month and then my father said, ‘I’ve made what we’ve never had.’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘Tea and bread and butter.’ My mother made nice pastries and I learned from her. We had gefilte fish, sweet and sour beef stew and later we began to cook pork stew as well. We didn’t buy matzah and my parents didn’t talk about Jewish holidays. We celebrated Soviet holidays: 1st May and October Revolution Day 27. The biggest holiday for us was Victory Day. Our fellow comrades visited us and we recalled the past days and sang songs of those years.  

In the middle of the 1950s, my brother Lusik moved from Priluki to Kiev. He went to work at the chemical machine building plant ‘Bolshevik’ manufacturing huge vessels for the chemical industry. He worked there all his life. He was a fixing specialist of the highest category. I went to his workplace once and I saw that the unit where he worked was as big as two rooms. He earned very well. 

He lived with us at first and then he lived in a hostel. When he got married he received an apartment. His wife Kylyna was a Ukrainian woman from a village in Poltava region. She was a nice person and we liked her a lot. Their daughter Lidia is 46 years old now. She is an accountant in the Ukrainian book publishing house. Her husband also works there. Lidia’s daughter Yulia finished a college and has a master’s degree. She is married and they have a child. She cannot find a job. My brother died four years ago. He had a heart attack and it was final. We keep in touch with his family.  

My husband graduated from university and got promoted to chief of the militia department in the rank of colonel. He had his hard times. He worked at nights being a forensic detective. He captured criminals. There was a big case of counterfeiters, forgery of bonds. Unfortunately, he had to pay his cost for this job. This kind, decent and honest man began to drink. He still has this habit, though he is an old man now. My husband has always treated me and the children with love and tenderness, he is the head of the family, but of course, everything was done as I wanted.

We received an apartment in a new district of Kiev in the late 1970s. My parents stayed in the room in the communal apartment. Our boys studied at school. They were well aware that their mother, grandfather and grandmother were Jews, but they got no Jewish education. We didn’t observe any Jewish traditions and spoke Russian in our family. Our sons identified themselves as Soviet people. They don’t understand what it means to be a Jew. They don’t know any traditions. They don’t care about national origin and value personal merits. However, when they heard abusive words at school or in the street, whether addressed to Jews or gypsies [Roma] they would even fight against it. They are just boys. 

My older son Valentin was very determined. He was good at studying foreign languages. In 1966, when he was a university student, he went to work as translator to Ceylon [today Sri Lanka]. He worked there for over a year. He graduated from university when he returned and went to work at the ‘Intourist’ company. He is deputy director of the ‘Bratislava’ hotel complex. His wife finished the Light Industry College and worked. Now she is a pensioner. Their son Vitali is 27 years old. He graduated from Kiev University and then went to an American college where he was sent for his successes in studies. He specializes in the banking business. My grandson is supposed to return to Ukraine by the end of this year.  

As for our younger son Alexandr, we’ve had our share with him. He was a troublemaker. After finishing school he entered the Mechanic Faculty of Kiev University and was expelled when he was a third-year student. He missed classes having parties with his friends. Later he finished a hydromelioration technical school in Priluki, where he married Tania, a Ukrainian girl. Now he is constantly between jobs and has different ideas all the time.

In 1973 my mother died at the age of over 80. She had always had a weak heart. After that my father was paralyzed and bedridden for two years. We all attended to him. My father died in 1975.

We had a quiet life. We worked, went to the cinema and theaters. My husband was a football fan and often went to the stadium in summer. In summer we spent vacations at the seashore. We liked cruising down the Dnieper to the Crimea. It didn’t cost much. In the evening we enjoyed having a stroll in the park. 

I visited my cousin Rosa in Moscow and she sometimes visited us. She talked about Stalin with such hatred. She said he was pock-marked and stood on a stool to appear taller. She spoke about his murderous crimes, millions of innocent victims and we were even afraid of opening our mouths. This was true, but we couldn’t believe it, this was the period of the late 1970s. She gave me forbidden books printed on cigarette paper, works by Solzhenitsyn 28, and gradually my conscience came to understanding that we had lived with such monstrous lies all this time. I began to feel offended that when they unveiled the monument in Babi Yar 29, the tour guides were allowed to say that there were over one hundred thousand deceased on this ground, but not a word about it that they were Jews. Kievites talked about it in whispers, but there was no official information about it. 

Another example: I remember punishment for not having a job and this was evident suppression of a personality. I had an interval of 1-1.5 hours after conducting a tour and decided to go the cinema. Once they interrupted a film to check people’s documents to identify why they were in the cinema during a working day. They needed to have justification of their absence from work. This was terrible. They made a list putting down their comments and then they used to send letters to people’s work.

We were horrified about perestroika 30. We couldn’t believe that this avalanche of things published in newspapers and spoken on TV could have been possibly happening in our quiet lives. We felt some uncertainty. We, dedicated communists in the past, felt like criminals, but we didn’t know anything like this and lived a common life like everybody else. Big shots of party officials found their way promptly and became millionaires and the majority of the population became poor in a jiffy. They lost their savings. Our pension is not enough to pay for utility services, not to mention medications. When I see intelligent people searching for food leftovers in the garbage and eating whatever they find, I feel terrible. It was out of the question in the USSR.

A good thing about this period is the rebirth of the Jewish life. I never felt anything Jewish about myself, but when in the 1990s I heard songs in Yiddish for the first time I understood. I had spontaneous tears in my eyes. I recalled that my father used to sing them in my childhood, but then he probably forgot them all.

Hesed 31 is very important. I like to socialize with people and Hesed offers very interesting subjects for discussions and I like to be there. For the first time in my life I identified myself as a Jew. I haven’t become religious, of course, and I never will, but Jewish history and traditions are very interesting and I enjoy learning them. It is wonderful that they provide assistance to poor people. They provide medications and food and take care of us.  

However, there is a lot of jealousy around. Jews help and support each other while Ukrainians don’t have this support, although there are big communities in America and Canada and they can provide their assistance, but they don’t for some reason. 

I would probably travel to Israel, because I am interested in Israel. I’ve read many books about his country and my relatives live there. We correspond with them, only I am ill and I wouldn’t bear the climate, which is very much like in Africa, and I am even afraid of going there on a visit. 

Glossary:

1 Struggle against religion

The 1930s was a time of anti-religion struggle in the USSR. In those years it was not safe to go to synagogue or to church. Places of worship, statues of saints, etc. were removed; rabbis, Orthodox and Roman Catholic priests disappeared behind KGB walls.

2 Great Patriotic War

On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o'clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945. 

3 Shevchenko T

G. (1814-1861): Ukrainian national poet and painter. His poems are an expression of love of the Ukraine, and sympathy with its people and their hard life. In his poetry Shevchenko stood up against the social and national oppression of his country. His painting initiated realism in Ukrainian art.

4 Lenin (1870-1924)

Pseudonym of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the Russian Communist leader. A profound student of Marxism, and a revolutionary in the 1890s. He became the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party, whom he led to power in the coup d'état of 25th October 1917. Lenin became head of the Soviet state and retained this post until his death.

5 Civil War (1918-1920)

The Civil War between the Reds (the Bolsheviks) and the Whites (the anti-Bolsheviks), which broke out in early 1918, ravaged Russia until 1920. The Whites represented all shades of anti-communist groups - Russian army units from World War I, led by anti-Bolshevik officers, by anti-Bolshevik volunteers and some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. Several of their leaders favored setting up a military dictatorship, but few were outspoken tsarists. Atrocities were committed throughout the Civil War by both sides. The Civil War ended with Bolshevik military victory, thanks to the lack of cooperation among the various White commanders and to the reorganization of the Red forces after Trotsky became commissar for war. It was won, however, only at the price of immense sacrifice; by 1920 Russia was ruined and devastated. In 1920 industrial production was reduced to 14% and agriculture to 50% as compared to 1913. 

6 Great Terror (1934-1938)

During the Great Terror, or Great Purges, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison. The major targets of the Great Terror were communists. Over half of the people who were arrested were members of the party at the time of their arrest. The armed forces, the Communist Party, and the government in general were purged of all allegedly dissident persons; the victims were generally sentenced to death or to long terms of hard labor. Much of the purge was carried out in secret, and only a few cases were tried in public 'show trials'. By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the Party and the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary. Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union until his death in March 1953. 

7 All-Union pioneer organization

A communist organization for teenagers between 10 and 15 years old (cf: boy-/ girlscouts in the US). The organization aimed at educating the young generation in accordance with the communist ideals, preparing pioneers to become members of the Komsomol and later the Communist Party. In the Soviet Union, all teenagers were pioneers.

8 Famine in Ukraine

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.

9 Torgsin stores

Special retail stores, which were established in larger Russian cities in the 1920s with the purpose of selling goods to foreigners. Torgsins sold commodities that were in short supply for hard currency or exchanged them for gold and jewelry, accepting old coins as well. The real aim of this economic experiment that lasted for two years was to swindle out all gold and valuables from the population for the industrial development of the country.

10 Collectivization in the USSR

In the late 1920s - early 1930s private farms were liquidated and collective farms established by force on a mass scale in the USSR. Many peasants were arrested during this process. As a result of the collectivization, the number of farmers and the amount of agricultural production was greatly reduced and famine struck in the Ukraine, the Northern Caucasus, the Volga and other regions in 1932-33.

11 Kolkhoz

In the Soviet Union the policy of gradual and voluntary collectivization of agriculture was adopted in 1927 to encourage food production while freeing labor and capital for industrial development. In 1929, with only 4% of farms in kolkhozes, Stalin ordered the confiscation of peasants' land, tools, and animals; the kolkhoz replaced the family farm.

12 Postyshev, Pavel (1887-1939), political activist

In 1926 became secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) of Ukraine. In 1930-1933 secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (of Bolsheviks), 1933 2nd secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (of Bolsheviks of Ukraine. In 1937-38 secretary of the regional and town committee of the Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) in Kuibyshev, candidate to members of the political bureau of the Central Committee. Repressed in 1934-38. Rehabilitated posthumously.

13 Komsomol

Communist youth political organization created in 1918. The task of the Komsomol was to spread 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.  

14 NKVD

(Russ.: Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del), People's Committee of Internal Affairs, the supreme security authority in the USSR - the secret police. Founded by Lenin in 1917, it nevertheless played an insignificant role until 1934, when it took over the GPU (the State Political Administration), the political police. The NKVD had its own police and military formations, and also possessed the powers to pass sentence on political matters, and as such in practice had total control over society. Under Stalin's rule the NKVD was the key instrument used to terrorize the civilian population. The NKVD ran a network of labor camps for millions of prisoners, the Gulag. The heads of the NKVD were as follows: Genrikh Yagoda (to 1936), Nikolai Yezhov (to 1938) and Lavrenti Beria. During the war against Germany the political police, the KGB, was spun off from the NKVD. After the war it also operated on USSR-occupied territories, including in Poland, where it assisted the nascent communist authorities in suppressing opposition. In 1946 the NKVD was renamed the Ministry of the Interior.

15 Victory Day in Russia (9th May)

National holiday to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II and honor the Soviets who died in the war.

16 War with Japan

In 1945 the war in Europe was over, but in the Far East Japan was still fighting against the anti-fascist coalition countries and China. The USSR declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945 and Japan signed the act of capitulation in September 1945.

17 Communal apartment

The Soviet power wanted to improve housing conditions by requisitioning 'excess' living space of wealthy families after the Revolution of 1917. Apartments were shared by several families with each family occupying one room and sharing the kitchen, toilet and bathroom with other tenants. Because of the chronic shortage of dwelling space in towns communal or shared apartments continued to exist for decades. Despite state programs for the construction of more houses and the liquidation of communal apartments, which began in the 1960s, shared apartments still exist today. 

18 The KGB or Committee for State Security was the main Soviet external security and intelligence agency, as well as the main secret police agency from 1954 to 1991

19 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which became known under the name of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Engaged in a border war with Japan in the Far East and fearing the German advance in the west, the Soviet government began secret negotiations for a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939. In August 1939 it suddenly announced the conclusion of a Soviet-German agreement of friendship and non-aggression. The Pact contained a secret clause providing for the partition of Poland and for Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

20 Bandera, Stepan (1919-1959)Politician and ideologue of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, who fought for the Ukrainian cause against both Poland and the Soviet Union

He attained high positions in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN): he was chief of propaganda (1931) and, later, head of the national executive in Galicia (1933). He was hoping to establish an independent Ukrainian state with Nazi backing. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the OUN announced the establishment of an independent government of Ukraine in Lvov on 30th June 1941. About one week later the Germans disbanded this government and arrested the members. Bandera was taken to Sachsenhausen prison where he remained until the end of the war. He was assassinated by a Soviet agent in Munich in 1959..

21 Creation of the State of Israel

From 1917 Palestine was a British mandate. Also in 1917 the Balfour Declaration was published, which supported the idea of the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Throughout the interwar period, Jews were migrating to Palestine, which caused the conflict with the local Arabs to escalate. On the other hand, British restrictions on immigration sparked increasing opposition to the mandate powers. Immediately after World War II there were increasing numbers of terrorist attacks designed to force Britain to recognize the right of the Jews to their own state. These aspirations provoked the hostile reaction of the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states. In February 1947 the British foreign minister Ernest Bevin ceded the Palestinian mandate to the UN, which took the decision to divide Palestine into a Jewish section and an Arab section and to create an independent Jewish state. On 14th May 1948 David Ben Gurion proclaimed the creation of the State of Israel. It was recognized immediately by the US and the USSR. On the following day the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon attacked Israel, starting a war that continued, with intermissions, until the beginning of 1949 and ended in a truce. 

22 Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’

The campaign against 'cosmopolitans', i.e. Jews, was initiated in articles in the central organs of the Communist Party in 1949. The campaign was directed primarily at the Jewish intelligentsia and it was the first public attack on Soviet Jews as Jews. 'Cosmopolitans' writers were accused of hating the Russian people, of supporting Zionism, etc. Many Yiddish writers as well as the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in November 1948 on charges that they maintained ties with Zionism and with American 'imperialism'. They were executed secretly in 1952. The anti-Semitic Doctors' Plot was launched in January 1953. A wave of anti-Semitism spread through the USSR. Jews were removed from their positions, and rumors of an imminent mass deportation of Jews to the eastern part of the USSR began to spread. Stalin's death in March 1953 put an end to the campaign against 'cosmopolitans.' 

23 Doctors’ Plot

The Doctors' Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin's reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

24 Enemy of the people

Soviet official term; euphemism used for real or assumed political opposition. 

25 Beriya, L

P. (1899-1953): Communist politician, one of the main organizers of the mass arrests and political persecution between the 1930s and the early 1950s. Minister of Internal Affairs, 1938-1953. In 1953 he was expelled from the Communist Party and sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of the USSR. 

26 Lubianka

One of the aristocratic districts in the center of Moscow. In 1919 representatives of the Soviet special service, i.e. Moscow Extraordinary Commission for struggle against counter revolution moved into a small building on Lubianka Square in the center of this district. The prison for dissidents, known as 'Lubianka' prison, was located in the courtyard of the building since 1920. In the 1930s the building was reconstructed significantly adding four floors to the building. Throughout the Soviet rule between 800,000 and 1,500,000 prisoners served their sentence or were executed there. The prison was closed in the 1960s. It houses a canteen now. 

27 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 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.

28 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander (1918-2008)

Russian novelist and publicist. He spent eight years in prisons and labor camps, and three more years in enforced exile. After the publication of a collection of his short stories in 1963, he was denied further official publication of his work, and so he circulated them clandestinely, in samizdat publications, and published them abroad. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 and was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974 after publishing his famous book, The Gulag Archipelago, in which he describes Soviet labor camps.

29 Babi Yar

Babi Yar is the site of the first mass shooting of Jews that was carried out openly by fascists. On 29th and 30th September 1941 33,771 Jews were shot there by a special SS unit and Ukrainian militia men. During the Nazi occupation of Kiev between 1941 and 1943 over a 100,000 people were killed in Babi Yar, most of whom were Jewish. The Germans tried in vain to efface the traces of the mass grave in August 1943 and the Soviet public learnt about mass murder after World War II.

30 Perestroika (Russian for restructuring)

Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s, associated with the name of Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev. The term designated the attempts to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized, market-oriented economy. Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratize the Communist Party organization. By 1991, perestroika was declining and was soon eclipsed by the dissolution of the USSR. 

31 Hesed

Meaning care and mercy in Hebrew, Hesed stands for the charity organization founded by Amos Avgar in the early 20th century. Supported by Claims Conference and Joint Hesed helps for Jews in need to have a decent life despite hard economic conditions and encourages development of their self-identity. Hesed provides a number of services aimed at supporting the needs of all, and particularly elderly members of the society. The major social services include: work in the center facilities (information, advertisement of the center activities, foreign ties and free lease of medical equipment); services at homes (care and help at home, food products delivery, delivery of hot meals, minor repairs); work in the community (clubs, meals together, day-time polyclinic, medical and legal consultations); service for volunteers (training programs). The Hesed centers have inspired a real revolution in the Jewish life in the FSU countries. People have seen and sensed the rebirth of the Jewish traditions of humanism. Currently over eighty Hesed centers exist in the FSU countries. Their activities cover the Jewish population of over eight hundred settlements.

Mirrah Kogan

Mirrah Kogan
Odessa
Ukraine
Interviewer: Natalia Fomina
Date of interview: February 2003

Mirrah Lvovna Kogan is a little woman with short hair and shining blue eyes. She is full of optimism and displays a kind attitude toward people. Mirrah lives with her older daughter and her family in her parents’ apartment. Mirrah’s daughter is an invalid and the main part of the household is hers. Because her younger daughter lives in Israel, Mirrah cares for international politics very much. During our conversation her ten-year-old great-grandson Mark came into the room listening to the story of his great-grandmother and looking at old pictures.

My family history
Growing up
During the war
After the war
Glossary

My family history

My grandfather on my father’s side, Gersh Kogan, was born in the town of Zinkovtsy, Podolsk province [Vinnitsa region at present], in the 1850s. My grandfather’s family was religious. They observed all Jewish traditions and my father was raised religiously. In the pictures I have of my grandfather, he wears traditional Jewish clothes, a beard and payot and a yarmulka or a hat. I don’t know what my grandfather did for a living. He died in the 1890s.

My grandmother was born in the 1850s. I don’t know her first name or her maiden name. She was a housewife. My grandmother died in the early 1880s, when my father was a small boy. Besides my father my grandparents had two sons and a daughter from what I know.

I have no information about one of the sons, but my father’s older brother Zalman Kogan lived in Chernovtsy. Zalman had a son and a daughter: Moisey and Musia. Moisey moved to Odessa before the Revolution of 1917 1. Musia and her family stayed in Chernovtsy. Later they moved to Izmail. When Izmail became part of the USSR in 1940 [cf. Annexation of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union] 2 I saw Musia for the first time – she came to Odessa to take her husband to the clinic of a well-known doctor Buchshtab. Musia told us about anti-Semitism existing during the Romanian regime [cf. Annexation of Bessarabia to Romania] 3. Musia’s husband was sick and died in hospital before the war. Musia survived the Great Patriotic War 4, and after the war she was the manager of a pharmacy in Izmail for many years.

My father’s sister Rachel emigrated to America in 1915. Rachel was married, but I don’t remember her husband’s name. Her daughters moved to Argentina later on. She corresponded with my father before the Great Patriotic War. After the war we didn’t receive any letters.

My grandmother on my mother’s side, Miriam Kogan, was born in the town of Rotmistrovka, Kiev province, in the 1840s. I don’t remember my grandmother’s maiden name. She was a housewife. My grandmother died in 1891 when my mother was eight.

My grandfather on my mother’s side, Nuhim-Leib Kogan, was born in Rotmistrovka in the 1840s. I don’t know what he did for a living. Like all other Jews in the town he was religious. He attended the synagogue and observed all the traditions. After my grandmother died my grandfather got married again. His second wife’s name was Perl. My grandfather died after a surgery he had in Kiev in the 1890s. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery there. I was at his grave with my parents when I was six, in 1925.

My grandfather had three children with his first wife: two daughters, Doba and Polia and a son, Semyon. He had three more children with Perl: Natan, Naum and Fenia. All the children were born in Rotmistrovka.

I guess my mother’s older sister Doba was born in the 1860s. She was much older than my mother since she already had children of her own when my mother was born. After getting married Doba left Rotmistrovka for a neighboring village – I don’t know its name. She had eleven or twelve children. I guess Doba and her husband were religious Jews. In the 1920s Doba’s family moved to Odessa with the younger children. During the war, in 1941 Doba, her husband and four of their children perished in the ghetto in Odessa.

My mother’s brother Semyon Kogan was born in 1885. He was a clerk at a fabric store in Odessa. He was married. His wife’s name was Clara. They had a daughter, Mura. During the Soviet period Semyon was a supply agent. He traveled to Germany before Hitler came to power 5. When we talked about the persecution of Jews in Germany in the 1930s uncle Semyon said he didn’t understand what was happening to the Germans. He said he couldn’t believe what was said. He said, ‘This may just be propaganda.’ During the Great Patriotic War uncle Semyon stayed in Odessa. He was killed during a raid after the Romanian headquarters’ was blasted in 1941. Clara and Murah perished in the ghetto.

My mother’s younger sister Polia was born in 1887. Long before I was born she moved to Odessa where she married Grigory Shwalboim, the owner of a small fabric store. They had two children: Musia and Lyonia. In 1925 Grigory moved to Palestine following his brothers. Uncle Grigory was going to take his family there after he had settled down, but shortly after he had gone the borders were closed and we didn’t receive any letters from him. [In the late 1920s Soviet citizens had severe restrictions in their departures.] Aunt Polia and her children stayed in the Soviet Union.

Aunt Polia was a seamstress. Her neighbor reported on her to the Soviet authorities stating that she had gold and Polia was arrested in 1933. My mother and Uncle Semyon went to consult lawyers to help her out of prison. She was released in a month. At the beginning of World War II, Polia and her children evacuated to Margilan [3000 km from Odessa, in Uzbekistan]. After the war they returned to Odessa. We heard about Uncle Grigory in the late 1960s. His son Lyonia visited him in Israel. Aunt Polia died in 1975. Musia left for Israel in 1975 to join her father, who died shortly afterward. Lyonia got married in Odessa, and his family moved to Israel in 1992.

My mother’s half-brother Natan lived in Odessa. He was married to his niece Dora, the daughter of his older half-sister Doba. She was a beautiful girl and he fell in love with her. They had two children. The son perished in 1945 in Poland. Dora died in the 1970s and Natan died in the 1980s. Their daughter lives in the US. She emigrated after her parents died.

My mother’s other half-brother Naum was in the people’s volunteer corps 6. He either perished during the defense of Odessa, or later in the ghetto. His wife Lusia and their daughter Jeanne were in evacuation somewhere. After the war they lived in Moscow. They visited us several times when they came to Odessa.

My mother’s half-sister Fenia was born in 1899. She came from Rotmistrovka, Kiev province, to Odessa when she was 13. Like my mother she was religious. She lived with my parents at the beginning. She was my mother’s assistant at work. In 1928 she became a seamstress at a garment shop. During the war she was in evacuation. She was married but had no children. Her husband died in 1951 and she died in the early 1960s.

My mother Edis Kogan was born in Rotmistrovka, Kiev province, in 1883. The wealthy family of Grutskiye took my mother to their house. She helped them with the housework. They treated my mother very well. She learned to read and write in Russian from their son Shulim and she also learned to sew from his mother. When my mother was 15 or 16, Hanna Itzkovich, the wife of her cousin Semyon, invited her to move to Odessa. Hanna was a seamstress. Seamstresses at that time made shirts and decorated women’s underwear with lace. My mother learned all this from Aunt Hanna.

My mother became a very professional seamstress and made high quality shirts. She got a job offer from a well-known garment factory in Odessa owned by Ptashnikov. My mother’s shirts were sent to an international exhibition in Paris in the 1900s where she was awarded a diploma. Next year the owner of the factory was planning to send my mother and her products to another exhibition in Paris. Ptashnikov’s son was supposed to go with her to represent the company. My mother already knew my father at the time – since she was so pretty, her fiancé didn’t allow her to take the trip to Paris and my mother didn’t go.

My father, Leib Kogan, was born in the town of Zinkovtsy, Podolsk province, in 1873. My father studied at cheder for three years. After my grandmother died he went to work as a servant for a wealthy Jew in the town. In the late 1880s, when he was 15, he moved to some relatives in Odessa. He became an apprentice of a typesetter at the printing house of the publisher Kozman. This publishing house was famous for publishing German and French textbooks and dictionaries for self-education. We had one such German textbook before the war – my father showed it to me. My father was eager to study somewhere, but he was too poor. However, by self-education he learned Russian, German and some French besides Yiddish and Hebrew. In a few years he managed to get a job as a typesetter at the same printing house. He met my mother in the early 1900s.

My parents got married around 1905. I am sure that they had a traditional Jewish wedding since both of them came from religious families and were raised religiously. After their wedding my parents rented an apartment in the building where Hanna lived – we always had very warm relationships with her. When my father got married his relatives helped him to get a job of a clerk in a fabric store, since working in the printing house was hazardous because of the lead dust. My mother continued to work at the Ptashnikov factory.

In 1906 my parents moved to Ekaterininskaya Street, to a four-room apartment where they lived their further life, and I live here as well. In 1907 my mother gave birth to a boy. He was a very weak boy and had rachitis. I know that my mother tried all she could to cure him, but he died in 1912. My mother had a nervous breakdown and my father sent her to a recreation center in Puscha-Voditsa near Kiev to improve her nervous system. My mother gave birth to my older brother Haim at home with a midwife attending to her. He was born in 1914, and we all called him Munia.

Growing up

I was born in 1919. I had been registered as Miriam in honor of my mother’s mother, but all my life they called me Mirrah at work and at home. On that day my mother’s friend’s daughter had a wedding party in our apartment. This idea occurred to my mother since her friend was not very wealthy. She started childbirth while she was helping in the kitchen. I was born at the moment when the bride and bridegroom were standing under the chuppah.

I’ve lived my life in this apartment. One room here was my mother’s shop, Munia and I had a children’s room, another room was my parents’ bedroom and we also had a dining room. There were two beds with metal balls in my parents’ bedroom. Munia and I liked to play with them since we learned to unscrew them. There were also two mahogany wardrobes and a chest of drawers. There was a beautiful tiled stove in the dining room with a border of brown tiles and stucco of a girl’s figure in the middle. There was a big table too, a floor mirror, a marble board and a beautiful clock. There was a low table in the corner – we called it a samovar-table since there was a samovar on it. A big portrait of Leo Tolstoy 7 hung above it. There were two rubber plants and a piano, on which I was taught to play.

My mother worked at home. Her younger, married sister Fenia worked with her. My mother had a hemstitch machine and a sewing machine. At first my mother worked as a small entrepreneur and in 1936 she began to work for a central department store, only she did her work at home. She had many orders since she was a very skilled seamstress. She had so many orders that she even had to refuse sometimes.

My father was a worker at a plant after the October Revolution and later he tried to make shoe polish. I was a little child then and don’t remember the details. Later my father began to work with my mother. He fixed her equipment and made bed sheets.

Munia was supposed to go to school in the early 1920s. That was shortly after the Civil War 8 a hard period of famine and an epidemic of the Spanish flu that caused the death of many people. Going to school was out of the question. In 1922 my brother began to have private classes at home with Anna Yakovlevna Naskhovich, who was called Mairo at home for some reason. She was a very nice, short young woman. She had finished grammar school and was a very good teacher. She gave classes to my brother and to a few other children too. They had classes sitting at the dinner table in the dining room. I often sat under the table during classes and listened to them. Sometimes when the teacher asked questions and none of her pupils knew the answer, I answered the question from beneath the table. I was five and I learned to read at that time.

At the age of twelve my brother got bronchitis and needed to breathe air in the steppe and eat good food. My mother rented a room at the Dachnaya Resort, about 20 kilometers from Odessa. Munia, Mairo, and I went there for the whole summer. I remember that Mairo took us to a village where we had cow milk. There were fruit trees growing near our house. We picked and ate sweet yellow cherries, apricots, apples and pears. We got suntanned and strong. Munia was cured. When I was a small girl I adored Munia and kept on his tail and he often complained to Mother, ‘How long am I going to walk with this little tail?’

Since my mother and father worked hard, our family was wealthy. We had lunch in the dining room at the table covered with a tablecloth. My seat was beside my father’s. Our father said a blessing before we had a meal: ‘Barukh, atah, adonai…’ [Blessed are you, Lord… – first words of Judaic blessing]. When the first fruit or berries got ripe our father said a blessing for that too. My parents observed all Jewish traditions and rituals.

I was very happy when Friday came since I knew that our mother wasn’t going to do her work on that day. On Friday she wore a dark shawl and lit candles. Sabbath was a holy day, when our parents went to the synagogue. My mother made rolls with poppy-seeds and prepared a delicious dinner. My parents didn’t work on this day; my mother didn’t do any work at home. We, children were not required to observe Saturday since we were not raised religiously. 

We only had kosher food. I used to take chickens to the shochet, who lived across the street. If we bought fresh meat we sprinkled it with salt. Salt absorbed blood and we washed the meat several times before it could be cooked. My mother made chicken broth and soups, chicken neck stuffed with eggs, flour, fat and onions, and she also made delicious gefilte fish. She made pies with jam and poppy seeds and honey cakes and white latkes – sponge cake. My mother also made marinated eggplants.

My parents spoke Yiddish to one another and Russian to us. I could understand Yiddish well. Until 1941 our parents observed all Jewish holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Purim, Simchat Torah, Chanukkah, Pesach. I have memories of such a thing as Chanukkah gelt that my brother and I received at Chanukkah. At Pesach we used to have a festive dinner with matzah. Our father told us about the exodus of Jews from Egypt, but we didn’t have Seder conducted.

However, I would say our parents were moderately religious, since they didn’t force me or my brother to pray or go to the synagogue. We were growing up like all other Soviet children in that time. We grew up as atheists. My brother Munia and I were Komsomol 9 members and had up-to-date outlooks. The morale that we were inspired with at school was in no conflict with the moral principles that we learned at home. Our teachers and parents taught us to respect other people and ourselves, be honest and hardworking and help people. Our parents respected our ideas and my brother and I treated our parents with respect and supported our family traditions.

I went to school in 1927. This school was named after Illich [V. I. Lenin] and it was on the corner of Troitskaya and Preobrazhenskaya Street, in the center of Odessa, not far from where we resided. Before 1934 it was a Russian school, after 1934 it became a Ukrainian school. This was one the best schools in the town and to be admitted there children had to take entrance exams. I passed my exam brilliantly.

My first teacher, Elizaveta Pavlovna Studenetskaya, had been a teacher at a grammar school before the revolution. She was not Jewish. She was a great teacher and a great person. Elizaveta Pavlovna taught us many things besides teaching us to write. She staged children’s fairy tales with us, and our parents were delighted to watch them. I also remember Antonina Fyodorovna, our Ukrainian teacher. She was a charming and nice lady. She was so good at teaching that thanks to her I became fond of the Ukrainian language and never forgot it.

When I was 11, I was very happy to become a pioneer 10. There were certain requirements to become a pioneer: one should be a good person and an industrious pupil. There was an admission ceremony and it was very exciting. We had a school pioneer leader, Zoya, and we became tutors in junior classes. When I was in the sixth grade I became a pioneer tutor of the fourth grade. We helped pupils with their studies, arranged parties and concerts as well as sport contests. We also had a joiner shop at school where we enjoyed working. In addition we got hot lunch or breakfast at the school canteen.

During the famine of 1933 11 we received buns at school. It was a hard period for our family. My mother took any job she could find. Repainting of shoes was in fashion and my mother learned to paint shoes. When pleated skirts came in fashion my mother learned to make them. Munia and I were helping her with ironing. We earned our living in this way and didn’t starve. There were Torgsin stores 12 opened at that time. One could buy food products in exchange for gold in those stores. My mother took all her golden jewelry there: earrings, chain and rings. She baked bread from the flour that she got. She also added some sunflower seed wastes.

All our relatives were trying to stick together in those hard years and my mother was supporting them. She was very responsive and kind. I remember an old Jewish man who joined us for lunch once a week after 1933. It was customary for Jewish families that once a week old Jews who couldn’t provide food for themselves came to have lunch with a family they had an arrangement with.

My brother Munia studied at home until it was time for him to go to the sixth grade. After he finished school he went to study at the Rabfak 13 and then he entered the Odessa Industrial Institute. In 1939 he finished the Faculty of Water Piping and Sewerage. After he graduated, he got a job assignment 14 for the construction of water cleaning facilities in Lublino near Moscow. Some of his fellow students went there too. My brother and I got along well and were the best friends when we were students.

After finishing the eighth grade some of my schoolmates and I also went to the Rabfak. In 1936 I entered the Sanitary and Hygiene Faculty of the Medical Institute. I had to study a lot there; it was a very challenging institute. I became a Komsomol member at the institute. I took an active part in public life and had many friends among the students. We enjoyed attending parties at the institute. We didn’t have any problems associated with the issues of nationality.

My close friend Tsylia Rendel – we were at the same school once – lived in my neighborhood. Tsylia’s father was the director of a state-owned tobacco factory. He was an old revolutionary and an outstanding person. His portrait was on the board of respectable people in town at the Opera Theater. In 1935 he was awarded with a car – this was one of the very few cars in Odessa. Tsylia was dating a young engineer, Buma. He was a handsome man and could play the piano well. We got together at her place and had wonderful gatherings.

In 1937 Tsylia’s father was arrested [during the so-called Great Terror] 15 and shot. [During the period of Stalin’s repression the authorities never informed the relatives about the cause of arrest.] Tsylia and her sister Dusia lost both parents since their mother had died some time before. When this happened my mother took Tsylia and Dusia to our home. Later they went back to their apartment and their aunt took care of them.

When this happened many friends stopped visiting them, but not Buma. Tsylia wasn’t a pretty girl and her friends gossiped that Buma was seeing her for her father’s position. However, Buma married her. Tsylia went to work and her younger sister studied at school. During World War II they evacuated to Tashkent. After the war Tsylia stayed in Tashkent. Her father was rehabilitated 16 after Stalin died.

In 1937 the parents of my schoolmate Mila Medvedeva were arrested too. Then we understood that there was something wrong about what was happening around us. Later, in 1940 the leadership called this period the period of Yezhov 17.

Shulim Grutskiy and his wife Katia were good friends of our family. Shulim was the son of those people my mother had lived with in Rotmistrovka. Shulim’s family was wealthier than ours. Shulim and Katia visited us every Saturday. The adults were discussing political subjects. Shulim criticized the Soviet power, but my mother said, ‘I couldn’t study and Leib couldn’t either. We’ve lived a hard life. So when my daughter and son study at the institute and I don’t hear the word ‘zhyd’ [abusive word for a Jew] I would agree to eat waste and pray for the Soviet power.’ Shulim could raise no objection to this statement. I’ve always remembered what my mother said.

We didn’t face any anti-Semitism then. Only our parents knew what it was like. [Editor’s note: In tsarist Russia Jews suffered from national discrimination: they were allowed to live and do business only within the Pale of Settlement 18, there was a limit of 5% of Jews 19 to be admitted to secondary and higher educational institutions, Jews were not allowed to hold any official positions, and there were also other restrictions.] We didn’t care about the issues of nationality in our time.

In May 1941 we had our graduation exams at the institute. We were photographed for our graduation albums and had an arrangement at a restaurant for our prom when the war began, on 22nd June. My parents were in despair: in 1941 Munia went to Belostok with a construction team to build fortifications. Belostok was in Western Belarus. The radio said there were Germans there already. I ran to the post office to send a cable to my brother. Fortunately my brother and some others escaped from there. He returned to Moscow.

During the war

The institute rescheduled our last exams in surgery for 25th June and we were to be examined for ‘field surgery.’ We passed our last exam and immediately 120 of our boys were sent to the front. I was assigned to a railroad clinic as a physician. But we were raised in such a spirit of Soviet patriotism that the only thought I had was to join the rows of defenders of the Motherland. I ran to the military registry office. An officer there put down all information required and told me to go home and wait until they contacted me.

In a few days I received a subpoena from them. I was to come to a gathering place with all necessary belongings. My mother didn’t cry – she just helped me to get packed. My parents were concerned about my life, of course, but they did understand what motives I was driven by. In the morning of 17th July I put on my new crêpe de Chine dress made by my mother, took my suitcase, and my father and I went to the port. My mother had a high fever and stayed at home. I boarded a boat to Kherson. I stood on the stern and my father was on the pier. The boat was full of recruits. We were singing a popular song: ‘Farewell, our dear town – tomorrow we are sailing off into the sea.’ I met Zhenia Lerner on the ship, who also graduated from our institute. We became friends.

From Kherson we were taken to Melitopol [360 km to the East from Odessa] where a division was formed. Zhenia Lerner and I were sent to rifle battalion 973 in the village of Konstantinovka near Melitopol. In my company there were two doctors – my friend and I – two assistant doctors, two sanitary instructors and 24 sanitary carts and drivers. We also had boxes of bandage materials.

I was the head of three sanitary platoons of the battalion. The commanders of the platoons were graduates from a military medical school. They had excellent knowledge of the contents of bandage packages. They trained Zhenia and me, the assistant doctors and the attendants, who were civilians and didn’t have any knowledge of military procedures. We received uniforms three weeks later, before that I wore my crêpe de Chine dress and high-heeled shoes. My subordinates reported to me every morning.

At the beginning of August 1941 Germans were near Kherson and Odessa was holding its defense. The commander of the battalion and I were sent to inspect the site for our deployment. Our truck drove into a village where a battle was on. This was the first time I saw Germans. We turned around and left the village. I knew how serious the situation was at the front and sent cables home every day telling my family to leave immediately.

My parents obtained tickets from the military registry office. They had this right since I was at the front. In August they boarded a boat and on the way my mother convinced my father to go to see me in Melitopol. They believed it was so far away from the frontline. They got off the boat in Kerch and came to Melitopol. From there they were sent to Konstantinovka where I was. They saw me wearing my uniform and a gun holster. By that time they already knew that our army was retreating and that the situation was very serious. My parents stayed with me overnight and in the morning the commander of our regiment issued a certificate confirming that they were parents of a military heading for Kuibyshev. He ordered to take them to Melitopol. I shall never forget how my mother was crying when they were put on a cart and I heard her crying until I lost sight of the cart.

We were soon moved to the vicinity of Zaporozhiye where we were actively involved in combat action. Our troops incurred big losses retreating; 1941 and 1942 were very hard years. In January our rifle regiment began to push the Germans. In April 1942 we took hold of the railroad station of Lozovaya. This was quite a victory and even major newspapers wrote about this event.

At the beginning of May 1942 we were involved in a big attack on Kharkov. I remember how we took hold of the town of Sakhnovschina and then lost it and then entered it again. In a few hours the Germans, who held the town, burned it down and shot almost all the population. I cannot forget a girl – the Germans tied her by her legs to two birch trees bending them to the ground. When the trees unbent they tore the girl in half.

We were moving towards Kharkov. Near Barvenkovo our troops were encircled. This encirclement is known as Izyum-Barvenkovo. It’s hard to find words to express what it was like. Dozens of thousands of people were in the encirclement. The Germans continuously bombed us. During one of these bombardments a splinter hit my leg. The leg got swollen and we had to cut the boot to pull it off. Zhenia and I were in a ravine with bunches of people around. German soldiers were descending in rows firing in the area. I got wounded by a bullet in my buttocks.

The Germans chased us out of the ravine and separated those that could move from those that were not able to walk. Zhenia took me aside and sat beside me. In order to stay with me she injured her leg with a medical scissors. Zhenia and I took off our military shirts – we had blouses underneath and were going to pretend that we were civilians involved in the excavation of trenches. The Germans brought trucks and Zhenia pulled me to a truck where two tall Germans were watching the boarding process. One of them asked the other, pointing at me, ‘Jude?’ and the other replied, ‘Nicht Jude.’ This saved my life.

We were driven to Barvinkovo and accommodated in the building of a school fenced with barbed wire. There was a hospital for prisoners-of-war deployed at school. When I was taken for bandaging, I saw Henry Khatskilevich, the chief surgeon of our army. He had been our lecturer at the institute and I knew him well. He was a Jew, but pretended he was a Karaim. He managed to escape. He returned to Odessa after the war and worked at the clinic of the famous professor Nalivkin [which was not a private clinic]. We met in 1946 again.

Zhenia got very scared when I used to lose consciousness because in my delirium I was giving orders and that might have disclosed our identity. Zhenia covered me with her body. My wound was healing very slowly. It was impossible to remove the splinter from my leg and I could only wait until it got out by itself or the wound would heal with the splinter inside. Whenever I came to have a dressing applied on my wound Henry gave me extra bandage and iodine.

Once I mentioned to him that Zhenia and I would try to escape. Three weeks later we were told to come outside to go to the railway station. Zhenia and I tried to hide in a classroom, but the Germans found us and pushed us outside. Other prisoners were walking to the railway station. There were people on both sides of the street looking at the prisoners. The Germans ordered us to follow the others. There was a big truck at the entrance of the school building. We went behind the truck and plunged into the crowd. The crowd closed around us and began to move backwards.

A woman took us to her house. When the mistress of the house went to the kitchen to fetch us some milk I grabbed her pass from a chest of drawers. It was issued to Kovalenko Maria and allowed her go to the village. Of course, it wasn’t decent from my part, but all I could think about was how to escape.

At night we left Barvenkovo and started moving to the direction of the frontline. I knew the area very well – this was where our battalion was located. We also walked during the day since we pretended we were civilians. This was at the beginning of July – it was very hot and the sand was overheated. My leg was still swollen and I had to go barefoot.

In a few days we reached a village which the Soviet troops had left a few hours before we came. There were Germans in the village, but our troops were in a forest across the nearby river. We came to a road leading to a bridge across the river. There were women walking on the road. We went to the bridge and when we came close to the women, they turned out to be German soldiers patrolling this section of the road. Zhenia and I were captured and taken to the commandant’s office. We told them our story and I showed the pass that I had stolen from that kind woman.

The Germans ordered us to polish a few pairs of boots and buttons on their uniforms. At noon three men and we were taken to a field by the Germans. We were given spades and ordered to dig a pit. Then we were ordered to stand with our back to the pits. The Germans fired their guns. The men fell into the pit and Zhenia and I were told, ‘Weg!’ [German for ‘Go!’] and we ran away at breakneck speed.

In the evening we reached a distant farm and ran into the house. An old woman came out saying, ‘What do you want? I don’t have anything.’ We were telling her our story, when we heard screaming from the village. So she let us go to the attic. The old woman removed the ladder to the attic and we hid in the straw. It turned out that a Romanian division came to replace the German troops. Romanians began to rape women of every age. After they left in the morning, the village woman let us out.

So we moved on from the occupied territory from one village to another. We met another group of our disguised military. We didn’t tell each other our names for reasons of safety. However, we all agreed to move in the direction of the frontline. We kept walking at night. I continued to apply bandages on my leg. During the day Zhenia and I went to villages to do any work we could find: in kitchens, gardens and farms. We also told fortunes by cards. People wanted to hear that their loved ones that were at the front were alive. We received bread or potatoes for our work. We shared food with our fellow travelers.

I remember, in one village we came into a nice big house, where we saw a sewing machine. I offered the mistress of the house to make a dress for her daughter. She gave me a piece of cloth and I made a dress in a few hours. I was still sewing when a neighbor ran into the house and said, ‘They are looking for outsiders there. They took away some men. Hide your girls since they will get them, too.’ The mistress of the house hid us in a closet. Our fellow travelers were captured and Zhenia and I were alone once again.

Around the end of September we came as far as the Rossosh River in Voronezh region. My legs were swollen and I got furuncles on my shins. We had to swim to the opposite bank since we were told there were fewer Germans there. The bank we were on was rusty and before I came to the water I cut all the boils on my legs. We tied our clothes to our neck to swim across the river.

I remember another episode, when we came to a village near Voronezh. We came into a house and were given some food. A humpbacked young man came into the house and said, ‘There are girls in your house. They may stay here overnight and I will come for them in the morning.’ In the morning he took us to the head of the village council. He interrogated us and we told them our tall story. Some people began to threaten to give us in to the Germans. We were so exhausted. Then at last those people told the humpbacked young man to take us out of the village. They said, ‘If we see you again, it won’t be good for you.’ The humpbacked man took us to the field and on the way he tried to provoke us to tell him the truth. He said that he was the son of the head of the village and that his father was helping partisans, but we kept repeating our tall story and he let us go.

We were trying to avoid the Germans on our way. Winter began. We didn’t have any warm clothes. We wrapped our legs with old rags that we got in a village. We wore boots, some old jackets and sack cloth on our heads. At the end of 1942 a village woman gave us shelter. We were helping her about the house.

At the end of January 1943 the Soviet troops got hold of Stalingrad 20 and were advancing to the west. The frontline moved to the village where we were staying. At night we heard the roar of the front. Zhenia and I ran out of the house and hid in the snow. We saw Germans running followed by our troops. It was a tank unit. We shouted, ‘Guys! Guys!’ I cannot tell you what we felt. The soldiers took us to the house and gave us hot tea to get warm. At that moment the door opened and Zhora Kogan-Volman stepped inside. He was an acquaintance of mine from the Odessa Polytechnic Institute. I wrote a letter to my parents in Kuibyshev and Zhora sent it via his field mail. My parents hadn’t heard from me for eight months. We were given some food and winter jackets.

Zhenia and I had to go through an investigation. It was a war and we had been in the rear of the enemy for eight months. We were in a few holding centers and got stuck in Yelets due to typhoid. In April 1943 we came to a big holding camp in Podolsk near Moscow. We stayed in a barrack. We were interrogated by an investigation officer. We told him about our adventures. They were checking every part of our story thoroughly. After some time I received a certificate confirming that I went through the investigation successfully.

After this investigation was over Zhenia and I got a short leave. We went to my parents in Kuibyshev where they were in evacuation since August 1941. I didn’t recognize my father and mother at the railway station in Kuibyshev so old they had grown. They spent eight months without having any information about me.

In October 1943 Zhenia and I got an assignment to the NKVD 21 authorities. I was sent to Kizil, in Perm region, to a camp for German, Romanian, Italian, Czech and Hungarian prisoners-of-war. I was appointed as chief of the sanitary unit. Zhenia was with me. We were responsible for their health condition, meals. It was so very hard to communicate with former enemies after all we saw at the front and in encirclement. We submitted reports that we were in encirclement and captivity and just couldn’t work with prisoners-of-war. It lasted half a year.

At the beginning of April 1944 we were sent to the Crimea: our sanitary unit and the entire management of the camp. We were to arrange camps for prisoners-of-war. Zhenia and I kept submitting our requests to be transferred to the frontline forces. In August 1944 we received an order from Moscow dismissing us from the NKVD. We were sent to the evacuation hospital in Odessa.

I called my parents when Zhenia and I received an assignment in the Crimea. We went from Simferopol to Odessa together with my parents. On the way my mother got typhoid all of a sudden. She was in a very poor condition when we arrived in Odessa. She was taken to the hospital and my father and I settled at our acquaintances, since our apartment was occupied by someone else. This happened at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I was staying with Mother every moment. My father kept praying.

My mother died in the night of 3rd October, on the third day of Sukkot. We buried Mother in a common cemetery since there were no burials allowed in the Jewish cemetery in 1944. My father, I, Zhenia and Munia’s friend were at the funeral. For seven days after my mother died my father sat shivah on the floor. He was desolate and never overcame this despair. He passed away in June 1945. My parents had lived together for over forty years. They had a difficult life. They were devoted to one another and loved my brother and me dearly.

After the war

The government issued a decree according to which those that were demobilized from the army had a right to get accommodation in the apartments from where they had gone to the front. The tenants of our apartment were a colonel, the Head of Stuff of the Navy, and his wife. The town administration found another apartment for them. Of course, it took me some time to obtain all necessary approvals but finally I moved into our apartment.

I worked at the evacuation hospital in the former Lermontov Recreation Center. There were Soviet officers and the American, French and English military. They got treatment in the hospital before they were sent back on ships to their countries. There were American, French and English missions to support these military. They brought them chocolate and cigarettes. Madam Churchill, the wife of the British Prime Minister, visited our hospital to talk with her compatriots. She was accompanied by a number of officials and representatives of the Soviet commandment. [Editor’s note: Clementine Churchill (1885-1977), the wife of Sir Winston Churchill, was Chairman of the Red Cross Aid to Russia Fund in 1941-1946. In 1945 she visited the Soviet Union.]

I met my future husband, David Teplitskiy, in the hospital. We got married in December 1945, and had our marriage registered at a civilian registry office. David was born in Kharkov in 1913. He was Jewish. His parents, Esiah and Revekka, were communists. His mother took part in the revolution of 1917. He finished Rabfak and entered the Industrial Institute at the Kharkov Tractor Plant. After finishing his fourth year at the Institute he fell ill; there was something wrong with his lungs. His parents sent him to Moscow where he had an aunt who was a party official. He was cured and stayed with his aunt.

David was a member of the Communist Party and in 1933 he was appointed to be the chairman of the collective farm 22 in Kolomna near Moscow. He was 20 years old then. Sometime afterward he returned to Kharkov to continue his studies and work at the Tractor Plant. Upon graduation from the institute he was sent to work as electrician at a construction site in the Crimea.

In 1936 he was recruited to the army. He finished a school of communications operators in the army and served in a communications unit. He went to the front from Batumi. He served at a rifle regiment and was the deputy political chief of the regiment. He was shell-shocked in Bulgaria in 1945. During this time David’s father died in evacuation in 1944 and his mother died in February 1946. David demobilized from the army in the rank of major in 1946. He was awarded orders and medals.

David became the chief power engineer at a wine trust in Odessa. He was the heart of any company and a very nice and smart man. All our friends and acquaintances loved him.

My friend Zhenia married a Jewish man from Riga in the 1950s. They lived in Latvia. Zhenia gave birth to a daughter. In the 1970s their family moved to Israel. Regretfully, our correspondence faded out gradually.

My brother Munia was at the front throughout the war. He was an artillery man. He was in Bulgaria when the war was over. He demobilized in the rank of captain in 1946 and returned to Odessa. He also settled down in this apartment. My brother became a plumbing engineer at a construction agency. He got married in 1954. His wife Raissa was a lung doctor. In 1958 his son Leonid was born. In 1965 he received an apartment and he and his family moved to Cheryomushki, a new neighborhood in the town. His son graduated from the Polytechnic Institute and he is an engineer.

In 1974 when Leonid was receiving his passport my brother changed his name from Haim to Michael for his son to have a more common patronymic. [Editor’s note: In the USSR state and everyday anti-Semitism re-emerged in 1953. The patronymic of Haimovich was a typical Jewish one and was associated with ‘Haim’ that was a central character of anti-Semitic anecdotes.] My brother died in 1993 and his wife died in 2000.

In 1946 the hospital where I worked was closed and I went to work in the orthopedic and traumatology department of the Lermontov Recreation Center as a surgeon. I studied therapy at a short-term course at the Institute of Resort Science. I became a physician in 1950 and went to work at the cardiologic recreation center that was later named Russia. I worked at the Russia Health Center from 1950 until the end of 1992, that is, 42 years, except for a few months during the period of the Doctors’ Plot 23 in 1952.

There were few very skilled Jewish doctors in Odessa’s department of health. The authorities decided to remove them from their high official positions and appointed them to work at our health center. Since there were no vacancies, our chief doctor, a Jew, decided to transfer me to the tuberculosis clinic. The reason was that I came to work later than any other employees.

According to the law they were supposed to offer me a job that was my specialization. However, I never worked in the field of tuberculosis and so I went to court. But I had to go to work before the court made a decision. I took up my new job, but in a few months I returned to my previous work.

The Doctors’ Plot stopped after Stalin died in 1953. I was grieving after Stalin. It was a tragedy for our family. Our country won the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II under the rule of Stalin. We didn’t know what the future was going to bring. Everyone we knew was in grief.

My daughter Reeda was born on 14th February 1947. My second daughter Lora was born on 6th November 1954. The girls were much loved. I did my best to make our home cozy and warm, like it was when my mother was alive. We celebrated all birthdays and holidays. We mainly celebrated the Soviet holidays. Our most cherished holiday was 9th May, Victory Day 24. On this occasion, for several years I went to Lozovaya station [Kharkov region] were veterans of our division, who liberated Lozovaya station in April 1942, got together. Pioneers of the local school found us and the authorities invited us to visit them.

At Pesach we always had matzah; we bought it at the synagogue in Peresyp [an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa]. Our children knew they were Jewish. We were teaching them to be honest, kind and hardworking. Our daughters studied in a Soviet school and had Jewish and Russian friends. There was no anti-Semitism in our surroundings and my daughters didn’t face any at school: Odessa has always been an international city.

Our family was well-to-do by Soviet standards: we had a four-room apartment in the center of the town, a TV set, a fridge and other electrical appliances. My girls and I were always beautifully dressed. In summer we had a rest at the Russia recreation center.

My older daughter Reeda entered a machine tool college after finishing the eighth grade at school in 1962. Upon graduation she worked at the design office of a radial unit plant. In a few years she entered an evening department of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Odessa University. There were already restrictions for Jews to enter higher educational institutions. [Editor’s note: Unlike in tsarist Russia there was no limited percentage of admission of Jews to higher educational institutions in the USSR, but in reality, beginning from the early 1950s, admission of Jews was significantly restricted and this limitation was authorized by the highest authorities].

At the university Reeda met her future husband, Leo Malin, a Jew. They both were still students when they got married. They registered their marriage at a civilian registration office. Reeda was 22. In October 1970 her son Alexandr or Sasha was born. In a month Alexandr was to have a surgery and my husband also fell ill. Reeda left the university in 1971. In 1978 she got rheumatic arthritis and had a few surgeries. Regretfully she became an invalid of grade I in 1985. My son-in-law, Leo Malin, graduated from the university in 1974 and worked as programmer.

My grandson Alexandr studied at the university and worked at the youth department of Sochnut. In 1992 Sochnut sent him to Israel for one month for excursion. Since graduation from university he works as a lawyer for a private company. He married a Jewish girl in 1993, now they are divorced. My great-grandson Mark Malin studies at the Jewish school in Odessa.

In 1970 my husband had a severe stroke: he was paralyzed. He lost his speaking ability and memory. He didn’t speak and couldn’t remember one word. But God saved him. I did all I could to return him to life. I taught him to speak and walk. Gradually he came back to normal life. He lived eleven years after that. In 1981 he needed to be operated on prostate adenoma. He passed away on the third day after the surgery. This happened on 14th February 1981. We buried David in the common cemetery near my parents.

My younger daughter Lora finished school in 1972. She was very successful at school and had all the highest grades, but she didn’t receive a medal due to her Jewish identity. Lora was very fond of biology at school. She read a lot and dreamed of studying at the Faculty of Biology of Odessa University. At her entrance exam in biology she was plucked openly although she had excellent knowledge of biology. Lora got a job as an attendant at the health center where I worked. In a year she entered the Polytechnic Institute in Kirovograd where it was easier for a Jew to be admitted. Later she got transferred to the Refrigeration Institute in Odessa and graduated in 1978.

Lora married Igor Derrish, a Jew. They had their marriage registered at a civilian registration office in 1978. Igor was an engineer at the refrigeration machines plant. They have a daughter, Valia, who was born in 1979. In 1985 her son Vadim was born. Lora worked as an engineer at the machine department of the technical sales department.

In 1990 Lora and her family moved to Israel. They live in Netanya. Lora works at the import department of the Delta film company. My granddaughter Valia served in the army and studies at the university in Tel Aviv. She will be a linguist. My grandson Vadim studies in the twelfth grade.

I visited them three times. Israel is a fabulous country – so beautiful, but I don’t want to live there. I hope for the best for this country. We follow all events in Israel. I am so scared of terrorist attacks. I am in fear for the life of my close ones. Lora sends me e-mails every day that they are doing all right there.

The Jewish organizations Sochnut and Joint 26 started restoration of the Jewish life in Odessa. I receive Jewish newspapers like Or Sameakh and Shomrei Shabos. The Jewish Charity Center Gmilus Hesed 27, established in 1992, has supported our family a lot – they care about people and always offer assistance. They provided a wheel chair and a special mattress to my daughter Reeda. Employees of Gmilus Hesed treat me with great respect and invite me to their events. I received a hearing device from them. I am an invalid of grade II of the Great Patriotic War; I have orders and medals: a medal for combat accomplishments, for encirclement and being wounded and an Order of the Great Patriotic War 28 of the second class.

After my parents died, I went to the synagogue at Yom Kippur, when they recite Izkor. [Izkor is the prayer of commemoration at Yom Kippur.] After the war, between 1945 and 1946, I went to the synagogue in Pushkinskaya Street. Later, when it was closed, I went to one in Peresyp. I go there every year and make a list of my deceased relatives – 15 of them were lost to the war. Now, once a year I go to the synagogue in Evreyskaya Street. I’ve never believed in God, but I’ve always lived according to Jewish traditions. I have wonderful daughters, sons-in-law and three beloved grandchildren. They remember that they are Jews and they know the history and traditions of their people.

Glossary

1 Annexation of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union

At the end of June 1940 the Soviet Union demanded Romania to withdraw its troops from Bessarabia and to abandon the territory. Romania withdrew its troops and administration in the same month and between 28th June and 3rd July, the Soviets occupied the region. At the same time Romania was obliged to give up Northern Transylvania to Hungary and Southern-Dobrudja to Bulgaria. These territorial losses influenced Romanian politics during World War II to a great extent.

2 Russian Revolution of 1917

Revolution in which the tsarist regime was overthrown in the Russian Empire and, under Lenin, was replaced by the Bolshevik rule. The two phases of the Revolution were: February Revolution, which came about due to food and fuel shortages during World War I, and during which the tsar abdicated and a provisional government took over. The second phase took place in the form of a coup led by Lenin in October/November (October Revolution) and saw the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

3 Annexation of Bessarabia to Romania

During the chaotic days of the Soviet Revolution the National Assembly of Moldavians convoked to Kishinev decided on 4th December 1917 the proclamation of an independent Moldavian state. In order to impede autonomous aspirations, Russia occupied the Moldavian capital in January 1918. Upon Moldavia's desperate request, the army of neighboring Romania entered Kishinev in the same month recapturing the city from the Bolsheviks. This was the decisive step toward the union with Romania (April 9, 1918).

4 Great Patriotic War

On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o'clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

5 Hitler's rise to power

In the German parliamentary elections in January 1933, the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) won one-third of the votes. On 30th January 1933 the German president swore in Adolf Hitler, the party's leader, as chancellor. On 27th February 1933 the building of the Reichstag (the parliament) in Berlin was burned down. The government laid the blame with the Bulgarian communists, and a show trial was staged. This served as the pretext for ushering in a state of emergency and holding a re-election. It was won by the NSDAP, which gained 44% of the votes, and following the cancellation of the communists' votes it commanded over half of the mandates. The new Reichstag passed an extraordinary resolution granting the government special legislative powers and waiving the constitution for 4 years. This enabled the implementation of a series of moves that laid the foundations of the totalitarian state: all parties other than the NSDAP were dissolved, key state offices were filled by party luminaries, and the political police and the apparatus of terror swiftly developed.

6 People’s volunteer corps

Local military formation during the Great Patriotic War, took part in defense of cities, included civil population of different ages.

7 Tolstoy, Lev Nikolayevich (1828-1910)

Russian novelist and moral philosopher, who holds an important place in his country's cultural history as an ethical philosopher and religious reformer. Tolstoy, alongside Dostoyevsky, made the realistic novel a literary genre, ranking in importance with classical Greek tragedy and Elizabethan drama. He is best known for his novels, including War and Peace, Anna Karenina and The Death of Ivan Ilyich, but also wrote short stories and essays and plays. Tolstoy took part in the Crimean War and his stories based on the defense of Sevastopol, known as Sevastopol Sketches, made him famous and opened St. Petersburg's literary circles to him. His main interest lay in working out his religious and philosophical ideas. He condemned capitalism and private property and was a fearless critic, which finally resulted in his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901. His views regarding the evil of private property gradually estranged him from his wife, Yasnaya Polyana, and children, except for his daughter Alexandra, and he finally left them in 1910. He died on his way to a monastery at the railway junction of Astapovo.

8 Civil War (1918-1920)

The Civil War between the Reds (the Bolsheviks) and the Whites (the anti-Bolsheviks), which broke out in early 1918, ravaged Russia until 1920. The Whites represented all shades of anti-communist groups - Russian army units from World War I, led by anti-Bolshevik officers, by anti-Bolshevik volunteers and some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. Several of their leaders favored setting up a military dictatorship, but few were outspoken tsarists. Atrocities were committed throughout the Civil War by both sides. The Civil War ended with Bolshevik military victory, thanks to the lack of cooperation among the various White commanders and to the reorganization of the Red forces after Trotsky became commissar for war. It was won, however, only at the price of immense sacrifice; by 1920 Russia was ruined and devastated. In 1920 industrial production was reduced to 14% and agriculture to 50% as compared to 1913.

9 Komsomol

Communist youth political organization created in 1918. The task of the Komsomol was to spread 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.

10 All-Union pioneer organization

A communist organization for teenagers between 10 and 15 years old (cf: boy-/ girlscouts in the US). The organization aimed at educating the young generation in accordance with the communist ideals, preparing pioneers to become members of the Komsomol and later the Communist Party. In the Soviet Union, all teenagers were pioneers.

11 Famine in Ukraine

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.

12 Torgsin stores

Special retail stores, which were established in larger Russian cities in the 1920s with the purpose of selling goods to foreigners. Torgsins sold commodities that were in short supply for hard currency or exchanged them for gold and jewelry, accepting old coins as well. The real aim of this economic experiment that lasted for two years was to swindle out all gold and valuables from the population for the industrial development of the country.

13 Rabfak

Rabfak is an abbreviation for 'Rabotnicheski Fakultet' meaning Workers' Faculty. They were much popular in the 1970s and 1980s. They were organized with the cooperation of the Bulgarian Communist Party and their main goal was to prepare specialists to enroll in universities. The people were mostly from industrial companies. The courses lasted a number of months and people did not go to work while they were studying. The people sent to such courses had a good professional background and were recommended by party representatives. In socialist times such workers' schools were organized throughout the entire Eastern Block. Modes of instruction included both evening and correspondence classes and all educational levels were served - from elementary school to higher education.

14 Mandatory job assignment in the USSR

Graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated. After finishing this assignment young people were allowed to get employment at their discretion in any town or organization.

15 Great Terror (1934-1938)

During the Great Terror, or Great Purges, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison. The major targets of the Great Terror were communists. Over half of the people who were arrested were members of the party at the time of their arrest. The armed forces, the Communist Party, and the government in general were purged of all allegedly dissident persons; the victims were generally sentenced to death or to long terms of hard labor. Much of the purge was carried out in secret, and only a few cases were tried in public 'show trials'. By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the Party and the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary. Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union until his death in March 1953.

16 Rehabilitation in the Soviet Union

Many people who had been arrested, disappeared or killed during the Stalinist era were rehabilitated after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, where Khrushchev publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted the veil of secrecy from what had happened in the USSR during Stalin's leadership. It was only after the official rehabilitation that people learnt for the first time what had happened to their relatives as information on arrested people had not been disclosed before.

17 Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich (1895-1939)

Political activist, State Security General Commissar (1937), Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR from 1936-38. Arrested and shot in 1939. One of the leaders of mass arrests during Stalin's Great Purge between 1936-1939.

18 Jewish Pale of Settlement

Certain provinces in the Russian Empire were designated for permanent Jewish residence and the Jewish population was only allowed to live in these areas. The Pale was first established by a decree by Catherine II in 1791. The regulation was in force until the Russian Revolution of 1917, although the limits of the Pale were modified several times. The Pale stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and 94% of the total Jewish population of Russia, almost 5 million people, lived there. The overwhelming majority of the Jews lived in the towns and shtetls of the Pale. Certain privileged groups of Jews, such as certain merchants, university graduates and craftsmen working in certain branches, were granted to live outside the borders of the Pale of Settlement permanently.

19 Five percent quota

In tsarist Russia the number of Jews in higher educational institutions could not exceed 5% of the total number of students.

20 Stalingrad Battle

17th July 1942 - 2nd February 1943. The South-Western and Don Fronts stopped the advance of German armies in the vicinity of Stalingrad. On 19th and 20th November 1942 the Soviet troops undertook an offensive and encircled 22 German divisions (330,000 people) and eliminated them. On 31st January 1943 the remains of the 6th German army headed by General Field Marshal Paulus surrendered (91,000 people). The victory in the Stalingrad battle was of huge political, strategic and international significance.

21 NKVD

(Russ.: Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del), People's Committee of Internal Affairs, the supreme security authority in the USSR - the secret police. Founded by Lenin in 1917, it nevertheless played an insignificant role until 1934, when it took over the GPU (the State Political Administration), the political police. The NKVD had its own police and military formations, and also possessed the powers to pass sentence on political matters, and as such in practice had total control over society. Under Stalin's rule the NKVD was the key instrument used to terrorize the civilian population. The NKVD ran a network of labor camps for millions of prisoners, the Gulag. The heads of the NKVD were as follows: Genrikh Yagoda (to 1936), Nikolai Yezhov (to 1938) and Lavrenti Beria. During the war against Germany the political police, the KGB, was spun off from the NKVD. After the war it also operated on USSR-occupied territories, including in Poland, where it assisted the nascent communist authorities in suppressing opposition. In 1946 the NKVD was renamed the Ministry of the Interior.

22 Collective farm (in Russian kolkhoz)

In the Soviet Union the policy of gradual and voluntary collectivization of agriculture was adopted in 1927 to encourage food production while freeing labor and capital for industrial development. In 1929, with only 4% of farms in kolkhozes, Stalin ordered the confiscation of peasants' land, tools, and animals; the kolkhoz replaced the family farm.

23 Doctors’ Plot

The Doctors' Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin's reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

24 Victory Day in Russia (9th May)

National holiday to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II and honor the Soviets who died in the war.

25 Sochnut (Jewish Agency)

International NGO founded in 1929 with the aim of assisting and encouraging Jews throughout the world with the development and settlement of Israel. It played the main role in the relations between Palestine, then under British Mandate, the world Jewry and the Mandatory and other powers. In May 1948 the Sochnut relinquished many of its functions to the newly established government of Israel, but continued to be responsible for immigration, settlement, youth work, and other activities financed by voluntary Jewish contributions from abroad. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, the Sochnut has facilitated the aliyah and absorption in Israel for over one million new immigrants.

26 Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee)

The Joint was formed in 1914 with the fusion of three American Jewish committees of assistance, which were alarmed by the suffering of Jews during World War I. In late 1944, the Joint entered Europe's liberated areas and organized a massive relief operation. It provided food for Jewish survivors all over Europe, it supplied clothing, books and school supplies for children. It supported cultural amenities and brought religious supplies for the Jewish communities. The Joint also operated DP camps, in which it organized retraining programs to help people learn trades that would enable them to earn a living, while its cultural and religious activities helped re-establish Jewish life. The Joint was also closely involved in helping Jews to emigrate from Europe and from Muslim countries. The Joint was expelled from East Central Europe for decades during the Cold War and it has only come back to many of these countries after the fall of communism. Today the Joint provides social welfare programs for elderly Holocaust survivors and encourages Jewish renewal and communal development.

27 Hesed

Meaning care and mercy in Hebrew, Hesed stands for the charity organization founded by Amos Avgar in the early 20th century. Supported by Claims Conference and Joint Hesed helps for Jews in need to have a decent life despite hard economic conditions and encourages development of their self-identity. Hesed provides a number of services aimed at supporting the needs of all, and particularly elderly members of the society. The major social services include: work in the center facilities (information, advertisement of the center activities, foreign ties and free lease of medical equipment); services at homes (care and help at home, food products delivery, delivery of hot meals, minor repairs); work in the community (clubs, meals together, day-time polyclinic, medical and legal consultations); service for volunteers (training programs). The Hesed centers have inspired a real revolution in the Jewish life in the FSU countries. People have seen and sensed the rebirth of the Jewish traditions of humanism. Currently over eighty Hesed centers exist in the FSU countries. Their activities cover the Jewish population of over eight hundred settlements.

28 Order of the Great Patriotic War

1st Class: established 20th May 1942, awarded to officers and enlisted men of the armed forces and security troops and to partisans, irrespective of rank, for skillful command of their units in action. 2nd Class: established 20th May 1942, awarded to officers and enlisted men of the armed forces and security troops and to partisans, irrespective of rank, for lesser personal valor in action.

Israel Gliazer

Israel Gliazer
Ternopol
Ukraine
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: June 2003

Israel Gliazer is a short elderly man with thick gray hair and shrewd dark eyes. Regretfully, Israel’s memory occasionally fails him. He cannot remember the names of his close people. He felt excited during our meeting since this was the first time that he got an opportunity to speak about his life with every details. Israel lives in a small two-room apartment with his wife. There is plain old furniture of 1960s in his apartment. There are photographs of his relatives and children on bookshelves. He has free meals at the Hesed diner every day. He talks there with other old Jews. On Saturday Israel teaches Yiddish in the local community and sometimes he joins them on Sabbath. His wife has to stay at home due to her health condition and Israel tries to spend as much time with her as possible. Sometimes their neighbors and acquaintances come to see them. Their sons visit them often.

My family background

Growing up

Before the war

During the war

After the war

Recent years

Glossary

My family background

I come from Western Ukraine. This land belonged to Austro-Hungary before World War I, later it belonged to Poland, in 1939 it became a part of the USSR and at present it is a Ukrainian terrain. My mother’s mother whose name I don’t remember and her father Gershl Leviter were born in a small town called Skalat, Ternopol district, in the middle of 19th century. My grandmother had died before I was born. My grandfather worked at the mill owned by some wealthy Jew. He was religious. Like all Jews of his time he wore a kippah and had beard. He went to synagogue on Saturdays and holidays. My grandparents observed traditions and holidays. My grandfather lived a long life. He died in late 1939.

My mother's family was a middle class family. My grandparents had a house in Skalat where only my mother’s older sister and her family stayed to live with their parents. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the names of my mother’s brothers or sisters. All I know is that their two older brothers had some argument with their father and moved to America shortly after World War I. There was no contact with them afterward. One of my mother’s older sisters, her husband and their children lived in Zborov town, near Skalat. They perished in the ghetto in Skalat when fascists exterminated the remaining Jews in early 1944 before Soviet troops came to liberate the area. Only their younger daughter Etka survived by some miracle. She moved to Israel after World War II. She got married and lived a long life. There was another sister living in Skalat with her family. They also perished in the ghetto. Only Velvel one of her children survived. He had finished the Faculty of Judaism in Warsaw University before the World War II. During the war he was in the Soviet army and after the war he left for Israel where he worked as director of school for many years. Velvel died in 2001.

My mother Pesia Leviter was born in Skalat in 1886, she was the youngest daughter in the family. At her time Jewish girls got their education at home. My mother and her sisters had a visiting teacher. They got religious education and were taught to read and write in Yiddish. They learned housekeeping, cooking and Jewish traditions and holidays. My mother and her sisters were raised religious. My mother’s marriage was prearranged by a matchmaker that was also customary in Jewish families. After my mother got married she moved to Pogdaytsy near Skalat where her husband Iosif Gliazer came from.

My father’s family came from Pogdaytsy. I also grew up in this town. It’s a picturesque town in the Carpathian foothills. Its population at the beginning of 19th century was under 15 thousand people, and 6 thousand of them were Jews. There was also Polish and Ukrainian population. There was a German colony1 near Pogdaytsy - Benkensdorf. On Sunday there was a market in the central square. Food products from the German village were the most expensive and popular since Germans were very clean and accurate. There were two-storied stone houses, a catholic church and a big and beautiful synagogue in the center of the town. In my childhood I used to listen to a cantor in the synagogue. There was an old Jewish cemetery with engravings in Hebrew on gravestones. Besides the central synagogue there were few smaller synagogues that belonged to craftsmen guilds and there were also Hasidic2 synagogues and prayer houses. There were Gusyatin [by the name of the town from where their tzaddik came from] and Chertkov Hasidim [by the name of the town from where their tzaddik came from]. My paternal grandfather Menachem Mahnes Gliazer and his big family belonged to Gusyatin Hasidim. My grandfather was a craftsman, and was a very religious Hasid. He raised his children to profess Hasidism.3 My grandfather Menachem and grandmother, whose name I don’t remember, died before World War I. They had many children. Some of them died in infantry, and I don’t know their names.

My father’s older brother Shymon Gliazer, born in 1870, was a craftsman. Shymon died before World War I, shortly after my grandfather died. I don’t know the name of his wife or children. All I know is that his younger daughter Sarra, born shortly before he died, survived World War II. After the war she moved to Wroclaw, Poland. Sarra died in the middle of 1960s. Her son Moishe lives in Sweden now. My father’s brother Yakov, Yankel in the Jewish manner, born in 1872, became a wealthy man before World War I. He owned the biggest garment store in Pogdaytsy. The wealthiest families were his clients. Yankel, his wife and children, whose names I don’t remember, perished in the ghetto in Pogdaytsy during the Great Patriotic War. My father’s older sister Sarra and her husband also perished in the ghetto in Pogdaytsy. Her older son Moishe served in the Polish army. He escaped to the Soviet army before Nazi troops came to Poland. Moishe was at the front. He perished in 1943. My father had another brother whose name I don’t remember. He had died before I was born. I know that his son Fishel Gliazer, who was a member of the Communist Party of western Ukraine, served in the Soviet army and was at the front. He later joined the polish army where he was deputy political commanding officer. After World War II Fishel and his family lived in Warsaw and held high official posts in the Party leadership. He was wounded during the Great Patriotic War. These wounds caused his untimely death. His children are chemists. They live and work in Stockholm, Sweden. All children of my grandparents got religious education. The boys finished cheder and the girls studied at home with melamed teachers. I don’t know whether my father’s brothers and sisters were religious when they grew up, but I believe they observed Jewish traditions that they were taught when they were children.

My father Iosif Gliazer was the youngest in the family, he was born in 1880. He studied in cheder few years like all other boys in Hasidic families. Later he became a high skilled glasscutter. He owned a small crockery and household store and small glass cutting shop in the center of the town.

My parents got married in 1906. In 1907 my sister Etl was born. We called her Etka in the family. Moishe was born in 1909 and Velvel followed him in 1912. In 1914 World War I began and our father was recruited to the Austro-Hungarian army. My mother and the children moved to some distant relatives in Czechia, [editor’s note: by that time that territory was called Galicia], to escape from the war. Regretfully, I don’t remember the name of the town where they lived. Our father returned from the front in January 1919 and our family returned home in Pogdaytsy. I, the youngest son, was born on 3 November 1919 in Pogdaytsy. The youngest of children in our family was Sarra, born in 1922.

Growing up

Our family lived in a small stone house in the center of the town. There were 3 rooms and a kitchen in the house. There was a tiled stove in each room and in the kitchen. We actually had all we needed. At times we had to mortgage our house and move into a smaller one, but then we managed to pay our debts and move back. Whatever the times we always had a fresh challah bread at Sabbath and our mother made delicious dinner of beef and chicken meat stew and gefilte fish when things were better, or something different when she couldn’t afford fish. On Friday afternoon my mother and older sister were in the midst of preparations to Sabbath: they cleaned and washed floors, covered the table with a starched white tablecloth and cooked food to last two days: Friday and Saturday. On Friday evening my father closed his store and shop. We washed ourselves clean, put on our fancy clothes and sat down to dinner. Our mother prayed over candles and our father said a blessing to Holy Saturday, children and food and we started a meal. On Saturday our parents went to synagogue and one of the children carried their book of prayers. When it was my turn I carried it for them. After the service in the synagogue, our parents invited a poor person who could not afford to observe Sabbath – this was a custom that we always observed. My mother and father observed all Jewish traditions, observed kashrut strictly. My father wore a kippah at home and put on a wide-brimmed hat to go out. My mother always wore a dark wig becoming to her dark eyes. My parents were very strict about their religious life since they were Hasidim. They went to the Hasidic synagogue near our house on weekdays and on holidays they went to the central synagogue and I joined them to go there.

I have the best memories about observing Pesach. We had new clothes bought for us before the holiday and felt good about it. There was a bakery where they baked matzah and we used to spend hours watching them make matzah for our family. We thoroughly cleaned up the house before the holiday removing chametz. Nobody did any work through 8 days of the holiday. My father and older brothers were at home and played with younger children. It was a lot of fun since we didn’t spend this much time together when father had to go to work. We also visited friends and relatives and had guests at home. We didn’t eat any bread through 8 days of the holiday – there was not a piece of bread in the house. There was flour made from matzah used for baking strudels with jam and nuts and very delicious cookies. We kept kosher crockery in the attic and took it out at Pesach. There was a dish with Haggadah food: an egg, potato and bitter greeneries. I also remember this holiday since I posed four traditional questions during the first seder to my father who comfortably sat on pillows at the head of the table. Those were questions about the history of this holiday and our father told us about Exodus of Jews from Egypt.

We fasted at Rosh Hashanah. [Editor’s note: He means Yom Kippur] children fasted from the age of 5. [Ed. n.: Usually children start fasting from the age of 9, but for a shorter period as adults, until they turn 13.] We also observed Purim. There were costumed performances at Purim. Performers sang and told jokes and it was fun and laughter. Mother baked delicious pastries that we gave to friends, neighbors or even strangers. At Chanukkah we had a party with guests that gave us some change and our parents gave some money to their children.

The boys in our family went to cheder. We studied Jewish basics: we began with Hebrew alphabet and studied the language to be able to read prayers. Later we studied Torah and Talmud. There were no fixed terms of the course of studies in cheder. Usually children from poor families studied longer since this was their only chance to get some education. Children from middle class or richer families ignored cheder, when they went to a grammar school or other educational institution. My older brother Moishe didn’t continue his studies after the cheder since he had to start helping our parents to support the family. Moishe finished an accounting course and worked in our father’s store. There were no other employees working for my father. Velvel had a chance to go to a grammar school where he studied 5 or 6 years. He had to quit after he had had an argument with the director. He became an apprentice typesetter in a printing house and after finishing his training he began to work as a typesetter. 

I was a spoiled boy being the youngest in the family. I had my whims: one time I wanted to have better clothes than we could afford or toys that children from wealthier families had. I didn’t understand that one had to work hard to earn one’s living. I went to cheder at the age of 5 and I studied two years. Then I went to a state lower secondary school. There was no Jewish school in Pogdaytsy. There were Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish children in our school. There wasn’t any national segregation in those years. The word ‘zhyd’ was definition of nationality in the dialect of our area while in the USSR it was an abusive term. We studied Polish and Ukrainian literature and language. We studied Ukrainian classics Taras Shevchenko4 and Lesia Ukrainka5 and Polish classics Adam Mickiewicz6 and others. Children attended religious classes according to their faith. Jewish children were in class of rabbi Levental. He was a very intelligent man known in the area. I remember his friend visiting him, who was the head of Catholic diocese. He spent few days with his friend rabbi Levental in Pogdaytsy. This was a blessed period of time when representatives of all nations lived in peaceful consensus. During the Great Patriotic War rabbi Levental perished in the ghetto in Pogdaytsy.

I enjoy recalling the years of my youth. When I turned 13 I had a bar mitzvah ritual. Long time before my coming of age my parents bought me a tefillin and taught me to wind it on my right hand and head, but of course, I did it after I had bar mitzvah ritual. During bar mitzvah I recited prayers in Hebrew. There was a party at home. My mother and sisters cooked delicious food and we invited friends and relatives. They gave me presents, greeted me and wished happiness. After I came of age [13 years old] I began to attend the synagogue with my parents regularly. I went there every Saturday, put on my tallit and tefillin and prayed with other men. Of course, I wasn’t a deep believer like my parents, but I tried to be loyal to hem and attended the synagogue as required. I finished school in 1933 went to work at the printing house where Velvel was working.

Before the war

There was some confusion in our family at that period. The situation in the country was uncertain as well. There was a number of Zionist organizations, and there was also a socialist and a communist party in Poland. [In 1921 the Soviets and the Poles signed a peace treaty, which gave Poland substantial territories in the east that were mainly populated by Ukrainians and Belorussians. The internal political situation in Poland was not very stable]. In 1927 my sister Etka was attracted by Zionist ideas of establishment of an independent Jewish state and moved to Palestine with a friend of hers where she took part in the establishment of kibbutzim. Our parents respected her decision. She married Shmuel Gorin in Israel and they had two children: son Shmuel and daughter Nargisa. She sent us greetings on Soviet and Jewish holidays. Other members of the family didn’t share her enthusiasm. We were having a good life here and had no intentions to look for any different life. 

My older brothers Moishe and Velvel became fond of communist ideas and joined the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, forbidden in Poland [the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, formed in Lvov in 1920s spread its activities to the areas populated by Ukrainians in Poland. Their goal was reunification of the Ukrainian people, unification of Ukraine and annexation of the Western Ukrainian territories to the USSR. This Party merged with the Communist Party of the USSR in 1939. Many of its activists were arrested]. My father was trying to convince his sons to resume their faith and turn to Hasidism that was more important than any political tendencies to my father. He even consulted the rabbi about his disobedient sons. However, Velvel and Moishe didn’t listen to our father. Velvel printed illegal communist flyers in the printing house that they spread. Velvel and Moishe were arrested and imprisoned in a political prison in Drogobych. In 1934 Moishe was granted amnesty, but Velvel had to sere his longer sentence. We have a photo where Moishe was photographed with other political prisoners released from the prison in Drogobych. There were representatives of different parties even hostile to one another in this photo: communist party of Western Ukraine, socialist party and even Ukrainian Nationalistic Party – there is a brother of Stepan Bandera7, Ukrainian national patriot, communist party of Poland. At present Bandera is an acknowledged national hero and patriot of Ukraine. He lived in Drogobych. This area belonged to Poland before 1939. Bandera struggled for the independence of Ukraine and reunification of the Ukrainian people.

I joined the Zionist organization of young Jewish people Hashomer Hatzair, that means a ‘young guard’. It was a left-wing social democratic direction preparing Jewish young people to life in the Jewish state and its protection from enemies. It was something like a scout organization: we did physical training, wore uniforms and ties and learned contemporary weapons. However, our organization did not call us to armed struggle for the establishment of a Jewish state that was different from followers of Zhabotinskiy8. We didn’t have armed struggle in our plans. Each organization had a club where young people had classes and observed Jewish holidays. I remember Purim in 1934 when my sister Sarra and I attended a celebration in our club wearing our costumes.

However, peaceful life was not long. Hitler came to power in Germany and we were aware of his attitude toward Jews. In 1938 followers of fascists made their appearance in German neighborhoods, in Poland. The idea of Fascism had many followers and reached our town gradually. There were fights between the various national groups, Polish and Ukrainian, at times they united to fight with Jews: their idea was that Jews were to blame for all their troubles. Once we were also attacked by a group of Polish teenagers when we were coming out of our club, but there was no dramatic outcome that time, it was just one of these fightings and cursing. Mass media published anti-Semitic articles with illustrations: a Jew in black clothes and hat, with a beard, payes and huge nose throttling a farmer or worker, indicating that Jews were to blame for all hardships of life. We laughed at it having no idea that it would result in genocide and extermination of Jews. Well, even though we underestimated fascism, none of my friends or surrounding wanted to live in a fascist country. For this reason we had hopes for the Soviet Union that condemned fascism strongly and sympathized with Spanish people in their struggle against fascism, [during the Civil War in Spain]9. We were shocked to hear about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact10. We thought it was a deal with fascists. When Hitler attacked Poland we decided to cross the border of the USSR. Actually, this was the only choice for my friends and me. If we had stayed we would have been captured by fascists. Few of my friends were recruited to the Polish army. Few of my other friends and I decided to start moving to the east.

There were 6-8 of us. When we reached Grimaylov town we heard that Soviet troops were moving to the Polish rescue. We joined a Polish garrison in Grimaylov, Skalat district and decided to wait for Soviet troops. We stayed in a basement overnight. We had cold weapons and two guns. We were concerned about our encounter with Soviet troops. What if they thought we were spies and didn’t believe that we sincerely wanted to join them? We left the basement in the morning. A polish officer roe his horse to the central square and announced that the Polish garrison was leaving and Soviet troops were coming to the town. The officer also warned citizens against theft and marauding and left the square. An hour or two later Soviet tanks drove into the town. Jews and Ukrainians came out to greet Soviet troops while Polish residents stayed in their houses. I stayed in Grimaylov for few days and then got a drive back to my hometown.

There was already Soviet power in Pogdaytsy. They nationalized11 small stores and shops, including my father’s store. Soviet authorities had them removed and installed a monument to Lenin12 in the central square. My father managed to take home the remaining goods, tools and materials. He sold out the goods and continued to take orders from clients at home. Moishe assisted him as before. He married Rivke, a Jewish girl, in 1937. Since Moishe was a member of the Communist party he didn’t want a Jewish wedding, but our father and his fiancée’s parents insisted and they had a traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah at the synagogue. In 1938 their son was born. Velvel was also married. I don’t remember the names of his wife, daughter or son. When the soviet power was established Velvel became chief of the military commissariat in Pogdaytsy. I worked in the nationalized printing house. It formerly belonged to Mainlis, a wealthy Jewish widow. In early 1940 I was recruited to the Soviet army.

Since I had a lower secondary education my commandment sent me to the communications school for junior commandment at an air force division in Primorskiy region in the Far East, 7,000 km from home. At the beginning I was having a hard time since I didn’t know Russian. Officers and soldiers had a friendly attitude and helped me a lot. I studied the language and technical subjects simultaneously. My commandment wanted to send me to an officer’s school, but changed his mind due to my poor Russian.

During the war

In May 1941 after finishing my school I was assigned to service in the military aerodrome in Primorye, near where our school was. I often received letters from home. My mother was missing me. She begged me to try to get a transfer to Kiev, but I was too shy to ask them. It turned out to be better for me since when the Great Patriotic War13 began I was far from home. We heard about the war in the evening of 22 June 1941 after dinner. We usually marched to our barrack singing march songs, but this time our officers didn’t give us an order to sing. It seemed strange to us. We were told to get together in the conference hall where we heard about perfidious attack of Germany. This was 12 o’clock Moscow time. [Editor’s note: the time difference between Moscow and the Far East is 9 hours.] We heard the Molotov speech14.

Radio operators didn’t get sufficient training. A group of us was sent to take a course of advanced training in Irkutsk. From there groups of radio operators were sent to the front. There was panic and confusion on the first days of the war. There was a lot of injustice. I heard that officers shot radio operators that failed to ensure communication with combat squadrons or planes accusing them of sabotage. My fellow comrades even told a sad joke that at the beginning of the war more radio operators perished than infantrymen. We needed better training provisions to improve communications and there was a special school of radio operators organized. I was selected to work as a training instructor in this school. I don’t know the exact location of this school. It took us less than 24 hours to drive there. I trained radio operators in this school until late 1942. Every 4 months we sent another group of newly trained radio operators to the front. 

In our military unit we lived in barracks, 4 tenants in a cabin, with a shower and toilet facility on a floor for 30 tenants, but there was always hot water and there was heating. My other 3 tenants were Russian officers. I got along well with them. Before 1942 we received more or less sufficient food, but then it got worse. In spring 1942 we only got some kind of soup with just one spoon of cereal with goosefoot or dandelion herbs. Cadets got swollen from hunger. In spring 1942 we even failed to form a unit to send it to the front since our cadets couldn’t move from hunger and exhaustion. Medical commission selected the most exhausted cadets and sent them to a camp where they got better food. I wanted to be included in that group, but I probably didn’t look that bad. In late 1942 I was assigned to be chief of radio station in an aerodrome in the rear of the 4th Ukrainian Front. Our unit was based near Kherson and Nikolaev in the south of Ukraine. We were following our troops advancing to the west. We lodged in barracks or dugout huts in the woods. We got along well and supported each other. We got sufficient food especially that every day our fellow comrades perished and we shared their food. Every day we received 100 grams of alcohol and we drank them in commemoration of those that perished. Our fellow comrades perished during their combat flights or during frequent air raids. In late 1943 some female radio operators arrived at our unit. I must say we cared about them. I cannot remember that they got hurt. Even if such things happened the girls’ fellow comrades taught abusers how to behave.

I joined Komsomol15 in the army and prepared my application to the Party for submittal. However, they didn’t admit my application since I was an ‘untrustworthy element’ from the point of view of my commandment. It was a standard attitude to residents of the areas that were recently annexed to the USSR. Several times my fellow comrades submitted requests for my promotion, but again they refused for this same reason.

My fellow comrades were of different nationalities. We got along very well. Nobody cared about nationality issues. People were valued for their human merits. There were demonstrations of open anti-Semitism, however. There was a Jewish pilot in our military unit. He was a brave warrior awarded with medals and orders. Once an officer from another train abused him at a railway station. He called him ‘zhyd’ and said that he had bought medals and orders. They began fighting. Our guys came to his defense and another party also fought on the offender’s side. Chief of the station had to give a signal for the trains to move before time to stop this fight. I had a friend, commander of a radio operator platoon. He was Loginov, a Russian officer. We shared one earth house for almost a year when he said once that the only merit of Hitler was extermination of Jews. Then I told him that I was a Jew. He was stunned and said ‘I can’t believe it. But you are a decent man!’ I don’t think he changed his attitude towards Jews after our conversation, but he agreed that they [Jews] had done no harm to him. He didn’t even meet many of them in his provincial town. How did he come to saying so? I don’t have the slightest idea. It was a hard moment for me. We were friends no longer, but I had to deal with Loginov in service.

I felt particularly bitter to hear this kind of things since I’d already heard about brutalities of fascists on occupied territories. I didn’t have any information about my family. I didn’t lose hope, but I understood that the worst things could happen to them. At the end of the war in spring 1945 our regiment was relocated to the vicinity of Vladivostok in the Far East. When military action against Japan16 began our unit within the structure of a division was relocated to the Korean port of Chongjin. A Japanese military school and two divisions were in defense of the town. Shortly after we occupied the port Japan capitulated. I was assigned to headquarters of 25th army in Pyongyang. I issued an army newspaper Krasnoye Znamia (Red banner) there. They were trying to convince me to take up a military career, but I refused.

Firstly, when I was in Vladivostok in 1945 I met a girl of my age. Her name was Ludmila Orlova. I fell in love with her. She came from a Russian family in Tambov. After finishing Moscow Pedagogical College she got a mandatory job assignment17 and went to work as a Russian teacher in Vladivostok. Ludmila was pregnant. I wasn’t quite ready to live my life with her, but I understood that I had to marry her. Besides, I was eager to go home and find out what happened to my family. In late 1946 our son Yuri was born in Vladivostok and shortly afterward I was demobilized. We went to Tambov where we got married. We had a civil ceremony and stayed few weeks with Ludmila’s parents. Her parents were religious and belonged to the sect of molokans18. They were very decent people. They welcomed me and invited us to stay and live in Tambov, but of course, I couldn't wait to go back to Western Ukraine. I left for Pogdaytsy and my wife and child stayed there hoping that I would come back or find a job and come back to take them to our new home.  

After the war

I heard the horrific truth there – my family perished. My parents and sister moved to Skalat at the beginning of occupation. They were in the ghetto in Skalat with my mother’s sisters and they all perished when fascists eliminated the ghetto in the end. My brother Velvel’s family perished in Pogdaytsy. Velvel perished at the front in 1944. Only Moishe, my older brother, who was in the Soviet army survived. Moishe was wounded at the beginning of the war. He had to take medical treatment in a hospital and after the hospital he worked at a plant in Sverdlovsk. He found his wife Rivka in Ural, where she was in evacuation. Their son had died in a train during their trip. There was a short period after the war when residents of western regions were allowed to move to Poland. Moishe and Rivka moved to Wroclaw and then to Warsaw in Poland. I visited them several times in the 1950s. Moishe worked in the Polish Ministry of Finance, he was a clerk, but I am not sure about this. Moishe was an invalid of the war. He was severely ill and died in the late 1960s. His son lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

I couldn’t bear the pain of losing my family. I decided to stay and live near their graves the rest of my life. Our house in Pogdaytsy was ruined. I went to work at the printing house. My wife and son joined me soon. Our second son Vladimir was born in 1948. I named him in honor of my brother Velvel. My wife became a teacher of the Russian language and literature. There was a need in polygraphic specialists and I even got a job offer from Kiev, but our regional leadership didn’t want to let me go. They promised to give us an apartment and promotion, well, as they say, they were promising the moon and the earth. Finally we received an apartment in Pogdaytsy. I was deputy director of the printing house. Actually, only a member of the Party was supposed to hold this position. I submitted my application again. I had had a candidateship of over four years when only one was required. Mine was so long since I openly kept in touch with my sister Etka from Israel.

In 1948 I was enthusiastic about establishment of the Jewish state. I liked Israel, but I never wanted to leave the place where my family perished. I never considered moving to Israel. I corresponded with my sister Etka, even when correspondence was not allowed in 1940s–1970s, I received mail from her via Poland and Czechoslovakia, she sent her letters to the brother living in Warsaw, and my brother re-sent them to me. Poland was a socialist country and correspondence was allowed. (I visited Etka in 1999. She died two years later.)

Finally I joined the Party in 1950. Then I was appointed director of printing house in Chertkov near Pogdaytsy. After the war the attitude toward Jews changed. There was routinely and state-level anti-Semitism. Relatives of Jews shot in Pogdaytsy installed a monument in Pogdaytsy. Some barbarians pulled it down a week later. (There is a new monument installed in the 1990s in Pogdaytsy in honor of the Jews that perished during the war. It was funded by Jews from the USA, Israel and Germany. Many guests came to the opening ceremony.)

I also faced anti-Semitism. I was hardworking and had excellent organizational skills. People said about me that I could bring to success any failing business. It was true. I took up a lag of a printing house in Chertkov and within two years of my directorship we receive an award of all-Union Red banner: the highest industrial award in the USSR. I was offered to become director of a failing printing house in Ternopol. For this position I had to obtain approval of head of propaganda department of the regional party committee whose last name was Bobrichev. The man who was to introduce me to him, went into his office and I stayed in the hallway. Few minutes later I heard Bobrichev say loudly ‘Is there nobody else, but a zhyd that you can suggest?’ I didn’t stay a minute longer. I know that Shelekhov, who came to introduce me to the party leadership, was trying to explain that I was the best, etc., but I went back to the hotel and took a morning bus to Chertkov. 

This happened in the very height of struggle against cosmopolitism19 and Doctors’ Plot20. I remember a leading regional official telling a story that he saw some Jews getting to the water pipeline to blast it. It was impossible to believe it, but many people did. There were many provocative statements like this. I always believed in the ideas of communism and never doubted that a communist state had to follow communist principles, but I never worshipped Stalin blindly. I saw much injustice at the front and after the war and I had never doubted that the leader of the country was to blame for this. Even criminal thoughts occurred to me at times that Stalin was living too long. I took his death in 1953 with hopes for something better. Denunciation of the cult of Stalin in 1956 at 20th Congress of the Communist Party21 gave more hopes that real communists finally came to power. Unfortunately these hopes did not come true and our country and we went on this bitter way of hopes and disappointments.

Recent years

In 1962 I finished extramural department of the Ukrainian Polygraphic College. I got a profession of production engineer. In the early 1970s I accepted a job offer from Ternopol after Bobrichev had resigned. I received an apartment, my wife went to work at school and our children studied at the same school. I was chief of department of printing issues at the regional printing agency and later I became director of a failing printing house. It became one of the best, as usual, when I took up business.

My sons adopted their mother’s nationality when they were obtaining their passports, but I think they are close to Jewish spirits and ways. They have a typical Jewish surname of Gliazer. For this reason they faced anti-Semitism when they were entering higher educational institutions or getting employment. Our older son Yuri finished school with all excellent marks, but he failed to enter Kharkov Aviation College. They told him directly that they had filled up the Jewish quota and there was no place for him. He finished the Radio Electronics College in Kharkov and became a high skilled specialist. He has a Russian wife named Alexandra. They live in Krivoy Rog. His older daughter Tatiana, born in 1970, finished Moscow Engineering Physics College. She lives and works in Moscow. His younger daughter Oksana is a medical equipment expert. She finished Ternopol Medical College and lives in Ternopol. My younger son followed into his older brother’s steps. He finished the same college. He lives and works in Ternopol. His daughter Alyona is a candidate of technical sciences. 

My wife and I lived a good life. We raised our children together, traveled to resorts and hardly ever separated. We worked a lot and could manage very well. We invited guests and friends on birthdays and Soviet holidays, sang songs, listened to music and talked about life. We didn’t observe any religious traditions or holidays. In 1990 Ludmila fell ill and died of cancer. Her sister Nadezhda, who was single, had lived with us since the late 1980s. After her parents died in Tambov she moved in with us and we became a family. Nadezhda is a very nice person. She has always supported us and helped our children and grandchildren. We decided to get married and live the rest of our life together.

I retired few years ago. I was enthusiastic about perestroika22. We got an opportunity to travel to other countries and get to know the truth about our country and that horrible regime that we lived our life with, but perestroika made the life of pensioners very hard. We’ve lost our savings and we receive such small pensions that we can hardly pay for our lodging. I think people had many hopes for perestroika, but nothing happened to improve our life. I am glad that the country is moving toward democracy and nations have got an opportunity to develop their cultures. There is Hesed in Ternopol. It provides assistance to older Jews. My sons also support me. I am a member of the community. I teach Yiddish in the club and conduct celebration of Sabbath in the way my father did it. There is nothing for me to learn. I acquired it with my mother’s milk and remember well what I am supposed to know. I haven’t become religious. We do not observe traditions at home, but I am glad that we haven’t forgotten what our fathers and grandfathers bequeathed to us.

GLOSSARY:

1 German colonists: Ancestors of German peasants, who were invited by Empress Catherine II in the 18th century to settle in Russia.

2Hasid: The follower of the Hasidic movement, a Jewish mystic movement founded in the 18th century that reacted against Talmudic learning and maintained that God’s presence was in all of one’s surroundings and that one should serve God in one’s every deed and word. The movement provided spiritual hope and uplifted the common people. There were large branches of Hasidic movements and schools throughout Eastern Europe before World War II, each following the teachings of famous scholars and thinkers. Most had their own customs, rituals and life styles. Today there are substantial Hasidic communities in New York, London, Israel and Antwerp.

3Hasidism: Jewish mystic movement founded in the 18th century that reacted against Talmudic learning and maintained that God’s presence was in all of one’s surroundings and that one should serve God in one’s every deed and word. The movement provided spiritual hope and uplifted the common people. There were large branches of Hasidic movements and schools throughout Eastern Europe before World War II, each following the teachings of famous scholars and thinkers. Most had their own customs, rituals and life styles. Today there are substantial Hasidic communities in New York, London, Israel and Antwerp.

4 Shevchenko T. G. (1814-1861): Ukrainian national poet and painter. His poems are an expression of love of the Ukraine, and sympathy with its people and their hard life. In his poetry Shevchenko stood up against the social and national oppression of his country. His painting initiated realism in Ukrainian art.

5 Ukrainka, Lesia (1871-1913): Ukrainian poet and dramatist. Ukrainka spent most of her life abroad struggling to recuperate from tuberculosis. Her principal plays, using themes from Western and classical literature, include Cassandra (1908) and In the Desert (1909). The Forest Song (1912) is her dramatic poem based on Slavic mythology.

6 Adam Mickiewicz 1798-1855 Acknowledged as Poland's greatest poet. Whatever his chosen form - ballad, poetic tale, romantic drama, or epic - the result was artistically brilliant and profound in meaning. The leader of Polish Romanticism, he created such masterpieces as The Forefathers' Eve, Grazyna, Konrad Wallenrod, and the great Pan Tadeusz. Succeeding generations of Polish poets were to feel the force of his genius. Was an exile in Russia between 1824 and 1829 for his political activities. Spent the rest of his life in Western Europe.

7 Stepan Bandera, Ukrainian leader who led the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, (OUN). When he announced an independent Ukrainian government, he was arrested by the Germans and sent to Sachsenhausen camp. Bandera was shot and killed in 1959 by a Soviet agent.

8Jabotinsky, Vladimir (Ze’ev; 1880-1940): Zionist leader, soldier, orator and a prolific author in Hebrew, Russian, and English. Born in Odessa he received a Jewish and general education. He became involved in Zionist activities at the beginning of the 20th century. During World War I he established and served as an officer in the Jewish Legion, which fought in the British army for the liberation of the Land of Israel from Turkish rule. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Keren Hayesod, the financial arm of the World Zionist Organization, founded in London in 1920, and was later elected to the Zionist Executive. He resigned in 1923 in protest over Chaim Weizmann's pro-British policy and founded the Revisionist Zionist movement and the Betar youth movement two years later. In 1935 the Revisionists seceded from the World Zionist Organization after heated debates on the immediate and public stipulation of the final aim of Zionism and established the New Zionist Organization. Jabotinsky also founded the ETZEL (National Military Organization) during the 1936-39 Arab rebellion in Palestine. He died in New York.

9 Civil War in Spain – Spain between 1936-1939 was the staging ground for Hitler's Blitzkrieg giving General Franco victory over the Republican government. The Spanish Civil War was not only a battle against fascism, but also a social revolution. It involved all of Europe and the political forces of the left and the right, in the struggle to defend socialism and democracy from the forces of reaction

10Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: Non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which became known under the name of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Engaged in a border war with Japan in the Far East and fearing the German advance in the west, the Soviet government began secret negotiations for a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939. In August 1939 it suddenly announced the conclusion of a Soviet-German agreement of friendship and non-aggression. The Pact contained a secret clause providing for the partition of Poland and for Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

11Nationalization: confiscation of private businesses or property after the revolution of 1917 in Russia.

12 Lenin, Nikolay (1870-1924): Pseudonym of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the Russian Communist leader. A profound student of Marxism, and a revolutionary in the 1890s. He became the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party, whom he led to power in the coup d’état of 25th October 1917. Lenin became head of the Soviet state and retained this post until his death.

13 Great Patriotic War: On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarous, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

14 Molotov, V. P. (1890-1986): Statesman and member of the Communist Party leadership. From 1939, Minister of Foreign Affairs. On June 22, 1941 he announced the German attack on the USSR on the radio. He and Eden also worked out the percentages agreement after the war, about Soviet and western spheres of influence in the new Europe.

15 Komsomol: 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.

16 War with Japan: In 1945 the war in Europe was over, but in the Far East Japan was still fighting against the anti-fascist coalition countries and China. The USSR declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945 and Japan signed the act of capitulation in September 1945.

17 Mandatory job assignment in the USSR: Graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated. After finishing this assignment young people were allowed to get employment at their discretion in any town or organization.

18 Molokans – the Molokan sect evolved out of the Doukhobor sect in the second half of the eighteenth century. The name "the Milkdrinkers" was given to the sect as a nickname by the Orthodox in 1765 because its members were said to have drunk milk during fast time. The Molokans themselves prefer to call themselves Spiritual Christians (Russian: Dukhovnye Khristiane). They grew up in opposition to the highly ritualistic, liturgy-orientated and strictly hierarchical Orthodox Church and the feudal social order associated with this Church. They were essentially a rural and peasant sect, although, unlike the very similar Doukhobors, a significant proportion of their members were also merchants, industrialists and townsmen (Russian: meshchane). The Molokans completely abandoned the Orthodox concern with liturgy and renounced nearly all ritual. Their belief that faith must prove itself by good deeds led them to renounce sacraments and icons as useless for the achievement of salvation. They hold Meetings devoted only to prayer, singing and sermons on moral and spiritual themes. They have rejected a hierarchical organization and do not have any priests or churches. Their groups are led and generally administered by elders who evolve out of their midst. Any member of the community can address the congregation and put forward his interpretation of the Bible.

19 Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’: The campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’, i.e. Jews, was initiated in articles in the central organs of the Communist Party in 1949. The campaign was directed primarily at the Jewish intelligentsia and it was the first public attack on Soviet Jews as Jews. ‘Cosmopolitans’ writers were accused of hating the Russian people, of supporting Zionism, etc. Many Yiddish writers as well as the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in November 1948 on charges that they maintained ties with Zionism and with American ‘imperialism’. They were executed secretly in 1952. The anti-Semitic Doctors’ Plot was launched in January 1953. A wave of anti-Semitism spread through the USSR. Jews were removed from their positions, and rumors of an imminent mass deportation of Jews to the eastern part of the USSR began to spread. Stalin’s death in March 1953 put an end to the campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’.

20 Doctors’ Plot: The Doctors’ Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin’s reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

21 Twentieth Party Congress: At the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 Khrushchev publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted the veil of secrecy from what had happened in the USSR during Stalin’s leadership.

22 Perestroika: Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s. Perestroika [restructuring] was the term attached to the attempts (1985–91) by Mikhail Gorbachev to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized market-oriented economy. Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratize the Communist party organization. By 1991, perestroika was on the wane, and after the failed August Coup of 1991 was eclipsed by the dramatic changes in the constitution of the union.

Lilly Lovenberg

Lilly Lovenberg
City: Budapest
Country: Hungary
Interviewer: Ildiko Makra
Date of interview: May 2004

Mrs. Lilly is 86 years old. She is a woman of short stature and average weight, gray-haired, and an exceptionally nice, smiling person. Though she has difficulty walking, she is completely self-sufficient at home.

Her fresh mind doesn’t show her age, and she is spiritually a very balanced, cheerful personality. Generosity and care flow from her personality, especially in regard to her family, children and grandchildren.

She’s extraordinarily good-natured, and her value judgements are sober. Since the death of her husband, Lajos Lovenberg, she has lived alone in a two-room apartment in good condition, on the second floor of a multiple-story apartment building in the city.

Her modest home is orderly and clean. The shelves of the bookcase are lined mostly with books on Jewish themes, but also photos of her family, grandchildren and husband, and a few nice religious objects.

She spends her weekends at her children’s homes. Lilly said that she thinks its especially important that future generations understand the events of the past, primarily the destiny of the Jewish people, and mostly the story of the Holocaust, everything the Jews went through and had to suffer during World War II.

  • Growing up

I’m Lilly Rosenberg. I was born on 1st January 1918 in Hetyen [today Ukraine], Subcarpathia 1.

My mother, Maria Klein, was born in 1871. There was a one year gap between her and my father. Jakab Rosenberg, my father, was a merchant and farmer.

He was born in 1870. Both of them were born in Hetyen. We weren’t strongly religious, but we observed the holidays, and prayed. My mother kept a kosher kitchen. Both of them perished in Auschwitz [today Poland], in 1944, in the crematorium.

My father had only lived in Hetyen, before they took him to Auschwitz. He started working when he was fourteen, and got together enough money to buy 40 hold of land in Hetyen. My father, my brothers Moric and Gyula, as well as our coachman took part in World War I. While they were there, my mother had to look after her other four children and the farm.

Having arrived back, Moric bought the farm from the money he had saved during the war. The farm was managed by Moric and my father from then onwards. Anyhow, the other sons were helped with university education while the daughters with finishing four classes of the civil school. 

My parents had six children: three boys and three girls. My eldest brother, Moric, was 24 years older than I. Gyula followed, then Berta was born in 1904, Jozsef in 1908 and Erzsebet in 1911. Apart from me, only Gyula survived the war [WWII]. He went to Spain in 1929. He lived in Madrid for two years.

Then he went to Venezuela, because his wife’s brother was an engineer, and lived there, so they went there. They lived there for some time, then went to Dominica, and lived there for a longer period. He wasn’t in Europe during the war. He died in 1968.

Berta got married in Szamossalyi to a produce salesman. They had three children: Judit, Eva and Marta. My older sister, who was separated from the family, was with me to the end, but she couldn’t take it. We were liberated, but from the starvation she caught typhus. I survived, and she died in Prague [today Czech Republic] on the return trip.

Jozsef was a doctor, but died young. He didn’t marry. In Marseilles [France], he was shot down with his partner. He was one of twenty doctors who fled from Prague. The Germans caught them, and executed them in 1944. 

Moric was taken to Auschwitz also. He took care of the finances, because he was the oldest, since Gyula wasn’t home. Once he got so involved in the work that he got a hernia. That’s how he got into hospital during the time when all the Jews had to register.

The doctor knew him and respected him, and took him in among the patients and operated on his hernia. In Auschwitz, they first picked him to work, but when a German went into the bath, and saw his fresh thirty centimeter scar, they took him away to the crematorium. 

When I was a child, Moric and Berta were mostly with me. We worked at home, did handwork, sewed, while Moric directed the farm work. We went to a Calvinist school in Hetyen. I liked mathematics the most. Later I liked history, too.

I was raised in a decent, religious family. My parents taught me every tradition. Our household was kosher. I went to cheder, and learned to pray. I liked Pesach the best because we had special dishes. 

There were 150 residents in Hetyen. It was a small village, but pretty. There were only three Jewish families in Hetyen. The closest religious community was in Beregszasz [today Ukraine], and that was Neolog [see Neolog Jewry] 2. I went to cheder in Ujfalu, my parents always sent me there during vacation.

My aunt Pepi [Valter, nee Rosenberg] lived there. In the summer break, I learned how to pray in Hebrew for two months, year after year, until I became a big girl. There was an older man, who taught the Jewish children. There wasn’t a Jewish school in the area.

Our house in Hetyen had three bedrooms, a big veranda and a big yard. I remember when I was three years old, there was a Czech-Hungarian border realignment [see Trianon Peace Treaty] 3. The English and French came with big automobiles.

We were playing on the road with a little boy, with black, broken stones which were to be used to fix the dirt roads, when these cars came by. They said, ‘Oh my, the border re-alignment is today.’ That was in 1921. They separated Tiszakerecseny. We were also on the borderline, on the Czech side. 

In my youth, we went to Kaszony[mezo] for get-togethers. We sang and danced. We sang the Hatikvah 4, the anthem of Israel today. This was in the Czech period, so I could have been 17 or 18. There were many Zionist organizations in Beregszasz, and I went to the Somer [see Hashomer Hatzair] 5. It was so centrist. Dezso Rapaport organized the Zionist movement. Uncle Berti [Bertalan Bernat] was a big Zionist, he always told us to learn a profession, because they needed that in Palestine.

Once I went to visit Berta in Szamossalyi. That’s when I first heard the huge anti-Jewish instigations, at a rally before the election. Then what happened was that a Calvinist bishop arrived in Hetyen at the Calvinist church and gave a speech. Everybody went to hear the bishop speak.

He was a very democratic person. And he said, ‘Unfortunately, hard times are coming, black clouds rumble above us. German boots are already stomping on the streets of Prague. I’m afraid, that black clouds with reach us soon.’ I still remember those exact words. Then we didn’t have to wear the yellow star yet, we still went about freely.

[Editor’s note: Yellow stars were introduced in Hungary after the Nazis occupied the country on 19th March 1944.]

Before the deportations, I started to work, in 1942. In Beregszasz, I learned to tailor and I taught tailoring, because Uncle Samu, the exceptionally big Zionist, said, ‘No diplomas, learn a trade, because in Israel that’s what is important.’ So I learned a trade and continued to do it. The Jewish laws affected everything, our whole lives. The educational ones meant I couldn’t continue my tailoring classes. I had been learning to sew for a year, and tailoring with a famous seamstress.

I was still in Hetyen in 1942, and was still teaching tailoring, but I had to stop because racism really started then. Fascism had spread to a few places. Hetyen hadn’t yet been touched. It hadn’t been decided yet, that Jews couldn’t have industries, but it was clear that we had to sell the business: the spices and general store.

We weren’t allowed to have a business. Moric, Erzsebet and I were home then. Gyula had married, Jozsef was studying in Prague. My older sister had found a husband in Mateszalka District, in Szamossalyi and had three children. You could travel, but Jews weren’t allowed to continue their business activities; I had to give up teaching in 1942.

  • During the war

When the Germans entered Hungary [see German Invasion of Hungary] 6, it was put up that every Jew had to put five days of food together, and to be in readiness by a certain time. I already told you that Moric got a hernia from the hard work. I’d never seen anyone so tortured in my life, as my brother was then.

They operated on him, it was a success. Meanwhile, they had taken us to the ghetto. When they came to register all the Jews, there were no Jews in the hospital, and Erzebet and Moric weren’t home. So they weren’t registered anywhere. A couple of days after Moric’s operation, they both came to the ghetto on their own, to be together with us.

At the beginning of April 1944, the constables 7 came for us, stopped a wagon at our gate, and we had to get into it. The whole family went: first my father, then Mother, then me.

They took us to the Beregszasz ghetto. We were on the grounds of a brick factory.

At the end of April 1944, they took the area’s Jews and the Ruthenians together, by transport. At the beginning of April, they had begun herding us into the ghetto; we were in the ghetto for a month. We stayed under the roof in the brick factory.

The food we brought with us ran out in a few days. Then Etelka, the watchman’s wife came into the ghetto. She said, ‘They say that they’re killing all the Jews, all of them.’ I told her, ‘Etelka, whenever there’s a big harvest, one or two staffs of wheat are left. I’m going to be one of them. I’m going to survive.’ I told her that. 

On 30th April 1944, they took us away, and on 2nd May, we arrived in Birkenau [today Poland]. They told us they were taking us to work, and the old people would go to special treatment. They didn’t say where, just that it was in Germany.

They didn’t tell us anything, just treated us like animals. In the boxcars, everybody went together, but when we arrived, and got off the train in Auschwitz, they separated the women from the men. The trip took two or three days. The train stopped along the way, but we couldn’t get out.

We just stayed in the boxcars the whole time, the little window was barb-wired, and we peeked out of there. Some died along the way, they threw them out. My parents, Moric, Erzebet and I were together. At Kassa [the city was on the Hungarian-Slovak border], when the Hungarian constables gave us to the Germans, my brother was laying there fresh out of his operation in the train car; we were crowded together.

He said, whatever happens, Lilly is going to survive. We had to leave our belongings there. ‘Everyone move calmly, everyone will get their belongings,’ they said in German. Everything was in German. We understood; my parents spoke German fluently. And for those who didn’t understand, someone translated to them. 

In the ghetto, they had already told us that whoever had valuables, gold or jewelry, had to take it off. We took everything out. I left a watch. When we arrived in Auschwitz, the people in striped clothes, who had already been there for a long time, from Slovakia and Germany, waved at us not to bring anything in.

So I took my watch and threw it to them. They yelled in German, ‘Men together, and women together.’ When we had been separated, they yelled for the women over 60 to step aside, a German SS [man] pointed in which direction!

My mother was 70 years old and weighed 85 kilograms. She had been 100 kilograms a long time ago, but when these troubles aroused, she lost weight. That’s when we got separated from each other. We thought we would be able to visit each other. The Jickovics girls, three sisters, also from Hetyen, were there with us the whole time.

Their mother went together with ours. But we decided that Erzebet would go with the older women to take care of them. Then they took us into the bath where we had to unpack our clothes; we were still in our own clothes, when we went to bathe. The older residents [the prisoners] started staring at them, and came for them. I said, ‘Don’t touch them, they are mine!’ They had a good laugh, and then took them.

They shaved us bald; we got a full length gray dress, big clothes, knickers, stockings and a pair of socks. We had seen a group, all bald. ‘How they look!’ we said. We thought they were crazy. They told us, ‘Just wait, soon you’ll be crazy too.’ And then it was our turn. When we came out, we didn’t recognize each other. We looked around to see who was where, everyone had totally different faces.

As we moved, I hear somebody yelling, ‘Lilly, Lilly!’ My sister came with a loaf of bread in her hand, the baked kind from home. ‘What did you do? How could you leave Mother?’ I asked her.

‘I didn’t want to, but the Germans wouldn’t let me go, they beat me back with a rubber club.’ ‘And why did you take the bread from Mother?’ I asked, and she said, ‘He took it from her and gave it to me.’ I said that not all Germans are the same. Erzebet survived all the horrors. She died on the way home, but I’ll get to that later.

Moric was chosen for work, and when he went into the bath, a German saw his thirty centimeter fresh scar and took him away to the crematorium. The first day, when we had to stand for the ‘Zellappell’ [German for roll call], at 4am the fun had already started. Zellappell means the counting.

That’s when they counted us. I got two socks, and one was a really warm stocking, which came up to my thigh, the other was a short sock. And bald, in the dawn cold, I tied a turban on my bald head, so I wouldn’t freeze. When the SS came to me, he slapped me so hard, I thought my head had fallen off. ‘What are you thinking? You have a turban on!’ He took it off my head. I had no idea it wasn’t allowed. Such a hard slap on the first day for me!

Our barrack commander, Alizka had been there for four years, and was a Slovak Jew. The barrack commanders were Jewish also, but there weren’t just Jews, there were also Ukrainians. There were those who had been convicted of something. There were Communists, and German prostitutes. They convicted them, and they worked in the camp as overseers.

There were robbers and killers, too, it was only that their sign was a green triangle pointing down. Every three months, they put the people who worked at the crematorium into the crematorium, so there wouldn’t be anybody to talk about what happened there. They made the Jews do all the internments. 

Erzsebet’s condition was weaker than mine. They often took her to the hospital, where she got a little better, but soon broke down again, and they took her in again. Once they whispered behind me that yesterday there was a big selection at the hospital, and my sister was one of the selected. That night I escaped to the hospital, and found my sister: she was alive. 

They put us in the group called Canada. The Canada group meant we sorted the clothes taken from the transports of Jews. [The Canada command was a group of hundreds of inmates in Birkenau, whose job was to meet the arriving trains, unpack them, and sort the different valuables and belongings found on each train.

The warehouse where the belongings of the dead were sorted was called Canada.] The better things had to be packed separately. The underwear and everything had to be separated. It wasn’t hard work, and we got the very nice clothes, the striped ones: grey and blue stripes and a blue silk belt.

We had a red scarf on our heads, and everything was brand new. We got black boots which we had to shine up every day. We had to march nicely because the international express train passed by there. We went to work next to where the train went by. So foreigners saw what great things the prisoners were doing. That lasted six weeks, because then the transport from Hungary was over. And our jobs were done, Canada was shut down.

They put us to work cleaning up ruins. We had to dig out the rocks with a pick-axe from the dilapidated and bombed houses. It was horribly heavy work. We had to load the big rocks into a coal tub. When the tub was full, 18-20 of us pulled it by the thick ropes attached to the side.

We had to transport that for I don’t know how many meters. I was in the 18th group. After we’d dumped it, we had to put the stones in nice piles. After we made the piles, we pulled the coal tub back, and started the work again. That went on for a while. Then they put us in potato-loading: loading train cars full of potatoes for soldiers. I was scared by then, because my arms were really heavy.

When we arrived, they gave us bread, and I thought it was home-made soap, that’s how it looked. That’s what we had, plus two dekagrams of margarine, plus they gave us a half liter of soup which was concentrated. It looked like the slop they used to give to the pigs at the neighbor’s house in Hetyen. There were potatoes in it. Everyday we got the same thing, no variations.

For dinner, we got a cup of black coffee: something brown with saccharin. You had to save your bread. I don’t know how many dekagrams it was, but it wasn’t a half kilogram. I always went out to the trash heap, and collected the vegetables off the top, which the kitchen had thrown away. We washed them well, and in a tin can on two bricks, we cooked what we had found, inside the barrack. There was a place in the middle of the barrack for that. 

In the area of the Lager [German for camp], where we were, those who were chosen for work could do things like that, because they didn’t inspect us. After work and before Zellappell, we had an hour to travel freely between the barracks. Those in Lager C didn’t go to work, they didn’t get food. They were exterminated.

In the beginning, we didn’t even know. We found out, about three weeks later, that our parents were no longer alive. The barrack commander, Alizka, yelled for silence, because there would be big trouble.

There were 800 of us in one barrack, and so there was a lot of noise, and she was always scared, and in revenge she told us to remember where we were, and that our parents had been cremated the day we arrived. We had always seen the big fires. They don’t bury people here, they burn them. We didn’t think we would end up there.

They only took Jews and gypsies to the crematorium. The gypsies worked in the neighboring barrack, and one day no gypsies came out, not even one. They said that they had cremated 3,500 gypsies that night. It was horrific. When we found out they had cremated the gypsies, and we didn’t know who would be next in line, we panicked. 

Then we were storing potatoes. That was our work after Canada, and since I was the daughter of a landowner, I knew how to store potatoes. We took 50 kilogram crates over to the railway to the warehouse. Once, somebody hid four potatoes.

One of the SS [women] carried a mace with a ball on the top like the swineherds used to have. I wasn’t there, because my sister was in the hospital then. I had just gotten back, when everybody was standing there with their skirts up, and she’d beaten their bottoms.

Everybody got clubbed eight times. She told me to stand in line! I got them too, but with full force. Those who got it first, she hit with her full anger. Our behinds were blackened. Then we looked at each other to see how badly our bottoms had been beaten, and the Germans were peeking in.

One of them said to the clubber, ‘How could you beat them like that, they’re women.’ And when our shift was over, the more sensitive one came over to us and said, ‘Everybody can take four potatoes, but hide them, so they don’t see them at the entrance.’ That’s how they compensated us.

It happened one night, when I first heard Hungarian from someone other than my colleagues. I went out to the trash pile to look for something. In the dark, I heard a guard cursing in Hungarian, ‘God dammit, what do I do? Shoot her?’ He was talking to himself. When I heard him I thought, thank you God, there are Hungarians here! So I went away, he didn’t shoot me, I got lucky that night.

[Many Hungarian ethnic Germans, so-called ‘Schwabian’ SS, served in the camps. There were also Transylvanians, ethnic German ‘Saxons’, who knew Hungarian very well. For example, one of the selector physicians, Victor Capesius was often sent out to the Hungarian transports, because it was very calming for the deportees that someone spoke their mother tongue.]

Once, we got near a cabbage field around noon near where we worked. There the girls ran in, one, then another, and got out a cabbage, and ran back. I was so scared, I didn’t dare. I saw the guard there, he was aiming at me. I called out to him in German to let me take a cabbage. Not possible. But what did he do? He turned around, turned his back to me.

I understood that he didn’t want to see anything. I pulled one out, and my friend pulled out two. I barely stood up, when I heard an SS on a horse galloping towards us, and poor Nelli started to run with two cabbages.

She shouldn’t have run away. I didn’t run away. I stood petrified, and let the cabbage drop from my hand, and waited. When he got there, he jumped off the horse, put the reins in my hand and jumped on Nelli. Well, Nelli in her wood clogs, and pipe-cleaner legs, got it. He hit her with the highest degree of sadism, kicked her, cut her, crushed her and humiliated her, ‘Die Schweine-Judin!

If a German officer says stop, and you dare run away!’ He left her there, Nelli had pissed and shat herself. Everything came out of her. The German took down our numbers and said that we were going to court, because it was forbidden to steal cabbage. What hurt me was that the others who had also taken cabbages had fled. 

My sister had sent word from the hospital to bring her some kind of vitamins, a little cabbage leaf. That’s why I took the cabbage. Well, then we went to court. Three days later, they called us over. The woman judge addressed me to tell her what happened. I told her that my sister was in the hospital, and I wanted to bring her some vitamins, a little cabbage leaf.

That’s why I pulled out the cabbage. ‘And the guard?’ she asked. I said, ‘I didn’t see him, he was standing with his back to us. And that’s why I dared to pick the cabbage.’ The woman judge liked the fact that I didn’t get the guard involved in it. That’s why she didn’t punish me by having me shaved bald again. The punishment was to shave the hair which had grown back on our heads. 

That meant a lot, because around then there was talk about the front getting closer. And they took transport away from there. We were punished with a red mark on our backs. [In Auschwitz, the political prisoners got a red triangle, this mark was on their chest, in front.] This marked that we couldn’t go out of the Lager grounds to work. That was our punishment.

There was no time limit: we didn’t know how long it would last. Those prisoners who had this mark were condemned to be cremated. But this was secret. [In this story, this could only be some kind of SS-authority, perhaps the Gestapo Politische Abteilung, but it’s likely, that they simply summoned them to a high-ranking SS guard (woman). And since this was Birkenau, it’s truly miraculous that they weren’t immediately shot.]

I was put in the punishment barrack, and my sister Erzebet stayed in the other barrack. There was food in the punishment barracks. They had milk there, and boiled potatoes. I took some milk to my sister because they gave us the best of what they cooked. The workers just got the scraps.

Those who were punished were long-time prisoners already. There were Jews, Ukrainians and also high-ranking ones there. They had their connections with the kitchen. We were in Birkenau [(Brzezinka)] 8 for six months. 

Suddenly we heard that they were taking the transport to Germany. The order came that nobody could leave the barracks after dark. Trucks were coming, and we had to get on. This was what they told the punishment barrack. There was lots of screaming, and rumbling.

When the barrack was half empty, the barrack commander came over holding a little girl by the hand, maybe sixteen years old. She told me, ‘You and Nelli come with me.’ She took us to the empty part in the back. She said, ‘Hide in here, in one of the beds farthest in the back, on top, in the hollow of the bed.

The sound of a fly is not loud, but don’t even make that much noise. I’ll come back for you!’ We got in and waited in silence. Suddenly, the barrack emptied out. There was a horribly great silence: you can’t imagine what that terrifying silence was. We stayed there covered up.

I heard an SS officer asking the commander woman, ‘All 800 are gone?’ She said, ‘Yes’ in German. The officer left, and the woman came over to us with tears streaming down her face, ‘So now you can come out. Come out, that’s all I can do.’ I didn’t understand what she meant by that. We followed her. ‘And where do we go?’ we asked. ‘Wherever you want’, and she left.

Only later did I find out that we were the only three who survived that night, out of 800. The others were all killed that night.

After that, I went looking for my sister in the barrack I’d been banished from. It was completely empty. I started to ask around and they said, ‘They’re over there, crammed together, two barracks in one, like herrings. A train is taking them in the morning.’ And so I went over there, and good Lord!

The guard, who was a prisoner too, didn’t want to let me into the barrack where my sister was. I showed him my number, and told him to look for my sister. I told him that she was in there, and that I had been left behind. He let me in. I screamed out her name and found her. She was squashed. I almost passed out from the horrible smell in there.

Then in the morning, they started for the trains. They gave us two slices of bread for the trip. And we had a backpack, which I had saved. It’s in the Yad Vashem 9 Museum in Israel. 

We thought they were taking us to Germany. We didn’t know what day it was. We had to walk to the trains for nearly two days straight. Then we had to stop because there weren’t any more trains, they had to give them to the army, they needed transport. They put us in a giant tent, a thousand of us slept on the bare ground. They brought us soup, but it was so salty, that we couldn’t have it. It was nettle soup.

Then, two or three days later, a train came and took us to Ravensbruck 10. There we were in quarantine for three weeks. We got soup at noon. It was a huge camp. Some went out to work. There was so much sadism, cruelty.

They beat up the prisoners; they were dirty, and muddy. It wasn’t like in Birkenau, or in Auschwitz, that there was a number on our arm, but instead there was a huge swath of lime on their backs, and a cross on their clothes. You could see they were prisoners from far away. They were numbered, but their backs were marked.

But they didn’t take us to work, we were under observation in quarantine, to make sure we didn’t bring any typhus or diseases in. Beds were side by side. Next to me there was a woman, she was very glad to be in her own clothes. It turned out that she was the wife of the Captain of the Budapest Police.

I asked her, ‘Well, how did you get here?’ She said, ‘They called my husband in for interrogation once and he never came home. I went looking for him, I waited and waited, they said he would come. Then I asked to speak with my husband. They told me to get dressed, take some clothes with me, and they brought me here. Here I am. I don’t know anything about my husband.’

They then transported us further. We traveled for days in the train, and arrived in Germany one night, in a small camp 200 kilometers from Berlin, Malchow 11. Malchow was a labor camp. We arrived at night, there were no lights, no water, there was nothing. Everybody had diarrhea, and all kinds of problems.

Everybody went to the makeshift wood shack nearby to take care of their business, but early the next morning, we cleaned it out, because an SS woman came. We had arrived in a strange place, and didn’t know where the toilet was. We didn’t know anything. But we weren’t the only ones who’d done that.

This SS woman saw that we had cleaned it up, and she said, ‘We did the same thing, we didn’t know where the WC was.’ It was humane of her. We were in quarantine for a while. They only gave us a couple of faggots of wood, so there wasn’t really any heating. There were 38 of us in those bunk beds on legs. And we only had a thin black and white blanket on us. 

It was already late fall, because the grass was frozen. We were ordered to rip out the grass. After we did that, we were ordered to go near the forest to cut sod squares. They put me in an automobile, but I thought I was going to die. It was so numbingly cold, without clothes, in drizzly, rainy weather. But thank God in the last minute, the SS woman couldn’t stand the weather either. She cancelled the work and we went back.

After that, they assigned us to work in a munitions factory. We had to go on foot a long way, eight to ten kilometers. In the morning, we got a cup of black coffee, and 20 dekagrams [7oz.] of bread. At the work place, where we were assigned, we went into a long, enormous, indiscernible forest, a terribly long way, but you couldn’t tell anywhere on the road, where we were. We went underground, below the forest. There was a huge munitions factory under the whole forest, 58 bunkers.

I went to a bunker where we filled shells with gunpowder. As I wasn’t in such a bad shape as some, they put me on the machine. The filled shells came down the conveyer belt in boxes, and I had to jerk the machine. That sent the box further down the slide. But if I didn’t pull the machine precisely, we would all blow up. The German said, ‘Be careful, it has to be precise, otherwise we blow up.’ We worked there for a long time.

Then when one machine broke down, a worker came to fix it, who was French, and he always sang. And in his song, he let us know that we shouldn’t be scared, we would soon be free, because the front was coming. There was nobody there who could have told us that.

We worked everyday, we left and we came back. Twelve hours of work a day, but we had to keep the place tidy when the other shift came in. We worked two weeks day shift, and two weeks night shift. That went on for quite a while.

One day, one of the little shells jumped into the pocket of one of the prisoners. When it was time to leave, near the gate, he tossed it out. The Germans found it, and they thought there was some kind of conspiracy going on. They didn’t let us go to work, they drove us out into a clearing, and we had to stand in a circle. ‘Tell us what’s going on, who brought the shell in?’ Nobody knew anything! Then we ran in circles. All day running, and running.

They gave us no food and no water for three days. After the third day, every tenth person fell over and died. And then they gave us a little coffee slop one day. More running, running again, people fell out of the circle, by the weekend it was every fourth person. Nobody knew anything. One of the SS women passed out, she couldn’t stand the sight of the torture. After some time, somebody cried out that there was a crazy person among us, and he threw the shell. We hadn’t worked for a week. 

When they let us work again, we had a half hour lunch break. They gave us a cup of soup, with a carrot floating here or there. We tried to survive on our own. Since we were in a forest, at noon we went looking for milkweed: a kind of weed that drips a white liquid when you pick the stem or leaves, and wild sorrel. You were lucky if you found it. We ate that.

We couldn’t go to the trash pile anymore, and there weren’t vitamins on the trash heap at dawn, like in Birkenau. The front was closing in. We didn’t have to work. There started to be less Germans.

They didn’t give us food. We were very hungry. Hunger was terribly strong. I went to the trash can, looking for horse bones, because there was a little meat here or there on them. Then an SS woman came and started to whip me. But I didn’t care about the whipping, I took that bone. That bone meant life. I washed it as well as I could, cut off what I could, that was food. I was reduced to 38-40 kilograms.

We got an order not to sleep two on a bed. But there was no heating, it was cold. My sister lay down next to me. We put the blankets together, and then an SS woman came in, and saw my older sister laying there. How did she know that it was her who had come over and not me? She pulled my sister down.

Grabbed the wide whip from her waist, and started thrashing her back. ‘You obey orders! You aren’t allowed to sleep there!’ She beat my sister’s back bloody. Everybody swooned, they couldn’t stand to look. The poor thing survived that too, and we survived it, but it’s impossible to forget. A week later, further transport arrived. Then they ordered us: two to one bed. A week earlier that was exactly what they had beaten her back bloody for.

There were a couple more days, when not only two slept in a bed, but those who came had to sleep on the ground inside the barrack. More groups came because they started evacuating there in Malchow also, and they took prisoners deeper and deeper into Germany. The courtyard was filled with prisoners. If somebody had to go to the toilet, when they returned, there was no place for them. There the prisoners were stripped off their human dignity. There were a lot of bad people there.

Some were capable of betraying their own kind, out of envy, because they didn’t get something. One time, an SS officer came in one evening, and asked us who wanted to work. My sister and I immediately volunteered. He said we had to clean an apartment. Now the others wanted to go, too. ‘I don’t need any more, just the two who volunteered first,’ he said.

The cleaning was good, because the German put three pieces of bread out that he didn’t want. He had cookies, which they’d sent from home, garlic, whatever, he had it all. We stole a little bit of everything. That little bit meant life. Then my sister and I each put the bread into the satchel which we had under our skirts so that we could get it past the gate. But my hand froze to the basin when we had to clean out the coal ash from the stove, and sweep up the coal dust. We cleaned it beautifully, and brought him coal, he was very satisfied. This also meant life for us.

We went again: my sister and I volunteered to help carry soup in large pots. But we also brought our cups with us, under our skirts, and we ladled them full and drank while on the way back. But my own kind went and betrayed us. They’d sunken to the point where nothing mattered to them, they’d gotten that far. 

I stayed sharp. When we arrived, by the time we had drunk the soup, we washed the cups and put them back in their place. The woman came immediately to our cubicle, and saw that the cups were clean. ‘So you lied!’, and the traitor got slapped. She didn’t volunteer to work, but she was jealous that we drank a cup of soup. I could keep track of time.

In Ravensbruck also, when we went to sleep there, our room was next to the kitchen. They brought the big pots of soup from the kitchen, when the guard left, I immediately counted out the exact moment, and poured out a plate, we both drank it, then I washed it and put it away. That’s how I stayed alive.

When they started to evacuate Malchow, the Germans fled. But a German officer came, and told us to take whatever we could carry from the warehouse, because we won’t get anything to eat for a week. Nobody would be able to give us food, because there’s no telling which group would get here first. I was the last one into the warehouse.

There was only a little sugar left, I found a rag and put the sugar in it. Then an SS in a coat stepped in and said, ‘How dare you come in here?’ And pointed his gun to shoot me. But they weren’t allowed to shoot us by that time. Germany had already fallen. This was the beginning of May, in 1945. On 2nd May I was liberated. 

  • After the war

He really should have left already. There were still Germans there, but everybody knew they’d lost the war, and well they were scared to do something that might get them court-martialed. I was lucky that one woman had seen him coming. She hid behind a door, and started screaming. He was surprised that I wasn’t alone, and so he couldn’t finish me off. Then he hit me in the head. My head bled really badly, but we were in the hospital, because they emptied the barracks and the sick stayed behind.

They said they were going to execute the sick. But I didn’t leave my sister there. It was such a horrible situation, everybody messed themselves, laying there in their own dirt. My head was bleeding so one of the women knew who the doctor was, and implored her to bandage my head. ‘I haven’t got anything, the best I can do is wash and bandage it with paper,’ she told me.

The Germans left and we stayed. Then the French, Red Cross assistance, and volunteer nurses arrived. They started making order. My sister said, ‘Get out. Get something to eat.’ They were taking food to the Germans, and I got onto the little wagon from where the French were bringing it, so they had given me a spoon of warm soup for my sister.

The guy knocked me down so hard, I almost passed out. Then the others started abusing him, ‘Aren’t you ashamed to treat a woman like that?’ his partners said. Then he tried to make amends, but it didn’t matter to me anymore. I had a little self-respect in me. Then I saw in the window a piece of sausage which they had put aside for somebody, and I took it. I had a bad impression of the French.

Then they left, and they put us in the barrack where the Germans had been. It was a little better. Then the Germans became our servants. They cooked, cleaned, and everything. Then the Russians came, and we were very glad. A liberation group, a 20,000 man army surrounded the camp. They broke into the camp where the German women were, and slept with them.

We were there for a while, then all at once the Red Cross cars started coming. They gathered us, and we went into town, to Malchow. In one of the buildings there, it was like a palace, two old ladies were closed in. ‘There’s nothing left, they took it all. We’ve got nothing left’, they said. ‘We don’t want to hurt you, we just want to eat’, we told them.

They had nothing to give us. We kept going. We collected valuables here and there, what we could, and packed them into the suitcase to take home. I had two big suitcases, and I got blankets, I sewed a dress for myself out of an eiderdown quilt. Then all the aid organizations came, except the Hungarian Red Cross. The Yugoslav, Czech, they all came. Finally, we reported that we wanted to go to Czechoslovakia, because we were here under the Czechs. With that they took us to Prague. It took four days.

In Prague, they took both of us to different hospitals. We were there for three more weeks. I couldn’t get out of bed, but I was looking for my sister. There was a boy there, who was also a Hungarian Jew, who came from the Ruthenian region. I asked him to find my sister. I couldn’t get off the bed. He left, looked and looked, and in the end, he found her. Then we asked the doctor to let me go.

I found my sister, I saw one of her eyes was glassy, unclear, it had ‘patinaed’ [literally ‘tinned up’]. ‘Lilly, we’re going home, right, I’m going to be better, too, and I’ll go with you in a week,’ she said. ‘It’s visible how much you’re changing for the better!’ I said.

One of the Czech women who worked there, and knew Hungarian, called me over when I came out. She said, ‘Your sister would have died already, but she couldn’t. She was always calling for you, Lilly, and Moric, her brother. She waited so badly for you.’ When I went back the next day, she had died of typhus, and the water filled her up. She was full of water. The local Jewish community office buried her in Prague, in the new Jewish cemetery, in row 13.

I went home alone, it was terrible. In July, I went back with the three Jickovics sisters. Around then, there were train robberies, and they knew that the Jews were all taking back something with them, and then they broke into the next car, and totally robbed the men there. A boy came with us, who was also from Hetyen, with his three female cousins, and escorted us home. He sat by the window, in case somebody tried to climb in there, he’d stop them. That’s how we didn’t get robbed.

When we got to Pozsony [today Slovakia], the young conductor asked us for our tickets. We told him that we didn’t have tickets and that we were coming back from the Lagers. He told us he wasn’t interested, and to show him proof. That’s how he tricked us.

We showed him our identification cards, the proof we got in Malchow that we were in the camp. He collected them from all of us, then he said he’d give them back unless we paid for our tickets. We didn’t have any money. He took everybody’s identification, so we arrived home, and nobody had proof that they had been in the camp. 

When we arrived in Budapest, we went to Sip Street [Budapest Jewish Community], and they gave us proof on the basis of our tattoos, which showed when we arrived there and what our numbers were. That was our first identification. My number is here on my left arm: A-6742. We went to the accommodation for the camp victims, and then went to visit my cousin who had returned home.

I knew there was a lot of work waiting for me in Hetyen. I was left on my own. I went home, knowing my parents were no longer alive, Erzebet was dead, and I didn’t know anything about Moric. But a boy came from the neighboring village and told me not to expect him.

My parents, Berta and her three children all perished. One was fourteen, one eight and one four years old. Her husband died in a work camp. Erzsebet died on the way home, Jozsef was shot in France by the Germans. Gyula wasn’t in Europe during the war. He lived in America, and regularly sent letters and packages. But we never met. I just saw photos of him. Then I knew I was completely alone. He died in 1968. I didn’t know anything about him until his death. He’s buried in America.

When I went home, a villager was living in our house. When they took the Jews away, they divided up their [the Jews’] homes. He’d been given ours. He said it was his house, they had given it to him, but he agreed to empty one of the rooms for me and give me lunch.

As for those who we had given valuables and money, they returned everything: Gabor Suto was a respectable landowner. When they started taking the crops from the Jews, he even arranged for two wagons of wheat to be put at his place, to give back to them when this thing was over. That’s what happened. After the war, he brought back the full crop. 

Then I got married. After liberation, Hetyen became part of the Soviet Union, and we became Soviets, those laws were valid for us. At that time, they said, ‘The land belongs to the one who works for it.’ [Editor’s note: The landownership reform law of 1945 allowed possession of 100 hold of land, except for peasants who could own 200 hold, and people who fought exceptionally against the fascists in battle, could own 300 hold.

The lower limits of the law seemed radical at the time the law was made, and at the same it was really very arbitrary, as if they’d said fifty or five hundred was the maximum.] I soon met my husband, a very handsome boy, but very poor. We met in Beregszasz. A family who had relatives of my relatives in Ungvar brought us together. They told me to go to him, and that he wasn’t a debauched man. He was 32, and wasn’t married. 

Lajos Lovenberg, my husband, was an orphan, born in Beregszasz on 24th August 1912. His mother died in 1924. He was raised by his relatives. His father remarried, and he couldn’t accept his stepmother, so he left. He wanted to keep his religion strictly. He worked for relatives. He kept the books for them.

He finished eight years of elementary school, and graduated from the commerce school in Beregszasz. By the time we got married, my husband was taking me to school after work. ‘You always take me to school, why don’t you enroll?’ I told him. He did, and we graduated together.

He had been in the work service, among the first to be called up, and among the last to come back. He’d been there for six years. First he served in Hungary, then they gave him to the Germans, but they put him to work in Vienna [today Austria]. They worked hard.

On 19th March 1946, there was a chuppah in the courtyard of the Beregszasz synagogue. My wedding dress was partially made from a Red Cross package. I bought little pieces to go with it. When we were in Prague, on the way home from the camp, we got 1,500 crowns: I bought a pair of sandals with it. The weather was beautiful on our wedding day, bright, not a cloud in the sky.

A week later, on 24th March we had a civil service in Hetyen.

When I got married, Bela Tot, the self-proclaimed owner of my house, emptied the kitchen, so that we could use one room and a kitchen. My husband was on his way to Beregszasz, when a man he knew stopped him. He said he’d found a wallet in the grass, with documents in it that were Bela Tot’s. My husband took it, and brought it home. He looked into the documents.

Well, the fascist committee had given him the use of the house. We went to a lawyer, and he told us we had to sign over the papers from my father’s name to mine. It was an immensely great feeling, when I closed the door that night. That’s how I got my house back. Then we got children.

Life went on, hard times came, my husband found a job. He got a position at the financial department, collecting taxes in the village. He was a very intelligent man, he became the notary. Then they reported on my husband. An attorney came out to investigate the report.

My husband wasn’t willing to give him anything: ‘because I didn’t do anything,’ he said. ‘I was only following my orders.’ Later, the hearing came, and I took clothes to my husband. Well, then I stayed with my two little children. I was left alone with a four and a half month old and an eighteen month old child in 1948.

He stayed there for ten years. Later, we appealed, but for nothing. When Stalin died [1953], they examined the documents and found it was a false suit; they overturned it and made restitution. After four years, he came home, and became employed as a buyer. I was in health work, for twelve years altogether. 

Since 1978, we’ve lived in Budapest. I found work immediately. First at the waterworks, I worked for half a year, then at the Gas Company, where I worked for sixteen years as an accountant. I already worked in Beregszasz as a pensioner in the department.

I retired when I was 53. My husband also worked in the Gasworks all the way up to 1996. My husband departed from us on 24th September 2002. We buried him in accordance with the Jewish traditions in the Jewish cemetery.

  • Glossary:

1 Subcarpathia (also known as Ruthenia, or Zakarpatie): Region situated on the border of the Carpathian Mountains with the Middle Danube lowland. The regional capitals are Uzhhorod, Berehovo, Mukachevo, Khust. It belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until World War I; and the Saint-Germain convention declared its annexation to Czechoslovakia in 1919.

It is impossible to give exact historical statistics of the language and ethnic groups living in this geographical unit: the largest groups in the interwar period were Hungarians, Rusyns, Russians, Ukrainians, Czech and Slovaks. In addition there was also a considerable Jewish and Gypsy population.

In accordance with the first Vienna Decision of 1938, the area of Subcarpathia mainly inhabited by Hungarians was ceded to Hungary. The rest of the region was proclaimed a new state called Carpathian Ukraine in 1939, with Khust as its capital, but it only existed for four and a half months, and was occupied by Hungary in March 1939. Subcarpathia was taken over by Soviet troops and local guerrillas in 1944.

In 1945, Czechoslovakia ceded the area to the USSR and it gained the name Carpatho-Ukraine. The region became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1945. When Ukraine became independent in 1991, the region became an administrative region under the name of Transcarpathia.

2 Neolog Jewry: Following a Congress in 1868/69 in Budapest, where the Jewish community was meant to discuss several issues on which the opinion of the traditionalists and the modernizers differed and which aimed at uniting Hungarian Jews, Hungarian Jewry was officially split into two (later three) communities, which all created their own national community network.

The Neologs were the modernizers, and they opposed the Orthodox on various questions.

3 Trianon Peace Treaty: Trianon is a palace in Versailles where, as part of the Paris Peace Conference, the peace treaty was signed with Hungary on June 4, 1920. It was the official end of World War I for the countries concerned.

The Trianon Peace Treaty validated the annexation of huge parts of pre-war Hungary by the states of Austria (the province of Burgenland) and Romania (Transylvania, and parts of Eastern Hungary).

The northern part of pre-war Hungary was attached to the newly created Czechoslovak state (Slovakia and Subcarpathia) while Croatia-Slavonia as well as parts of Southern Hungary (Voivodina, Baranja, Medjumurje and Prekmurje) were to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians (later Yugoslavia).

Hungary lost 67.3 percent of its pre-war territory, including huge areas populated mostly or mainly by Hungarians, and 58.4 percent of its population. As a result approximately one third of the Hungarians became an - often oppressed - ethnic minority in some of the predominantly hostile neighboring countries. Trianon became the major point of reference of interwar nationalistic and anti-Semitic Hungarian regimes.

4 Hatikvah: Anthem of the Zionist movement, and national anthem of the State of Israel. The word ‘ha-tikvah’ means ‘the hope’. The anthem was written by Naftali Herz Imber (1856-1909), who moved to Palestine from Galicia in 1882. The melody was arranged by Samuel Cohen, an immigrant from Moldavia, from a musical theme of Smetana’s Moldau (Vltava), which is based on an Eastern European folk song.

5 Hashomer Hatzair: ‘The Young Watchman'; A Zionist-socialist pioneering movement founded in Eastern Europe, Hashomer Hatzair trained youth for kibbutz life and set up kibbutzim in Palestine. During World War II, members were sent to Nazi-occupied areas and became leaders in Jewish resistance groups. After the war, Hashomer Hatzair was active in ‘illegal' immigration to Palestine.

6 German Invasion of Hungary: Hitler found out about Prime Minister Miklos Kallay’s and Governor Miklos Horthy’s attempts to make peace with the west, and by the end of 1943 worked out the plans, code-named ‘Margarethe I. and II.’, for the German invasion of Hungary.

In early March 1944, Hitler, fearing a possible Anglo-American occupation of Hungary, gave orders to German forces to march into the country. On March 18, he met Horthy in Klessheim, Austria and tried to convince him to accept the German steps, and for the signing of a declaration in which the Hungarians would call for the occupation by German troops. Horthy was not willing to do this, but promised he would stay in his position and would name a German puppet government in place of Kallay’s.

On March 19, the Germans occupied Hungary without resistance. The ex-ambassador to Berlin, Dome Sztojay, became new prime minister, who – though nominally responsible to Horthy – in fact, reconciled his politics with Edmund Veesenmayer, the newly arrived delegate of the Reich.

7 Constable: A member of the Hungarian Royal Constabulary, responsible for keeping order in rural areas, this was a militarily organized national police, subordinated to both, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defense. The body was created in 1881 to replace the previously eliminated county and estate gendarmerie (pandours), with the legal authority to insure the security of cities.

Constabularies were deployed at every county seat and mining area. The municipal cities generally had their own law enforcement bodies - the police.

The constables had the right to cross into police jurisdiction during the course of special investigations. Preservative governing structure didn't conform (the outmoded principles working in the strict hierarchy) to the social and economic changes happening in the country. Conflicts with working-class and agrarian movements, and national organizations turned more and more into outright bloody transgressions. Residents only saw the constabulary as an apparatus for consolidation of conservative power.

After putting down the Hungarian Soviet Republic, the Christian establishment in the formidable and anti-Semitic biased forces came across a coercive force able to check the growing social movements caused by the unresolved land question. Aside from this, at the time of elections - since villages had public voting - they actively took steps against the opposition candidates and supporters.

In 1944, the Constabulary directed the collection of rural Jews into ghettos and their deportation. After the suspension of deportations (6th June 1944), the Arrow Cross sympathetic interior apparatus Constabulary forces were called to Budapest to attempt a coup. The body was disbanded in 1945, and the new democratic police took over.

8 Birkenau (Brzezinka): From October of 1941 to March of 1942, a camp called Auschwitz II. was constructed three kilometers from the main camp in southern Poland (on the border of Silesia and Galicia). This death camp was the main collection and distribution site for the Jewish and Roma (gypsy) deportees transported from European countries that joined or were occupied by Germany. This is where the systematic elimination of the nationalities deemed undesirable to Nazi ideology took on industrial proportions.

After the prisoners incapable of physical work were selected out and killed, those remaining were transported on to forced labor camps and war factories. The eliminations took place in four crematoriums; the people herded off the railcars into the gas chambers in the basements of the crematoriums - originally used for disinfection - were poisoned there with cyanide gas (Zyklon B). In 1944, the camp was capable of murdering and cremating 6,000 people daily. Aside from this, biological experiments were performed on living people on the camp’s grounds.

The aim of the experiments was the examination of the physical effects of various extreme conditions practiced on a human body, as well as the control of sexual potency with “medical” intervention. By the time the camp was liberated on 27th January 1945, at least 500,000 to 2,000,000 people were killed in Birkenau.

9 Yad Vashem: This museum, founded in 1953 in Jerusalem, honors both Holocaust martyrs and ‘the Righteous Among the Nations’, non-Jewish rescuers who have been recognized for their ‘compassion, courage and morality’.

10 Ravensbruck: Concentration camp for women near Furstenberg, Germany. Five hundred prisoners transported there from Sachsenhausen began its construction at the end of 1938. They built 14 barracks and service buildings, as well as a small camp for men, which was completely separated from the women’s camp. The buildings were surrounded by tall walls and electrified barbed wire. The first deportees, some 900 German and Austrian women were transported there on May 18, 1939, and soon followed by 400 Austrian Gypsy women. At the end of 1939, due to the new groups constantly arriving, the camp held nearly 3000 persons.

With the expansion of the war, people from twenty countries were taken here. Persons incapable of working were transported on to Uckermark or Auschwitz, and sent to the gas chambers, others were murdered during ‘medical’ experiments.

By the end of 1942, the camp held 15,000 prisoners, by 1943, with the arrival of groups from the Soviet Union, its numbers reached 42,000. During the working existence of the camp, altogether nearly 132,000 women and children were transported here, of these, 92,000 were murdered. In March of 1945, the SS decided to move the camp, so in April those capable of walking were deported on a death march.

On April 30, 1945, those who survived the camp and death march, were liberated by the Soviet armies.

11 Malchow: A small German town in the province of Mecklenberg-Pomerania. In 1943-44, a prisoner of war camp was added to the munitions factory beside the town, that worked as a sub-camp of about 4000 deportees for the Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Sonia Leiderman

Sonia Leiderman
Mogilyov-Podolskiy
Ukraine
Date of interview: July 2004
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya

Sonia Leiderman is a lady of average height. There are hardly any signs of gray in her thick wavy hair. Sonia has one leg amputated up to above her knee.  She cannot walk and moves around her apartment in a wheel-chair. Sonia is a sociable lady full of energy. She readily bursts into laughter and jokes. She only finished 3 forms at school, but she has a bright natural sound mind. She surprises me with the depth of her thoughts and accurate expression of her mind. She lives with her daughter, who takes care of her. Sonia’s daughter and her son-in-law are away from home going to work and Sonia feels lonely.  She enjoyed telling me about her life and felt happy about having a listener and somebody to talk to. Those people, who have more grounds to feel optimistic would envy Sonia’s optimism and her sense of humor.  

My family background
Growing up
During the war
After the war
Glossary

My family background

My father Itzyk Weisenberg was born in 1899 in Mogilyov-Podolskiy [315 km from Kiev] Vinnitsa province of the Russian Empire. I never saw my father’s parents. They died, when my father was just a teenager. My grandfather’s name was Shmul. As for my grandmother, I don’t know her name. I don’t know what my grandfather did to earn his living. My grandmother was a housewife like all married Jewish women at the time. My father didn’t tell me about his childhood. Of all his brothers and sisters I only knew his younger sister Klara, Haya in Jewish. [common name] 1 She also lived in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Klara was married and her family name was Shtern. She had one daughter, whose name was Lisa. Klara’s husband left his family shortly after his daughter was born. Klara never remarried. She worked as a seamstress at home, fixing bed sheets and altering old clothes.

Mama’s parents came from the Jewish town of Ozarintsy near Mogilyov-Podolskiy [12 km from Mogilyov-Podolskiy, 305 km from Kiev]. I think that my grandfather Yevzel Gempeld and my grandmother Fania were born some time in the late 1860s. My grandfather was a tailor. Before the revolution of 1917 2 he owned a small shop, which was expropriated after the revolution and my grandfather did sewing at home.  His younger son Mikhail assisted him. My grandmother was a housewife, which was quite common for Jewish women. They had many children, but they all left their parents’ home before I was born. During the Civil War 3 some of my mother’s brothers and sisters moved to the USA. There were no contacts with them, and mama never told us anything about them. Perhaps, she was just afraid to talk about them considering that in the 1930s it was not safe for Soviet people to have relatives abroad 4. Soviet authorities did not appreciate people corresponding with their relatives abroad. Thos people might be arrested and deported. So, the best thing was to forget these relatives. Mama was born in 1901. I also knew mama’s older brother, whose name I don’t remember, her older sister Riva, born in 1898, and her younger brother Mikhail, Moishe in Jewish, born in 1909, the youngest child in the family. He was single and lived with my grandparents in Ozarintsy. Riva married Motl Kagan, a shochet in her town. Riva and her husband lived in their house not far from my grandparents. Riva had three daughters: Hana, Vera and Yekaterina. Mama’s older brother learned tailor’s vocation from his father. He lived with his family in Luchinets village [30 km from Mogilyov-Podolskiy, 300 km from Kiev], was married and had two sons. I don’t remember his wife or children’s names since we did not communicate.

Ozarintsy was a big village divided into two parts: Ukrainian and Jewish neighborhoods. There were many such villages in Vinnitsa region. Vinnitsa province was within the Pale of Settlement 5 during the czarist regime. Jewish families lived in the central part of the village. There were about 200 houses in the Jewish Ozarintsy. Of course, residents of the Ukrainian and Jewish areas socialized and had friends, but each part still had its own way of life: Ukrainian and Jewish.  There were no conflicts, Ukrainians were invited to Jewish weddings and Jews went to Ukrainian weddings. Jews were craftsmen: tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, carpenters and tinsmiths. There was no anti-Semitism in the village and Ukrainian and Jewish residents got along well. Jews spoke Yiddish, but also knew Ukrainian and Ukrainian residents could speak Yiddish.  

Many Jews were also engaged in farming and cattle breeding.  They lived in the center, but had their fields outside the village. The Jewish community supported older people and widows with children. There was a synagogue and a shochet in the village. There was also a cheder before the revolution, but after the revolution it was closed and turned into a Jewish primary school with teaching in Yiddish. There was a Jewish cemetery, a hospital, a drugstore in hospital in the village. Actually, there was everything necessary the villagers needed to live their life. 

Before and during the revolution and the Civil War there were pogroms 6 in Ozarintsy made by numerous gangs 7: Denikin troops 8 also made pogroms. Mama told me that during pogroms Ukrainian villagers gave shelter to Jewish families, risking their lives.   

All Jews in Ozarintsy were religious. Even when the Soviet regime struggled against religion 9, Jews never gave up observing Jewish traditions they went to the synagogue, celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays at home. The younger generation was not so religious or even gave up religion.

I remember my mother’s parents. My grandfather was a stout man of average height. He wore a black suit. At home he always had a black yarmulke on, and wore a hat to go out. He didn’t have payes, but all old men in Ozarintsy had beards and my grandfather had a big black beard with streaks of gray. My grandmother was short and thin. She always wore skirts with gathers and long-sleeved blouses. She always covered her head with a black kerchief. My grandfather and grandmother were religious. They celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays. Their children were also religious. Mikhail, whom I knew well, always went to the synagogue with grandfather on Sabbath and Jewish holidays. My grandmother went to the synagogue on Jewish holidays like other Jewish women.  

Mama told me that she always wanted to leave Ozarintsy for a big town. Of course, Mogilyov-Podolskiy can hardly be called a big town, but my mother, a common Jewish girl from a small Jewish village, found it attractive. After the revolution she moved to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. I don’t know whether my mother had any education at all: she could hardly read words or write her own surname. She was looking for a job and was offered a job of housemaid in a Jewish family.  Mama worked for few families doing shopping, cleaning and baby sitting for them. I don’t know how she met my father. Mama hardly ever told me about her life. My parents got married in 1922. They were both poor, and a big wedding party was out of the question.  There was a chuppah installed in the yard of my mother parents’ house, and then my grandmother made a small wedding dinner with my mother and father’s relatives. After the wedding my parents returned to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. They rented half of a small house in the center of Mogilyov-Podolskiy, in the Jewish neighborhood. There were two small rooms and a kitchen in the house. The kitchen was behind a partition in the room.  There was a big stove heating the rooms and the kitchen, and mama also cooked on this stove. Water was fetched from the well three houses away from where my parents lived. There was no plot of land near the house. The houses adjoined to one another in the center of the town. There were 2 old apple trees near the house, and a wood shed and a toilet in the backyard. My father made a table, wardrobes and cupboards, plank beds and stools for the house.

Mogilyov-Podolskiy was a quiet and cozy town in the south buried in verdure, surrounded with the hills covered with woods. It is located on the bank of the Dnestr River, and the other bank of the river was the territory of Moldavia or Bessarabia 10. Before 1940, when Bessarabia belonged to Romania, Mogilyov-Podolskiy was a border town with the middle of the Dnestr River being the border line between the USSR and Romania. In 1940 Moldavia was annexed to the USSR. Jews constituted over half of the population in the town. They resided in its central part. They lived in small houses. Wealthier houses had tin sheet or tiled roots while poorer houses had thatched roofs.  Ukrainians, Russians and Moldavians lived in the suburbs where they could have more land to do farming and supply food products to the town. Jews were craftsmen and traders and worked at the mechanical plant. There were few synagogues before the revolution. After the revolution there were only two synagogues left. They operated till World War II. The main synagogue was near the market in the center of Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Another one, a smaller synagogue was located near the railway station. There was a shochet working near the market, and housewives brought chickens to the shochet to have them slaughtered. There was a Jewish 4-year primary school in the town. There was a Jewish, Orthodox-Christian and Catholic cemeteries on the hills.

Growing up

Mama was a housewife after getting married. Their first daughter was named Zina – this is a Russian name, Zisl in Jewish; she was born in 1924, their second daughter Etia was born in 1926. I was the third daughter in the family. I was born in 1932. I was named Sonia, and my Jewish name is Sosl. My younger sister Nyusia was born in 1939. She was given the Jewish name of Hana. She was called affectionately Hanusia - Nyusia at home, and this name was put down in her birth certificate. It was hard for my father to provide for the family of six of us.  My father made plain furniture, doors and window frames. We could hardly make ends meet. Nyusia and I wore our sisters’ clothes that they had grown out of.

My parents were religious, and however hard the Soviet regime struggled against religion, they never gave up their belief. They observed Jewish traditions and could read their prayer books in Hebrew. They prayed at home every day. Their generation of Jews in Mogilyov-Podolskiy was religious. We always celebrated Sabbath at home. Mama made dough in a big wooden tub on Friday morning to make bread for a whole week, and a smaller tub with dough for Saturday wheat challot. Hen she finished with bread, mama cooked the Sabbath dinner and food for Saturday. Mama tried to do no work on Sabbath. We were poor, but mama always made something special for Sabbath. In autumn, when fish was not so expensive, she made gefilte fish, chicken broth with homemade noodles – we could have these almost every Sabbath. On Friday evening the family got together. Mama lit candles and prayed over them. Then we sat down to dinner.  On the next morning my father went to the synagogue. Mama went to the synagogue on Jewish holidays like other Jewish women. When my father came home from the synagogue, he read his prayer book. My older sisters went out with their friends and I sat beside my father listening to his wonderful stories about David and Goliath, Isaac’s sacrifice and granting the Torah to Moses. Of course, I didn’t know these were the Biblical stories and listened to them as if they were fairy tales.

We celebrated Jewish holidays at home. I particularly remember Pesach. There was a Jewish bakery not far from our house. About a month before Pesach this Jewish bakery switched to baking matzah.  Mama always made savings for Pesach. She bought sufficient matzah to last for 8 days, when no bread was allowed. The matzah stocks were kept on the attic where we also kept our special crockery for Pesach. Mama and my older sisters made a general clean up of the house before Pesach. All corners were cleaned and all things were taken outside to be cleaned. On the eve of the holiday mama removed all bread and bread crumbs from the house and only then she could take the matzah and crockery into the house from the attic. Mama bought a chicken and had it slaughtered by the shochet. She cooked a chicken, and made dumplings from the matzah flour and eggs. Mama made matzah and egg, corn and potato puddings and made pancakes from matzah flour that we ate with jam.  On Pesach my parents went to the synagogue in the morning, and Zina and Etia went with them.  I stayed at home, being too young. My father conducted seder on the first evening of Pesach. I was a quick girl and always managed to steal the afikoman, a piece of matzah to crown the seder and gave it to my father for ransom that was usually a toy or some sweets. There was a wine glass filled with wine for Elijah the Prophet, and the door was kept open for him to come into the house. My father and mother recited prayers and we sang Pesach songs. Another big holiday was Yom Kippur, the Judgment Day. The Kapores ritual was conducted on the eve of the holiday. Mama bought a white rooster for the father and white hens for us. The hen was to be taken by is tied legs, turned around the head with the words: “May you be my atonement”. Then these hens were slaughtered and mama cooked broth with them. Adults had a sufficient dinner before the first star appeared in the sky and then fasted for 24 hours. Children either missed one meal or didn’t fast at all. In the morning of Yom Kippur all Jews of Mogilyov-Podolskiy went to the synagogue. Everything looked very festive. Men wore black suits and hats, and women dressed up and wore silk shawls on their heads. They all were carrying candles to the synagogue. They had to pray at the synagogue a whole day till the first evening star appeared in the sky. Then they returned home to have dinner with the family. I also remember Chanukkah. All visitors gave children coins.  Every day mama lit another candle in a big 9-candle stand – the chanukkiyah. We also celebrated other holidays, but I don’t remember any details. So we lived till the Great Patriotic War 11 began.

Both of my older sisters went to the Russian general education school. I also went to this school in 1938, when I was 6 years old, but I was a tall and strong girl. My sisters taught me to read and write a little, and our teacher allowed me to come to the first form, though other children were admitted to school at the age of 8. I didn’t study very well. I was a vivid girl and it was hard for me to sit still 45 minutes that our lessons lasted. The teacher always had to talk with mama about me turning around at school and talking to other children. I became a young Octobrist 12 at school. I also sang in the choir and went dancing at school.  There were Jewish children and Jewish teachers at school. There was no anti-Semitism at school. I think anti-Semitism appeared after the war.

In June 1941 my summer vacations began. Etia finished the 6th form and Zina was having her graduate exams after finishing the 8th form.  The summer was warm. I spent time at the riverside and walked and played with my friends. On Sunday, 22 June, mama promised that we would go to the cinema. We were looking forward to Sunday since we didn’t often go to the cinema.  In the morning mama was doing housework and I was playing outside with my friends, when my father came into the yard and said that he heard on the radio that Germany had attacked the USSR and that Belarus and Kiev were already bombed. All I knew about war was that boys played the war, and I could not understand why my father looked so worried and why my mother burst into tears.  I was 9 years old and did not understand that this was the end of my childhood.  

During the war

My father received a summons to the recruitment office. My parents decided that Mother and the children should leave the town for a village to be on the safe side. Our neighbors were going to Chernevtsy near Mogilyov-Podolskiy [30 km from Mogilyov-Podolskiy, 290 km from Kiev], and my parents decided to go with them. They hired a wagon and packed only the most necessary belongings. When we reached Chernivtsy, we rented a room from a local Jewish family. My father went to the mobilization point in Vinnitsa. Shortly afterward we heard that Germans occupied Mogilyov-Podolskiy.

In Chernevtsy mama and my older sisters went around village houses asking for work. Occasionally they got some job, but at times they returned without any earnings. I had to look after my younger sister Nyusia. We were always hungry. Mama left few boiled potatoes or a little cooked cereal for a day. We ate this miserable food at once and kept waiting till mama and sisters would come back and bring some food. I also wanted to help the family. Once I talked our landlady into taking my sister in her care while I went out looking for work. For some reason I had no doubts that I could do any work. I knocked on the door of the house that looked wealthier than other houses to me. The owner of the house came out and I asked her about work. She asked me what I could do and I replied that I could do anything she needed. She gave me a spade and a bucket and told me to dig potatoes in her vegetable garden. I had never done this before and even saw a spade for the first time in my life. Some time later the mistress of the house came out to look how I worked. When she looked into the bucket, she clasped her hands and said that she would give me some food, but I had to stop digging potatoes, or she would never have potatoes for the winter. Each potato in the bucket was cut by halves in the bucket. She gave me some food and also packed the potatoes I had dug out for me to take home.

Some time later Germans came to Chernevtsy. They started mass shootings of Jews. They killed 13 men in one day, and then – 12 more. Jews were not allowed to come into streets after dark. Germans arranged raids. They sent the captives to the Pechora camp 13. People said there were no survivors in this camp. We moved into a Ukrainian house for reasons of safety. One night another raid began and our landlady told us to take a hiding. Mama, little Nyusia and my older sisters hid in the cellar. There was no space left for me to come with them, and our landlady hid me in her house covering me with a blanket. A German and a Ukrainian policeman came into the house. The policeman noticed me, but he didn’t say anything.

It was not safe to stay in Chernevtsy  and mama decided we should go back to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Our landlady’s husband rode us there in his wagon. There was a Jewish ghetto already in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Our house was within its boundaries, and there were already Jews from Romania and Bukovina 14 accommodated in it. There were too many of them and they didn’t want to let us in. Mama begged them to let us stay in the kitchen. There was nothing left in the house: while we were away local people took away our furniture, utensils and clothes. We slept on rags and newspapers on the floor. Germans had left the town by then and there were Romanian guards in the house. Villagers from neighboring villages brought food products to sell or exchange by the fence of the ghetto.  We had no money or anything to offer a deal for food. The villagers got thirsty while bargaining and then I went to the fence with a kettle of water offering them to drink. They took sips of water and threw me an apple, a potato or a piece of bread over the fence. So I managed to get however little food for a day. Of course, this was a miserable contribution into the family of five of us, but this was still better than nothing. I also managed to get out of the ghetto, when there were no Romanian guards or policemen nearby. I didn’t look like a Jew, but rather like a village girl. I walked barefoot, had plaits and a kerchief on my head. We needed something to stoke the stove. We got together in a group of 4-5 of us to go to the forest. We usually went there in the dark and were scared. 4We didn’t have knives or axes and had to use our teeth to break off thicker branches.  Later I started leaving the ghetto looking for a job in the town. Housewives hired me to do cleaning for them, wash dishes or sit with their children. They didn’t give me money, but gave me food. Mama and my older sisters also went out looking for work, but it became more and more difficult to find a job. We decided to leave the ghetto and go to Ozarintsy where my mother’s relatives lived.  We left the ghetto one night. Mama and my older sisters took turns to carry little Nyusia. We walked all night till we got to my grandfather and grandmother’s house in Ozarintsy. There was also a ghetto there. My grandparents and my mother sister’s houses were within the boundaries of the ghetto. My mother sister’s husband was at the front, and she and her daughters lived with grandmother and grandfather. Some Jews from Bukovina were accommodated in their house. Our relatives were happy to see us alive. They told us that my mother’s brother Mikhail perished on the first day of occupation. He and other men were at the synagogue, when Germans came into the town. They surrounded the synagogue and began to shoot. Few men escaped. Mikhail and other men were killed inside the synagogue. They were found embracing each other. This ghetto was even more unsafe than the ghetto in Mogilyov-Podolskiy: the town was small, and they watched over each Jewish inmate of the ghetto. My mother’s parents and Riva had some belongings that they could deal for food, but there were five of us and they could not manage to provide food for all of us. There were new groups taken to Ozarintsy and every now and then there were raids and the captives were killed. It was scaring. Every night we sat quiet fearing to have lights in the house to not attract attention to us. So we had nothing left, but return to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. We left one night. There was another Jewish woman with a child and a Russian family going to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. On our way we met a Romanian soldier. He ignored us, but approached the Jewish woman, who had a typical Jewish appearance and hit her so hard that she fell on the ground. He turned away and left. He could have killed her… We went on. We managed to get into the ghetto unnoticed and went to our house, but there was another family living in our kitchen. My papa’s sister Klara gave us shelter. She lived with her daughter in a small room in her house, and when we came to live in her house, there were already 7 of us in a 10-square meters room. We were just stuffed in the room. There was a bed where Klara and her daughter Lisa slept and a big table in the room. Mama and Nyusia slept on the table, and my sisters and I slept on the floor. Almost all inmates of the ghetto lived like this. The wells were dirty and the water in them stunk.  There was no soap to wash ourselves or our clothes. Everybody had lice. Then epidemics of typhus occurred one after another. There was an enteric, spotted fever and relapsing typhus in the ghetto. If one fell ill in a house, the rest contracted it.  Mama also fell ill with typhus. A woman from Bessarabia, a medical nurse, living in Klara’s house, covered mama with wet rags and told us to remove them only when necessary. Thanks to her, we did not contract typhus. In winter 1943 Klara fell ill with typhus. At that time Romanians were sending ill people to hospital to make injections. Only later we got to know that people were dying from these injections. Those were medical experiments on people. Klara was taken to hospital where she had an injection. Mama took her back home. Klara died few days later. Mama was very weak. My cousin Lisa and I took Klara to the Jewish cemetery on sledges. There was a pit where all dead were thrown and when it was filled with dead bodies, there was lime added to and then the pit was backfilled with ground. Lisa stayed with us.

Germans and Romanians captured people in the streets to send them to Pechora. Actually, they were to send inmates from Bessarabia and Romania to the camp, but they had money and valuables and paid ransom to Romanians to be left alone. Since there was an order to send people to the Pechora camp, the Romanians captured people during raids. I got out of the ghetto to work or beg for food.  Once I was captured in a raid. There were about 100 captives in this raid. We were lined and ordered to march to Pechora. I was very scared. I was the only child, the rest of captives were adults. One night we stayed in a field and another night we were taken to a fenced spot. Here was a shed where our guards took turns to sleep. I knew that I would not survive anyway, and that I had to try to escape. If the guards killed me, well – I would die here or in the camp, but I knew I had to try. I climbed over the fence at night and went away at random. I didn’t know where to go, but I wanted to go as far as possible from this place. I walked through the wood all night, but in the morning a Romanian patrol captured me. The soldiers were asking me something, but I did not understand them.  They took me to the gendarmerie and locked me in a little room with a barred window near the ceiling.  There was an old Jewish man in the room. He asked me where I came from. I don’t know how long we were in this room, when a policeman came in and said laughing that he was ordered to dig a pit and bury us alive. The old man began to beg to let me go.  He said he was an old man and didn’t fear death, but I was just a child and he should have mercy. The old man took few golden coins from under the lining of his jacket and told the policeman he would give him these coins, if he let me go. He said nobody would check how many people were buried in the pit. The policeman released me. I still remember the face of this old man, my rescuer. Mama and I wanted to find his grave after the war, but we failed. There were too many such unknown graves scattered around in Vinnitsa region.

I went back to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. I walked at night fearing to walk during the day. Every now and then I went to an outskirt of a village to drink some water from a well or pick an apple from a tree, but then I went back to the woods. In the morning I fell asleep in a quiet spot. I didn’t know the way and was afraid that I had lost it. It was cold already – this was autumn. I had a summer dress and a kerchief on my head. Once I saw a village girl picking mushrooms and asked her to sow me the way out of the wood. She gave me some milk and bread and took me to the edge of the wood and from there I went on. Soon I saw Mogilyov-Podolskiy at a distance. I came through a hole in the fence and found my family. They knew I had been taken to Pechora and didn’t hope to see me alive.  

Mass shootings of Jews began in the ghettos in nearby villages. There were mass shootings in Ozarintsy where my mother’s family lived.  My grandmother, grandfather and my mother’s sister and her children got lucky: a policeman warned them of the forthcoming action and they managed to hide away. There were many Jews killed in those days. When their executors ran out of bullets, they buried the rest of Jews alive. The moment Romanian guards or policemen came into the streets we ran to hide in the bushes on the bank of the Dnestr. They captured those, who were at hand. This continued till about the middle of March 1944. Then we saw that the Germans and Romanians were leaving. There were loaded wagons and numbers of soldiers and officers near the bridge over the Dnestr. The bridge was narrow and they couldn’t move fast over it. Germans and Romanians were arguing about who was the first to cross the bridge. We were hiding in the bushes. On the early morning of 19 March 1944 Soviet tanks came to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. All people ran into the streets to thank soldiers for the liberation and were happy to be free. However, it was still dangerous to walk near the Dnestr: there was a German sniper on the opposite bank of the Dnestr shooting at the people on the bank. Then he was killed. Life was gradually improving. The war was still going on, but it was over for us.  The Romanian Jews staying in our house left and we could move into our house. My cousin Lisa also left for Romania. She met a Jewish guy from Romania in the ghetto, who was in the ghetto with his parents. They fell in love with each other and got married, when the town was liberated. Hey had a traditional Jewish wedding and the rabbi from the central synagogue conducted the ceremony. Lisa and her husband moved to Palestine shortly after they arrived in Romania. This is all I know about her. I hope she’s had a good life.

We still didn’t have sufficient food, but there was a different countdown point for us: we were happy to be walking in the streets without fear of raids or shootings. Mama’s relatives wanted us to come to Ozarintsy and we did so. My mother sister’s husband Motl was a shochet. He bought meat from farmers and sold it at the market. They always had meat at home. I had forgotten the taste of meat during the wartime. Once I was told to make soup with goat meat for the whole family. I started trying little pieces to check whether the meat was soft enough and I ate a whole piece of it. I never again was given such responsible chores. I wanted to get a job to help mama. A village woman hired me to look after her daughter, do cleaning and washing. She didn’t pay me, but she provided three meals per day. Later her relative came to do this work for her, and the woman didn’t need me any longer. Once I came into my mother sister husband’s slaughter shed and saw some grains on the floor mixed with dirt and wood chips. I took a closer look at it – this was salt. Salt was valued high during the war. We could not afford to buy it and ate food without salt. Perhaps, Motl was using it to keep skins from damaging. I gathered some salt from the floor and rinsed and dried it. It worked out all right. I took some more salt and had a whole bucket of salt on the next day.  I went to sell it at the market. A glass of salt cost as much as a loaf of bread. People were buying alt well. I was only concerned that somebody might steal my money. A Ukrainian village woman, selling her products beside me asked me who I was and where I lived. I told her I was shochet Motl’s niece – everybody knew him in Ozarintsy. I asked her permission to put my money into her basket. When I sold the salt, I left the market forgetting about the money. In the evening this village woman brought me my money home. Motl asked me how I managed to earn this much money and when he heard the story, he exclaimed:  ‘Smart girl, you will make your way wherever!’.

During the occupation we didn’t have any information about my father. My mother thought that we should stay at home in case my father was looking for us. Her relatives suggested that they would take care of my sisters. My older sister Zina stayed in Ozarintsy with our aunt. She went to work as a lab assistant in the Ozarintsy affiliate of the ‘Zagotzerno’ (Grain stocks) office. Etia went to live with my mother’s older brother living in Luchinets. I asked whether I could stay to live with them, but Motl replied I was quite capable of taking care of myself and my little sister.  We returned home. In late summer 1945 my father returned from the front. He went to work as a carpenter to the mechanical plant, which resumed its operations. My father made wooden boxes for the plant products. My younger sister Nyusia went to school. My older sister Zina also returned to Mogilyov-Podolskiy and went to work at the Zagotzerno office. Of course, our life improved. My father received a salary and food packages. Zina worked as a lab assistant. She made tests of the grain that kolkhozes supplied. She received about 0.5 kg grain for test purposes and then employees could take this grain home. Mama used to crash it with a pestle in a mortar and cook it.  

After the war

My parents wanted me to go back to school, but during the occupation I got used to live on my own and I didn’t quite feel like resuming my studies. I thought I had to go work and make my own contribution into the family budget. I had only finished 3 forms at school, and I was 14 years old.  Nobody wanted to hire me until I finally convinced director of a trade office to hire me.  I started selling milk. It was hard work: I got very little money for this work while I had to work all day carrying heavy milk cans. I asked director to give me some different work and he sent me to sell fish. So, I worked as a fish vendor in a kiosk at the central market for the rest of my life. I retired from there. It was hard work. There were no loaders and I had to carry heavy boxes with frozen fish and cut heavy briquettes into pieces. I never had a chance to sit down during the day: there were always customers lining up; I had no breaks. There was no heating in the kiosk: it was freezing in winter, and it was hot in summer. I didn’t go on vacation trying to earn more. My customers liked me: I joked and was cheerful and tried to serve them as best as I could. There were 3 fish kiosks one next to another, but there were always people lining to my kiosk. It’s a small town where people know each other, and I knew all of my customers.  

I got married in 1952. Our neighbor introduced me to her distant relative Semyon Leiderman. There were not many young men around: many perished at the front and the others – in ghettos. Shortly after we met Semyon proposed to me. Semyon was born in Luchinets village in 1926. His Jewish name is Shmul. His father Haim Leiderman was a burial man at the Jewish cemetery in Luchinets, and his mother was a housewife. Semyon had an older brother Yefim and a younger sister Anna.  Semyon’s parents were religious, but their children were far from religion like many others of their generation. During the war Semyon and his parents were in the Jewish ghetto in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. His older brother was at the front. Before the war Semyon had finished 8 forms of the Russian general education school. After the war Semyon stayed in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. He went to work as a turner at the mechanical plant, which was later converted into the plant of agricultural machine building named after Kirov. Yefim returned to Mogilyov-Podolskiy after the war. Anna got married and moved to Batumi in Georgia with her husband. Her husband’s relatives lived in this town. Her husband died a sudden death. Anna’s mother moved to Batumi to live with her daughter. She died in the middle 1970s.

We didn’t have a Jewish wedding. Life was very hard and we could not afford a big wedding party.  We registered in the registry office and in the evening had a small wedding dinner with the closest relatives. We lived in our little house with my parents and my younger sister Nyusia after the wedding. My older sisters were married to Jewish men from Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Zina’s family name was Weiss. Zina had two children: daughter Bella, born in 1950, and son Alexandr, born in 1953. Zina continued working as a lab assistant at the Zagotzerno office. Etia’s family name was Pekelis.  She never went back to school after the war. She had finished 6 forms at school before the war. Etia worked as an ice-cream vendor. Her husband worked at the mechanical plant. Etia had two daughters: Maya, born in 1951, and Sima, born in 1952. Zina and Etia lived with their own families.

My mother’s father Yevzel died in the early 1950s. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Ozarintsy. The funeral was traditional Jewish. There were very few Jews left in Ozarintsy, but they all came to my grandfather’s funeral. My father recited the Kaddish over my grandfather’s grave. My grandmother moved to live with my mother’s sister Riva after my grandfather died. My grandmother died two years after my grandfather’s death. She was never ill and was very active. She died quietly in her sleep. My grandmother was buried beside my grandfather’s grave. We came to their graves every year on anniversaries of heir death. My father recited the Kaddish according to the rules.  

Our older son David was born in 1953, and our daughter Maya was born in 1957. We did not raise them Jews. We spoke Russian with the children. I spoke Yiddish to my parents and my husband and I switched to Yiddish, when we did not want our children to understand the subject of our discussion. We celebrated Jewish holidays, when we lived with our parents. Our parents also celebrated Soviet holidays with us:  1 May, 7 November 15, Victory Day 16, Soviet army Day 17, the international Women’s Day in  8 March. In the early 1960s the plant where my husband and father were working built an apartment house for its workers and we received apartments in this house. Our old house was removed. My parents, my sister and our family had apartments in the same house, but on different floors. We joined our parents to celebrate Jewish holidays. Of course, mama could follow the kashrut no longer: there was hardly possible to buy food products in stores at the time, and we could not choose, whether this food was kosher or not.  

In January 1953 newspapers started publishing articles about the Kremlin doctors who were believed to try to poison Stalin [Doctors’ Plot] 18. It was hard for me to believe it. I think, this was the time anti-Semitism came into being. The newspapers focused on these doctors’ Jewish nationality stressing this factor as much as possible. Many people spoke negatively of Jews and could abuse a person just for being a Jew. I remember Stalin’s death in March 1953. Actually, I’ve never taken any interest in politics. I had to take care of the family and work for them. I had no time left for anything else and I didn’t care. However, at that time I cried grieving after Stalin, as if I had lost someone dear. It felt as if the whole world collapsed. Everybody talked about how we would be able to live without Stalin. People were concerned and did not know what to expect in the future.  Then on the 20th Congress 19, Khrushchev 20 spoke about Stalin and his helpers’ crimes. Of course, I believed everything he said. Then there were talks that if Stalin had not died he would have deported Jews to Siberia like he did with the Crimean Tatar and Chechen people. So I think Stalin’s death was a rescue for Jews. Actually, considering whatever I read about Stalin later, I believe him to have been a mentally ill person. It would be hard to explain his acts, his unjustified cruelty and insidiousness.

My son fell ill with measles at the age of 6. It developed into meningitis. Unfortunately, this disease had its aftereffects. David recovered physically, but he remained retarded. I talked to his tutor at the kindergarten and she spent more time with him, which had a positive outcome, but when my son went to school, his teachers did not want to spend more time with him. They told me that I had to send avid to a school for mentally retarded children. We didn’t have any choice. My son had a hard time in this school. The children mocked at him and beat him, and he came home in tears almost every day. His health condition grew weaker and weaker and he had to go to a hospital in Vinnitsa more and more often. I had to do work at home, visit him in the hospital and go to work. I also had to take care of David, when he was at home. He could not take care of himself. David died in 1989. We buried him in the Jewish cemetery. The community helped us with the traditional Jewish funeral.   

My son’s ailment had an impact on my daughter. She was a healthy and smart girl, but men did not dare to marry her. Of course, all people in Mogilyov-Podolskiy knew about David’s condition and were afraid that this disease could be hereditary. Then I met Igor Kotliar, a Jewish guy from Karaganda [Kazakhstan]. I helped him to enter the trade vocational school and find a job at a store.  I introduced Maya to Igor. They got married shortly after their acquaintance. They didn’t have a Jewish wedding. My daughter and her husband lived with us. Maya worked as a shop assistant at the store. Their older daughter was born in 1977. She was named Zinaida after my older sister Zina who died from cancer in 1973. My second granddaughter Irina was born in 1984. She was named after my father, who died in 1981, the first letters in their names are the same. We buried my father in the Jewish cemetery in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. The synagogue did not operate, but there was a prayer house where my father and mother went to pray.  The old people from this prayer house helped us to bury my father according to Jewish traditions. My parents lied with my younger sister Nyusia and her family. Nyusia married Dunovitzer, a Jewish man, in the middle 1960s.  Their son Igor was born in 1965, and son Yevgeniy - in 1970. Mama stayed to live with Nyusia. We tried to support her as much as we could trying to help her live over her loss. Mama died in 1986. She was buried beside my father’s grave.  After my parents died we gave up religion and never again celebrated Jewish holidays. We celebrated birthdays of members of the family, New Year and Victory Day. The other Soviet holidays were just ordinary days off for us.  

In the 1970s mass departures of Jews to Israel began.  Our friends, acquaintances and relatives were leaving. My sister Etia and her family and Zina’s daughters moved to Israel. We didn’t consider departure. I understood that since neither my husband nor I had education and there was little chance for us to find a job and start our life anew. Besides, I had to take care of my mentally retarded son and his doctors did not recommend a change of climate of surrounding to him. So we stayed here, and when my husband’s health condition grew worse we stopped thinking about departure.

We could hardly make ends meet. Besides, I tried to save some money hoping that when my husband and I retired, we would travel and enjoy ourselves. I took these savings to the bank. We had never traveled on vacation – we had to stay where our son was to take care of him. Besides, we didn’t want to be a burden for our daughter, when we grew old: old people need medications and doctors and this all requires money. We were hoping that we would manage at our old age having our savings, but then perestroika 21 began, and all our hopes turned into ashes. Of course, perestroika brought a lot of good to younger people: there is freedom of speech and press, private business, which was subject to criminal persecution in the past, is allowed. People got a chance to correspond with their relatives and friends abroad without fearing the KGB 22. It became possible to travel abroad and invite foreigners to visit. However, old people do not need this. We’ve only consumed the bitter fruit of perestroika. The material level of living grew lower; our savings decreased in value and then were gone [The disintegration of the USSR in 1991 also resulted in the newly independent states introducing their own national currencies. Soviet Ruble ceased existing. Many people lost their life-time savings.]. My husband and I were pensioners at this time. Again we were starving. Our pensions were hardly sufficient to pay our apartment fees and just for the most necessary food. Later, when the USSR fell apart, we were scared. We left our apartment to our daughter: there were 6 of us living in a little two-bedroom apartment and this caused many rows between us. My husband and I borrowed some money and bought half of a little private house in the district where the ghetto used to be. We returned some money, but to pay back our debt in full we had to go to work, but there were no jobs available. My sister Etia sent me some money from Israel to pay back my debts. Nyusia also supported me. She and her family moved to Dneprodzerzhinsk in Dnepropetrovsk region [50 km from Dnepropetrovsk, 380 km from Kiev], where her son Igor got a job assignment after finishing the Vinnitsa Polytechnic College.  Igor moved to Israel in the late 1990s. Nyusia, her husband and their younger son Yevgeniy live in Dneprodzerzhinsk. 

I became an invalid in 2000. I was walking back home from work, when a man attacked me in the dark entrance of the building and stabbed me with his knife: and he did this just to snatch away my bag from me: there was just enough money in it to buy 100 gram of sausage! I had to stay in hospital for a long time. The doctors were very sympathetic to me, operated on me at no cost and brought me to recovery. The man cut my femoral artery and I lost my leg: they amputated it as high as above my knee. When I was in the hospital, my husband decided he didn’t want an invalid of a wife and found another woman. Of course, I felt painfully hurt, but what could I do… I had to learn to live alone. Fortunately, my daughter didn’t leave me in trouble. By that time my older granddaughter Zinaida finished a medical school. She could not find a job here and moved to Germany. She learned the language and found a job. She is doing well. Recently my younger granddaughter Irina followed her sister. I live with my daughter and her husband. They look after me and help me around. My sisters also remember me. I corresponded with Etia and Nyusia and they helped me with money. Etia died last February. Her daughters write and support me.  

When Ukraine became independent, the Jewish life began to revive. There is a Jewish community and Hesed 23 in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Though I’m bedridden and do not go out, they remember me. They deliver hot meals to my home and a visiting nurse and a volunteer from the community visit me. I’m very happy, when they come to see me. My daughter and her husband are at work and I miss talking to people. I welcome the volunteers very much. When they celebrate a holiday in the community they tell me about the celebration and keep me updated on everything new.  I receive Jewish newspapers and enjoy reading them. I think every person can find something interesting there.  The community provides medications to me and supports me, when I have to go to hospital. They are good people – very good people. I thank them for their care and support.

Glossary:

1 Common name

Russified or Russian first names used by Jews in everyday life and adopted in official documents. The Russification of first names was one of the manifestations of the assimilation of Russian Jews at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. In some cases only the spelling and pronunciation of Jewish names was russified (e.g. Isaac instead of Yitskhak; Boris instead of Borukh), while in other cases traditional Jewish names were replaced by similarly sounding Russian names (e.g. Eugenia instead of Ghita; Yury instead of Yuda). When state anti-Semitism intensified in the USSR at the end of the 1940s, most Jewish parents stopped giving their children traditional Jewish names to avoid discrimination.

2 Russian Revolution of 1917

Revolution in which the tsarist regime was overthrown in the Russian Empire and, under Lenin, was replaced by the Bolshevik rule. The two phases of the Revolution were: February Revolution, which came about due to food and fuel shortages during World War I, and during which the tsar abdicated and a provisional government took over. The second phase took place in the form of a coup led by Lenin in October/November (October Revolution) and saw the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

3 Civil War (1918-1920)

The Civil War between the Reds (the Bolsheviks) and the Whites (the anti-Bolsheviks), which broke out in early 1918, ravaged Russia until 1920. The Whites represented all shades of anti-communist groups – Russian army units from World War I, led by anti-Bolshevik officers, by anti-Bolshevik volunteers and some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. Several of their leaders favored setting up a military dictatorship, but few were outspoken tsarists. Atrocities were committed throughout the Civil War by both sides. The Civil War ended with Bolshevik military victory, thanks to the lack of cooperation among the various White commanders and to the reorganization of the Red forces after Trotsky became commissar for war. It was won, however, only at the price of immense sacrifice; by 1920 Russia was ruined and devastated. In 1920 industrial production was reduced to 14% and agriculture to 50% as compared to 1913.

4 Keep in touch with relatives abroad

The authorities could arrest an individual corresponding with his/her relatives abroad and charge him/her with espionage, send them to concentration camp or even sentence them to death.

5 Jewish Pale of Settlement

Certain provinces in the Russian Empire were designated for permanent Jewish residence and the Jewish population was only allowed to live in these areas. The Pale was first established by a decree by Catherine II in 1791. The regulation was in force until the Russian Revolution of 1917, although the limits of the Pale were modified several times. The Pale stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and 94% of the total Jewish population of Russia, almost 5 million people, lived there. The overwhelming majority of the Jews lived in the towns and shtetls of the Pale. Certain privileged groups of Jews, such as certain merchants, university graduates and craftsmen working in certain branches, were granted to live outside the borders of the Pale of Settlement permanently.

6 Pogroms in Ukraine

In the 1920s there were many anti-Semitic gangs in Ukraine. They killed Jews and burnt their houses, they robbed their houses, raped women and killed children.

7 Gangs

During the Russian Civil War 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.

8 Denikin, Anton Ivanovich (1872-1947)

White Army general. During the Russian Civil War he fought against the Red Army in the South of Ukraine.

9 Struggle against religion

The 1930s was a time of anti-religion struggle in the USSR. In those years it was not safe to go to synagogue or to church. Places of worship, statues of saints, etc. were removed; rabbis, Orthodox and Roman Catholic priests disappeared behind KGB walls.

10 Bessarabia

Historical area between the Prut and Dnestr rivers, in the southern part of Odessa region. Bessarabia was part of Russia until the Revolution of 1917. In 1918 it declared itself an independent republic, and later it united with Romania. The Treaty of Paris (1920) recognized the union but the Soviet Union never accepted this. In 1940 Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR. The two provinces had almost 4 million inhabitants, mostly Romanians. Although Romania reoccupied part of the territory during World War II the Romanian peace treaty of 1947 confirmed their belonging to the Soviet Union. Today it is part of Moldavia.

11 Great Patriotic War

On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

12 Young Octobrist

In Russian Oktyabrenok, or ‘pre-pioneer’, designates Soviet children of seven years or over preparing for entry into the pioneer organization.

13 Pechora camp

On 11 November 1941 the civil governor of Transnistria issued  the deportation of Jews. A camp for Jewish residents of Tulchin (3005 in total) was established in Pechora village Vinnytsya region in December 1941. This is known as the 'Dead Loop'. In total about 9000 people from various towns in Vinnytsya region were kept in the camp. They were accommodated in the former 2-storied recreation center building. There were up to 50 tenants in one room. No provisions were made for the most basic necessities of the inmates. Inmates hardly got any food and the building had no heating. About 2 500 Jews were taken away by Germans for forced labor. None of them returned, they all died from forced labor beyond their strength, lack of food, hunger and diseases. In March 1944 Soviet troops liberated the camp. There were 1550 survivors left in the camp.

14 Bukovina

Historical region, located East of the Carpathian Mountain range, bordering with Transylvania, Galicia and Moldova. In 1775 it became a Habsburg territory as a consequence of the Kuchuk-Kainarji Treaty (1774) between the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empire. After the fall of Austria-Hungary Bukovina was annexed to Romania (1920). In 1939 a non-aggression pact was signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), which also meant dividing Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of interest. Taking advantage of the pact, the Soviet Union claimed in an ultimatum from 1940 some of the Romanian territories. Romania was forced to renounce Bessarabia and Northern-Bukovina, including Czernowitz (Cernauti, Chernovtsy). Bukovina was characterized by ethnic and religious pluralism; the ethnic communities included Germans, Poles, Jews, Hungarians, Ukrainians and Romanians, the most dominant religious persuasions were Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. In 1930 some 93,000 Jews lived in Bukovina, which was 10,9% of the entire population. 

15 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.

16 Victory Day in Russia (9th May)

National holiday to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II and honor the Soviets who died in the war.

17 Soviet Army Day

The Russian imperial army and navy disintegrated after the outbreak of the Revolution of 1917, so the Council of the People's Commissars created the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army on a voluntary basis. The first units distinguished themselves against the Germans on February 23, 1918. This day became the ‘Day of the Soviet Army’ and is nowadays celebrated as ‘Army Day’.

18 Doctors’ Plot

The Doctors’ Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin’s reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

19 Twentieth Party Congress

At the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 Khrushchev publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted the veil of secrecy from what had happened in the USSR during Stalin’s leadership.

20 Khrushchev, Nikita (1894-1971)

Soviet communist leader. After Stalin’s death in 1953, he became first secretary of the Central Committee, in effect the head of the Communist Party of the USSR. In 1956, during the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev took an unprecedented step and denounced Stalin and his methods. He was deposed as premier and party head in October 1964. In 1966 he was dropped from the Party's Central Committee.

21 Perestroika (Russian for restructuring)

Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s, associated with the name of Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev. The term designated the attempts to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized, market-oriented economy. Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratize the Communist Party organization. By 1991, perestroika was declining and was soon eclipsed by the dissolution of the USSR.

22 KGB

The KGB or Committee for State Security was the main Soviet external security and intelligence agency, as well as the main secret police agency from 1954 to 1991.

23 Hesed

Meaning care and mercy in Hebrew, Hesed stands for the charity organization founded by Amos Avgar in the early 20th century. Supported by Claims Conference and Joint Hesed helps for Jews in need to have a decent life despite hard economic conditions and encourages development of their self-identity. Hesed provides a number of services aimed at supporting the needs of all, and particularly elderly members of the society. The major social services include: work in the center facilities (information, advertisement of the center activities, foreign ties and free lease of medical equipment); services at homes (care and help at home, food products delivery, delivery of hot meals, minor repairs); work in the community (clubs, meals together, day-time polyclinic, medical and legal consultations); service for volunteers (training programs). The Hesed centers have inspired a real revolution in the Jewish life in the FSU countries. People have seen and sensed the rebirth of the Jewish traditions of humanism. Currently over eighty Hesed centers exist in the FSU countries. Their activities cover the Jewish population of over eight hundred settlements.

Elina Falkenshtein

Elina Falkenshtein
Riga
Latvia
Date of interview: May 2001
Interviewer:

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background


My granddad, Ilija Aron Moyshevich Falkov, was born in Ludza in 1867. [Ludza: a town that belonged to the province of Vitebsk until 1917, now it belongs to Latvia]. He completed two grades of a provincial elementary school. He knew ancient Hebrew, Ivrit, the Talmud, Jewish history and Russian literature well, or so my father told me. I was named Elina after my grandfather. My grandfather dealt with timber processing, first for private owners, and then for the management of the Moscow-Vindava [today Ventspils] railroad. It appears that he then peddled metalwork, traveling from village to village, selling his hardware to peasants. My grandfather died of a heart attack while sitting at the table in Ludza in 1924.

His wife, Goda Peisahovna Falkova, nee Gordina, was born in 1870, but I don’t know where. She was a housewife, she sew and knitted. I don’t know anything about her siblings. My father’s parents got married in 1895 in Ludza; they lived on 31, Ostrovsk Street. Grandmother Goda Peisahovna lived with us in Riga, but I don’t remember her. She simply wasn’t allowed to be with me. She died of tuberculosis in Riga in 1939 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery.

My father, Mikhail Ilyich Falkov, was born in Ludza on 23rd December 1899. It is difficult to say how strictly Orthodox his family was. Ludza was a Jewish settlement; there all was colored with Jewish religion and Jewish culture. Papa left his parents’ house at the age of 14 for Pskov [today Russia], where he studied at an institute. He returned home in 1918 before moving to Riga. In all probability, he entered the Faculty of Mechanics of the Latvian University in 1919. My father studied at university for about ten years. He studied, as a matter of fact, with my mother; they were from the same city. As soon as they finished university, they got married. They were unusual students in that they signed up for individual courses. That’s why their education took so long. Papa, while he studied at university, taught Hebrew, the history of the Jewish people, mathematics, electro-technology and physics at a Jewish gymnasium in Riga. Until 1940, my father worked as an engineer in the factories of a paper and veneer company. He held a high-ranking post. As far as my father’s biography is concerned, I would like to add that Papa served in the Latvian army. When his tour of duty was finished, he resigned his post, probably sometime in the 1920s.

Growing up

My parents got married in 1929. When I was born, they already lived in Riga, on 14, Shkolnoi Street. We were lucky enough to return to this very same apartment after our evacuation to Sverdlovsk region. After our return my father found, in different apartments, the remains of the wonderful furniture made from Karelian birch and redwood that had been in our apartment before the war. The story of how we left during the evacuation I only know from the memories of my mother and grandmother. That summer we were at the dacha [cottage] in Yurmala with my grandmother. Papa stormed in and cried, ‘Anna Abramovna! War!’

My grandmother sewed backpacks for me and my brother and around our necks we wore little bags for our documents. I remember that I had a striped housecoat that survived the war and came back to Riga with us. And, when echelons overtook us during the bombing, my grandmother would cover me and my brother with that housecoat. ‘To save us’, I thought at the time. But then, when I was already a grown-up, I understood that she covered us up so that we couldn’t see anything.

During the war

Papa, when the war started, probably expected someone to come for him. But in our courtyard in Riga lived a captain or a major, a pilot who had a son that was friends with my brother. This pilot ran up to us and shouted, ‘Get in here!’ He threw us in a truck and took us to some unknown place. After, I remember, we were walking and Papa held me under his arm. We went on foot towards Sebezha [a city on the border of Latvia and Russia], while many people passed us heading in the opposite direction, saying that behind them were Germans and we should go to Riga. Grandmother said, ‘We will only move forward!’ From those who returned to Riga, nothing has ever been heard of again.

As to my father’s views on Orthodoxy: he was a secular man, but he knew and understood everything. When we returned from evacuation, from Tovda in Sverdlovsk region, my father set me on his knee and told me all about Jewish holidays, traditions and history. These were something like my father’s fairytales for me.

After the war

The most interesting thing was that Papa taught me how to read and write in Yiddish. I might not know certain words, but I can basically write in Yiddish. And when, not long ago, it was time to learn Hebrew, everyone was amazed at how easily it came to me; I didn’t even mix up the letters. In 1948 Papa brought home the big children’s book, Kvitko 1, in which, for each word, there was a poem in Yiddish. Of course I speak less and less now, but I understand songs. I simply have no time to study and keep up the language. In fact, even today, in the Jewish school where I work, there isn’t a teacher of Yiddish. But when, in the 1980s, everything changed, when everything became possible, then it seemed that I was ready for it because inside I knew a lot already. My Papa simply told me about everything without a religious overtone.

After the war, when we lived in Riga, my family didn’t observe Jewish religious traditions. Did the Soviet government influence us? No. It was simply that my parents were very intelligent, educated people who were also democratically inclined. They were well versed in Jewish culture and writers. Our house was often filled with interesting people; there were meetings that took place even before the war.

When, at the beginning of the 1950s, the attacks against cosmopolitans [see campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] 2 and the Doctors’ Plot 3 began, my father was forced to leave his work; he was probably asked to leave. By this time Papa had become the head of a large corporation. He was dismissed from the Communist Party. During these days, in one of the rooms of our big, seven-bedroom apartment from before the war, there was a stove, which we ‘fed’ all 30 volumes of a pre-war edition of Dubnow’s 4 body of work. I can still see Mama, or Papa, I don’t remember who, throwing volumes into the stove. The cover of that edition was white and someone had cut out the title and author so that, if the NKVD 5 should happen to come by, they wouldn’t know the author. We had many, many books in Russian, Yiddish and Hebrew.

When the Doctors’ Plot had calmed down, Papa worked at the ministry and then, in 1955, he began to work at a timber processing plant in Elgava. He went to work there in order to receive a pension. He was the head engineer. He retired about six months before the official retirement age because he had heart problems. This was about 1959, when I finished university. In general, the Falkovs are known to have weak hearts.

One of my father’s sister was called Raisa, Rasel or Raisa Ilyichna as was the proper way of saying it in Russia. She was born in 1895. She graduated from the Institute for Foreign Languages in Moscow, and she taught English in technical schools in Moscow. She spent all her life in Russia, and she died there, too.

My father’s second sister, Mina, was born in 1897. She was a very impressive personality. During one of her marriages she even managed to live in the Kremlin. Aunt Mina’s son, Mihail Falkov, lives in Riga.

My father’s third sister, Ljuba, was born in 1898. After the war she ended up in Ukraine and worked in a textile workshop in Kiev for a very long time. She didn’t have a family.

My father’s youngest sister, Polina, born in 1906, was the most active, most combative woman. She lived in Moscow. But then the end of the 1930s came, when everybody who was from Latvia began to be looked at as a spy. She was accused of spying for Japan and was sent to a camp in Kolyma [region in the Northern part of Russia where the infamous Gulag 6 camps were located]. After the camp she ended up in Udmurtia, next to Izhevsk, where my father’s youngest brother, Uncle Yasha, served his sentence. While in the camp, Uncle Yasha was saved by a simple woman, whom he later married and had children with. That’s where our Udmurtian line of relatives comes from.

My maternal grandfather was Isidor or Israel Borovik. He died around 1924. He was from Vilnius [capital of Lithuania]. He was sent to be a teacher in Ludza. I don’t know whether there was a Jewish or a Russian school there. He was even a rabbi in Ludza for a while. As he was a teacher, he had beautiful handwriting; he drew the letters one by one. There are many stories about my grandfather. He wasn’t from this world, even as a teacher. The children could behave as badly as they wanted in class. He is said to have been reading newspapers or books until the candle or the paraffin lamp went out by itself. My mother probably resembled him in that respect. She simply worshiped him. Perhaps because she also lived in some kind of fantasy world.

My maternal grandmother, Hannah Abramova Borovika, was born in Lithuania in 1873 and died in Riga in 1958. She was probably the main carrier of tradition in our family. She was a very interesting woman. She was really raised in the Jewish tradition. She was permeated with it through and through. I remember her explaining that eating pork was forbidden because it is written in the Torah, and because pigs eat their piglets. My grandmother was a unique personality. It is maybe thanks to her that we survived the war. We wrote down my grandmother’s life. What I wrote down back then helped me a lot later in my life. She told us about the family in which she grew up, about her life in a small village.

When my grandmother was ill, my mother used to go to the cemetery to collect medicinal herbs. And when she recovered, she was given a new name. She had about seven names altogether; the ones I remember were Hannah, Anna and Maria. My grandmother was a tailor. She had her own tailor school. Not in the traditional sense, but a school where she was teaching. My grandmother invented her own curved ruler. She was able to teach anyone any kind of tailoring in two or three lessons.

I was lucky that she lived for so long. I learned much from her. The most important thing is sobriety. Sobriety with respect to origin. At the time she said to me, ‘All right! You may marry a Russian. But don’t forget, it may happen that one day, when you need help most, you will be reproached for being a Jew.’ I wrote down the story of her life but unfortunately I don’t have that book anymore.

Despite her religious upbringing she was a progressive woman. She kept telling me, ‘Why does the whole town have to know when I sleep with my husband and when I don’t’. That was in Ludza. And then she stopped going to the mikveh. ‘If you go there, it will be clear to everyone why you are going there’, she explained. Well, she was such a granny! When my grandfather died she was around 40 and was left alone with a bunch of children.

Later, in Riga, she tried to open a sewing workshop, like Vera Pavlovna [heroine of the novel What Is To Be Done by Chernyshevsky] 7, but, of course, the needlewomen stole everything from her. The whole thing ended like that. She sewed during the war too, but being paid in cash was out of the question; she was given food for her work.

On Pesach 1955, while my grandmother got special dishes and spoons, I went to our acquaintances to buy a kosher chicken and I cooked meat soup with dumplings on the stove in her room. Once, at Jewish New Year, when my grandmother was still able to walk, we went to the synagogue together. I know the synagogue because I remember it from that time. At the time the balcony was still screened, there were some small holes, and women weren’t allowed to go downstairs. The synagogue is different now.

My mother, Dina Isidorovna Falkova, nee Borovika, was born in Ludza on 23rd May 1899. She was called Dulce in her childhood. She, just like my father, left her home when she was young. After finishing elementary school in Ludza, she gained admission to a high school in Daugavapils [until 1917 it belonged to the Province of Vitebsk, now it belongs to Latvia]. My mother was admitted, and although she was sent some money, she earned a living by teaching and by darning socks very artistically: she got one kopeck for each hole she mended.

My mother graduated from a teacher training course in Orsha [until 1917 it belonged to the Province of Vitebsk, now it belongs to Belarus]. She was small with long braids. My mother’s class-mates told me about her first teaching practice – the school-inspector looked into the class-room and went to the principal in indignation. ‘Why do you leave a class without a teacher?!’, he said. In that class, my mother was the teacher. My mother was more of a teacher than a mathematician. She transmitted a love of her subject to the children. She nurtured the human side of the children. After the war my mother worked in regular and evening schools and gave lectures at the Teacher Training Institute. She was elected – with no scientific degrees – an associate member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the Soviet Union.

My grandmother, Hannah Abramova, had three children according to the documents – Yasha, Moisey and my mother. I knew Moisey Borovik. He was a furrier. His wife was from a wealthy Jewish family. When the war began, they were transported to a transit camp and he never saw his wife again. He went through many camps. He didn’t like to talk about his experiences. When the first film about Auschwitz was shown, he didn’t want to see it, but eventually he went to see it. He came back and said, ‘What they showed there was paradise. But to us, it was horrible.’ Uncle Moisey was an educated man, or more precisely, a self-educated man. My mother’s other brother, Yasha, went to try his luck in Brazil.

I have one brother, Israel Mikhailovich Falkov. He was born on 1st January 1935 in Riga. He graduated from the Moscow oil institute and drilled holes for water and oil in Latvia. Now he is retired and lives in the USA.

I was born in Riga in November 1938. We had a loving and happy family. In the summers we would rent a dacha in Yurmala as was proper in the years before the war. I devoted my entire life to pedagogy, and worked in many schools in Riga as well as at the Institute for Teacher Training. For the last ten years, however, I’ve been working in Riga’s Jewish school. I was this school’s vice-principal, in charge of academics, and the deputy director. Now I teach mathematics. To be honest, I’ve always been more interested in the work of a pedagogue than mathematics.

I finished school in 1954, right after the dethroning of Stalin’s cult of personality [see Twentieth Party Congress] 8, when we were all in a very strange state of mind. I finished secondary school at the age of 16, and I had enough time for serious thought. I already knew that I would go work in a school; there were no other thoughts in my mind. I began to add everything up: first, there was no place in Riga to obtain a qualification in elementary school education. Secondly, I was always adept at learning history and literature, but I decided it wasn’t possible for me to associate myself with history or literature. Because, what was I to tell children in three or four years? Chemistry and physics, I felt, should only be taught by men. All that was left to me was mathematics because, no matter what happens, 2 times 2 is 4.

To be honest, I did well in all subjects. I was the best student in our school. I chose mathematics, not literature, for which I had a gift. The same gift, in fact, that my mother had. I graduated from the Latvian University in physics and mathematics. My mother tongue is Russian but I also speak Latvian and English. I have a PhD in pedagogical sciences.

My husband, Yevgenii Mikhailovich Falkenshtein, was born in 1931. He is from Rezekne, [until 1917, it was part of Pskov region, today it’s in Latvia]. He is Jewish, a radio engineer and former officer in the Soviet army, although now retired.

I have two children. My daughter Marina was born in 1957. She graduated from the Latvian University, the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, with a degree in programming. She now works as an elementary school teacher in the Jewish school in Riga. My son Leonid was born in 1959. He also graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Latvian University. Now he has his own business: a sales firm.

My grandmother Hannah was Marina’s nanny. It was very frightening. She would take Marina in her arms and could see nothing. Marina was named after either my grandmother’s aunt or sister. The name was either Marianna or Marian. That’s why she became Marina. We named our son Leonid because one can hear the sound Anya in his name. [Editor’s note: The interviewee probably refers to the commonly used name for Leonid, Lionia, which sounds a bit like the common nickname for Anna, Anya.] My children live in Riga. I also have four grandchildren: Karina, who is 14, and Polina, who is 13, are Marina’s children. Dina, who is 20 and a student at the International School of Economics, and Roman, who is 17 and a student at the Latvian Musical Academy, are Leonid’s children.

My children know very well that they are Jewish and don’t turn away from their Jewish roots. Marina, of course, is much more interested in her background. My son is more neutral. Marina’s children study at a Jewish school and my son’s children, although they finished a Russian school, still consider themselves Jews.

My father died in Riga in December 1964 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Shmerli. My mother died in Riga on 25th March 1969.

I have lived an interesting and satisfying life with my husband. We traveled much around Russia, but we always remembered that our roots lay in Latvia. As a matter of fact, when our children were teenagers, we often took them to Lutzin and Rezekne so that they would know where their ancestors came from. My husband and I try to keep Jewish traditions in our household, remembering and celebrating every Jewish holiday.


Glossary

1 Kvitko, Lev (1890-1952)

Jewish writer, arrested and shot dead together with several other Yiddish writers, rehabilitated posthumously.

2 Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’

The campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’, i.e. Jews, was initiated in articles in the central organs of the Communist Party in 1949. The campaign was directed primarily at the Jewish intelligentsia and it was the first public attack on Soviet Jews as Jews. ‘Cosmopolitans’ writers were accused of hating the Russian people, of supporting Zionism, etc. Many Yiddish writers as well as the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in November 1948 on charges that they maintained ties with Zionism and with American ‘imperialism’. They were executed secretly in 1952. The anti-Semitic Doctors’ Plot was launched in January 1953. A wave of anti-Semitism spread through the USSR. Jews were removed from their positions, and rumors of an imminent mass deportation of Jews to the eastern part of the USSR began to spread. Stalin’s death in March 1953 put an end to the campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’.

3 Doctors’ Plot

The Doctors’ Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin’s reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

4 Dubnow, Simon (1860-1941)

One of the great modern Jewish historians and thinkers. Born in Belarus, he was close to the circle of the Jewish enlightenment in Russia. His greatest achievement was his study of the history of the Jews in Eastern Europe and their spiritual and religious movements. His major work was the ten volume World History of the Jewish People. Dubnow settled in Berlin in 1922. When Hitler came to power he moved to Riga, where he was put into the ghetto in 1941 and shot by a Gestapo officer on 8 December the same year.

5 NKVD

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

6 Gulag

The Soviet system of forced labor camps in the remote regions of Siberia and the Far North, which was first established in 1919. However, it was not until the early 1930s that there was a significant number of inmates in the camps. By 1934 the Gulag, or the Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps, then under the Cheka's successor organization the NKVD, had several million inmates. The prisoners included murderers, thieves, and other common criminals, along with political and religious dissenters. The Gulag camps made significant contributions to the Soviet economy during the rule of Stalin. Conditions in the camps were extremely harsh. After Stalin died in 1953, the population of the camps was reduced significantly, and conditions for the inmates improved somewhat.

7 Chernyshevsky, Nikolay Gavrilovich (1828-1889)

Russian critic and editor, who began his journalistic career in 1853 at Sovremennik (The Contemporary), which he turned into the leading radical publication of the time. He emphasized the social aspect of literature. His novel Chto delat (What Is To Be Done?, 1863) was regarded as a revolutionary classic in the Soviet Union. Chernyshevsky was arrested for revolutionary activities in 1862, sentenced to seven years of hard labor and twenty years of exile in Siberia. He was allowed to leave Siberia due to bad health condition in 1883 and spent the rest of his days in his native Saratov.

8 Twentieth Party Congress

At the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 Khrushchev publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted the veil of secrecy from what had happened in the USSR during Stalin’s leadership.

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