Travel

Hanna We*

Warsaw

Poland

Interviewer: Joanna Fikus

Date of interview: February 2005

(*The full name of the interviewee is being withheld upon her request.)

Mrs. Hanna We is a biochemist. She’s a medicine graduate and works part-time in the genetics department of the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw. She lives alone in a small apartment in the Warsaw district of Ochota, where she moved recently after the death of her husband. She is intelligent, cool and even-tempered, and offers succinct answers to my questions. She’s from a wealthy and intellectual family of secular Jews. The Jewish holidays weren’t observed in her family home, and Jewish traditions weren’t kept. Her parents moved around in circles of people like themselves – secular Jews. During our conversations, Hanna repeatedly emphasized that her family was thoroughly assimilated. From our talks, an interesting description of the life of secular Jews in prewar Poland emerged. The size of this section of the population is estimated at around 50,000. It was this group that had the best chance of surviving the Holocaust – they spoke excellent Polish, were familiar with Polish culture and had at least some connections among the Polish community. It’s precisely her wartime experiences and the resultant fear of revealing her true identity that prompted Hanna to ask us not to give her full name during this conversation. In spite of her age she’s very physically active – she continues to play tennis, ski, and canoe, and has a varied social life.

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

My family background

I know very little about my ancestors. My father’s family was more assimilated than my mother’s, and they had lived in Warsaw for several generations. My mother’s family were Litvaks 1. There were two portraits of my great-grandfathers in my grandparents’ house, and those great-grandfathers had beards and wore caps. I find it a little strange that I slightly remember those portraits, because that was an environment that was unfamiliar to me.

My maternal grandfather was a Litvak. His name was Marceli Lewin. He was born in 1859 in Belarus, in a place called Wysokie Litewskie [before World War II Wysokie Litewskie was in Poland, in the Brest district of the Poleskie province. Today it is in Belarus, also in the district of Brest, and is called Vysokoye] – I found it on the map when my cousin in America was doing our family tree. Wysokie Litewskie is on the other side of the [Polish–Belarusian] border now. I don’t think my grandfather had an education. Neither did my grandmother. I think my grandfather was the first of his brothers and sisters to come to Warsaw, and he and his wife opened a Laundromat. Initially they ran the Laundromat themselves. Because my grandfather did well – he was evidently a confident and capable man – he had his brothers come to Warsaw from Lithuania.

My maternal grandmother’s name was Sara. At first I think she worked in the Laundromat. Later, she just kept the house. Their children were born in Warsaw. I know that my mother certainly was. The eldest was Eliasz, followed by my mother – Balbina – and then finally her younger sister Elzbieta. My grandparents had lots of children, but many of them died because of misfortunes, or something bad. My grandmother had miscarriages; she had problems.

My mother’s eldest brother, Eliasz, you can see [in the photograph] that he was much older than his sisters. I think he was born in Warsaw. I don’t know whether he went to a secular school, as he was too old to know. He wasn’t young when I met him. On the family photograph you can see the difference [between the siblings]; it must be well over ten years. I don’t know exactly what year he was born in. He worked in his own family firm: it was a laundry and underwear factory.

Before the war Uncle Eliasz had had two wives and a daughter from one wife. The first wife, Helena, died, and the other wife was called Felicja. Felicja survived the war and died in Poland. My uncle had a daughter, Irena, with his first wife, and she was from Polonized circles, too. [The interviewee is referring to the acquisition or imposition of elements of Polish culture, especially Polish language, as experienced in some historic periods by non-Polish populations of territories controlled or substantially influenced by Poland.] But later, after the war, Irena went to Israel, probably in the 1950s or 1960s. She decided that that was what she wanted.

Next was my mother, Balbina. My mother was born in 1898, and she died in 1977. Her unique name was the product of somebody’s imagination. My mother was always a little ashamed of her name. She blamed her father for that. She asked why he’d given her such a silly name. He joked: ‘Well, I asked you but you didn’t say it was a bad name.’

My mother’s younger sister was called Elzbieta. She died in Canada after the Holocaust. She was born in 1900 or 1901. She got married before the war; her [married] name was Ramet. I don’t know whether it was a secular or a religious wedding. Her husband, whose name was Henryk, had Zionist 2 leanings at one time. He was in some organization. They sent their daughter to a Hebrew school, for instance. My parents had no such intentions at all. And I even think they looked critically at Elzbieta’s husband for being silly.

My grandparents were traditional. My mother said that even though her parents were traditional, her father ate ham, but never at home. At home I don’t think they kept kosher, but nevertheless it wouldn’t have been acceptable to eat ham. On the photograph you can see that my grandparents aren’t wearing traditional costume, but entirely secular clothes. My grandfather didn’t belong to any organization. I don’t think he had any political sympathies. In any case nothing has stuck in my mind, or survived in the family history.

I think my grandparents spoke Yiddish between themselves; they didn’t speak it with the children. I remember my grandmother; she spoke Polish with mistakes, not pure Polish. My mother spoke fluent Polish. Even if somebody thought she was Jewish, and then she said something, they thought they were mistaken. All my grandparents’ children spoke Polish fluently. In our home we spoke nothing else besides Polish. I don’t even think my mother could speak Yiddish, but she understood it, and my father didn’t speak or understand Yiddish.

As far back as I remember my grandparents in Warsaw lived on Pawia [a street in the northern part of Warsaw inhabited mainly by Jews]. I don’t know where they lived before that. I remember that apartment on Pawia: it was attractive and big. I think there were four rooms in the apartment. My grandparents were wealthy and lived in good conditions. They even had help in the house. The house-help was Polish. I remember her a little; my grandmother used to call her ‘Anielcia.’ They could afford help, because my grandfather was the co-proprietor of the Laundromat.

The business grew in time into a large company. My grandfather accepted partners because he didn’t have any capital. They transformed into a joint-stock company. His partners were Jewish. I don’t know how many people worked in the Laundromat. I was a child, and the Laundromat seemed big to me. My mother used to say that initially they did the washing by hand, but then later they had machines. A fully-fledged firm! The Laundromat and the apartment were in the same building.

My grandfather died in 1926, when he was quite young. After my grandfather’s death the Lewins’ financial situation still blossomed. They were still heirs or shareholders in the company. My grandmother didn’t get involved in it, as she wasn’t the businesswoman type. When I went to my grandmother’s house she used to talk to me a lot. My grandmother wasn’t beautiful, but she was slender and magnificent [according to Mrs. We, ‘magnificent’ means an elegant woman]. I remember her as someone already fairly elderly. I remember her as a mild person. When I was younger and we lived close [in the same building as her grandparents], I used to go around often, and later, after we moved, we only visited once a week or so, usually for Sunday lunch. I used to like going there. I remember those meals! To this day I remember one dish – chopped liver with egg and onion [Polish Jews call this dish Jewish caviar], and clear chicken soup, I think.

My grandparents didn’t observe the Jewish holidays. I have never been to a seder supper in my life. It was only after the war, abroad, that I experienced a Jewish holiday. Evidently my grandmother didn’t celebrate that. Her daughters didn’t celebrate the holidays either. In terms of customs I can’t tell you anything. 

My grandmother died the day before the outbreak of war. Perhaps she had a stroke or she probably died of old age. I think she was about 80. She was still lucky enough to die in her own home and she had a normal funeral. My grandparents are buried in the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa [in Warsaw]. I can’t find their graves. I’ve been going there recently because it’s important to my son, but I haven’t managed to find my grandparents’ grave, although I did go there. And there’s nobody to ask at the cemetery. 

My paternal grandfather was called Pinkus Cohn. When we had the documents made out again later on, they said: Cohn alias Kon. I don’t know what surname appeared in my father’s papers. I think it was Kon. But in mine, and in Uncle Stanislaw’s papers, too, that dual spelling is recorded. Although it’s possible that his surname was written with a ‘C.’

I think my grandmother’s name was Fania. I didn’t know her. She died before I was born. I don’t know my grandparents’ dates of birth. I think Grandmother was slightly religious. I remember my grandfather a little. They lived in Warsaw for a long time. I don’t remember their apartment, although I did go there, but I was still small. I know it was on Zlota Street [a street in the center of Warsaw, considered fairly high-class, inhabited by Poles and assimilated Jews]. My grandfather died when I was a few years old. I think he was a merchant. I don’t think he had any political leanings. My mother’s family was wealthy, my father’s family was more modest. I wrote about that in my book [Hanna had a book published in 2001 entitled: Ze wspomnien (From My Memories), about her experiences before the war and during the occupation] – in my paternal grandparents’ house there was a portrait of my great-grandfather, who was a gentleman in a suit, he had a fob in his pocket, and a watch, and looked secular. I remember that portrait.

My father had a lot of brothers and sisters, but none of them survived the war. The situation was very complicated there. My grandparents had been married previously and both their spouses had died. They got married around 1895. My father had three brothers and sisters just from his father’s side and three from his mother’s. Then they also had my father and his brother. There was a big age difference between the stepbrothers and sisters. I don’t think they all lived together.

My father’s full brother was called Maksymilian. He wasn’t much older than my father, maybe one or two or three years older. I think their older brothers had two versions of their names [Polish and Jewish]. The eldest brother, Stanislaw, was 23 years older than my father. I remember him the most, because I was still quite close to him during the war. His birth certificate said ‘Salomon vel Stanislaw.’ To us he was Stach; we used to call him Stacho. He didn’t use his Jewish name, but he had one. In the Lewin family there was no such thing. Sara was Sara, and Eliasz was Eliasz.

In my father’s family the situation was quite convoluted. Grandfather Pinkus’s children from his first marriage were Stanislaw, Helena and one more daughter, whose name I don’t know. From her first marriage Grandmother Fania had Sala, Stefa and Henryk, who committed suicide as a student. There were a lot of suicides in that family. Sala married Stanislaw. My grandparents married, and their children married, too. So that was amusing. My father always used to say that he’d have to say that his brother and sister were married. Because that’s how it was, except that it was his stepbrother. My father kept in touch with them, and with his other brothers and sisters. I don’t think he favored any one of his brothers or sisters in particular. He also kept in touch with one of his sisters, Helena; she was from the same father; Helena was a Catholic. Somebody else in the family went over to Catholicism, too; there was even talk of some archbishop – I don’t know whether that was claptrap, but there was someone like that.

I don’t know any stories about my parents’ childhoods. My mother went to a Russian gymnasium, I think. That’s why she spoke Russian very well. She studied chemistry at Warsaw University, but she didn’t finish, but my father, who studied at the [Warsaw] Polytechnic, did finish. I think my mother attended all her classes but she didn’t get her certificate. I think she and my father met during their studies.

My parents got married in a synagogue. That was an exception, in a sense. They weren’t religious at all; they weren’t even believers. Perhaps someone wanted it, it was somebody’s wish – I can’t say why it happened. But that has stuck in my mind. I remember that it was something of a curiosity in my parents’ circles. Once, a friend of my father’s came to Warsaw, and I remember that when he met my mother, he said, ‘This is the beautiful Bela who got married in a synagogue!’

After their wedding and before I was born, at the beginning of the 1920s, my parents went to France for six months and then came back. My father even wanted to get a foothold somehow, because there was some distant family there and quite a few people had stayed in France. The family had moved to France gradually, over two to three generations. But my father either couldn’t find a good job, or didn’t have one at all, and my parents came back to Warsaw. My mother didn’t work. My father worked for his stepbrother, Stanislaw, who owned a private firm. His line of work was galvanizing technology, which is electrical metal coating. My father was a specialist at that.

My parents weren’t poor. They weren’t as rich as Croesus, but they lived plentifully. I’m not from rich circles, but people were wealthy, as you could see from their apartments, from everything. My father worked, and my mother probably inherited something from her father, who was the co-proprietor of a firm. All in all it was a relatively good life.

Growing up

When I was a small child my parents lived on Pawia in a different apartment from Grandfather and Grandmother Lewin, but in the same building. I remember it a little: It had two or perhaps three rooms. I was about six years old when we moved from there to Krolewska Street [a well-to-do street in the center of Warsaw].

On Pawia we had a house-help, like my grandparents. Our house-help was Polish. In our house the housekeepers were always Poles. They were girls from the country who were looking for work. In Jewish houses, where a kosher kitchen was kept, I suppose it had to be a Jewish girl, because other girls wouldn’t have managed [with the requirements of kosher cuisine]. My mother never kept the house herself. She only did it when they lived somewhere outside Warsaw, just after she got married. But once I was around there was a servant. I didn’t have a nanny; she did everything.

Later I lived on Krolewska. The apartment on Krolewska was nice: four-roomed, though not front-facing but back-facing. There were two courtyards there; I think we lived in the second. The windows of our apartment looked out over the roof of the Cyrulik theater [a small satirical and revue theater in Warsaw, popular before the war].

On Krolewska we had Lucyna Milecka, a Pole, to help in the house. Auntie Lucyna was a great friend of my family. Our lives were intertwined. Even after the war she raised my son. We lived in great friendship. She went straight to heaven, as she was good, calm, and loving. I knew her whole family. During the war, before the ghetto, she stayed with us.

We had a large library at home, with international [foreign] literature. My parents could read in foreign languages. My father knew French, English and German, well, I think. My mother knew Russian from the gymnasium, and French, too. I remember that they read Nasz Przeglad 3, and Wiadomosci Literackie [one of the leading literary periodicals of the interwar period]. I don’t know whether they read any other papers. My father had a wide range of interests, and read books on philosophy. My mother a little less, perhaps, but she read international literature.

In our home nothing kosher was eaten any longer. Nothing at all – I didn’t even really know what was kosher and what wasn’t. My parents didn’t celebrate any holidays, either Jewish or Christian. To this day I still can’t really get those holidays into my head. No Judgment Day, nothing! I even remember my mother saying, ‘We don’t celebrate any holidays, so we shall celebrate birthdays, because we might miss out on celebrations.’

Guests would come round to my parents’ and my parents went out a lot. But they kept to their own circle. They were all people of the same caliber: the working intelligentsia: lawyers, and the free professions. Very Polonized. In Warsaw – my parents had an extensive circle – you could immerse yourself in it up to your ears. It’s just like the Jews in New York live today. My mother kept in close touch with her brother and sister, and they often visited each other. Her sister lived with her mother, so it was natural that my mother used to go there, to Grandmother Sara’s and to her sister Elzbieta, on Pawia.

I went to an elementary school that was a private Jewish school, fairly well known in Warsaw. It was called ‘Our School’ and was on Rysia. It was thoroughly laicized. In general the children that went there were like me [secularized]. I don’t know of any that observed the Jewish holidays.

There were religious studies [Jewish], because there had to be. You couldn’t get a grade in your school-leaving exam without religious studies. Actually, it wasn’t called religious studies but ‘The History of the Jews.’ History like in the Bible but a non-religious approach.

Children were brought up very much to be Poles there. I remember that when Pilsudski 4 died [in 1935], children cried. There was a mood that a misfortune had befallen Poland. I don’t think I cried, but I was probably on the verge of crying.

It was a co-educational school. There were very few of us in the class - 13. We all knew each other very well. I had one friend, Joasia, who immigrated to the West at the start of the war, and then to America. There was another boy, the son of a communist. He was a communist, too, although he was a small boy. He disseminated his father’s convictions. Joasia was always sparring with him on theoretical topics. I remember that they used to argue and make noise, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t understand what it was all about.

I can’t honestly say which subjects I particularly liked. I think I liked all of them. I was quite a good student and I don’t think I was scared of anything. The only thing I didn’t like was drawing; I couldn’t do it right. There was a very ambitious headmistress at that school. It was very important to her that lots of children from her school go on to state grammar schools and gymnasiums. I was persuaded to take the exam for the Zmichowska gymnasium, too [a well known Warsaw girls’ gymnasium on Klonowa Street].

Not only did I pass that exam, but also to my dissatisfaction – because I was the only Jew – I was accepted. Right away when I got there, in the morning, there was a prayer. I think I started crying and said that I didn’t want to go to a school like that. If I’d had just one other friend, I’d have stuck with her. My parents gave in to me and took me away from that state school, although it was an honor that I’d got in there.

They moved me, for one year, because after that was the war, to a Jewish gymnasium. It was called Swiatecka’s – perhaps its founder was a Mrs. Swiatecka. It was in the vicinity of Miodowa and Senatorska Streets. It was a private gymnasium, with the school-leaving certificate [not all Jewish gymnasiums had the authority to matriculate students]. The young people there were of more nationalist tendencies, from more traditional circles. But again, not very much so. There was no question of any holidays [being celebrated] at school.

At first there were classes on Sundays at the gymnasium. That was received very badly by my parents, for instance. There were three lessons, I think, which they abolished later on. Saturdays were free. At the elementary school, which I had been more involved in, it wasn’t like that. 

I remember that once I went on holiday with my mother to Hel [a Baltic Sea peninsula in Poland], and I also went to Druskienniki [a small town on the River Niemen, now in Lithuania]. Right before the war I also went with my mother to Zakopane [a Polish mountain resort in the Tatra Mountains, Poland’s highest mountain range, at the southern tip of the country]. We climbed mountains like fearless hikers; we even climbed Koscielec [a peak in the Polish Tatras at 2155 m a.s.l.] – my mother was a little scared. My parents were members of the Polish Hiking Society and they used to go hiking in the Tatras. I remember pictures that showed them climbing using pitons. Unfortunately, all the pictures disappeared during the war. The few that I have, my mother got from her relatives abroad.

My parents liked to send me to private holiday camps with groups of children. One lady would take the children; that was how she earned money. The children were Jewish and they were all from Polonized intellectual circles. That was a large group of people, so there was a wide variety of guests, acquaintances, and friends. I have quite a lot of memories from those trips. We went to Ustron, Szczyrk [holiday resorts in the Beskid Slaski Hills], Karwia [a village on the Baltic], and various places in Poland – I didn’t go abroad at that time.

I was friendly with the children from those camps and with my parents’ friends’ children. It was all the same company; we only mixed with each other. I think my nicest childhood memories are from those trips. I always liked sports; I liked being active. I liked trips when we played sports. We did a lot of hiking in the mountains. I was an only child, so I always liked having company.

Some [assimilated Jews] were baptized, but no-one close to me. Some converted to Protestantism. The Protestant faith was considered less demanding and easier to adapt to, and Catholicism required more – confession, Communion – and was harder. I know for certain that my parents had no trace of [Jewish] religiosity. My father didn’t concern himself with matters like his background. He had very secular interests. You see, people were searching [for their identity], because it was hard to become Polonized by force, the atmosphere was wrong for that [due to anti-Semitism]. Some people became communists, others Zionists. The Bundists 5 were different again; they wanted independence within the situation as it was [i.e. within the existing Polish state, without immigrating to Palestine]. They were seeking some kind of solution for themselves and for the whole nation. I can’t recount it to you accurately because I was a child at the time.

But my father wasn’t searching [for a party that corresponded with his convictions]. My father was only moderately interested in politics. He knew what was going on. If he did have any political leanings, I think they could only have been towards the PPS 6. He had an affinity with the state of Israel [then Palestine]. My father was a Polish patriot. He was an officer, a lieutenant, I think, and he was very proud of that. He served in the Polish army, although not in the Legions 7, I don’t think. He was drafted during the 1920 war 8, but fell ill straight away and in the end didn’t take part in it. So he must have gone to an officer training school. I remember that he had a uniform and a saber at home. He wasn’t a strapping man, more a sickly one. The army was very important to him. He often used to sing soldiers’ songs. He definitely wanted to be Polish. You could say that my mother was a patriot. Not just a Polish one, a Jewish one, too. In her student days my mother had had Zionist leanings.

Before the war I never had anything to do with a home where Jewish traditions were cultivated. But there were groups of people who wore long kaftans [cotton or silk cloak buttoned down the front, with full sleeves, reaching down to the ankles] living on Pawia, so I came into contact with the street [where Jews in traditional dress walked, and where there were shops with Jewish signs]. They were different to me, from a different society. It didn’t enter my head to approach them. We were divided by too great a difference in lifestyle and by the language barrier. Apart from that, perhaps they had a hostile attitude towards the assimilated [Jews]! In the Jewish religion, people who depart from it are considered traitors.

My parents came into contact with anti-Semitism. Oh, but that was natural. Well, there were the occurrences at the university 9, for instance. It had been decided in our house that I wouldn’t be sent to the university in Warsaw, because my parents didn’t want to expose me to the ‘bench ghetto’ 10. And that was certainly what would have happened, had it not been for the war. They tried to send me to France to university, because some of the family was there. But I wasn’t yet of age.

I came into contact with anti-Semitism, too, on occasions, and sometimes on trips. I was terribly, overly sensitive. All it took was for somebody to say one word, and I would be in tears and didn’t want to get involved in anything any more. I remember one vacation in Druskienniki – I learned to swim there, I played ball, and rounders. A very pleasant, sporting vacation. My mother and I used to go to a place where you sunbathed. We used to call it the solarium. And there were mixed people [i.e. both Jews and Poles]. We stayed in a guesthouse where the daughters of Colonel Chmura from near Warsaw were. I remember those little girls, because they fascinated me, they were from outside my circle. I was attracted to them. I didn’t experience anything unpleasant from them because we became friends. Bad things happened elsewhere – on the street, on the train, etc. I was always alert, terribly over-sensitive. I was kind of a skinny child.

Jews with connections to Polish culture and the Polish language kept to themselves. I didn’t see a lot of non-Jewish intellectuals in our house. I thought about that for a long time. My husband and I talked about it many times: true integration is only possible with a mixed marriage. We could see it among our friends. In my family there weren’t any mixed marriages. Among the creative intelligentsia, professions such as artists and writers, there were lots. But far fewer among representatives of professions such as that of my father, his family, or his friends.

There was no integration. My parents’ circle was very large; there was a lot of internal support, a lot of people, company. And there was anti-Semitism, undeniably. That meant that a child stayed within the circle, too. Although I don’t know, perhaps my family was like that; maybe other families wanted their children to integrate more. I’m convinced that if we’d had more contact with Zoliborz [a Warsaw residential district, widely associated with Polish-Jewish coexistence and tolerance among Poles, a myth that is rooted in the interwar period, when intellectuals, progressive people, Poles often with links to the PPS, lived in the newly-built houses there. During the occupation many Jews found shelter with those progressive Polish families], with the co-operatives, the ‘new Jerusalem,’ with PPS circles – it definitely would have been different. It was only during the occupation, on Aryan papers, that I came into contact with the Zoliborz intelligentsia. There was a school run by the RTPD there, the Workers’ Society of Friends of Children [an association founded in 1919 within the PPS that ran clubs, kindergartens and schools for children]. I had a childhood friend, Alinka, who was Jewish. She later became a close friend of mine. We went to the same school. I met her by chance on the street during the occupation and she drew me into her circle.

It’s just a little strange that people didn’t emigrate then, because they should have realized what was going on and what threatened [them]. I even remember conversations on the matter at home. I remember this one conversation between my father and his brother, which totally bewildered me, because I was still a child then. The conversation stated, ‘…there were ties, the child, it would be difficult...’ They thought all that tied them down awfully, and nobody expected very bad things. They felt strong because it was a very big group. There was talk [of emigrating], but nothing came of it. Although there were those who, in that period, did leave Poland. My parents’ friends also stayed put for the most part, only later [did they try to leave], at the beginning of the war. I don’t remember any of my parents’ friends going away before the war. Perhaps the Zionists were immigrating to Palestine! At the beginning of the war my close friend Joasia immigrated, to America, via France. But that was an exception.

During the war

My mother’s eldest brother, Eliasz, died at the beginning of the war. That was a tragic death. The Germans came for him at his apartment, to arrest him and two others – including Grandfather Lewin’s brother Zelig, and Eliasz’s cousin. Zelig went with the Germans, but Eliasz shouted, ‘I’m not going with them!’ and jumped out of the window. He died a few hours later. The others didn’t come back; they were taken for good [and murdered somewhere]. That was very early on, very little was happening then. Eliasz was one of the first of that type of victim of war.

My father left Warsaw in response to Colonel Umiastowski’s appeal 11 for men capable of bearing arms to go east. And my father went. I never saw him again. He really was a Polish patriot. First there was chaos on the roads, and then he turned up in Lvov [today Ukraine] and was there for quite a long time. The intention was that he would return to us. He couldn’t bring himself to cross the border illegally, and the thing dragged on. And as it was dragging on he was nabbed and deported to Siberia 12. After that there was no question of return. It wasn’t a camp – they were building, chopping trees down. He was way out beyond Yakutsk [a port on the River Lena, in Siberia]. He managed to free himself from there when Anders’ Army 13 was forming. He reported to the army and left with them via Iran to Palestine. When Anders’ Army was dissolved [1946], he was in Israel [then Palestine] and there he took his own life. But I don’t want to talk about that.

A lot of people left [Poland at the start of the war]. But at the time my mother had absolutely no thought that that was what we should do. She thought: well, we can stay here! When the order came for the ghetto to be established, my mother had no doubt. She thought that that was what we had to do [go to the ghetto]. She had no doubt. It’s silly, but she had none. We moved [from Krolewska] to the house we had lived in before, on Pawia [the house was within the enclosed district]. And later on there was a German ‘shop’ there, Schulz’s [‘shop’ was the term for the German factories in the ghettos, which exploited Jewish labor. Schulz’s ‘shop’, after Toebbens’ ‘shop,’ was one of the largest in the Warsaw ghetto]. As unskilled laborers we unpicked furs from donations in Germany. After that furriers would make them into gloves and hats for the soldiers [German soldiers on the eastern front]. Those furs definitely weren’t from requisitions in the ghetto, because by then no one had furs any longer. And so it was partly thanks to that that we survived, because we managed to get ourselves work in the ‘shop.’ And that’s how we survived the period of the biggest transports 14.

In the ghetto I studied in the ‘sets’ of the Spojnia gymnasium [Elementary schools in the Warsaw ghetto functioned officially only in the 1941/42 school year. In spring 1942 there were 19 official schools teaching 6,700 pupils. Secondary school children (some 1,000) studied in secret ‘sets.’ The Spojnia gymnasium and high school functioned on those lines; its headmaster was Arnold Kirszbraun. Lessons were taught in Polish and held in the afternoons. The curriculum was the same as that in prewar schools, with the exception of gymnastics, drawing and military training]. It wasn’t particularly secret, because nobody was persecuting us, but it was a certain closed circle. A lot managed to escape from that circle, or at least attempted to. Some were killed later on, but they escaped [from the ghetto] however they could. The Jewish masses [religious Jews] had no chance. If you spoke only Yiddish or went around in a kaftan, you had no chance. There was no point in even trying in Warsaw.

There’s a book by Henryk Grynberg [b. 1935, Jewish prose writer and poet living in the US]: The Jewish War. It’s a marvelous book. He shows through the eyes of a child what was going on in the countryside at that time. And I happen to know what was going on in the city, and I was fairly privileged, which I have even been reproached for. When a friend in Canada published my book, somebody said to her, ‘Yes, but that lady was in an exceptional position.’ I was! My parents’ prewar circle at least tried to save itself. They didn’t all succeed. But they had a chance [because they were Polonized to a large extent].

After the second big campaign 15 in February 1943, we escaped to the Aryan side, over a ladder, over the [ghetto] wall. You bought a crossing from smugglers. Unlike what some people think, it wasn’t terribly expensive. You had to pay a group of smugglers, a Polish policeman, and a German. You got over to the other side and waited in a sentry box until dawn. Once you got out onto the Aryan side you had to sew a scrap of fur on quickly, so that it wouldn’t be obvious that you were from the ghetto [the prevailing fashion outside the ghetto was fur collars; in the ghetto there was no way of obtaining such luxuries because of the Germans]. From there we went straight to Zoliborz, to the wife and daughters of a friend of my father’s from university, who was murdered at Katyn 16. I applied to Yad Vashem 17 to have that family awarded a medal [Wladyslawa Sienenska and her daughters, Zosia and Janina]. They helped us the most. The most important was the first person you went to from the ghetto. After that our friends and family who had also gotten out of the ghetto helped us. We passed on from one family to another. Lucyna was with us in spirit; we couldn’t live with her because she didn’t have her own apartment.

When we were in hiding on Aryan papers we had real, authentic birth certificates from a [Catholic] parish [authentic ones were ones made out in the name of people who had died]. Those were the better birth certificates. You could buy better or worse birth certificates. Ones you could tell had been forged, and ones that had belonged to children who had died. That meant that my mother and I had different names, so we pretended to be aunt and niece. We lived in Warsaw and in the country, near Grojec. We didn’t always live together, although most of the time we did. In fact I wasn’t really in hiding; I was under someone else’s identity.

I found a job in a firm of tailors. I sewed dresses and coats, as unskilled labor. As well as that I started going to private lessons with a Polish friend who I’d met through Alinka. I was working through the curriculum for some grade; we were given homework. The people who were the teachers came from the WSM circle in Zoliborz; I was living there at the time. [Warszawska Spółdzielnia Mieszkaniowa (WSM) – a Warsaw residential district, widely associated with Polish-Jewish coexistence and tolerance among Poles, a myth that’s rooted in the interwar period, when intellectuals, progressive people, Poles often with links to the PPS, lived in the newly-built houses there. During the occupation many Jews found shelter with those progressive Polish families.]

I was Polonized; I had no problem with the language, with the customs, and I could pass myself off as a Pole quite well. And then my appearance – that’s a subjective thing, but nobody ever took me, and still never does for a Jew. So I lived at liberty. My mother was afraid, but that was groundless really, too. I learned the prayers fast. When I was in the country, in Grojec, staying with the family of our housekeeper, Lucyna, I had to go to church. There was no option. Quite simply, if I hadn’t gone, I would have been suspected at once. When I was in Warsaw I didn’t go. Lucyna wasn’t with me at that time; she used to come from Warsaw sometimes. My mother was in hiding in Warsaw at the time.

We were in touch with my father’s eldest brother, Uncle Stanislaw. He was in the ghetto, his wife had been killed; then he escaped from the ghetto; he had friends. He looked totally unlike a Jew. He could pass off as a Pole just the same. The rest [of the family] all died. They were all deported from Warsaw to Treblinka 18: Stanislaw’s wife Sala, the Catholic aunt and Helena. Aunt Stefa was taken from Otwock. My grandparents were already dead; they died before the war.

The fates of my parents’ friends were very varied. A fair percentage survived, because they were the sort that had a chance; they knew people, they spoke the language purely, knew the customs, and could pass themselves off as Poles quite well. Such kind of people survived. Though from my school very few pupils managed to survive.

Then there was the Warsaw Rising 19; we were taken away from the Warsaw Rising, out of Zoliborz to the trains, and then to Pruszkow 20. There we were scattered around in different villages. We spent a little time in the country. We moved to Kielce, because there were terrible lice in that village, and that didn’t suit us. We decided to delouse ourselves first, and then we lived in someone’s house. People were quite keen to take in Varsovians [people from Warsaw] at that time. Of course there was no question of revealing that we were Jewish!

After the war

The end of the war found us in Kielce. Almost at once we went to Warsaw, only by a roundabout route, via Lublin. We didn’t really know what the point of waiting there was. We felt drawn to Warsaw. On our return we stayed with Lucyna at first. In the beginning I think we were living four to a room at her brother or sister’s house. After that we lived a little better, because there were two to a room. Living conditions after the war were hard. Our apartment had been demolished.

I liked it after the war; it was good. I had been liberated, there was justice, you could study, culture was coming back; I liked everything! It was only later that you saw all the negative things. I started having doubts when they merged the parties [the PPR and the PPS - 1948] 21. Perhaps I was also under the influence of people. I was never particularly strong in politics. I had to listen to others’ opinions. Well, no, I’ve got my own mind, but even so, I always listened to what other people said, people who I trust.

My mother’s sister, Elzbieta, experienced the war in Russia. After the war she came through Poland on her way to a camp in Germany. That was a transit camp; she was set on emigrating at once. She and her daughter stayed there for three years. I don’t know whether they spent three years in the camp, but I know that Elzbieta’s daughter went to a Polish school in Germany at that time. Later she went to Canada. They were finishing hats there; you had to have a paying job. Her daughter got married, they had a store, but there was no question of studies, of an education for her daughter! My cousin lives in Canada now, and has quite a large family in Toronto. It’s quite a large Jewish family now; the children have returned to the traditions and customs. They’ve married locals [Jews] there. Aunt Elzbieta’s husband, Henryk Ramet, survived, but they got divorced after that and when they came back [to Poland] they weren’t together anymore. They weren’t a family.

Perhaps there were even thoughts of leaving Poland after the war. My mother had once been a Zionist, so she did think that she might want to go to Israel. But I didn’t want to leave, I wanted to study, and my mother was already a widow by then, with no profession, so I had no chance of studying anywhere abroad. Anyway, I had nothing against being here. Later on, in 1950, I got married; perhaps even my husband would have emigrated sooner than me, although he was a Pole. But we didn’t go. And that’s how it turned out.

The year 1968 22 affected me badly. Psychologically above all. I saw [anti-Semitism] then; it all re-emerged. Professionally a little, too, perhaps, in a camouflaged way. I couldn’t have left then, even if I’d wanted to, because my mother was incapacitated very early on, and she needed looking after. To leave and start a new life with somebody frail, I would have found that a hard decision to make. If I’d gone, I don’t think it would have been to Israel, but maybe to the States. I went to the States during that period, because my husband had a grant. I went to visit him. But our child stayed here, so we didn’t think of not coming back.

I wouldn’t have chosen Israel because I wanted to go somewhere more neutral. I didn’t want to immerse myself totally in all that Judaism again. It’s hard to say. Perhaps if I’d gone away straight after the war I’d have wanted to go to Israel. But later it certainly wouldn’t have ended like that; we’d definitely have been in the States or somewhere. Israel is a challenging country to live in; I’ve been there twice. The first time I didn’t like it very much. I was there in the early 1960s, before all those wars [the Six Day War 23 in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War 24 in 1973]. The jingoism annoyed me, and the fact that Israelis are terribly harsh. I didn’t understand that it’s a country threatened by its neighbors. I didn’t see that then. Later on I understood that it had to be like that for political reasons. The first time I had gone to visit my family. There was still some distant family there then, a second cousin, Krysia. Krysia was the daughter of my mother’s cousin Estera. Later on, her husband died and she immigrated to Australia.

The second time I went, not so long ago, about ten years ago [1995], it was with great fondness [that I looked at Israel]. Although there were already political conflicts, it was possible to get disillusioned. On my second visit I was wiser. What I liked most of all that time was Old Jerusalem, which I hadn’t seen on my first visit, because it was abroad. That’s an exceptional place on earth. It really does make an impression. I joined an excursion to visit it.

[After the war] my mother tended not to admit [to being Jewish]. In the early 1960s she went to Israel. I remember that she brought for a neighbor these commemorative coins from Bethlehem or Nazareth. So she didn’t make a big thing of hiding it, but she didn’t admit to it widely. My mother was in poor condition fairly early. She became incapacitated; mentally she was in a bad state, too. She died in 1977. She’s buried in the Jewish cemetery because that’s what she wanted. It didn’t have to be like that, but because she wished it, I thought that it was my duty to fulfill it. She didn’t explain why. Perhaps she wasn’t even very conscious of what she wanted and what she didn’t want by then. Perhaps she wanted to be buried on Okopowa [in Warsaw’s Jewish cemetery] because that’s where her parents lie. Tradition always held my mother. It was really quite deeply rooted in her that she was Jewish.           

After the war I wouldn’t have married a Jew. I certainly wouldn’t have stayed in Poland, if I was to have a Jewish child. That was out of the question. Enough of that! I didn’t want it. Just like the hero of Grynberg’s book told his mother that he had decided not to be a Jew any more. I had decided the same. In any case I didn’t want to have a Jewish child. I said that my life had been through too much in that respect. I’ve had enough; I don’t want to give it to a child as well, so that she would have it, too.

After the war I didn’t return to my [maiden] name at all. Never. I’m still in hiding. That’s how you could say it in short. Then I got married [so I took my husband’s name]. It’s a very serious scar. On the whole I didn’t say I was Jewish; it depends who I’m talking to. I’m certainly not going to tell the neighbors; where would that get me?

Once I even read the words of an American Jew, who’d been in America for years, who said that in fact he was still in hiding. I could understand that, and I thought to myself, oh yes! That really is a good way of putting it, that you’re in hiding. But it depends on character. There are strong characters who [don’t think like that] – absolutely not! Perhaps it’s more cowardly people [who do] – I don’t know how to put it. I just didn’t want to, and I had no intention of going back to a tradition that I hadn’t been attached to before – well, what for? What would be the point?

My husband was – he’s been dead quite some time now – Polish. He was born in 1923. His name was Jerzy. We met as students. He was an engineer; he worked at the Institute of Fundamental Technical Matters. I entered a Polish family. That suited me perfectly. Indeed, my husband shared my opinion that the best thing to do was to assimilate and immerse oneself in [Polish] society.

After the war, with a husband who wasn’t Jewish, we celebrated the Christian holidays in a traditional fashion, with his parents and with his sister. To this day I celebrate them that way. But it’s not deep observance. We didn’t go to Midnight Mass. My husband was a militant atheist, so there was no question. He was against all religion far more so than I was. But for Christmas Eve dinner [the highlight of the Christmas celebrations for Polish Catholics, comprising traditional meatless dishes, chiefly fish-based] he liked to have fish. His atheism was the result of his having been brought up to be a Catholic. Later on he rebelled awfully. But the customs – breaking the wafer [a Polish Catholic Christmas Eve tradition involving sharing a Communion-type wafer with close family members while giving them wishes for the next year], for instance – he accepted. He hadn’t rebelled to the extent that he wanted to upset his mother or his sister.

My son, Jan, was born in 1958. He went to elementary school in Ochota [a district of Warsaw], and then to the Gottwald High School, because early on he had an interest in mathematics [the Klemens Gottwald High School is one of the best high schools for mathematics and physics in Warsaw]. He studied mathematics and now he is a mathematician at the University of Arizona [USA]. He left Poland with his wife and child in 1985, at the time of the political upheavals here. He went there to do his doctorate. Once he’d done it he stayed there. His wife, Beata, is a painter. Their son, Mateusz, is 22 [b. 1983] and he’s studying psychology. My son is half-Jewish; he’s not Jewish, so there’s a difference. Fortunately he doesn’t have any complexes, because he didn’t experience all that horror. He doesn’t have the baggage that I have. Unlike me he wasn’t an over-sensitive child. But he understands Jewish issues one hundred percent.

After 1989 25 I didn’t try to contact any Jewish organizations. I don’t belong to the ‘Children of the Holocaust’ 26. Although through someone I do have some contact with them. I even thought about going on the trips they organize once, but I decided not to. I’m not attracted to that circle. And certainly not to religion. But with age, in one’s old age, that contact is perhaps a little closer than when one is young. That’s a general thing, that’s just how it is.

I suspect that the prospects for Jewish life in Poland are remote, because there are very few people. There’s the ‘Children of the Holocaust’ association, they stick together, and there are individual activists – Warszawski, Krajewski. It even surprises me somewhat that they are so religious. It’s an old religion; it’s all so old-fashioned to me. If one wants to emphasize one’s Judaism one can go to Israel and you don’t have to be religious at all. Just the opposite – you can be a rebel. But if you are in that country [Israel], it makes some sense. But here [in Poland] – no [there’s no point being Jewish]. It repels me; I have no affinity [with the religion, the traditions].

In spite of my age I still work part-time at the Institute of Psychology and Neurology [in Warsaw]. I meet friends, and do sports. Yesterday I played tennis, though I didn’t learn as a child, so I don’t play very well. I ski. This winter I went to the Alps. I also canoe. I see my son once a year. He said recently that I should go visit them twice a year, because I’m too old now for us only to see each other once a year.

Glossary

Frida Khatset
Ukraine
Kiev
Interviewer: Roman Lenchovskiy
Date of interview: November 2001

Frida Khatset lives in a two-room apartment in an apartment house, which was built before the revolution in 1917, in the center of Kiev. She has a spacious apartment with high ceilings. There are many pictures on the wall: most of them are ‘still life’ pictures given to her by her friends – artists. There is a high bookcase with Russian classic and modern books and special books related to history. Frida is a short plump woman with a tidy haircut. She was friendly, and willingly told the story of her life. We had a conversation sitting at the round table in her living room. Frida lives alone now. Her husband died over a year ago. Her son Georgi often comes to see her, no matter how busy he is. He lives nearby and often helps his mother to do things about the house.  Frida’s granddaughter Elena and daughter-in-law Sveta often visit her.  Her old acquaintances and former colleagues also call her on the phone or come to see her.  Hesed provides her assistance: food packages.  This helps her to overcome her solitude.

Family Background

​Growing Up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

Family Background

The name of my grandfather on my father’s side was Evzer Khatset. I guess my grandfather Evzer was born in 1850s. I don’t know where he was born. Perhaps, he came from Kiev. The thing is when we were young it was not a custom in our family to share the memories or ask questions about the past. My grandfather was a merchant of guild 2 1. He was a leather dealer. I remember how my grandfather looked: he wore a black yarmulka, had a small beard with streaks of gray and a moustache, and he was a slender man. My grandmother Haya Rukhlia Khatset – I don’t know her maiden name – was born in 1860s. I don’t know where she was born. My grandmother and grandfather lived near the synagogue named after Brodski 2 in the center of Kiev.  My grandfather told me that this synagogue was built at the end of 19th century.  I know that at that time almost half of all merchants were Jews and there were many flour grinding and sugar production enterprises in the town owned by Jews.

My grandmother and grandfather were deeply religious: my grandfather had a Torah and there was a mezuzah over their door: a box with a scroll with a prayer written on it.  My grandfather had a black and cream striped tallit and a leather tefillin: two small boxes with long leather straps to be worn on the forehead and hands.  My grandfather strictly observed Jewish traditions and went to the synagogue as long as his condition allowed.  I remember that my mother and I went to my grandmother and grandfather when they were old and ill. I felt bored when she was taking care of them. Their apartment seemed very big to me: a big hallway, a dining room with high windows and several other rooms. My mother spoke Yiddish to my grandmother and grandfather and my grandfather spoke Russian with me since I didn’t know Yiddish. I can hardly remember my grandmother. Her condition was very poor and I wasn’t allowed to enter her room.  I remember a big table covered with a long tablecloth in the dining room. I used to hide under the table shouting ‘Now seek me!’ There was a lamp in a beautiful shade with fringe over the table, a clock in the wooden casing with intricate carving, and the door panels were also decorated with carving. We have photos of my grandmother: she looks fat and kind, round-faced, with splendidly done hair wearing a magnificent hat with ostrich feathers.

My grandmother and grandfather had five children: the oldest girl Dunia was born in the end of  1870s. She married a Jew, I don’t remember her last name after she got married, but I know that  she and her husband had a small house in Irpen near Kiev. Dunia was a housewife. I saw them several times when I was small. They visited us several times. I don’t think they had children. In 1941 when the Great Patriotic War 3 began my father was trying to convince them to evacuate, but they said ‘No, we shall stay in Irpen; nobody will do us any harm’. When we returned from evacuation in 1944 my father went to Irpen looking for Dunia. Her neighbors told him that in autumn 1941 Germans took Dunia and her husband to Babi Yar 4 where they perished.

Manya, the second daughter, was born in 1880.  She graduated from the conservatory in Kiev and met her future husband there, he was a Jew. Manya took her husband’s last name, but I don’t remember it. I only remember that her husband’s name was Samoilik,  he worked as a foreman  at a construction site in Moscow. Manya went to live with him after they got married. Manya’s husband provided well for his family. She was a housewife. Samoilik had a son from his first marriage, I don’t know for what reason he divorced his first wife. He was a very handsome young man but he was killed in a shooting training shop, I know what my father told me. He and another young man courted one girl and somehow Samoilik's son was killed – nobody knew why or how. During the Great Patriotic War they stayed in Moscow. We didn’t see each other after the war. They only wrote letters occasionally. Manya died from cancer in Moscow in 1950s and uncle Samoilik lived few years longer. 

The next was Gersh Khatset — he was the oldest brother. He was born around 1883. I don’t know whether he went to cheder. Gersh finished Commercial school in Kiev where they had advanced studies in commercial mathematics, commercial correspondence, commercial geography and accounting. Gersh received special secondary education in this school and entered Kiev Industrial College. Upon graduation from there he became a leather specialist. However, he couldn’t find a job according to his specialty and worked as an accountant. He was shortsighted and like my father, was not subject to military service. His wife Nina was Christian and Gersh was baptized too. My grandfather and grandmother were not happy about their son marrying a Christian girl and Gersh’s baptistery was a hard blow for them. But they could only but accept what happened. Gersh kept in touch with his parents, but they remained cold and polite with him and his wife, although they didn’t mind them visiting. I remember Gersh, Nina and their daughters Ira and Tamara visiting. Gersh’s or our family weren’t religious and we never touched upon any religious subjects.  Before the Great Patriotic War they moved to Gorky – I guess they did it since Gersh couldn’t find a job in Kiev. I believe they stayed there during the war. Gersh worked as an accountant in Gorky. He retired and died from cancer shortly after the war in 1945. His wife died some time in 1950s. Tamara lived in Moscow and worked as a translator at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She knew French very well. She and Ira studied French when they were children. Ira became a doctor. She lives in Gorky, she sometimes calls me on my birthday.

The next child in the family was my father Itshok Khatset, born in 1889. Like Gersh he studied at Commercial School in Kiev and finished it with a gold medal [highest award for graduates of secondary schools in the Tsarist Russia and after in former USSR] in 1906. To enter the University he had to pass exams for a course of studies in grammar school. My mother told me that my father's dream was to become a doctor and he submitted documents to Medical Faculty, but was not admitted due to the 5% restriction for admission of Jews 5. He studied at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics for a year and then went to study at the Medical Faculty, but left it. He spent a lot of time studying philosophy and literature and he decided that he had to refuse from becoming a doctor since he would experience the feeling of guilt every time he fails to cure a patient and every fatality would be painful for him.  My father went to study at the Law Faculty believing that he would be helping people after getting this profession. He was a very sociable, kind and educated man and very intelligent person.

My father’s younger brother Boris was born in 1890s. Like Gersh he graduated from the Institute of Light Industry in Kiev and became chief engineer at the leather factory in Viatka. He was married to a Jewish woman and they had a son – Karik. In 1937, during the period of mass repression 6 Boris was arrested. At that time people were arrested for ‘political’ and other reasons. He was accused of supplying bad leather to make boots in the army. It was clear that the tendency was to eliminate intelligent people and this was openly said in our family since we were grown up enough to understand. Boris underwent tortures, but he didn’t sign the protocol. He was sent in exile somewhere in Siberia. When after 1953 the relevant authorities began to review all cases those that had not signed evidence papers were released. He was in exile for three years, but this had an ultimate impact on his life. When Boris was arrested his wife refused him. I don’t know whether she believed that Boris was an ‘enemy of the people’ or she just wanted to protect herself and her son from trouble. When Boris returned she forbade him to see his son. It was hard for Boris to bear exile and imprisonment and his wife’s retreat.  He had no place to go to and he came to live in my father’s study.  I remember that my father sent him to a recreation home to improve his health condition. My father also made arrangements for him to visit various doctors. He lived with us for a year until he got better. I guess, Boris stayed with us illegally since he was deprived of his right to reside in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. He was a skilled specialist and was employed at Viatka factory where they remembered him. He became a production engineer there, he was a highly qualified employee and much valued at work. He received an apartment in Viatka and married a Russian woman in few years.  He wrote us that his second wife was a medical nurse, but we never saw her. Boris submitted a request for rehabilitation, but while his documents were under review he died. He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1956.

My father’s younger sister Vera Khatset was born in 1902. After the secondary school she graduated from Chemical Faculty of Kiev University and followed Manya to Moscow. Vera was single and had no children. She was a chemist and died in Moscow in 1970s. We didn’t keep in touch.

Before the revolution 1917 7 the Khatset family was wealthy: they could afford to take a vacation at the seashore in the Crimea or Caucasus. When the children grew up they didn’t make my grandmother happy: my father married a poor girl, Gersh got baptized that was even worse and Boris divorced his wife, although it was not his fault.  I know that my grandfather and grandmother didn’t want my father to marry my mother. Especially my grandmother was against this marriage since my mother was a very poor Jewish girl having no parents while my father came from a wealthy family of a merchant and my grandmother believed he deserved a wealthier wife. My grandmother stated she would never give her consent to this marriage.

My mother’s father Borukh Rabin was presumably born in Boguslav [a small town in 100 km from Kiev] in 1850s and lived there his whole life. He was a craftsman, but I don’t know what exactly he was doing for a living. My mother said he was a gabe [senior man in Yiddish] at the synagogue and this was an elective position. My maternal grandmother Fruma Rabin (her maiden name is unknown) was born in 1850s and came from Boguslav. My grandmother and grandfather had six children. I don’t know their names since my mother’s brothers and sisters were  12-15 years older than my mother and my mother was the youngest in the family.

My mother Nehama Khatset (nee Rabin) was born in Boguslav on 8 October 1888. I have a copy of her Birth Certificate signed by the Korsun State Rabbi. At the age of 11 she lost her both parents. Her brothers and sisters had left their home long before. Therefore, my mother didn't remember much about her family. She only told me that they spoke Yiddish in the family and she spoke fluent Yiddish, too. Her parents were religious and observed all Jewish traditions. She lived with one or another sister and felt herself a burden. None of my mother’s brothers or sisters ever visited us. They didn’t keep in touch with my mother, and she was sad about it. My mother remembered that the majority of population in Boguslav was Jewish and Yiddish was commonly spoken everywhere. My mother finished a public secondary school in Boguslav.

At 16 she moved to Kiev having heard about a 3-year Frebel school 8. There were no residential restrictions to admission to this school. My mother went to study and rented a room in Shuliavka in the outskirts of Kiev. So my mother became independent at 16 and earned her own living. She went to work as a cashier at a vegetarian canteen in the center of the town. She was paid 3 rubles per month. The customers were students for the most part since this was an inexpensive canteen where they could get a sufficient meal for reasonable money. Being a first-year student my mother met my father that was a first-year student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics in Kiev St. Vladimir University. My mother had to take an exam in Latin at Frebel school. She needed a teacher and somebody recommended my father to her. It was a common thing that students earned money by giving classes.

My father began to teach my mother, but he didn’t charge her for his work knowing that all she had was 3 rubles per month. After my mother finished her first year at school it turned out that she needed a residential permit, or else she would have had to leave Kiev. In order for my mother to be able to continue her studies she and my father arranged a marriage of convenience in 1907. They went to have their marriage registered secretly in Kanev (100 km from Kiev) since my father’s parents were against their marriage. It was their big secret and my parents didn’t disclose it even to their friends or acquaintances. They did it to for my mother to be able to obtain a residential permit.

My mother went to school during a day and worked 2nd shift.  For 7 years my mother was my father’s wife without entering into close relationships with him. I don’t think there are any idealists like them left. In 1913 my father had to terminate his studies at the University since he fell ill with tuberculosis and had to go take a treatment in Mentona, France, wealthy people used to travel to get the best medical treatment in Europe.  He returned before World War I, passed his graduate exams in 1915 and became an attorney assistant. When my father began to earn his living he insisted that their pro forma marriage became actual. This happened in 1916. My mother didn’t agree to do it for two reasons: firstly, she knew that his parents, his mother in particular, were strongly against this marriage. My mother was poor, but proud. Secondly, my mother thought that my father wanted to consummate their marriage from the feeling of pity. He had to prove to her that this was love on his part. This lasted for several years before my mother finally agreed. I remember my mother’s landlady from Shuliavka visiting us before the Great Patriotic War. Every time she rang the doorbell she joked laughingly ‘Is your husband home, Miss?’ When my mother rented a room in Shuliavka and my father came to see her there this landlady said to mother ‘Your husband is here, Miss!’ After finishing Frebel school my mother continued working at the canteen until consummation of marriage. My father rented an apartment in the center of Kiev. In 1917 their first son Lev was born. My mother didn’t work since then. Later she finished a course of librarians and worked as a librarian before the Great Patriotic War and some time after.

Growing Up

I was born on 2 September 1919. I still have my Birth Certificate signed by the Kiev Rabbi.  There was a number of Jewish pogroms 9 at that time and my mother came home from hospital with me a day after a pogrom. There was a Ukrainian janitor – Stepan, a strong broad shouldered man. He had no education, but was eager to study and my father was helping him. My mother told me that in a day or two after we returned from hospital bandits came to our house. We lived on the 2nd floor. Stepan told all tenants to close their doors and let nobody in. He stood by our door with an ax and said ‘You will only enter this apartment over my dead body!’  Pogrom makers retreated. Stepan always did physical work for us and brought wood for heating the house. He was very grateful for my father’s help. My father taught Stepan until he could go to study at rabfak 10. He finished rabfak and got a job at a housing agency. We loved and trusted Stepan.

At the end of 1919 Kiev was liberated from Denikin troops 11 by the Red army. My father was very enthusiastic about the Soviet power. All Jewish intellectuals believed this was a start of a new and bright life. My father became First legal advisor and then Head of Legal department of the Revolutionary Committee of the province and then – Provincial Executive Council, Town Council and Regional Executive committee.

In 1921 my younger brother Boris was born. I have dim memories about our apartment since I was too young.  We lived in a 3-storied building. I remember our entrance to the building with a high front door and wide staircase with many stairs. We had a big apartment with high ceilings: a spacious dining room, my father’s office and a smaller children’s room with 3 beds in it.  There was also my parents’ bedroom, kitchen, toilet and a bathroom.  This apartment seemed huge to me. I remember a long hallway where my brother and I used to run playing. There was a homeopathic pharmacy, where they sold herbal medications, next door where my mother often left me when she had to go out. Employees there allowed me to play with drawers.

My parents spoke Russian to me and my brothers. Yiddish was their mother tongue and they spoke Yiddish with my grandmother and grandfather. We didn’t study Yiddish: there was a popular opinion at that time that young people wouldn’t need Yiddish in the future.

When grandmother died of cancer in 1923 my grandfather moved in with us and Yiddish sounded again in our apartment when my parents talked with grandfather. The children talked Russian with grandfather, but he spent little time with us. He spent almost all his time praying, we were not allowed to disturb him. My mother looked after grandfather since my grandfather was very ill when he joined us. He was grieving after my grandmother very much. He had a room of his own where we didn’t bother him. He was constantly praying and we were required to keep quiet and bother him not. We could talk with grandfather during dinner on Jewish holidays. On other days we had meals separately: my grandfather followed kashrut and  my father came late from work and also had dinner by himself.  Only on Jewish holidays we had meals sitting at a big table. My grandfather sat at the head of the table with his tallit on, but it was actually all done for my grandfather. I remember that my brothers and I were to sit at the table at Pesach, Purim and other Jewish holidays, but we couldn’t wait until we were allowed to leave the table to play. Our parents weren’t religious and didn’t observe any traditions, all they did was to show respect to grandfather. There is a ritual at Yom Kippur when a chicken is to be turned over one’s head and I didn’t want to have it done, but my mother insisted ‘You have to obey. It’s your grandfather’s wish’. My older brother was to find the matzah that grandfather hid under a pillow during seder at Pesach. We observed Jewish ritual only for grandfather’s sake and from the feeling of respect towards him. My brother’s and I often objected, but our father told us that we had to respect or grandfather’s feelings. Our grandfather had cancer and suffered a lot in the last two years of his life. He died in 1926. He was buried in accordance with Jewish customs, this was what father told us, we did not attend the funeral. My grandmother and grandfather were buried at the Jewish cemetery near Babi Yar. This area was graded later 12. My mother and we went there before the Great Patriotic War to cleanup the graves, but when my parents went there after we returned to Kiev when the war was over there were no graves at the area. 

We didn’t celebrate any Soviet holidays when grandfather was with us. After our grandfather died in 1926 we didn’t speak Yiddish in the family.

Shortly after our grandfather died our father received an apartment in Kostyolnaya Street in the very center of Kiev. There were 4 rooms there: my parents’ bedroom, my father’s office, my brothers' room and a dining room where I lived. We didn’t light any candles or celebrate any Jewish holidays after grandfather died. This was a period of struggle against religion 13 we were raised as atheists at school and our parents created this atmosphere at home as well. Besides, our parents were not religious. We celebrated birthdays and a New Year. We always had a New Year Tree decorated at home, although it was not allowed by at that time. The Soviet power considered it to be vestige of the dark past, but we always had one anyway. We decorated the tree and in the morning of 1 January we found gifts under the tree. We believed that Santa Claus ( Granny frost – in Russia) brought them. Our father’s birthday on 9 January was the most festive celebration in our family when members of the family and friends came to greet him, there was no typical menu – just plenty of food.  We still keep this tradition. 

Before we went to school we had a governess: Olga, a German woman. She had graduated from Frebel school. She taught us the German language and my brothers and I knew German very well. She spent 5-6 hours every day with us. I have a good conduct of German even now. Our mother and father prepared us to school teaching us to read and write in Russian and count.  In 1926 I went to take an entrance exam to a Russian school: since I could read and write in Russian and German I was admitted to the 2nd form.  I remember a gym with high windows and a concert hall on the 4th floor. My brothers also studied in this school in the center of the town. The center of Kiev was populated by Party officials for the most part and their children studied in our school. There were 32 children in my class and 8 of them had the highest grades in all subjects.  I was doing very well. I have bright memories about a bus tour to the woods in the outskirts of the city. We went to spend a day there and we enjoyed it a lot.  I remember that I had Jewish friends in my class, although it wasn’t something that we did intentionally. We lived in the same street, went to school and home from school together. It was only after I grew up that I began to analyze and found out that there were Jewish children in our group while we didn’t even identify ourselves as Jews at that time. We remained friends for the rest of our life.

When I turned 10 I became a pioneer. There was an exciting ceremony when we had red neckties tied, it was a ceremony at the concert hall at school. We said an oath to be dedicated to the cause of Lenin and communist ideals.  We always in school wore a pioneer uniform: a white shirt and a dark skirt or trousers. There were pioneer line meetings and pioneer competition in successes in studies and pioneer activities. There were teams of 5-6 pioneers formed: team members were children living in the same neighborhood and there had to be few weaker pupils in a team so that stronger ones helped them to catch up with the rest of their classmates in studies. I was a team leader and it was my task to push weaker pupils to be more thorough so that a whole team might get a higher grade for performance. I took every effort to make them study more and do their homework properly. I helped them after school. We did their homework together. Pupils also had to study a profession. We went to take training at the shoe factory located near our school. We made leather bags from leather wastes: those bags were sold. It is needless to say that we didn’t get any money for our work or get any profession there. 

We always had newspapers at home: my father subscribed to ‘Pravda’ [founded in 1916, the biggest daily communist newspaper in the USSR] and ‘Izvestiya’ [a big daily communist newspaper] central newspapers. My brothers and I read them, but we always had to pile them on our father’s desk before he came home from work. We had a big collection of books and I read many Russian classical books, I liked Pushkin and Dostoevski. We had few books by Sholem Aleichem 14, a Jewish writer. I liked most of all his story ‘The Wandering Stars’. I read a lot and was very good at writing compositions at school. I discussed things with my father and valued his opinion highly. Our father returned from work late in the evening. In 1920– 30s he was a legal advisor at the town authorities and was always very busy. Our mother spent a lot of time with us. My father worked in his study even in the evenings and spent little time with us, but all the more we appreciated these sessions however short they were. We enjoyed talking with our father and always discussed interesting subject. Our father did not belong to the Party, I don’t know why he didn’t join it, but he knew the Marxism-Leninism philosophy. He was a teacher for many years and was awarded a title of ‘Red professor’ 15. He even had an appropriate certificate.  My father wasn’t involved in any research work. There was a cult of my father in our family. He never did any work at home. Everything in the family served his interests. If he took a nap we tiptoed past his room not to disturb him.

During the period of famine in 1933 16 we saw swollen dying people in the streets. Many villagers moved to town hoping to survive. We had a housemaid, mother hired her when I went to school. She was a Ukrainian girl that lived with us and helped mother about the house.  She brought her nephews and nieces to our apartment during this period and they lived with us, We played together. The children stayed in the living room. I remember that my brothers and I stood in long lines to get some bread. 

There were few children from military families in our class. They were behind other children in their studies. One of such families where the father was a general lived in our house. They were wealthier than civilians. Once deputy director of our school called me and offered to give private classes to the general’s daughter who was in the 5th form, I was 15. I thought it was my pioneer duty to help this girl. I went there in the evening and said ‘Petr Mironovich asked me to assist your daughter with her studies’. The general said ‘Yes, he recommended you to me. What are your terms and how much do you charge? I had two classes per week with the girl and at the end of the month the general invited me to his office and paid me 3 rubles per each class. I didn’t want to take the money, but he said ‘Please take it. You work and need to be paid for work’.  This was my first earning and afterward I always had private pupils.  My younger brother Boris also earned money by giving private classes and we always had our own money and didn’t have to ask our parents about allowances we bought books and sweets and went to the cinema. It was a lot of money that we got for that time when a ticket to the cinema cost 30 kopek, an ice cream cost 10 kopek, a rather expensive book cost 1 ruble and a very expensive book cost 2 rubles.

In senior classes I joined the Komsomol 17. It was a mere formality at that time. We were not eager to become Komsomol members – I found reading and spending time with friends more interesting. We were just practical about our future possibilities with getting a higher education.  As a part of public activities we collected steel scrap, but I was more involved in the issuance of the school wallpaper, political information classes that took part twice a week in the morning before school classes began. The one who prepared this information briefed the class on international events. It goes without saying that this information was based on newspaper publications. I was responsible for scheduling such briefings. We went to parades on 1 May and 7 November 18. We got together near our school and then marched along Kreschatik Street with the column of marchers.  We didn’t celebrate 1 May or 7 November with the family. When we studied in senior classes we got together to celebrate Soviet holidays and to party. My parents didn’t mind having such parties at our home.  My mother even preferred that we stayed at our home. She made cookies and pies and we had great parties turning our apartment upside down enjoying ourselves.

The children of Postyshev 19 studied at our school and Valentin, his older son, was in my class. There were children of officials of the Town and Regional Party committees and Central Committee of the Communist Party. In 1937 parents of many children were arrested. Their children were orphaned. Valentin Postyshev also became an orphan. We finished school in June 1937. I remember our prom: there was a ceremony at the concert hall and then we walked in the city that whole night singing. We were together until dawn. Valentin Postyshev entered the University. His father was in prison already and Valentin was expelled when he was a first-year student in 1938. He disappeared and I don’t know what happened to him further on.  I remember the situation in 1937 well. As I already mentioned my father’s brother Boris was arrested at that time. We knew that Boris was no traitor and that it was a campaign against intellectuals. My father had more information, but he didn’t share it with us. He suspected that human rights were violated in courts, but never ever mentioned it. We witnessed something horrible when best professional, innocent people were declared ‘enemies of the people’. My brothers and I knew that under no circumstances we could talk about it at school. Teachers and other pupils kept silent, too. There was a lot of fear. Our father explained to us that such discussions might lead to arrest. In 1938 he retired from his position of Head of Legal department and took to advocacy.

I entered the Faculty of Chemistry in Kiev University in September 1937 without any problems. Since I had the highest grades in all subjects at school I just submitted my school certificate to the University and was admitted. There were Ukrainian, Russian and Jewish students at our faculty and the latter were in minority. We got along well and had no conflicts. This was the period when lecturers were required to teach in Ukrainian while many were used to read their lectures in Russian. Academician Yaglovskiy, our lecturer, usually asked us ‘You will not report on me to the Dean, will you?’ and continued speaking Russian.  

I didn’t face anti-Semitism before the Great Patriotic War. I was a member of the trade union committee at the University. The trade union group was responsible for supporting students living in the hostel and making arrangements for their stay in recreation centers, - active Komosmol members and those that were a success in their studies went there. Students also had to participate in parades at Kreschatik 20 on November holidays [November 7] and on 1 May. By the way, the district Komsomol committee required that we came to the gathering spot 3 hours before a parade began. Because three hours prior to demonstration blocked all central part of city, transport did not go and to a place of the beginning of procession passed nobody.

While we were taking part in peaceful parades Jews were already exterminated in dozens of German and Austrian towns. There were rumors spread about the situation there, the first rumors appeared in 1940. Some people listened secretly to foreign radio channels and shared these bits of information with others.  The Soviet radio kept silent in this regard and newspapers didn’t publish anything like this.

In 1939 when Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact 21 was executed when in 1940 the Baltic Republics and Ukraine joined the USSR newspapers described these events as great progress and strengthening of our borders. And the fact of Western Ukraine 22 joining the Soviet part of it was described and a great and happy event. We believed that it was true, this reunification of the nation.

During the War

In 1941 I finished 4 years of studies at the University and went to take a training course at the chemical factory in Slavuta in 300 kms from Kiev. On 22 June 1941 my fellow students and I were walking in the town on a lovely day – it was Sunday - when we heard Molotov’s speech on the radio. He declared that Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. It was a complete surprise for us. Radio and newspapers had convinced us that Hitler wouldn’t dare to attack the Soviet Union. We wanted to go to Kiev, but our management ordered us to stay until we completed our task. It was a problem to get on a train and director of the railway station pushed me into a railcar – his daughter also was far from home and he felt sorry for me especially thinking about his daughter that might also have to rely on somebody’s support.  It took us about a week to get to Kiev since there were German bombers attacking us: the train stopped on the way and we scattered around hiding. At the beginning of July evacuation began in Kiev. My father worked as legal advisor at a military plant, and our family evacuated with the plant: my parents, Lev, Boris and I. My brothers were not mobilized to the front due to their poor sight.  The train moved to the east. It was often bombed, but each time we escaped miraculously. When the train stopped we jumped out to get some water or buy some food.  Our trip lasted for about 3 weeks until we finally arrived at Buzulk station near Kuibyshev, in 2500 kms from Kiev.

We were accommodated in a small room near the plant. There was a table and 2 beds in the room. My parents slept on a bigger bed, I slept on a smaller one and my brothers slept on the floor on some old rags. There was a small wood stoked stove in the corner where my mother cooked.  

In August 1941 my father, brothers and I began to work at the military plant. This plant manufactured aircraft equipment. My father was a legal advisor and my brothers and I worked in shops 10 hours a day. We were provided with special clothing, winter coats and boots. This saved us during winter since we had very few things with us from Kiev: there was a common conviction that the war wouldn’t last longer than few months. Our mother did the housework. We received a small plot of land from the plant where we grew potatoes, pumpkins, onions and carrots, we ate everything that we grew, but this was not enough. We received food packages at the plant: cereals, bread and sometimes, so we didn’t starve. 

The Kiev University was evacuated to Alma Ata, all the professors went there. I went there in September. I met my fellow students and we lived in the hostel. I didn’t stay long in Alma Ata. I prepared for graduation exams in 3 months and returned to Buzuluk with a degree. 

I was leader of the Komsomol unit at the plant. I was responsible for political information and issuance of the plant newspaper. I also conducted classes for rabfak students, who were 12-14 year old children from occupied areas. They had lost their parents. I worked with the administration to resolve the issue of making provisions for these children and patronized them at the hostel. Management of the plant was pushing me to submit an application to join the Party, but I realized already that I wasn’t going to do that and just said that I needed time to grow to this level. I remembered 1937 well and lost faith in our leadership. There was an episode that proved my doubts to have grounds. I was a foreman at a shop and worked a night shift once. There were toxic chemical wastes in this shop. It was the last day of the month. Something went wrong with the conditioning system and the shop stopped its operations. Deputy director said to me ‘Recharge galvanic basins and load equipment since we disable the assembly line to continue their operations’.  The 1st ship was responsible for this situation since they had to fix the equipment to support safe work conditions. It was a major violation of safety rules to recharge galvanic basins when the exhaust air funnel did not function, but I was still given an order to recharge the basin with a gas mask on. I removed all personnel except one worker to assist me. We recharged the basins. It usually took 1.5-2 hours to complete this process, but upon completion it was necessary to air the shop, but the air ventilation did not function. The worst thing was that there was potassium cyanide there that generated prussic acid. After recharge I had to close and seal potassium cyanide, but my gas mask glasses got fogged up. Since I couldn’t see anything I tried to feel the seal with my hands, but I couldn’t determine whether it was sealed or no. I had to make sure that this was done properly; if this had been done improperly I might have had to stand in court. I shifted my gas mask for an instant to make sure that it was sealed and headed to the exit. At that time there were blackouts required and when I opened the door the blackout was perpetrated: that was why they found me promptly. I fainted and recovered my conscience when two ambulance crews were giving me first medical aid. From the point of view of production needs this order was correct while from the point of view of health safety it wasn’t. I was severely poisoned and the management knew it was their fault. They sent me to recreation house for managerial personnel located near Kuibyshev. I had a room there and personnel brought me food into the room: sugar, butter, fruit and vegetables, and I thought I got all this food because I was ill. When I got better I went to the canteen one morning and saw tables covered with snow-white tablecloths and plenty of food on the tables that we hadn’t seen since the war began. There were few women sitting at tables. It was the same at lunchtime and in the evening high-rank men came to dinner. They had dinner and stayed overnight and went to work in the morning. That was when I realized what kind of life officials led. The war revealed that there was one truth for our leadership and another truth – for people.   

After I returned my management insisted that I submitted my application to the Party. I just had to do it or otherwise I might have been suspected of having  anti-Soviet opinions. My application was approved by the plant Party unit meeting. Then at the end of April I left for Kiev and I never showed this approved application to any other authorities. Some of my acquaintances were devoted Bolsheviks. They sincerely believed in wonderful communist slogans that promised beautiful life in the near future…

I met my future husband Alfred Lieberman at the construction unit at the plant. He told me that he was from Kiev and lived in a neighboring street. Alfred was born in Kiev in 1914. His father was a legal advisor in the Ukrainian Red Cross in Kiev. My father knew him. Alfred’s mother was a housewife. Alfred was a construction engineer. On the first days of the war he was assigned to Design Department of Kiev Regiment and he was not subject to demobilization to the front. In August 1941 he was transferred to the construction of military sites at the Volga defense line in Ulianovsk, Saratov, Kuibyshev and Buzuluk. When Alfred and I met at the plant my father invited him to our home. I liked Alfred. He was an intelligent man. We began to see each other walking in the town or visiting friends and went home in Kiev together in 1944.

My father returned to Kiev in February 1944, [Kiev was liberated in November 1943]. My father was a member of the commission responsible for evaluation of damage. Our house was not ruined, but our apartment was occupied by engineer Bublik. He worked at the water supply unit and received a permit to move into our apartment from German authorities. In late April 1944 my mother, Alfred, my brothers and I arrived in Kiev. When we entered our apartment we saw as many pieces of furniture as one might find at a furniture store. Engineer Bublik took furniture from other people’s apartment. After the war our neighbors came to our apartment looking for their furniture. There was a special decision of court issued according to which Bublik had to either return furniture to its owners or compensate its value. We lived in the apartment of our neighbors that were still in evacuation for several more weeks. Back in 1937, at the 20th anniversary of the Soviet power, when my father worked at the Town Council and the Regional Executive Committee he was asked what award he wanted for his performance. My father said that he wanted a special writ of protection for his apartment. The Town Council issued a special decision that this apartment was given into my father’s ownership for a lifetime without any variations. When my father returned to Kiev he met with Mr. Gorbikov, Document Control Manager at the Town Council. He had saved the archives of the Town Council during the war. He had a house somewhere in the outskirts of Kiev. Before Germans came into town he buried the archive in a shed in his yard. After Kiev was liberated he returned the archive to the Town Council. This was a unique case since almost all towns had lost their archives during the war. Gorbik issued a copy of the writ of protection to my father. My father went to a militia department with this copy. He had two militiamen to accompany him to our apartment and Bublik was obliged to move out within a week’s time. He had a house in the outskirts of Kiev and left there. My parents, Lev, Boris and I moved back into our apartment.

After the War

When we returned from evacuation we noted a change in the attitude towards Jews. It was possible to hear ‘zhyd’ 23 in the streets that was never a case before the war. I also remember statements written in Russian and Ukrainian on the wall of some houses in the central part of the city ‘Whom did the Soviet power give education? Zhydy. Whom did the Soviet power give apartments? Whom did the Soviet power give this and that…’ This was the first time I bumped into evidence that Germans inspired antagonism of the local population against Jews. We knew from Soviet newspapers that they had exterminated Jews in their country. I got to know about Babi Yar in evacuation. Soviet newspapers didn’t mention that this was extermination of Jews, but that Germans were killing Soviet people. When we returned to Kiev eye witnesses told us the whole story. My father’s sister Dunia and her husband and Alfred’s sickly grandmother Julia  perished in Babi Yar. Germans killed elderly people who were not able to walk as far as Babi Yar in their homes.

After the war my father was a member of the Town Collegium of Attorneys. He was responsible for helping Jews who were returning form evacuation to get back their apartments.  This was not even a Jewish issue –this was the issue of protection of human rights. It was hard to have these issues resolved since apartments in the central part of the town were occupied by high-level officials. My father worked very hard. He hardly ever went to bed before 2 o’clock in the morning and got up at 8-8.30 in the morning. He did morning exercises and sponged himself down until he grew very old. My father reviewed all cases at home. He also worked part-time for the Town Council and executive committees and was too busy at work to review these applications in every detail.  Besides, my father read special textbooks in law practices in the USSR and Ukraine. His colleagues and clients respected him a lot. Once we went to a party many years after my father died and one of the attendees said to me ‘ Your father taught so many generations of lawyers!’

My mother worked at a library after the war. One had to work to survive: employees received food coupons. My mother was not very fond of her work – she was a librarian. She was used to being a housewife and giving all her time to her husband and children. During and after the war we didn’t observe any Jewish traditions. 

When at University, I was eager to do scientific work. In 1944 I went to the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences that had reevacuated from Ufa looking for a job. Deputy director told me that the only vacancy he could offer me was logistics lab assistant. Since I was Head of the Technical Control Department at the plant I had some experience and I agreed to take up this position until there was another vacancy  associated with scientific research work. During our conversation Academician Brodski, a Jew, came into the office. Before the war he was a well-known specialist in heavy water area. Deputy director handed my application form to him.

Mr. Brodski looked through my documents and said ‘No, we can’t employ an A-student of the University as a lab assistant. Take another look: perhaps you will find another position'. I was employed as a lab assistant, but to the chemical department and in a year I was promoted to the position of junior scientific employee.  

Lev had graduated from Radio Engineering Faculty of Kiev Industrial Institute before the war. After he returned to Kiev he became Director of Ukrainian Radio Trust. I remember the first radio programs in Ukrainian: about Soviet holidays – 1 May and October revolution [November, 7]. They were concerts and greeting of officials.

Boris continued his studies at the University in Kiev. He had studied at the Mechanic Mathematics faculty at Kiev University for two years before the war. 

9 May 1945, Victory Day, was the happiest day. This was the holiday that didn’t need any administrative prearrangement. When we heard this announcement on the radio we ran to work. This was a warm day when chestnut trees had just begun to bloom. Here was a spontaneous parade. People went out to march hugging and kissing each other. This was the happiest day I could remember. It was more important than any other holiday and it united all people. This was the brightest day in my life. 

Everything was in blossom. Alfred and I went for  a walk. We came near the Opera Theater and there was a registry office nearby. Alfred said ‘Let’s drop in and register our marriage’. I said ‘I don’t have any documents with me’. He replied ‘I do’, He had my passport with him. We decided to get married when we were in Buzuluk, but since we all lived in a small room there we couldn’t even consider having another tenant. After we registered our marriage at the registry office we went to a ‘Mineral water’ small store across the street from the Opera Theater. There was a private bakery there. We scratched some money in our pockets to buy a bottle of Champaign and cakes. We went home and celebrated our wedding. Our parents were very happy for us.  

After the wedding Alfred and I lived in my parents’ apartment in Kostyolnaya Street, we didn’t have a choice. Parents liked Alfred. In 1946 our son Georgi was born. After the war all employees were obliged to attend parades on Soviet holidays. This was horrible – they could even fire people if they missed a parade. I remember going to a parade with my one-year-old son in his winter coat just because I had to be there.  My colleagues took turns to carry Georgi on their shoulders.

Lev married a Jewish woman in 1947, They had no wedding party. I can’t remember her name. They also lived with our family until they received apartment.  In 1948 he received a room in the center of Kiev where he lived with his wife and daughter Zoya. Later their trust built a house in Pechersk in the center of Kiev. Lev received a two-room apartment. Lev divorced his first wife he never mentioned why. Zoya stay with her mother. After Lev married another woman, her name was Nina and she was Russian. They had a son: Sergey.  

In 1947 Boris married Lisa, a Ukrainian woman, they didn’t have a wedding party either, we came to greet them with Champaign and cognac on the next day. Upon graduation from the university he became a postgraduate student. After finishing his postgraduate studies in 1952 he got an assignment to the Pedagogical Institute in Zhytomir. Boris, his wife Lisa and daughter Irina lived in Zhytomir for about 50 years.He defended his thesis, became Head of Mathematics department of Pedagogical Institute and became professor.

We began to listen to foreign radio shortly after we returned to Kiev. Lev installed an antenna on the balcony and we managed to listen to quite a few foreign stations. Actually, we could hear them at night the Soviets jammed foreign broadcasts. We listened to ‘Svoboda’ [Editor’s note: American radio station broadcasting in Russian from Germany] radio broadcasts in Russian. We heard about the events in the world and in our country that were not covered by our mass media.  We all lived a dual life; we talked about achievements of our country at work and   discussed the Soviet reality at home. In 1948 we were shocked by the death of Mikhoels 24, Head of the Jewish Antifascist Committee 25 during the war. He died in a car accident, but few realized his death was a part of Stalin’s plot we realized it then.  After the war we all faced anti-Semitism (Jews had problems with getting employment or entering higher educational institutions, (Boris was lucky). Our family no longer believed that Stalin or other leaders were infallible.

Our family was very happy about creation of the state of Israel in 1948. I remember Golda Meyir  26 visiting Kiev, and how we admired her. There was coverage of her visit in newspapers. We didn’t feel like it was our country,  Soviet Union was our Motherland and we were far from Jewish identity, but we did feel proud about our nation getting their own country.

Shortly afterward struggle against cosmopolitans 27 began. In 1950 I was thrown out of the Academy of Sciences under the aegis of reduction of staff. 15 other Jews were fired at the same time. When the list of employees to be fired was submitted to Alexandr Brodski, our director, at the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences he said ‘Please include my name into this list. If you fire my staff I won’t be able to continue to be director of the Institute’. He was not fired and managed to convince the administration to have all key personnel keep their job. Only younger employees were fired. Actually this was such an open campaign, you know, that no explanation was necessary. I stayed out of work for a year. Back in 1947 I fell ill with tuberculosis and when I lost my job I, obtained a certificate that I was an invalid to receive allowances and have justification for my jobless status. I was an invalid of category 2 and received a 30-ruble pension. In this year when I didn’t work I decided to write a dissertation. My father also fell under the category of cosmopolites and was fired from the attorney agency in 1949 or 1950. He didn’t go back to work. Alfred was the only breadwinner in our family. My father received a pension. Later in the early 1950s, he resumed his work at the attorney agency. He retired in 1959 since my mother was ill she had heart problems and father had to stay at home to take care of her. 

In a year after I was fired from the Academy I received a phone call ‘Hallo, this is a scientific secretary of the Academy of Sciences.  Could you come to see me at 11 am tomorrow?’ ‘Of course’. I went to his office with my passport and my labor record document. ‘We need to develop a unit to prevent emissions in mines. I would like to offer you a position of engineer for this work. Would you like to do this work?’ ‘I will, but please take a look at my documents’. He said winking at me ‘I don’t need to. I asked Alexandr Brodski to recommend a person to do this job and he said you are the best person he could think of’. So, this was Brodski that helped me to get a job. I was a free-lance employee of the Mining Institute.

In 1952 the ‘doctors’ plot’ began 28, but after the cosmopolitism campaign we didn’t believe mass media any longer. We didn’t believe Stalin was involved in these processes, we rather thought NKVD 29 played the main role. Stalin didn’t publicize his involvement in the processes like this.  When Stalin died on 5 March 1953 I didn’t cry for him. We had a clear picture of what was going on.  When I heard that he died I got scared a little: ‘What is going to happen now?’  

In 1953 our son Georgi went to a Russian school in the center of Kiev. My son was doing well in all subjects, though he preferred exact sciences like Albert. He wasn’t raised Jewish, but always identified himself as Jew. He never faced anti-Semitism. He had friends of various nationalities and people treated him well.

I worked at the Mining Institute for four years until an order was issued to transfer it to Dnepropetrovsk. I went to work at the Road Transport Institute. Anti-Semitism mitigated, but I still got this job with the help of an acquaintance of mine. We had a great collective and management in the laboratory. I faced no anti-Semitism.  

In 1960s Alfred and I got very fond of periodical publications. We subscribed to a number of magazines: ‘Novi Mir’ [popular monthly magazine], ‘Inostrannaya Literature’ [‘Foreign Literature’] from the time they began to be issued after the war. They published books by Soviet and foreign writers. There were shelves full of these magazines in the hallway of our apartment. But most important for us were Samizdat books 30  – the ones that were retyped. We read Solzhenitsyn 31 when it was retyped on thin cigarette tissue. We read books by forbidden authors when it was handed to one another. Our friends gave us copies and we gave them to our friends.  Of course, this made a great impression on us since Solzhenitsyn was the first one to tell the truth about camps and innocent victims of the Stalin regime.

In January 1960 my mother died after being severely ill for a long time. She was 71. She was buried at the Jewish corner of a town cemetery, no traditions were observed. After my mother died I took the responsibility to keep family traditions. One of them was to have a family gathering on 9 January, on my father’s birthday. Previously my father’s close friends used to attend these gathering, but gradually it was just the family. 

In 1960 I defended my thesis and became a Candidate of Sciences. I liked my work. We had a great team at work. We met at leisure time to go to a theater, Theater of Russian Drama that staged plays by Russian and Soviet classical writers and we also shared opinions about what we had read or seen.  At weekends Alfred, Georgi and I went to a theater or concert.

In 1960s Khrushchev 32 promised that ‘In 1980 this generation of the Soviet people shall live under communism’, but we felt ironic about such things. To my mind planning economy was good for nothing. I took no interest in economic issues. I was busy at work, at home and with my son.

We liked traveling on vacations and went to a beach on the Dnieper River. Our laboratory was located in Darnitsa on the left bank of the Dnieper and I managed to go for a swim in the river before taking metro to commute to work.

Our son followed into his father’s steps. He graduated from the Faculty of Industrial Construction at the Construction Engineering Institute in Kiev. He is construction design engineer. Georgi has a Russian wife whose name is Svetlana. I had no objections to his marrying a Russian girl. In 1970 their daughter Elena was born. Georgi works a lot and has no free time. They do not observe any traditions: we didn’t and Svetlana also grew up in a non-religious family. 

In 1976 my father died. We buried him near my mother’s grave at the Jewish corner of a town cemetery no traditions were observed. My father was involved in public activities consulting young lawyers at the Collegium of Attorneys and Town Executive Committee when he was a pensioner.

When perestroika began in 1985 books that we had read a long time before began to be published. Therefore, we were not surprised about what they published. We continued subscribing to newspapers and magazines. We listened to ‘Svoboda’ and radio of Israel – they were not jammed any longer. 

I’ve been a pensioner for 16 years. I have great memories about my work at the Road Transport Institute.  My former colleagues also remember me: they visit me on my birthday every year.  
My older brother Leo was director of the Radio Trust of Ukraine before retirement.  Leo died few year ago. His wife Nina, his daughter Zoya and son Sergei and their families live in Kiev.  My younger brother Boris, his wife Lisa and their daughter Irina  moved to America in1993.  They live in Boston. I know that they are content with their life. They greet me on my birthday or New Year. 

Alfred worked at the Scientific research Institute of Construction Structures before he turned 85, but even after he retired he continued providing consulting services to them.  In 2002 Alfred passed away and it was a terrible blow for me. Shortly afterward I broke my leg and was confined to bed for a long time. There are no close people of mine left in Kiev. I am so happy that Georgi lives nearby. Besides my son, my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter, my old acquaintances and friends often visit me. Hesed takes care of us, old people, and I don’t feel lonely at all.

Glossary:

Berta Grunstein (nee Jager)

Marosvasarhely

Romania

Interviewer: Julia Negrea and Vera Badic

Date of interview: July 2006

Berta Grunstein lives near to the synagogue in Marosvasarhely, in a two-room apartment, which was always furnished with the same old pieces as far as she can remember. Her wedding photo is hung on the wall above her bed, the other walls are decorated with Gobelin tapestries some of them woven by her, and there are a few Judaism-related pictures as well, which were given to her husband as presents. There are many small trinkets in the glass-cases; she knows in case of each whose gift it was. The life of the couple was strongly connected with the Jewish community’s life; they were active members to it for more than sixty years. Mrs. Grunstein’s sweetest memories are linked with the preparation of festive meals organized at the community. During the interview she visibly livened up each time we talked about the festive dinners, and she detailed accurately the different recipes. These days she doesn’t leave her flat anymore, and she is not able to keep the house without help.

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

My paternal grandfather, David Jager came to Szeretfalva [Editor’s note: In Romanian Saratel, a village located 146 km to the south from Maramarossziget / Sighetu Marmatiei.] somewhere from the Maramaros [in Romanian Maramures] region. As far as I know, he was a corn-dealer, and died at a young age. I ignore when he was born, all I know is that when he died [in 1915], my father was fourteen years old; he became the breadwinner, and that is why he wasn’t recruited. My grandmother was called Leni Jager, nee Lazar, her Jewish name was Lae. She came from the surroundings of Des [in Romanian Dej]; I don’t know what the occupation of her parents was, but I think they owned a shop. My grandparents moved from the Maramaros region to Szeretfalva after they got married, and they had four children there. My father, Joszif Jager was born in 1901, he was the oldest. He was followed by Mojse Jager, he was born in 1903. Then – I don’t know after how many years – the third brother was born; I don’t remember his name anymore, he died at home, in Szeretfalva, before 1944. He was married already, but didn’t have any children. Smil Jager was the youngest, I don’t know when he was born.

Mojse Jager was a butcher. He had five daughters with his first wife – I ignore her name –, the eldest was called Eszter. They were deported, and they all died in Auschwitz. After the war Mojse married a woman called Helen, I ignore her maiden name, and they had a son. They lived in Szeretfalva, and they emigrated to Israel in 1957 together with Smil [the little brother], at the time of the great emigration flow 1. Mojse was very ill, he passed away first in the 1960s, Helen, his second wife died after him.

I don’t know what Smil was engaged in; his wife was called Malka, and they lived in Szaszregen [in Romanian Reghin]. He had two sons. One was David, he died in Israel at the age of forty-eight; I don’t know the other’s name, but he still lives in Israel. My father was already a sick man, and he said: ‘When I recover, will you take me to see Smil?’ I said ‘Yes’. So when my father got better, my husband told me: ‘Go, for you have promised. If something will happen to your father, you will be filled with remorse.’ So in 1969 we visited Smil; he was already sick, and we visited him. Helen, Mojse’s wife was there too. Since then the son of Smil came here to visit us with his grandchild. Malka died in 1960, Smil in the 1970s.

Grandfather Jager died in 1914; he left behind four small children. He is buried in Szeretfalva, not in the cemetery, but in the garden of one of my grandmother’s siblings; he has a carved gravestone and everything. I don’t know why he isn’t buried in the Jewish cemetery; I know though that before high days my father used to go to his grave. I was there too.

My grandmother never got married again. They had a big orchard along the main road, she kept animals, horses too. She didn’t have any servants, her sons helped her, especially my father, since he was the oldest, and he also took care of his little brothers. They had wagons, and they brought corn to the market. When her sons got married, my grandmother distributed the land: she gave a lot for each to build houses; all this was after World War I. My father owned the front house, because he was the eldest, then followed the second son’s house, and that’s how the four brothers’ houses were lined up. Grandmother Leni’s house was in the back of the garden, it was a weak house, I remember that, but her children all had nice houses.

Grandmother died before deportation, in 1942 or 1943; she was old, but I ignore how old. She is buried in the Jewish cemetery of Szeretfalva, alike my sister, Fajge and all our relatives who had died. There was a big cemetery in Szeretfalva, it still exists.

My father was called Joszif Jager; he was born in 1901 in Szeretfalva. I don’t know for how long he studied, because he was fourteen when his father died at a young age, and he became the breadwinner. I’m not aware of the circumstances of my parents’ meeting each other; however, theirs was a love match. My mother was called Szerena Jager, nee Rosenfeld. My mother’s family was from Harina [in Romanian Herina], which is a few kilometers far from Szeretfalva, and some fifteen kilometers far from Beszterce, but they were poorer than my father’s family. Though she was a widow, grandmother Jager was well-off, and she didn’t want my father to marry my mother, so my father gave money to grandmother Rosenfeld to be able to buy my mother a dowry. They got married in 1923.

My maternal grandfather was called Jozsef Rosenfeld, and he was born in the 1880s. As far as I know, both my grandfather and my grandmother were from Herina, which is a Saxon village. I guess my grandfather had two siblings, but I don’t know when they were born. My grandfather came from a very wealthy family, but his siblings cheated him, they distributed everything, the land among themselves. I ignore why all this happened, however my grandfather became poor because of this.

David Rosenfeld was one of his brothers; he was very well-to-do, he even had a threshing-machine, and they lived in Herina. I don’t know his wife’s name; they had two sons. All I can remember is that one of his sons studied at a university too. They were all deported, but only one of the boys came back, and he emigrated to Israel in the 1950s.

The other brother of my grandfather was Jenkel Rosenfeld, he too was very rich. He had a wife and a daughter, who was married already and had a child when they were all deported, and they died there.

The maiden name of grandmother Hendl Rosenfeld was Blatt, and she had four siblings. I know only one of them, because she was called Berta Grunstein, and she was my husband’s mother. Once it was Pesach, I was a child then, and my husband’s mother told my grandmother to let me go there for Pesach. I did go, but I didn’t get to know my husband then, he already had his own family; back then his little brother, Mihaly courted me.

My maternal grandparents were also engaged in corn-trading; well, in fact the Jews were all engaged in trading, but they [the grandparents] were not so well-to-do. Their house in Herina had three rooms and a kitchen, they didn’t have a servant. On Fridays, when they were coming from the fair, they dropped in to us, and my mother welcomed them with food and pies. Grandfather Rosenfeld was religious, but he wasn’t bearded; my grandmother had a wig, they all had, even my mother. The synagogue in Herina was bigger than that one in Szeretfalva, because there were more Jews. There was a shochet too, and a Jewish bath next to the synagogue; in Szeretfalva there wasn’t any, so people used to go to Herina to bath.

In the war of 1914 my grandfather was taken to Russia, and he was a prisoner there for I don’t know how many years. He came home sickly from there. I was little when he died, but I can remember him, I visited them many times. It happened before Pesach. They had a horse-drawn wagon too, and my grandfather wanted to go somewhere. He went into the stable and said: ‘I feel so bad, I presume I won’t live to see the Seder.’ He didn’t live indeed, because he lay down and died. This happened in the 1930s. I suppose he died because of a heart attack, he was quite old.

As far as I know, my grandparents had six children. My mother, Szerena Rosenfeld was born in 1903 in Herina, Beszterce county. All I know about her sisters is that they all got married, their life was settled. For instance it seems to me that one of them got married in Bucharest. Only one of them stayed in Herina with my grandmother. She was called Marta Rosenfeld, she had a little daughter. They lived in the same house with my grandmother, her husband was Jewish, and he was also from Bucharest; I don’t know how he got here. Marta was deported to Auschwitz together with her daughter and my grandmother, they died there. Nobody knows what happened to her husband.

The youngest sister of my mother was Piri Rosenfeld. I don’t know when she was born and whether she was married before the war or had children; however, she was the second wife of Marton Grunstein, my husband’s elder brother. They got married after the war, and had a son. My brother-in-law divorced her, so in 1958 Piri left for Israel with her son, who was called Andras, and was nine years old at that time.

One of my mother’s little brothers was called Adolf Rosenfeld; he had a wife, who had died before the war. Adolf was taken to work service; when he came back, he married his second wife, but I don’t know what her name was. She came from the Maramaros region, her father was a shochet, but she was a very modern woman. They lived in Beszterce. In 1946 we celebrated our weddings together, we had the same relatives.

My mother, Szerena Jager [nee Rosenfeld] was born in 1903 in Herina. As far as I know, she finished primary school. At home they spoke Yiddish. Originally my mother had long hair, it reached her waist; I know this, because she kept her braid after she cut her hair. She had some hair at the front, and when she covered it with the wig, she still had that hair on her front. Usually when she was working at home, she wore a kerchief, and she wore a wig only on high days.

My parents got married in 1923, but I don’t remember them talking about it. At the beginning they lived in lodgings in Saratel, at the parents of one of my classmates, not far from my grandmother’s house; later they built a house on the lot given by grandmother Jager.

Growing up

We were five siblings, three girls and two boys. David was born in 1925, I was born in 1927, Mirjam in 1930, Fajge in 1933, then Salamon was born in 1938.

My elder brother, David was two years older than me; he got his name after our grandfather. He was cross-eyed, he was born with this defect; the sun was shining and he looked into it...

Mirjam had a twin sister, who died during childbirth because of the umbilical cord. My poor mother cried so much; when she went to the graveyard, she used to look at the rows and say: where these are, there is room for one more; and that’s what happened indeed: she gave birth after all this to Fajge, who also died as a child. Mirjam was deported together with us, and she died in Auschwitz.

Fajge was my favorite among my siblings; we were sleeping in the same bed, and she always went to bed earlier to heat up my place. It was war time, the Hungarians came in, and Fajge got ill right when the tanks were passing through Szeretfalva, so they couldn’t take her to the doctor, we had to wait until the tanks went off, then we took her to Kolozsvar, to the Matyas hospital. [Editor’s note: The founder and physician-director of the Park sanatorium – more popularly Matyas sanatorium – was Dr. Matyas Matyas. He graduated at the Jozsef Ferenc University in Kolozsvar, he became a general surgeon, obstetrician and gynecologist there. The private sanatorium founded by him employed quite a few physicians, it was in the Furdo street. In 1948 it was nationalized and transformed into a pediatrics hospital. It still works.] The doctor said we came too late, her appendix was perforated. Yet I stayed there with her, but later they told us to bring her home, because her abdomen got full with pus. We were so close to each other that she couldn’t die until I didn’t go out of the room. She was ten years old, when she died in 1943. Fajge is buried in Szeretfalva, in the Jewish cemetery. The cemetery still exists.

In 1944 Salamon was very little, he didn’t even go to school yet, when he was deported with us, and he died in Auschwitz.

I was born in Szeretfalva in 1927. After I came here to Marosvasarhely, my husband called me Muci, because I told him I didn’t like my name. My mother never called me so; however, people know me as Muci, all of my friends call me so.

In school we learnt in Romanian. I went to school in the morning, and in the afternoon I went to the cheder. From first to forth class we had a teacher, then from fifth to tenth class we had different teachers. 2 In school we were together with Romanian children, we were friends. I was in the seventh or eight degree, when Hungarians came in, and for one year I learnt in Hungarian, though I didn’t speak Hungarian at all, I learnt the language only when I came to Marosvasarhely. Every Jewish girl and boy from our village attended the cheder, I even knew how to write in Hebrew. My teacher asked me to write a letter in Hebrew to my parents, and I could do it, but today I can’t write in Hebrew anymore. Our school was a big one with ten classes, because there were many children in Szeretfalva, but I don’t know how many inhabitants were there. There was no possibility there to learn to play the piano; when I got married after the war, and I came here, to Marosvasarhely at the age of nineteen, I learnt to play the piano at Velemenyi. [Editor’s note: At that time she was a well-known piano teacher in Marosvasarhely.] I had a big Hohner accordion too, but I sold it.

We didn’t celebrate Christmas, but Jewish holidays were observed. At Purim balls were organized in Herina, we went there from Szeretfalva; people came from other villages too, where there were more Jews. At Simchat Torah children prepared some kind of show, there was a little flag with an apple on the top of it, and there was a candle in the apple, and everybody followed the Torah, children too.

My father was a corn trader, he supplied the flourmills of Beszterce with corn. They organized corn fairs in Lekence and I don’t know where else, he bought corn there too, and then sold it in Beszterce. I was some eleven years old, when once my father sent me to Beszterce to take the money. We owned some land, and had workers who cultivated it. There was a neighbor who lifted sacks for my father. My father liked horses a lot.

We had a great farm at home, we kept all kinds of animals and poultry: goose, turkey, chicken, horse, cow and calf. Back then people didn’t have water and electricity in their house; water was brought from the well, and they heated with wood. Electricity was introduced when Hungarians came in, in 1940. 3 On Sabbath a neighbor came and he made fire in the stove. Our house was a country-house with three big rooms; we had a storeroom too. Outside we had one more room, that was the summer apartment. My parents lived in one room, we, the three girls in other, and the boys in the third one.

There was an old lady, she was called Anna, who looked after children together with my mother. She was Romanian, and on each Sunday she went home. We were crying and holding her skirt, and she told us we should not cry, because she would come back by the evening. During the week she slept in our summer flat. When my mother accompanied my father to fairs, I was the eldest girl at home, and housekeeping was put in my charge. Once I scrubbed the floor in the kitchen. We had an oven where bread was baked, its opening was inside, and its back side in the garden. I squirted water on the wall. I wanted to please my mother, but of course she was angry with me. I even wanted to fill the goose to have goose fat. I set on it and kept on feeding it; I did the same my mother used to do, I filled it with my finger, my sisters helped me. But when we stood up, the corn was next to its craw, so I said I wouldn’t ever try it. Every year we had a big firkin of fat. I still have that firkin, but since my husband had arteriosclerosis, he said we should prepare soap of the fat.

My parents were well-to-do. We didn’t feel the want of money or anything else. There were poorer people than us, and they could get along. When they milked the cows, my mother told us: ‘Now, you take milk here, and you there.’ And we brought milk for free for people who didn’t have. My parents dressed nicely, we were almost the most elegant people in the village. There was one more family, they were corn traders as well, who were well-off, then we. At the age of fifteen I was already given a golden watch. We got a new dress for each high day, sometimes we got silk dress, yet silk dresses counted for something really extraordinary. They bought it in Beszterce, not necessarily from a Jewish salesman; it only had to be nice.

My parents were religious, but not as much as people of Bnei Brak. [Editor’s note: According to a survey made in 2002 Bnei Brak is one of the most religious towns in Israel.] They observed the Jewish tradition, and we spoke Yiddish at home. My father wasn’t Orthodox; he was a gabbai, he prayed each morning at home with his tallit and tefillin. On each Friday evening, on Sabbath and on holidays they went to the synagogue. My mother went to the mikveh each month. We had a big and beautiful synagogue in Szeretfalva, it wasn’t storied. It had two large rooms, one for men, the other for women, and there was a window between the two rooms. We didn’t have a rabbi, only a shochet. [Editor’s note: In fact it is not clear what the interviewee means when saying that his father wasn’t Orthodox: presumably she means he wasn’t Hasid. Otherwise we can assume that they were rather Orthodox and not Neologs.]

There was a kosher slaughterhouse in the village, and a shochet cut the poultry as well. My uncle, Markus Rosenfeld was the shochet, his wife, Eszter was the sister of my grandmother Jager. They came somewhere from the Maramaros region too, he was a nice bearded man, moreover, his wife was a very elegant and modern woman, she wasn’t old-fashioned at all. They had a clean house; we brought the cholent there on Saturday, it was cooked in their oven alike the matzah. The shochet led the prayer, and he was our teacher in the cheder too. My father was the gabbai, he distributed the meat. At Sukkot my father invited to us everybody, and so my mother and I cooked all night, and people danced a religious dance in circle.

My mother was a great cook, she was a good housewife, she enjoyed cooking. I remember that in my childhood, at Pesach we had separate dishes we kept in a chest. Each of us had their own plate, every child knew which was their own. We had meat-soup made of beef. We didn’t eat bread at all for eight days; we had fried matzah, ‘reminyi’; we cooked beet soup with potatoes. I often prepare beet soup as well. The beet needs to be grated and boiled a little in salted water. It gets white within a few minutes, then it has to be strained; but it mustn’t be cooked for long, because it would loose its color. The strained soup must be put back on fire, you put some vinegar and a little sugar, and an egg stirred in it. You serve it with potatoes cut into cubes. That’s all. They used to make ‘pldli’ for the meat soup, balls from matzah meal. That’s very tasty. You beat an egg, you add a little salt, pepper and matzah meal; it must be somewhat thicker than the pancake dough, but not much more, because it will grow, and the ‘pldli’ would get hard – it’s not like semolina, that’s not so substantial –, so it needs more egg. So you put it into the meat soup. It is very tasty.

On each Friday night my father prayed, my mother prepared fish in aspic, meat soup and challah. On Fridays it was us, children who brought the cholent to the shochet, and at Sabbath noon we brought it home. On Sabbath my father and my brother went to the synagogue; on high days women went to the synagogue as well, nobody worked. At Chanukkah we lit seven candles [Editor’s note: instead of the usual eight plus one candles].

In Romanian Szeretfalva was called Saratel, and it had Romanian and Jewish population. The village was on the main road, which goes to Beszterce, Kolozsvar and Des. It was a somewhat big and wealthy village situated ten kilometers far from Beszterce. There were many Jews, there were two minyans, so twenty, twenty five families, but all of them were deported. The Jewish houses weren’t in a separate part of the village, but among the Romanians. Poor Jews usually had some profession. There were shops, but not only on the main road, there was a street which led to the railway station. There were shops too, which belonged rather to Jews. One of my grandmother’s sisters, Mirjam Lazar – I don’t know her name after her husband – had such a grocery. Jews owned the land in that village, and the mill too, but the miller wasn’t Jewish. It was a water-mill, the Beszterce flew there, I was born there, because we lived on the riverside. All the children used to bath in the river; I learnt how to swim there. When it rained, the water was deep, but when it was drought, it wasn’t deep.

My parents never took a holiday. However, there was a salted bath not far from Saratel, the water emerged from the ground, there was ‘namol’ [mud, in Romanian] people smeared with. I used to go there with my mother and grandmother. My mother told me: ‘I will give you one lei, come with me’, so I did. Everybody went there from the village, one didn’t have to pay anything.

We had a post office in the village, but there wasn’t any doctor or pharmacy, people went to see a doctor in Beszterce. We didn’t have electricity, we did listen to the radio though. My uncle Mojse had a gramophone and records, he liked music. If I remember well, he even took it to Israel. At home we had mainly old Jewish books, inherited from father to son. My parents weren’t engaged in politics, well there weren’t parties then! People respected my father a lot, they came to ask for his advice. They used to ask him if his daughter or son wanted to get married. Somebody came from the village: ‘You’re well-to-do, just as I do – he told my father –, let your daughter marry my son.’ My father answered: ‘I won’t let my daughter get married yet’, he talked about me. Back then Jews married only Jews, mixed marriages didn’t exist.

In Saratel there were Romanians, but there wasn’t any anti-Semite manifestation. People got on well in those times. Hitler didn’t exist yet. We didn’t know, we wouldn’t have thought that something was to come, we had no reason to believe this. We had Romanian newspapers in the village, but one couldn’t find out anything from those, and when Hungarians were in, we didn’t really have Hungarian newspapers.

During the war

When in 1940 the Hungarians came in 4, out of a childish trick my brother David broke the window of a Hungarian army car with a stone. My parents paid it, and that was it. He didn’t have troubles.

In 1940 men were taken to work service 5; my father was taken somewhere across Budapest. I don’t know exactly when he was taken. We wrote to each other. Before 1944 he came home, then they deported him. David was also taken to a concentration camp; he died, because he couldn’t bear starving.

I was seventeen years old, when they gathered us, and emptied the entire village. We went to Beszterce by a horsed wagon. We had nothing to pack in, because they didn’t let us take anything, the gendarmes stood next to us until we got ready. They didn’t inform us in advance, but entered the village and drew out the Jewish families. They took us to Beszterce to the brick factory, the ghetto was there. Jews from all the surrounding villages were taken there, from Herina as well.

Our family entered the ghetto united. It was big, Jews from Beszterce were also there. We lived under awful conditions, we lived in barracks. It was surrounded with barbed wire fence. We had an acquaintance who wasn’t Jewish, and who brought us a package; they didn’t take it from him, but didn’t let him give it to us; we ate what they gave us.

We were in the ghetto from May 3rd 1944 until June 4th, then they took us away. We traveled in the same carriage, the whole family, with grandma Rosenfeld, Marta, her daughter and grandchild and all the Jews from Herina, they separated us only in Auschwitz. Nobody knew where they were taking us, though it was a long time they had been doing this in Warsaw, from 1939. But television and such things didn’t exist yet, so we had no source of information.

We arrived to Auschwitz at midnight. I ignore for how many days the journey lasted; however they didn’t give us anything to eat or drink. Gendarmes with cock-feathered hats escorted us until the Czech border, and there they handed us over to the Germans. [Editor’s note: Presumably the Gendarmes escorted the deportation train until Kosice, and they passed it there to the Germans. In those times the Hungarian-Slovak border was near Kosice. The Czech Republic didn’t exist; there was the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, but Hungary didn’t have any common border with it.] In Auschwitz there was Mengele, and they kept on saying: to the right, to the left, to the right, to the left, although nobody knew what left or right meant. One group to the crematorium, and the other was selected for work, so to life or death. I was sent to one group, my father to other. They took my mother, my little brother, Salamon and grandma Rosenfeld to the crematorium that very night. My brother was very little, he didn’t even go to school yet.

I was quite well developed, I had got used to work, so they selected me for work, but I wasn’t together with any of my relatives. I was there for about two more days, then they took me to work. I was in several concentration camps. I was in Germany, in Glowen – this was on the other side of the Main. [Editor’s note: Perhaps Berta Grunstein means Glowen, a place in the state of Brandenburg. However, this is near the Elbe river, and not across it, but near its hither (that is eastern) side. In fact we did manage to identify neither the place, nor the concentration camp.] I was there from July 1944 until February 1945, for eight months. We were only women in that camp. I met there Kati, the younger sister of doctor Dengelegi. She was deported from Nagyvarad; she was very nice, we were taken to work together. We were building a railway, we were carrying heavy rails and beams, and they also ordered us to dig bunkers for the soldiers, so they could put the munitions there. I was the youngest, and Kati descended [into the mound] and helped me dig it out. When I told her after the war, when I related all this to her, she said: ‘Oh, it is such a good feeling to hear what I had done.’ There was an old Saxon man from Nagyszeben, they were taken there to help, he was a Wehrmacht [soldier], and he used to give me stealthily apple or a piece of bread, he was nice. I was in Glowen for the whole winter. At five in the morning we had to go to the ‘appel’ [lining up for the checking of the number], in shoes with wooden sole, its upper part was made of tent-cloth. Many people got frozen there, but one ought not to even look there, because at eight they came to count us, then they took us to work.

In February 1945, when the Russian tanks and the army were approaching, the Germans started to evacuate us from Glowen; in daytime they kept us in the wood, and transported us only in the night. British airplanes kept on dropping those searchlights to see what was going on.

We were still in Germany; we arrived into a small town, a former concentration camp, I don’t know what its name was; however it was deserted, empty. There were barracks where prisoners had been kept before us, I think they were Ukrainians. The Germans wanted us to stay in that concentration camp for one night. But in the meantime the Russians arrived. The Germans gathered us to take us away. In the rear there were reeds. And a girl, who was from Borsa – that is in Maramaros – told me: ‘Come, let’s go and hide there, until the Germans leave.’ I was still a child and I was afraid to go, but all the others ran away. And whoever didn’t run away, she was taken further. So I ran there too, and we stayed hidden in the reeds until four in the morning, then we went back to the barrack. There was hay and straw on the ground. We sat down; there was gun-fight all around us, and we were waiting. Later Russians came in holding their guns ahead. They saw we weren’t Germans, so they didn’t care much, and went away. We stayed there, then we went into the town to look for some food. It was a very small town, I don’t know what it was called. The houses were empty, the Germans all fled, the whole town was empty. We entered the houses, we were looking for the larders, for food. Bread or whatever we could find in the larders, jams and things like that. We took some clothes, shoes to get dressed… We went back to the concentration camp into the barracks until things cooled down, and after two days we left.

We were many, some thirteen. We looked for a cart and put on it what we had: food we had taken from that town; we were pulling the cart, and we walked until we found a railway station. I don’t remember the station’s name; once in a day passed there a freight train, but that day the train had already gone. So we went to the first house. And we asked them to let us sleep there for one night. Germans already were moved in. And they didn’t let us in. So we called a Russian soldier, and he said they should leave the house, and we could stay in. We said we didn’t want this, just give us a place. Thus they carried some hay into the stable, and we stayed there until next morning, when we went to the railway station, and we stood there until a train came, and we got onto. It was a freight train, it took us to Neubrandenburg [Editor’s note: a place situated in the state of Mecklenburg, which is to the north from the state of Brandenburg], there were some English army posts. The English were already left, so we were lodged and kept there in quarantine for three months.

There were Russians, guards were keeping the gate. Some of us got sick, and were in hospital. If we wanted to go out, they were supposed to give us a certificate that we could go to the hospital, and we had to go back by a certain time. Many died there… Because they suffered of starvation, ate too much and got dysentery.

After the war

On May 9th 1945 the war ended. My father was liberated by Americans, I was liberated by Russians. The Russians let us go, so you got a paper saying who you were, where you came from, what you did, and they took us to a train, these were freight-cars as well, to take us home. There were people from many countries. There were people from Bohemia, Romania, but not only Jews, there were Italians who weren’t Jewish. There were both women and men. We traveled across Poland. The Poles were very vicious: the train stopped because they always sent it to a side-track, and we stationed there for one or two days. We left the train, again to look for some food… And they said they would blow up the train for we had dared to go to the town. So we went back and stayed there for one day, one night.

Then we passed to the Czech Republic. The Czechs welcomed us with loaf and milk. We stayed there too for one day. Then we arrived to Hungary; in Budapest we wanted to find the Jewish community. In the tram they wanted us to show our tickets. Well, we said we came from Auschwitz, we didn’t have any money. We were quite a lot, who all came from there… We came together from Germany. A man stood up and asked: ‘How many are you?’, and he paid the ticket for all of us. We got some papers in Budapest too from the community, but I don’t remember the details anymore, and we came to Arad to the border. We got some papers in Arad too, and we came by train to Kolozsvar. We got down there.

In the railway station I met by chance Nussbacher, who later courted me, and who had been together with my father in the concentration camp. He told me to wait for my father, because he was to come. Adolf, my mother’s brother arrived as well, we waited for my father, and we came home together. My father was in Dachau, as far as I know; he didn’t tell me much about it, I don’t remember anymore. He was liberated by the Americans. Only after we came home, we found out that the other members of our family didn’t survive. We didn’t even think of staying in Germany or to go somewhere else, we came home to meet the other members of our families. We were some ten persons. They came not only from Saratel, but from the surrounding villages and Beszterce. We hired a microbus together and came back to Beszterce, from there we went home directly. Only three of the twenty-five families had members who came home.

Everything was taken away from our house. They took everything that was made of wood, even the stairs and the well. The neighbors didn’t tell a word, and they didn’t give back what we had left there. Nobody had lived in the house, they only carried off everything. We didn’t find any photos or papers, anything. We left the valuable things, the bed-linen at a person from Saratel, but they didn’t give them back. Only my father and I survived, and we had to start again. We began to run a farm again, I even whitewashed the house, I painted patterns on the wall. Although we had the farm, one could not make a living of it, so my father started crop trading again, and he was transporting wheat to Beszterce to the same mills. The millers weren’t Jewish, I think, but I’m not sure.

I spent my eighteenth birthday at home. I spent one year at home, then I got married and moved to Marosvasarhely. My father stayed in Saratel. After we came home from deportation, my father started farming again, and he bought horses too. When I visited him with my husband, I always used to tell him: ‘Take a look at the stable and praise his horses!’ I hired a skillful woman for my father, a Saxon woman, who did the housekeeping. When I went home, my father was always complaining: ‘Now tell me, how I can sit idle?’ I answered: ‘You’d worked enough. Are your grandchildren crying?’

My step-mother was called Lujza Adler after her first husband, and Lae was her Jewish name. I don’t know what his first husband’s name or occupation was. Before the war they lived in Torda. Her husband was ill, and died at a young age. Lujza wasn’t deported, because she lived in Torda; she came to Marosvasarhely after the war, and worked in the kosher canteen. [Editor’s note: Torda was part of Romania between 1940 and 1944, the Hungarian-Romanian border was some 20 kilometers far from it. Concerning Jews from Romania see 6, 7, 8.] There was a kosher canteen next to the synagogue, at its back, it served mainly Jewish students, but not only. She came to visit his brother-in-law, Arisztid Adler, who was the friend of my brother-in-law, Marton Grunstein; the later presented my mom [step-mother] to my father. She offered him cholent. When he came home, I asked him where he had been for so long. He answered: ‘I was to look for a wife.’ He added that we were supposed to pay a visit to them at five. That’s what happened, we visited them on Saturday afternoon, and I took such a liking for her, because she was a very skilful woman, a clean housewife; Lujza was also a very nice woman. I told her: ‘Listen, dear, my father needs nothing but a woman. You mustn’t bring there even a needle.’ Mom visited my father in Saratel with Arisztid’s mother. They took a look, they were pleased, the house was supplied with everything; so they agreed to get married in two weeks.

Lujza had a son and two daughters. By that time her children had already established their own families. I don’t know when his son, Joszif Adler was born. He lives in Jerusalem, he left for Israel in 1846 [Editor’s note: At that time it was Palestine yet. The State of Israel was established in 1948; between 1920 and 1948 it was the British Mandate of Palestine.], so he was taking part in the fights of 1948 9, and he was shot. He emigrated alone, entered a kibbutz, got married there; he has two daughters.

One of Lujza’s daughters is called Piri [Piroska] Adler. I don’t know her husband’s surname, only his first name, Bandi [Andras]; he called mom [Lujza] aunt Lujza, he didn’t call her mom. Piri has two sons. One of them is called Ivan, he studied in Bucharest; he was editing illustrated magazines. I don’t know the other’s name; he became a doctor. In the 1970s Piri emigrated to Israel, because her sons were already living there.

Lujza’s other daughter is Julianna Adler, she was called Juci. She got married too, if I remember well, her husband was called Bratislau. They lived in Torda, and they had two children. Their daughter, Eva studied medicine in Kolozsvar. It was not much after their son, Ervin had left for Israel, when something happened to him in the army, and he got partly paralyzed. Yet he got married later, he married the daughter of a doctor from Marosvasarhely. Approximately in the 1970s Juci died here, in Marosvasarhely, but we didn’t tell mom. We kept telling her that Juci was in a sanatorium here and there. After Juci died, her children and her husband left for Israel.

My parents got married in 1947. Before the war Lujza worked in Torda. She learnt how to make the upper part of shoes, and she worked as a shoemaker in order to provide for her children. Poor Lujza had nothing. She had a coat she had refashioned from the coat of her ex-husband; she had only a little suitcase. Her son-in-law from Kolozsvar came to the wedding; they got married here, in Marosvasarhely, in the synagogue. According to Judaism, when parents get married for the second time, children mustn’t be present, so I prepared a dinner at home, and I invited her son-in-law and my brother-in-law’s family; otherwise there wasn’t any party organized. The next day they went to Torda and Kolozsvar to meet Lujza’s children, and from there they went home to Saratel. After my step-mother got married, she quitted her job at the canteen; what became of it later, I don’t know that.

In 1949 my father and Lujza left for Israel with a permit to leave definitely. After my father arrived to Israel, he took out his stepson, Joszif from the kibbutz. He told him: you’re here for so many years, and you don’t even have underpants, because there people shared everything. But Joszif didn’t treat him nicely. In Israel both my father and Lujza worked, I think in a leather factory. He even bought animals and established a farm, but he threw up everything and came home in 1953; he said for him Israel was where his kid was, and so he came home. Lujza came with him, her daughters still lived here, but all in vain, they didn’t bother much for her. They settled in Saratel; there was a small shop, my father set it up, and ran it. Later they moved to Beszterce, he quitted his house and everything. Gypsy people moved into his former house. It is still there, but I didn’t get it back yet.

After I came home, I spent my eighteenth birthday at home. Two men courted me at the same time. One of them was Nussbacher, whom I had met at the railway station in Kolozsvar, when we were coming home, the other was Joska Grunstein, my future husband. They were of the same age, and they were in the army together.

Nussbacher fell desperately in love with me. For my eighteenth birthday he brought me a manicure set and a photo of him; he was like a film star, yet I liked my husband better. I told him clearly that I loved him as my brother, but I wouldn’t prefer him to be my husband. He had a brother in Kolozsvar who owned a chocolate factory; he also had a brother in Beszterce, so he stayed at them; this brother of him had a mill. The Bussbachers were very well-to-do Jewish people, they had a horse-drawn carriage. Later he changed his name into Alex. I didn’t want to stay in the countryside. He told me: ‘No problem, Beszterce is ten kilometers far. I’ll buy you a cab, a car with driver, whenever you want, you can go to Beszterce. I’ll take you to the cinema, to the theatre, wherever you may wish to go.’ But I didn’t want to. I told him: ‘There are so many beautiful girls in Kolozsvar’, but he answered he wanted none of them, just me. He was so reticent, in turn I was chatty. He told me I was like a chirping bird. However I didn’t want to marry him.

I knew my husband before the war already; he was the cousin of my mother. He already had had a family. Once I visited Piri, my mother’s sister in Marosvasarhely; she was the wife of my future brother-in-law. They lived in the Kossuth street. We came from the concentration camp, we didn’t have any clothes. We had to have shoes, coats, everything made, so I went to buy materials with my aunt. My husband and I met at Piri’s. My mother’s little brother, Adolf was about to get married for the second time. All these people were relatives, we all got married with relatives in those times. She told Joska: ‘Well, you should get married...’, and she kept on praising me and telling how good housewife I was and how decent a girl I was. My husband lost his family in the concentration camp, and he was much grieved about it. But he started to think about us… For me, who I had lost my mother and siblings, he meant compensation. I was eighteen, and he was thirty-two years old. He was such a warm-hearted and kind man, there are just a few husbands like him. I became fond of him not as of a man, but because he was so kind-hearted. So finally I decided to marry Grunstein.

Nussbacher told me he would commit suicide if I didn’t marry him. I didn’t take him for serious. Many people said that I was a very pretty girl. I wasn’t money-oriented, so I chose my husband, because if I had been selfish, I would have chosen the other. Nussbacher went to Kolozsvar, and committed suicide in his brother’s bathroom. I was visiting my aunt, and my father came and told my aunt what had happened, and they didn’t dare to tell me… Finally my aunt told me. I was struck dumb. They had to take me to a doctor.

Before I got married, I went to the baths [that is to the mikveh] in Beszterce, otherwise they wouldn’t have marry me. We got married on December 1st 1946, on the same day as my uncle Adolf. The wedding was organized in Beszterce, in the courtyard of the Jewish restaurant, under a chupa. First they married the other couple, because they were older, then us. I don’t know whether there was a rabbi or only a shochet, but I think it was the shochet from Beszterce. It was a great snow; I was wearing a fur-coat and a white dress. There were a lot of people at the wedding, the room was hardly enough at the restaurant; half of the country knew my father, so people came. It was a kosher restaurant. They didn’t serve up any special meal, just the usual: we had starter, meat, soup too, we had garnishing, cakes, drinks. We were given smaller gifts. After the wedding we moved to Marosvasarhely; we lived in the Lajos Kossuth street, it was a hired apartment. We were there from December until June or July, and we moved later into this house.

My husband, Jozsef Grunstein was born in Chiuza [in Hungarian Kozepfalva], in Beszterce county, in 1914. His father was called Mendel Grunstein. They lived in Bethlen, in Romanian Beclean, which is a village near Des; I don’t know what the occupation of his father was, or where his family came from. He had two brothers, the oldest was Marton. Marton was born in 1909, Joska, my husband in 1913, Mihaly, his little brother in the 1920s. His parents were religious. I don’t know whether they were Orthodox or Neolog, but they were religious like us. They had the animals cut by the shochet, they used separate dishes for milky and for meat.

I don’t know what education Marton had; however, he worked at the food-supply administration as a bookkeeper. He established a family here, in Marosvasarhely – I don’t know the name of his first wife –, and he had a daughter. They were deported from Marosvasarhely, his daughter was four years old. My brother-in-law was a very miserly person. My husband, when he came here to work [before the war], didn’t stay at them, just ate at them, and he told me his brother had taken the money for the meals. His second wife was Piri Grunstein, nee Rosenfeld; she was the little sister of my mother. They had a son, he’s called Andras. My brother-in-law divorced her, thus in 1958 my aunt and the boy, who was eight years old then, emigrated to Israel, and there she changed her name into Peled. When we visited them in 1969, her son was in the army. I don’t remember where he lived and what he did for a living. Both my husband and I loved very much this aunt of mine. I don’t know what the name of my brother-in-law’s third wife was; she wasn’t Jewish, and my brother-in-law divorced my aunt because of her. Marton died in Marosvasarhely in 1992.

All I know about Mihaly, my husband’s little brother is that he died during deportation somewhere in Germany. My husband tried to arrange that Mihaly would get enlisted in 1943, though he wasn’t of the proper age yet. They took him, and he wrote from the army that he intended to escape. My husband answered him not to do so, because his fellow-soldiers would get punished. Nevertheless later he was taken to Auschwitz, and he died somewhere in Germany.

My husband went to school in Bethlen; he was studying a lot using electric light, until he went blind. All this happened when he was some fifteen-sixteen years old; so they took him to Kolozsvar, and he was operated. They told him he must stop learning. Thus he learnt to work in leather, but I don’t know where. Before the war he worked already in leather in Bethlen, then he moved to Marosvasarhely. Here he was selling broadcloth in a private shop; he met his first wife, Helen Grun there. She was from Beszterce. In Kolozsvar she stayed at an uncle, who raised her, then she came to Marosvasarhely to work, she was an employee in a hardware shop. In the meantime, in 1935 my husband was enrolled in the army. He was in the Romanian army in Szatmarnemeti; he was twenty-one at that time. He was allowed to leave for one day, when they got married. After he demobilized – this was around 1937 –, they lived in Marosvasarhely in the Cuza Voda street, in his wife’s house until deportation. He had a son, he was called Erno, and was born in 1940. [Editor’s note: According to photo number Erno Grunstein was born approximately in March 1941.] They were deported together with the wife and daughter of Marci. My husband and my brother-in-law, Marci were taken to work service; the two of them came back, but their wives and children perished in Auschwitz.

The forced labor camp was in Maramarossziget [in fact in the Maramures region], up in the mountains; they were digging out bunkers. From Nagybanya they were taken to Borsa, then to Maramarossziget, they were liberated there. There were thirty-two in the camp who were from Marosvasarhely, and they were all good friends. My husband was working in the canteen; every evening he was returning [to the camp] with a rucksack on his back, he was carrying bread and food for all the thirty-two people.

After the wedding first we lived in lodgings. I didn’t know the owner. Previously a girl had lived there, but she had left for Israel [Palestine], that’s how we could move in. Later we bought the apartment where I live at the present. It had only one room and a kitchen, we built the rest later in order to have room when my father and step-mother came to visit us, on holidays or on Sabbath. We wanted them to move here, but they didn’t want to. He used to come here to the synagogue, he knew everybody, and everybody knew him. Yet he kept on telling that ‘At home I look out the window and I know everybody around’, he was a sociable person. My poor father used to say that he would come only when he would be carried. That’s exactly what happened.

At the age of seventy-five he was already sick, and he was grieved about the fact that he couldn’t work anymore. He always worked as a self-employed person, so he didn’t have any employment to retire of; he didn’t care much about it in fact, because he had means to live of. He was taken to a hospital in Kolozsvar, and he died there in 1978. It was just then that Pop Mihai, we called him Misi, a good friend of us took us to Kovaszna to a treatment. I had given our keys to the neighbor so that he would pick up our post. One day he heard the phone ringing. He came in, and he was given the message that the cleaning woman had called my step-mother from Kolozsvar to tell her that my father had died. The neighbors went to Misi, who called my step-mother; he got into the car again with his wife, he took some money with him, he came for us to Kovaszna, then we traveled all night to Kolozsvar from there. We arrived at daybreak, at five o’clock, but it was still dark at Bandi’s, the son-in-law of my mom. Bandi told us that we could bury my father there at noon already. I answered: ‘You won’t bury anybody. You won’t dispose over him, but I will.’ My husband and I went to the synagogue; in its courtyard a cousin of mine lived. I asked him where my father was. He said he was in the morgue. I said to this: ‘Wasn’t there room enough in Bandi’s house to take him home?’ For this is the tradition. In turn all the belongings of my father were packed up in a big case. So we started to make arrangements: we found a car to transport the dead, a car to transport us, then we went to the People’s Council to ask for the paper [the death certificate]. I gave a phone call at home, Scheiner was the president at that time [Editor’s note: that is the president of the Jewish community; Centropa interviewed her wife, Julia Scheiner as well], to organize the funerals at four o’clock. So we got in the car, and we brought my father. We transported him up in the Jewish cemetery.

In case of every Jewish person who dies at home they put the dead on a sheet, and cover him with another; they put a candlestick and candle next to him. The mirror is covered, and they keep a deep mourning for eight days, yet they bury him the next day of his death. My father had brought sand from Israel, and they made a pillow of it. The dead is washed, for this purpose every cemetery has some kind of washbasin made of cement, and the people who wash him say a prayer for him. Formerly there was a person who did this here too, but now there isn’t. There was a man called Mendel, he worked at the post, he delivered newspapers. Then it was Lederer who did this for a while. The coffin is made of rough board. The dead is dressed up properly in a clean, white linen, which is sewed just then, and they put stockings, shirt, cap [kippah] on him, which is made of the same linen. And they put on the dead person’s own tales.

My father and my step-mother lived together for thirty years. After his death her daughter, Piri took Lujza to them in Kolozsvar. Misi’s daughter studied in Kolozsvar, and when she visited them on Sundays, I always went with her to see my mom, when she was there too. However Piri and her husband were never at home, they always went to play rummy. Mom was livery; the poor creature used to tell me she wasn’t allowed to scream, because Piri, her daughter would shout on her. She was malicious, not like Juci, her daughter in Torda, who had died. In the 1980s Piri and her family took mom with them to Israel; she died there.

After our wedding I didn’t work, my husband didn’t let me; it is true though that he made me work enough at home. Before I got married, my father supplied me with money so that I didn’t have to work; after that I didn’t need to work, because my husband earned well.

Before the war my husband worked in the leather factory. I don’t know what the factory’s name was before the war. After the war an enterprise was established, it was called ‘Intreprindere de sortare’ [sorting enterprise], and he was its director. They sorted out the leather. He had fifty employees; the enterprise was across the Maros bridge, on the right side. They got the leather from our county and from other six counties. They sorted the leathers and they sent them to factories to process them. He worked there forty-two years. They didn’t let him retire; they issued his papers only after two months, because there weren’t many people in the country who were such good experts, who knew so well the leathers, maybe four or five only. When they didn’t accomplish the plan by the end of the month, he had a driver, so they brought leather from elsewhere so that people could get their entire wages. There was a time when fifty people worked under his guidance, both men and women. People loved him a lot. He was in trouble once, when the flood drew out the leathers from the cave; when the water drew back, the army found the leathers; after all it wasn’t his fault.

My husband wasn’t a party member, and still he was a director, because he was a very good expert, they needed him. In those times it meant a huge thing to be director without being a party member. He was denounced, and they called him in to the Securitate. They even came to our house; we weren’t at home. They looked in through the window, and they said we had Persian carpets up to the ankles. So they called him in to the party office; for there were people who informed about everything, but there were people who knew these; so at the end my husband found out who had turned him in. They didn’t harm him, because they needed him.

My husband attended the Jewish community for sixty years; he was there with every occasion. While he was working, he went to the synagogue each Friday and Saturday; after he retired, they prayed each day in the synagogue until they were enough persons. Later he took part in the prayers only on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. When he was still working, he entered the synagogue through the neighboring yard, yet they watched him and reported him. In the communist era, during services women came to us, because they were afraid, so they waited for their husbands here to come from the synagogue. We weren’t afraid. In those times Scheiner was the leader of the Jewish community, then it was Sauber. [Editor’s note: Centropa made an interview with Bernat Sauber as well.] My husband led the funerals, the weddings, he was the cantor. He died at Pesach, in March 2002.

The holocaust memorial was built a long time ago in the cemetery of Marosvasarhely; people light candles there in memory of people died in Auschwitz. The commemoration is organized yearly. Before they emigrated, a lot of Jews lived in the town, and we marched by fives from the centre up to the cemetery, just like in Auschwitz. However, in recent years they keep the commemoration in the synagogue; we are not able to march up there anymore.

I started to work at the Jewish community a very long time ago; I worked for thirty-one years. Without anyone sending me, unasked I started to visit elder people, I wrote reports, I was some kind of social worker. I visited elder people; there were many old persons, so I brought them challah made by me. Poor people, they always used to tell me I should not bring them anything, just go and visit them. Whether they got any support from the Jewish community of Bucharest, I don’t know that, it was a long time ago.

Once leaders came from the Bucharest community, and they chose me and appointed me as an assistant at the Jewish community; they said a person was needed there – the community was large, the synagogue was full, it was some thirty years ago. I spoke and asked them why they didn’t establish a kosher canteen. There were many students here, and a kosher canteen would have been in a good place, but they said it was too late, there weren’t enough people.

On high days it was me who organized the festive dinner. On Yom Kippur, when fasting was over, they made grilled meat for dinner, and I baked the cake, three or four hundred hamantashen, which is the specialty of Purim. I baked them at home, for the most part alone; I baked a few days earlier, because it had crumbly dough, so it got soften. It has to be cut out in circle, then folded in triangle.

For Seder night I prepared dinner from thirty or thirty-five kilograms of meat, sixty kilos of potatoes and thirty kilos of beet. I presented the list of what I needed at the community, and they bought the things. They gave eggs, oil and meat as well. I had to buy the rest, but it was well organized. There was a Hungarian family, who for each Pesach brought us thirty kilos of beet for pickles, but I had bought the horse-radish in advance. The entire preparations started one week before the high day, because the horse-radish and the beet had to mix well. I put on the flowers and the decoration on the last day to make it fresh. We were cooking khremzlakh for two hours, but it was the last thing to prepare, because it had to be fresh.

During the Ceausescu era Jewish shochets came to Marosvasarhely to cut kosher meat for Israel at the slaughterhouse, and they exported it to Israel. Three shochets came together with their families, and a mashgiach, who had lived for two years in Vienna before, then he came here. He’s the person who supervises whether the meat is kosher or not. They lived here for about two years; they all stayed in the Furnica block of flats [in the block which is near to the store called Furnica], because the Securitate usually watched the strangers, everywhere in the town.

After the Jews emigrated, during the 1950s there wasn’t anybody in Marosvasarhely to cut the animals, so a shochet came from Bucharest or Kolozsvar; later people traveled to Kolozsvar to buy meat. We always prepared different meat, depending on the raw material; we made meatballs, stew with potatoes, horse-radish, we always had beet, starter, eggs; everybody was given two eggs. I put lettuce under the eggs, parsley on its top, fresh radish, if we already had; we cut out tulips of the radish. Sometimes people said that in spring it was costly, yet I bought as much as I needed. I have a knife with a reticulated edge, I used that knife when I cut up the cucumbers, and I put two slices on the plate.

While my husband was alive, I prepared dinner for each Seder night. I organized the last dinner in 2001 – I was doing this for thirty years. There were a hundred and thirty persons at the last dinner I organized. They always used to say there wouldn’t be many people. ‘Don’t spend much money, don’t buy much stuff.’ Nevertheless I always bought the quantity that was needed, because I already knew; luckily I did it well, because at the end there was nothing left for the staff. I had assistance, but not much; I did by myself what was the most important part of it, because I wanted it to be as it had to be. We worked a few days in advance, then on the last day I was up and working for sixteen hours. When Seder was over, men made order in the room, women did the dishes, made order in the kitchen, and we came home at midnight. During the night I always had cramp in my legs. My poor husband, when I had cramp, I cried, so he brought spirit and did a massage for me.

I invited several times everybody who worked at the Jewish community; there wasn’t any special occasion, I just promised them to make a big challah, and birds, flowers made of cake and many other things. I baked it at home, it is some kind of braid, it can replace bread: it has salt and a little oil in it. That’s how they do it, that’s how my mother prepared it. First, when they wash hands, they recite a prayer, then they cut a little piece of challah for everybody, they dip it into honey, and everybody is given a piece, so that the whole year would be sweet. [Editor’s note: So this must have been on Rosh Hashanah.] Then I served up a lot of cookies, and we had liqueur and brandy. Then we had fish in aspic, which I prepared of ten kilos of fish; all these people ate fish in aspic only when dining at me. After that I served stuffed cabbage from kosher beef and fine home-made wine, that’s the custom. When meat was brought to the community, I bought some and I used it. Then we had coffee, I have a very nice German porcelain coffee-set, I served it up in that, then we had two or three kinds of cakes made of different creams.

Poor Laci [Laszlo] Grun, how much he liked it. [Editor’s note: Centropa interviewed Laszlo Grun as well.] Rita, his wife used to tell me: ‘This is Laci’s favorite; you are so good in it, and mine is never so tasty.’ Rita was very skilful, she always jumped to helped me out. I prepared these meals alone, during several days, but sometimes I called an aid for the last day.

On high days rabbi Rosen 10 sometimes came here from Bucharest together with his wife. She was a real lady. She was also a lawyer like Mr. Rosen, that’s how they got to know each other. They always came by plane, and I welcomed them at the airport with flowers. Sometimes it was only his wife who came by plane from Bucharest, and the rabbi came by car from Moldova. Generally they traveled further to Kolozsvar. If they stayed overnight, they stayed at the Continental Hotel, that was the most elegant hotel back then. So we rented a room there, and we laid the table, we had tea, coffee, sardine, cheese, olives, bread, things like that.

When we celebrated a wedding in the synagogue, there is an armchair in the little room, where Seder night is organized today, so we covered it nicely, I put a carpet in front of it I had brought from home, and the bride was sitting in that armchair. A rabbi of small stature came, I think from Kolozsvar, and he married the couple inside. From there they went over the synagogue, to the large room, and the chupa was installed there: it had four columns supported by four boys. The last wedding celebrated in Marosvasarhely, as far as I remember, was the wedding of Aladar Scheiner; his first wife had died, then he married Juci Mestitz [Julia Scheiner]. A shochet came then too. And it wasn’t organized in the synagogue, but in the small room. I was asked to make the cookies.

We organized baptism too. [Editor’s note: Of course she doesn’t talk about baptism, but circumcision ceremony.] Once a student came, because their baby had been born, and he wanted the baby have baptized. They studied here; they weren’t from the surroundings, I think they were from Moldova. I don’t remember their name anymore, and I also don’t remember when this happened. In fact I didn’t know them, they just simply came in to the community. We were talking, once they asked about baptism. Of course we would do it, I said. I was in for every such occasion. The brit milah, the circumcision was kept in the great hole. Somebody came, I don’t remember anymore who, and he did it. After the couple finished the university, they emigrated to Canada; we kept on corresponding for a long time, because after the baptism I invited them for lunch several times.

In every year I went to a health resort for treatment, always to a place where the doctor, Imre Lax sent me. I was in Olanesti at the wells, because I had stone, I was at Felix baths for several times in private. The trade union sent me and my husband once with a holiday voucher to Sinaia and once to Kovaszna. Every year Imre’s family went to Tusnad, and I went with them. Beri [Bernat Sauber] and Maria, his wife were also with us. Doctor Lax undertook to x-ray at the hospital there, thus he could keep there his family too for one month. We were in good terms; I even stayed in the same villa with them. There was a single room opposite to theirs, and if it wasn’t empty, I slept in their room. While my husband was working, I went alone. My husband went repeatedly to Buzias with a ticket because of his heart disease.

In 1957 we applied too for permit to go to Israel, but they didn’t let my husband go. We didn’t try for a second time, it wouldn’t have had any reason. I was in Israel for three times. First I went there in 1969 with Marci, my brother-in-law, because they didn’t let me go with my husband. Since we didn’t have children, his son counted always as our son. When Andris left, my husband told him: ‘When we will have the possibility to go, you will be the first we will visit.’ After I came home, I obtained the papers, and in 1970 I sent there my husband. For instance when I was in Israel, my husband would have had to go to Greece to take over some goods, but they didn’t let him go; he had to send someone else, because they thought he would go across to Israel. For the second time I went to Israel with my father in 1977, one year before he died. His brother, Smil was still alive, he was younger than my father, but Mojse had died. They let us go together with my husband only in 1980, after he retired. We took a trip, so that my husband could see Israel.

After my husband’s death I didn’t assume any community tasks. I was ill for a long time, and now I can’t leave the house anymore. I have an aid for housekeeping and for daily work, the Jewish community too sends me an assistant. I’m receiving material support from the Jewish Federation in Bucharest due to my thirty years activity for the behalf of the community, and I’m granted the German Claims 11 assistance as well.

Glossary

Remma Kogan
Odessa,
Ukraine
Interviewer: Alexandr Tonkonogiy
Date of interview: June 2003

Remma Kogan is a nice elderly lady. She has vivid hazel eyes and a melodious voice that make you forget about how old she is. She is short and quick in movements regardless of her age and diseases. She lives alone in a two-bedroom apartment with all comforts.  Remma has old furniture bought when she received this apartment in 1966. There is a table in the middle of the room and a sofa by the wall. There is a small carpet over the sofa. There is a bookcase full of books and on it there is a big portrait of her deceased husband. It’s a plain apartment that needs repairs, but its owner keeps it clean and cozy.  When telling me about her family Remma read me long excerpts from her father Moisey Kogan memoirs. 

Family Background

Growing Up

​During the War

​After the War

Glossary

Family Background

My maternal great grandfather Chaim Duvid Litinski was born in Novomirgorod  [a town in Kherson province, according to 1897 census its population was 9,364 residents and 1,622 among them were Jews] in 1831. My father remembered him well: he was stocky, wide-shouldered and gray bearded. He owned a hardware store in Novomirgorod. In 1858 my great grandfather married Chasia-Ethil, a Jewish girl, born in Novomirgorod in 1838. My father could vaguely remember my great grandmother. He said she was beautiful, but wicked. My great grandfather died from lung fever in 1906. My great grandmother died from cheek cancer in Novomirgorod   in 1909. My great grandfather and great grandmother were religious. They spoke Yiddish and Russian in the family. They had six sons: Moishe-Aron, Ghershon, Zelman, Sender, Nisel and Yitzhok-Leib, and four daughters: Chaya-Leya, Surah, Vera and Esther.  All children were born in Novomirgorod.

My grandmother Chaya-Leya Kogan was born 1864. According to my father she was an extraordinary lady. Her brother Yitzhok-Leib finished the university and helped her to learn French and German. She knew Latin, history, geography and literature.  She was taller than average, had dark wavy hair, a big forehead, shortsighted eyes, straight nose, and tightly closed lips. My grandmother loved her children, but she was strict with them. Grandmother Chaya read a lot and taught her children to love Russian authors, among them Leo Tolstoy, Turgenev 1, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Korolenko 2, Kuprin 3, Gorky 4. Young people sharing revolutionary ideas often got together in their house reading, arguing and singing revolutionary songs until late at night. My grandmother Chaya didn’t care about religion, but they always celebrated Purim, Pesach and Rosh Hashanah in the family. They spoke Russian and Yiddish in the family. Grandmother wanted her children to receive higher education and did everything she could to reach this goal.

My father’s father Mordko Kogan was born in Boguslav, Kanev district, Kiev province [according to census of 1897   - 11,372 residents, among them 7,445 were Jews] in 1865. He lost his mother when he was small and was raised by his stepmother.  He studied in cheder. Grandfather Mordko was a distant relative of Sholem Aleichem 5. He liked him and often read his works in Yiddish aloud. My grandmother Chaya and grandfather Mordko got married in 1882 and settled down in the house of grandmother parents’ home in Novomirgorod. There were three rooms in the house. There was a kitchen and a toilet in the yard. My father told me that grandfather was small and thin, had brown hair, red beard and blue eyes. The Jewish community respected my grandfather Mordko and he was a permanent member of arbitrary court [the court is elected by conflicting parties, senior rabbi in the town usually was head of arbitration: ab-bet-din] that resolved the majority of conflicts between Jews. My grandfather went to the synagogue on holidays. He wore yarmulka at home. He was a religious man. Several times his wealthier relatives loaned money to him to start some business of his own, but he failed every time he started something. My grandfather was a shop assistant in a fabric store. He got up before dawn in the morning, boiled water in the samovar and sat down to have tea biting on a lump of sugar. He usually had 5-6 glasses of tea, wrapped his breakfast in a newspaper sheet and went to work.  He had dinner after he returned from work in the evening. Grandfather Mordko didn’t earn much. The family lived modest life, but grandfather Mordko didn’t care much as long as his good name was preserved. After the February revolution 6 that grandfather welcomed he began to work in a cooperative. My grandmother Chaya and grandfather Mordko had seven children: six sons and one daughter. They were born in Novomirgorod. The boys studied in cheder and then in Russian elementary school.
   
My father’s older sister Rosalia was born in 1883. In 1903 she married Yuli Belotserkovski, a Jew, and they moved to the Moscow region. They lived in Kratov station of Moscow-Kazan railroad. Rosalia finished a Medical School in Moscow and worked as a pharmacist.  They had four children: 2 daughters and 2 sons. Their older daughter Ethilia was an electrical engineer. She lived in Moscow. She died in a car accident in Moscow at the age of 60.  Their second daughter Olga was a geographer and scientific employee. She is a pensioner now. Their older son David is an astronomer and candidate of sciences [Soviet/Russian doctorate degrees] 7 and their son Mark is a candidate of geographic sciences. Olga, David, Mark and their families live in Moscow. Rosalia died in Kratovo at the age of 72 (1955). Her husband died in Kratovo at the age of 93 (in the 1970s). 

My father’s older brother Lev was born in 1891. In 1910 he entered the Medical Faculty of Petersburg University. In 1915 he graduated from University and worked as a doctor in Glukhov village near Kiev. He married his cousin sister Revekka Fooks, my grandmother Chaya sister Surah’s daughter. Revekka was a German teacher. Before the Great Patriotic War 8 Lev and his wife moved to Kiev. Lev was a surgeon in the central polyclinic in Kiev. Their only son Ludwig finished the Philosophic Faculty of Kiev University. He lectured on philosophy in the mining College in Krivoy Rog. During the Great Patriotic War Lev and Revekka evacuated to Votkinsk in Bashkiria. Lev was shortsighted. After the war they returned to Kiev.  Revekka’s parents Surah and Moisha Fooks perished in Babi Yar 9 in Kiev.  Lev died in Kiev at the age of 75 in 1966. Revekka died in the 1970s. Ludwig and his wife Olga Luchko live in Krivoy Rog. Olga is Ukrainian. She was a teacher of history.  They are pensioners now. They have two children: Natalia and Yuri.

Grisha [diminutive from Grigori], the second son, was born in 1896. In 1915 Grisha went to Kiev and graduated from the Medical faculty in Kiev University. He was a lecturer at the Medical College in Kiev. Grisha was married to his cousin sister Mariam Fooks, grandmother sister Surah’s second daughter.  In 1930 their daughter Lidia was born. Grisha perished at the front during the Great Patriotic War. His wife Mariam and her daughter were in evacuation in Votkinsk during the Great Patriotic War. Mariam worked as a medical nurse. After the war they returned to Kiev. Lidia finished the Mining College in Krivoy Rog, but she worked as a teacher in the kindergarten.  She married a Jewish man.  She has two children: son Grisha and daughter Svetlana. Mariam died in the 1970s.  Lidia lives in Kiev. She is a pensioner. Lidia’s children and their families moved to Germany in the 1980s.

My father’s brother Yakov was born in 1902. In 1922 he left Novomirgorod for Petersburg. I don’t know where he studied.  Yakov was a heating engineer. Yakov’s wife Sophia, a Jew, was a teacher of mathematic. They had two daughters: Galina and Olga. During the Great Patriotic War they evacuated to Novokuznetsk in Kemerovo region where they stayed after the war. Yakov’s wife died of cancer shortly after the war. Yakov died in Novokuznetsk in the 1970s. Yakov’s older daughter Galina got married and moved to the Moscow region where she works as an engineer. She has two daughters. Yakov’s younger daughter Olga is a scientific employee of the metallurgical Institute in Novokuznetsk.  She has two sons.

David was born in 1905. He was a railroad technician and lived in Moscow. David was single. During the Great Patriotic War he was commander of rocket launcher platoon. He perished during defense of Leningrad in 1941.

My father’s younger brother Anatoli was born in 1909. Anatoli lived with my father’s family in Kirovograd and then Odessa. He studied at the Communication College in Odessa and worked at a plant. In 1931 Anatoli finished his college and got a job assignment in Khabarovsk. He married his fellow-student Maria Sviridova, Russian. Maria was a communication engineer, but she worked very little. She dedicated herself to her family.  Anatoli and his family lived in Khabarovsk where he was chief of regional communication department. During the Great Patriotic War Anatoli got an assignment to work in Nikolaev, Ukraine. Anatoli worked there for a short time and then was transferred to Kuibyshev [Samara at present]. Anatoli has three children: daughter Nelly and two sons, Sergei and Valeri. They finished a conservatory. Nelly was a teacher in a music school in Kuibyshev. She was married and had a son named Mikhail. Nelly died in the 1970s. Valeri is married and has two children.  Sergei is married and has three children. Anatoli’s sons play in the Philharmonic orchestra in Kuibyshev. Anatoli died in Kuibyshev in the 1980s. His wife died shortly afterward.

My father Moisey Kogan was born on 28 April 1900. My father told me a lot about his childhood.  My father went to cheder at the age of 6. There were two rooms in cheder: one for senior and another room for junior boys. There was a teacher  and his assistant called behelfer [assistant melamed]. This assistant taught children their ABC and often carried the youngest ones to school. My father started learning the Torah at the age of 8, I guess. They studied Hummash [Pentateuch in Yiddish]. My father found cheder dull and he entertained himself as much as he could: stuffed an inkpot with paper, chatted with his classmates, glued rabbi’s beard to the desk when he was dozing off explaining Rashi’s commentaries on Hummash. [Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (1040-1105), is known by the acronym RASHI. His commentaries on the Hebrew Bible and Babylonian Talmud are accepted as the most fundamental ones] Melamed hit my father on his back with his stick. At the age of 9 my father was expelled from cheder for his conduct.   

At the age of 10 my father went to study at a Russian elementary school. Schoolchildren were children of local craftsmen, small tradesmen and clerks and also, farmers from neighboring villages. Children from wealthier families studied in a grammar school. It would have been bearable at school if it hadn’t been for terrible anti-Semitism propagated by teachers and rooted among the pupils. The majority of children came from tradesmen’s families. They didn’t like Jews for making strong competition to their parents. Jewish children even received lower marks at school. My father told me that once his teacher of history called him to the blackboard. The teacher and classmates listened to my father’s answer holding their breath. His teacher Shevchenko stated that this was an exemplary answer, but put him ‘3’. His teacher of mathematic Zizdo did the same. They rarely put a higher mark than ‘3’ to my father. When my father entered a technical school he only received excellent marks in mathematic. 

My father was quite advanced for his age at 13. He was interested in politics and was familiar with all details of the ‘Beilis case’ 10 and followed the subject discussions in the State Duma.  He was 17 when the February revolution took place. In August 1917 my father entered a technical construction school in Odessa.  He studied and worked. In January 1918  my father returned to Novomirgorod since he could not make his living in Odessa and was starving. The power switched from one group to another in Novomirgorod from ‘Petliura units’ 11, to the ‘greens’ 12 and other gangs 13. Jewish men organized a self-defense unit 14. They patrolled the area at night, but they couldn’t fight bigger units, of course.

In spring 1919 the most dramatic Jewish pogrom in Novomirgorod took place. It became one of the strongest shocks in my father’s life. My father said that this pogrom was made by the ‘black hundred’ 15 units. On 18 May crowds began to gather in Novomirgorod. From behind the closed shutters of his house my father watched how they broke into the house of Rabinovich, sales agent of Singer sewing machines. They broke doors and windows and dough flew out of the windows. In the evening rumors about the massacre spread. My father’s neighbors, the Christian family of Berest  who was a shop assistant in my father’s shop, offered shelter to my grandfather’s family. On the night of 19 May grandmother and my father’s younger brothers David and Anatoli hid in Mr. Berest’s house and grandfather with Grisha, my father and Yakov hid in their hayloft. The Berests put icons in front of their house and drew red crosses in chalk on the gates like all other Christian families in the town. The pogrom began at dawn. Throng of brutal townsfolk began to smite Jewish houses breaking crockery and furniture and cutting mattresses and pillows.   

Grandfather Mordko decided to try to get home to see what was happening there despite his son’s requests to stay. There was a group of bandits in the yard of his house. My grandfather ran to the river across the garden, but a bullet reached him.  He was wounded, but he managed to sail across the river and hide in the stables at a farm. The owner ordered his laborers to throw him out into the street where my grandfather died. The pogromists took the remaining Jews to the town prison where my father and his family stayed three days. Somebody arranged for water delivery into prison. They also brought pieces of pork on iron griddles as if to ridicule Jews. There were talks in prison that dean of the town cathedral Reverend Georgi Kovalevski, a decent and sympathizing man, went out to meet the pogromists and talk them into stopping their brutalities, but it didn’t work. Four days later a Soviet bandit-fighting unit came into town. My father’s family returned home. There were pieces of broken furniture, crockery and feathers from pillows on the floors. There was also a portrait of my grandmother’s brother Yitzchok with his eyes put out.

They buried victims of this pogrom in two common graves in the Jewish cemetery in Novomirgorod. Religious Jews recited the mourning prayers. They placed two huge granite gravestones on the graves. In 1938, when my father visited Novomirgorod for the last time he saw cows and goats walking in the cemetery. The granite gravestones were lost in grass and it was hard to discover them.  In the 1960s my father’s acquaintance Israel Radkovski visited Novomirgorod. He didn’t find the cemetery since it was ploughed over.

In 1919 my father joined Komsomol 16, and in early 1920 he volunteered to the Red (Soviet) Army. My father wanted to get self-confident and take revenge for his father and other innocent people’s death. One summer in 1920 in Podolia [an area in Western Ukraine, east of Bukovina] my father stood night watch with Van’ka, a Russian man from Vologda province. The young man was missing his homeland in the north a lot.  He didn’t like anything in Ukraine. ‘They say there are zhydy [yids] living here. They are like us, only they are so ugly: they are black and have tails. I wish I saw one’ he said.  My father got angry and said; ‘Well, you want to see a zhyd? Then look!’ and he turned his back to Van’ka, pulled down his pants and showed that there was no tail.  When he turned to look at Van’ka he felt sorry that he had done this; Van’ka was very confused. He didn’t mean to hurt my father. 

In May 1921 my father demobilized and returned home. Grandmother Chaya was very ill. After grandfather died her left hand and then left leg grew numb.  My father’s 19-year-old brother Yakov worked in Raiprodkom [abbreviation for ‘raionnyi prodovolstvennyi komitet,’ i.e. district product committee, main responsibility of which was perhaps distribution of food supplies among the population]. David was 16 and Anatoli was 12. They were desperately poor. My father went to work in a bakery. He received food packages there. In autumn 1921 all crops were gone [Famine in the Ukraine] 17. The food packages that my father and Yakov received were not enough to support the family of five.  They had about half hundred pigeons that the brothers chased away to be not tempted to eat them; the brothers were sentimental.  David and Anatoli were stealing beet leaves in their neighbors’ gardens. They cut and boiled it with bran. This made their main food.  My grandmother was having mental problems: she believed that her children were tormenting her providing no food. In 1922 my grandmother’s condition got worse. Her toe on her paralyzed foot turned black and she died of gangrene.  She was buried in Novomirgorod according to the Jewish tradition.  

I know very little about my mother’s parents. My maternal grandmother Olga Anhert was born in Malaya Viska village, Kirovograd region, in 1875. My mother’s father Isaac Anhert was born in 1870. They got married in 1899 and lived in Malaya Viska village. My grandmother and grandfather perished during a pogrom in 1919. My mother never talked about it since this was too hard to think about. They spoke Yiddish in the family. I think my grandfather and grandmother were religious, because my mother’s older sister was raised religious. Grandmother Olga and grandfather Isaac had three children: two daughters and a son, born in Malaya Viska.

My mother’s older sister Mariam was born in 1900. She received Jewish religious education at home. She spoke Yiddish and celebrated all Jewish holidays. Mariam also finished a Russian school in Malaya Viska. In 1922 she married Peretz Vinnitski and moved to Odessa. She worked as a secretary at the shoe factory. I remember well that Peretz always gave me Chanukkah gelt at Chanukkah. At Purim aunt Mariam  made hamantashen and always had matzah at Pesach. I don’t think they went to the synagogue. They had four children. Two of them died in infancy. During the war Peretz went to the front and perished. Aunt Mariam was in evacuation in Kazakhstan with us. Their children Isaac and Anna live in Odessa. Isaac works as an engineer at a plant and Anna works at a design institute. Aunt Mariam died in Odessa in 1970.

My mother’s younger brother Moisey was born in 1906. He finished school in the village and moved to Odessa in 1928. In 1930s Moisey finished the College of Foreign languages in Odessa. He married Bertha, a Jewish girl, and moved to Kishinev where she lived. He was an English teacher at school. They didn’t have any children. During the Great Patriotic War uncle Moisey was in evacuation in Naryan-Mar (Russia). He was released from military service due to his health condition. His wife Bertha was a doctor in hospitals at the front during the war. She died in the 1950s. Moisey died in the 1960s.

My mother Rachil Anhert was born on 13 January 1903. My mother finished a elementary school in Malaya Viska village. My mother was of average height, thin and had brown hair. She had thin features and beautiful hazel eyes. People said she looked like a Greek woman. She was smart, kind, and sympathetic. She always helped the needy. She loved my brother and me, but we were actually raised by my father. My mother had to do housekeeping besides going to work. My parents never told us how they met. I think they met in Novomirgorod. Malaya Viska was near Novomirgorod. Before the Great Patriotic War we rented a house with a gorgeous big garden every summer. We occasionally took walks to Malaya Viska village. It was a small and green house. My parents never showed us their parents’ houses.

My parents got married in Kirovograd on 14 January 1924 where my father had a Komsomol assignment. My mother followed him from Novomirgorod. My father told me that he was late for his wedding at the registry office. He worked in the publishing house of a Komsomol newspaper and got a task from chief editor. My father couldn’t leave the office until he finished his assignment and my mother waited for him until the registry office closed. They didn’t cancel their wedding party, though. They had a Komsomol wedding. My parents rented a two-bedroom furnished apartment. My father worked in the Komsomol regional committee and my mother was assistant accountant in an office. My parents were not religious. They didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays or go to the synagogue. They spoke Russian at home.

Growing Up  

I was born in Kirovograd on 9 November 1925. We had a housemaid that looked after me. She lived with us for about three years.  I can vaguely remember her. She didn’t look young to me. She wasn’t a tidy woman. I remember once stepping into my mother’s galoshes and walking in the apartment when I slipped over an empty tin and injured my forehead. I still have a scar. In 1928 my father was sent to work in Odessa.  My parents bought a wardrobe and dinner table from the owner of the apartment we rented and moved them to Odessa. We had them for a long time. In Odessa we lived in a communal apartment 18 on the 3rd floor, in a house in Olgiyeskaya Street in the central part of Odessa. There was a bathroom, a toilet and coal stoked stoves. We made stocks of coal for winter. The other tenants of our apartment were Russian. They were the family of Znoiko:  a wife and husband and their grown up daughter. We got along very well with them. Vasili, the head of the family, was an ethnographer. He often went on tours. His daughter Olga was an artist and his wife Zinaida was a housewife. During the war our neighbor died and his wife died after the war. Their daughter moved to Leningrad where she worked as an artist at the china factory. A big Jewish family of the Bodners lived in the basement apartment in our house: there was a husband and wife and four children. There were three sisters: Friema, Rosa, Menia and brother Samuel. When my mother was to go to work and there was nobody to look after me my mother took me to the Bodners where I spent half a day. They were very poor. I remember that they gave me makukha [ground sunflower seed husk] to eat.  During the Great Patriotic War Friema married a Polish Jew in evacuation  and they moved to Poland. Friema lives in America now and her sisters Rosa and Menia live in Israel.  Rosa often calls me. On the first floor of our house there was another family that were my parents’ friends.  The father of the family whose last name was Sosyura was an obstetrician. They didn’t have children, but on New Year they arranged a party for their neighbors’ children. I remember these parties since we always received gifts on them.

In 1928 my father entered Communications College in Odessa.  He attended classes and mother took up any work to support the family. In 1932 after finishing the college my father got an offer to lecture at the Electric Engineering Department. I have dim memories about famine in 1933. I was 8 years old and my parents took every effort to protect me from it.  All I can remember is that my mother took her only pair of gold earrings to a Torgsin 19 store. 

On 30 March 1933 my brother Yuri was born in Odessa. I went to school in 1934 when I turned 9 years old. I missed the first grade at school since I had to look after my baby brother at home. I went to school #5 in Mechnikov Street and then my parents sent me to school #28 in Perekopskaya Pobeda Street. Both school were Russian. We had very well qualified teachers. Many of my classmates were Jewish children, but I don’t remember about teachers. My favorite teachers were as follows:  teacher of mathematic Georgi Khristoforovich Stoyanov and Ms. Kiriakiova, teacher of the Russian literature and language. She inspired me to read books by Pushkin, Lermontov 20, Chekhov, Kipling [English writer and Nobel laureate, author of The Jungle Book (1894) and Just So Stories (1902)]. I took piano lessons at the music school in the Scientists House. I had all excellent marks at school and was a pioneer. I didn’t join Komsomol since nobody offered me to become a Komsomol member. I had two friends at school and they were both Jews: Inna Faiman and Zoya Lyubianskaya.

In 1934 my father became dean of Electric Engineering Faculty of Communications College. I was 12, but I remember well how in 1937 [during Great Terror] 21 my father’s cousin brother on my grandmother’s side Michael who was the town prosecutor was arrested. He spent 19 years in prison, camps and exile where he lost his eye. In 1956 he was rehabilitated and resumed his membership in the Party.  He was secretary of a big kolkhoz. He died of stomach cancer in 1959 at the age of 56.  My father, who was a member of the Party had to inform the Party unit of his college of his cousin brother’s arrest. He did and they started a case against my father right away and formed an investigation commission. This commission began to receive reports that my father had ties with trotskists 22 in Kirovograd when he worked in the regional Party committee and that being a dean at the Electric Engineering College he developed ‘saboteur curriculum’, kept silent about his bourgeois origin and so on: there were numerous reports.  Some colleagues were turning their back against him demonstratively at work and some were just ignoring him. My mother feared that my father would be arrested. Every night she waited for a ‘Black Maria’ car looking out of the window.   

When I grew older my father told me about the meeting where they were reviewing his personal case in college. Most of his colleagues were sitting looking downward and many had a look of fear in their eyes. Many of them made inculpatory speeches. The meeting took a decision: ‘For losing his watchfulness, for his ties and cooperation with enemies of the people we expel him from the Party and submit the investigation material to NKVD’ 23. My father was fired. His acquaintances avoided him. Only his closest friends remained with him in the trying times: assistant professors David Isaacovich Oigenzicht, Jew, and Yuri Robertovich Lang, German. They stayed in our house until late at night trying to support my father. Considering the circumstances their conduct was heroic. To support the family my father had to take up miscellaneous jobs; he worked at a plant and on construction sites.  He submitted two claims of appeal requesting the town party committee bureau to reconsider his case.  My father was very surprised that he was not arrested at that time. In November 1939  my father resumed his membership in the Party and got back his job.

A long waited for quietude ascended on our family. I remember Odessa in spring, in March, when the snow was melting making streams and children were still playing snowballs. I spent my childhood in the yard where there were many children. We arranged concerts and our parents even installed a stage in the yard.  My father liked opera and took me to the opera theater with him. After a performance I used to hum the tunes of arias to myself. I took my brother Yuri to the kindergarten in the morning and our parents picked him in the evening. When Yuri went to school he and I went there together in the morning. Yuri was a smart boy and studied very well.

During the War

In 1939 my mother entered the College of Foreign languages in Odessa.  In summer 1941 I finished the 7th form with all excellent marks, got an award of honor and my parents sent me to aunt Rosalia, my father’s sister, in Kratovo, near Moscow. I arrived at Kratovo on 17 June and on 22 June the war began. I heard about it on the radio sitting at the table in the yard of my aunt’s house. All I remember is that there was a lot of fuss. All became nervous. Aunt Rosalia decided that we had to go to her older son David who worked in Tashkent [Uzbekistan] after finishing the Faculty of Astronomy and Land Survey of Moscow University. Her son Mark also lived there. A month later my aunt’s family and I went to Tashkent by train.  My cousin brother David went to the front. We were staying with Mark. My father was already at the front. My mother and brother followed us from Odessa: they reached Kharkov by truck first and from there they traveled to Tashkent by train.    

From Tashkent my mother, my brother and I went to Dzhambul region in Kazakhstan [3 800 km from Odessa] where we lived at Burnoye station in 62 km from Dzhambul.  We rented a room and the owner of the room and her daughter lived in this same room, too. The comforts were in the yard. My mother went to work as English teacher at high school of the railroad department. She received a one-bedroom apartment in a house near the railroad. There was a big room heated with wood stoked stove. There was a pump and a toilet in the yard.  We were very poor and didn’t have anything to eat. My mother made borsch with beet leaves and flat cookies from potato peels and bran. My mother bought a goat. My brother Yuri and I took it to a pasture. I milked it and we had milk. We used to buy some food products at the market. My brother went to the second grade and I went to the eighth grade at the school where my mother was working. There were highly qualified teachers in this school. I remember our teacher of physics from Leningrad, an intelligent and cultured man. The schoolchildren were children from neighboring villages. We were in bad need of money and I worked as a librarian at school.  Since I studied and worked I didn’t have time to socialize and I only had few friends. There were many Jews that had evacuated from Poland. Polish Jews observed Jewish traditions. A friend of mine, a Polish Jew, invited me to his wedding. I remember very well that there was a chuppah on this wedding. I finished school in Burnoye.

In early 1944 we moved to Simferopol to be nearer Odessa.  My father’s friend Yuri Robertovich Lang sent us an invitation letter from Simferopol where he was working. My father was at the front. Some time later the unit where my father was working was transferred to the Crimea and my father found us and we went to his unit where they gave us a meal and we ate to our heart’s content for the first time in many years.   During the Great Patriotic War my father was at the front near Moscow, in Ukraine, Northern Caucasus and in the Crimea. Throughout the war he only spent 11 days in standby. In January 1945 he traveled through Odessa and then he went to Romania. After the war with Germany was over my father was sent to the war with Japan 24. 

From Simferopol I sent my documents to Odessa Medical College and since I had all excellent marks in my school certificate they admitted me without exams. In September 1944 I went to live in Odessa. I lived in our prewar apartment. Other tenants moved into one room during the Romanian rule, but another room was vacant and I moved into it. The ceiling in my room was damaged and I pinned newspaper sheets on it to cover the holes through which I could see the sky. There was no heating and it was terribly cold. I slept in a fur jacket wrapping myself in a jacket.  I also had food problems: I cut a big onion into a saucer, added some oil and salt and ate it heartily. However, I was healthy. There were many Jewish students and teachers in our college. My mother and brother also moved to Odessa in early 1945. I remember the Victory Day very well. On the morning of 9 May somebody knocked on my door.  When I opened the door I heard screams ‘Victory!’

After the War

My father returned to Odessa in September 1945. He arranged it through our residential department that we got our second room back and we began to live in our two rooms in the communal apartment. After the war my father became chief of the Electric Engineering Department in the Communications College. My mother finished the College of Foreign languages after the war and worked as an English teacher in  the Technological College named after Lomonosov and later she went to work at the Department of Foreign languages in Communications College. My brother went to the 6th grade in Odessa. He finished school in 1950. In those years Yuri and I had wonderfully warm and friendly relationships. We understood and respected each other. When a student I was not interested in politics, but the murder of Mikhoels 25 was a big shock for me. I understood that it had to do with anti-Semitism. 

I met my future husband Yefim Kogan during the celebration of New Year at our home in Odessa in 1948. Yefim was our guest. We saw each other for a year.  In 1949 I finished my college and got an assignment to Krasnodon Voroshilovgrad region [Mandatory Job Assignment] 26 where I worked as a registrar in hospital for 205 patients.  Besides, I worked as a part-time therapist in a polyclinic. There was a young Jewish family working in the polyclinic: Leonid was a radiologist and his wife Sophia was a traumatologist. They were my friends. When in 1950 I came to Odessa on vacation Yefim and I decided to get married. We registered our marriage in a registry office. Our wedding party lasted three days as our parents wished. On the first day our relatives, on the second day our parents’ colleagues and on the third day our friends came to the party. When my vacation was over I returned to work in Krasnodon. My husband obtained a release from my job assignment and I returned to Odessa by late 1950. 

My husband Yefim was born to a Jewish family in Odessa in 1920. His father Yefim Kogan died two months before he was born and his mother named him after his father.  His mother Rosalia Kogan was director of a kindergarten. She spent all her time at work and her only son was all by himself. Yefim’s family wasn’t religious. They didn’t celebrate holidays and neither he nor his mother went to the synagogue.  Yefim was fond of playing chess and attended a chess club in the house of pioneers and later he became a professional chess player. Yefim studied at the Faculty of History in Odessa University. He had finished four years [out of five] at the University before the war began. According to Stalin’s direction senior students had to finish their studies in evacuation.  Odessa University evacuated to Maikop. Yefim graduated from the University in Maikop and then he was sent to an artillery school and after finishing it he went to the front. Yefim was commanding officer of an artillery battery and after the war he returned home.  

We lived in Yefim’s apartment with his mother. This was an apartment near the toilet in the yard. There were two small rooms and entrance to them was through the kitchen.  When we came to live there was not even a toilet there. We built a toilet and a closet for a primus stove. My return to Odessa coincided with two state anti-Semitic campaigns: campaign against cosmopolitism 27 and ‘doctors’ plot’ 28. It was very hard for me to find an employment. My acquaintances helped me to become chief of medical facility in the tobacco factory. I worked there several years. 

I remember that I heard about Stalin’s death in 1953 on my way to work. I was walking and crying. All people around me, all of them really, were crying.  At that moment I didn’t think that my father suffered during the period of arrests.  Like all others, I was under the influence of the state propaganda. However, I believed in Khrushchev’s denunciation 29 of Stalin. I knew about the famine among peasants and about what was happening to my father and many others between 1937 through 1939. In the 1950s I also faced big difficulties trying to find a job. At that time it seemed to me that this was the fault of the Stalin’s government. 

On 25 July 1952 our son Alexandr was born. After he was born we went to live with my parents. Since we had to go to work Alexandr had baby sitters that we had to replace frequently since they were young and didn’t want to trouble themselves with looking after a child. Later, when we didn’t have any baby sitters we took Alexandr to my husband’s mother in the morning and picked him up in the evening.  When Alexandr grew older we moved back to Yefim’s mother and Alexandr went to kindergarten. He didn’t like going there and often had angina. In summer we rented a dacha [summer cottage] in the Bolshoy Fontan [resort area in Odessa] and spent all summer there. I spent all my free time at the seashore with Alexandr. He lay in the sun and bathed in the sea.  In 1959 Alexandr went to school. He didn’t face any anti-Semitism there, but he didn’t identify himself as a Jew either. Alexandr studied well. He was a smart and bright boy and he played chess like his father. He was a very sociable boy and had many friends. His best friend was our neighbor boy Yuri Bashlykov, a Russian boy. Alexandr was very attached to his father. He always had a good time with him: Yefim knew literature, art, music and history. Alexandr was fond of light music, he had a very good ear for music. He studied in a music school and often played the piano at home. 

My brother Yuri finished Communications College in 1955 and got a job assignment to ‘Giprisviaz’’ Institute in Kiev. He worked as an engineer. He married Clara Pekker, who was Jewish. Clara finished a college and worked at a design institute. They have three daughters. Their older daughter Olga was born in 1964. She finished a pedagogical college. She is married and has two sons. She lives in Kiev. His middle daughter Svetlana was born in 1971. She finished a college of public economy. Yulia, the youngest, born in 1980, finished the Faculty of management in a construction college. Yulia is a member of the Jewish organization for young people ‘Ghilel’ in Kiev. She performs in the Jewish student’s theater. 2 years ago Yulia went on a trip to Israel under a students exchange program. Yuri, his wife and two younger daughters live in a small two-bedroom apartment in Rusanovskaya Naberezhnaya in Kiev. He is a pensioner.  

In the 1960s I worked as a district therapist in a polyclinic. Our chief doctor Dmitri Arkadievich Tsarkovski was a Jew and 90% of doctors were Jews. I was responsible for provision of medical services to the district in Torgovaya Street near the Water Engineering College near the polyclinic. When I fell ill with myocarditis I stopped visiting patients on calls and worked as therapist at reception. My husband worked in the house of officers. He trained a men’s regional chess team of Odessa and a women’s national chess team of Ukraine. He was an Honored Coach of the USSR [title of honor]. In December 1961 he received a two-bedroom apartment with all comforts on the second floor of a 5-storied house on the fifth station of the Bolshoy Fontan.  This is where I live now. I remember this day very well since we couldn’t imagine a happier day. There was quite a story of getting new furniture. It was difficult to buy furniture at that period. My husband went to a chess tournament in Moscow and I traveled with him. We went to a furniture store where we bought a Romanian set of furniture. The problem was that it wasn’t allowed to take furniture out of Moscow. My husband talked with director of the store. He showed him his certificate of Honored Coach of Ukraine and obtained his permission for transportation of the furniture. When we moved into our new apartment we arranged a great housewarming party that lasted from 7 in the evening till 7 in the morning. We invited our friends and relatives. Our friends played the guitar and sang.

My mother-in-law Rosalia Vladimirovna died in 1963. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery. In 1969 my son Alexandr entered the Faculty of Labor Economics at the College of Public Economy. He had excellent knowledge of required subjects and he was admitted without any problems. His Jewish identity had no impact on his admission. Alexandr’s best friend Yuri Bashkykov also entered this college. They continued to be friends when studying in college and later, when they got married and had families. Regretfully, Yuri suddenly died at the age of 41. In 1974 Alexandr finished his college and got became an economist. He worked as logistics manager in a construction company for some time, and then he became an economist in Odessa department of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

In the 1960s we lived an interesting life. We celebrated all Soviet holidays: 1 May, 7 November, [October Revolution Day] 30, New Year, Victory Day [9 May], birthdays of members of the family and relatives.  We made arrangements for each celebration making a list of guests and menus. My husband had Jewish and Russian friends: masters of sports, Honored Coaches of Ukraine. We went to theaters and concerts together. Yefim often brought records of classical operas and new books from his trips. When I met him at the railway station he had two bags when he got off a train: one with records and another one with books.  We worked and Yefim also delivered lectures for which he was paid, so we were rather well off. We bought our first TV in the 1960s. My husband brought it from Moscow. We rented a dacha at the Bolshoy Fontan in summer and spent time there with our parents.  When my husband went on chess tournaments I usually took a leave and joined him after the tournament was over.  I visited Leningrad, Tbilisi and the Baltic Republics traveling with him.  I’ve seen a lot.

In the 1970s Jews began to move abroad from Odessa. Many people thought it was betrayal of their Motherland and called them enemies of the people. Our family didn’t consider departure and I had a neutral attitude toward those that were leaving. Daughter of my mother’s distant relative moved to America with her family.  

In 1973 my husband fell ill with frontitis and antritis. He went to hospital and then he was appointed as chief judge of a chess tournament in Beltsy, Moldova. Yefim left there before his treatment was over. This resulted in staphylococcal sepsis. He died from it at the age of 53. Yefim was buried in the international cemetery without following any Jewish traditions. For a long time it seemed to my son and me that Yefim had left for another tournament and was coming home soon. My friends cheered and supported me. They often came to see us and I traveled in the European part of Russia. Sometimes we bought tours in a travel agency in Odessa and sometimes in travel agencies of other towns. 

My father died from prostate cancer in 1986. He had hypertension and two heart attacks. My mother died in 1991. She had fracture of femoral neck and she was bedridden for half a year. She was 88 years old. My parents were buried in the international cemetery. They were not buried in accordance with the Jewish tradition.

When the USSR fell apart the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was closed.  Alexandr who had worked in the Odessa affiliate of the Academy lost his job. He couldn’t find a job by his profession and went to work as a book vendor at the book market. 
Alexandr married Tania Verko, a Ukrainian, in 1988. After finishing a school in her village she finished a school of photographer and worked in a photo shop.  Now she works as a shop assistant in the department store. She is a very nice and sympathetic person. They live in a three-bedroom apartment in Roman Shuchevich Street. I get along very well with my daughter-in-law. My brother says that she is more than a daughter to me.  My granddaughter Inga was born in June 1989. She studies in grammar school # 1. She doesn’t identify herself as a Jew.

I retired in 1980, but I continued to work until 1995, when I turned 75. When in the middle of the 1990s the revival of Jewish life began I started to take more interest in the Jewish culture, history and traditions. I watch the situation in Israel with great interest and sympathy. I attend events in the Jewish library of the University of Jewish Culture in ‘Moriya’ organization. They arrange interesting meetings with writers, poets, musicians, cultural workers and outstanding professors of the town. I celebrate Jewish holidays in these organizations. We celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Sukkoth in the University of Jewish Culture. On Friday I get invitations to Sabbath in the Gmilus Hesed charity center. This center provides great assistance to pensioners. We receive food packages. Besides, they have various assistance programs in this center: I’ve had my iron fixed. They fix shoes and clocks and in June a crew from this center did a general cleanup of my apartment. My curator often calls me to ask how I am doing and whether I need any help. I am very grateful to Gmilus Hesed for this.

Glossary:

Polina Levina
Uzhgorod
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Date of interview: April 2003

Polina Levina lives alone in a two-room apartment in a two-storied building in the center of Uzhgorod constructed before World War II. Her apartment is very cozy and clean. She has furniture from the 1960s, as well as beautiful and unusual potted plants in her apartment. She has photographs of her relatives and former pupils on the walls - they must have liked her a lot.

Family Background

Growing Up

​During the War

After the War

Glossary

Family Background

My father’s parents were born in the village of Novovorontsovka [about 500 km southeast of Kiev], Kherson province, in the south of the Russian Empire. My grandfather Iosif Levin died in 1917 – long before I was born. His wife died before my grandfather did and I don’t have any information about her.

My grandfather remarried after she died. His second wife, Hana, was a short, fat and very hearty woman. She wore common clothes for a village woman, but she also wore a dark shawl. She was a housewife. Grandmother spoke Yiddish, but she talked in poor Russian with her grandchildren. I don’t know what my grandfather did for a living. I cannot say how religious my father’s parents were, but I don’t think they were very religious.

It’s hard for me to describe Novovorontsovka since we left there before I turned ten. It was a small Ukrainian village and there were only a few Jewish families there. There was no synagogue in Novovorontsovka. I don’t know whether there was a prayer house. Jews were craftsmen and workers. There were no Jewish pogroms 1 in the village and there were no wrong attitudes towards the Jewish population.

There were three children in the family. My father Abram, the oldest, was born in 1883. One or two years later my father’s brother David was born. The youngest in the family was their sister Mariam. Her name in her documents was Maria. She was much younger than her brothers, but I don’t know when she was born.

My father never told me about his childhood. All I know is that he and his brother studied in cheder in a neighboring village and this was all the education they got. They became workers. I don’t know where David worked. He married my mother’s younger sister Evgenia. They met at my parents’ wedding and got married shortly afterward. They had two children: daughter Vera, born in 1914, and son Alexandr, born one month after David died. David passed away in 1918. Evgenia never remarried. She dedicated herself to raising her children. She worked as a teacher in a Russian secondary school.

Vera and Alexandr were my friends before the Great Patriotic War 2. After her husband died Evgenia and her children moved to Melitopol. They visited us every summer and we often went to see them. When Evgenia couldn’t come on a visit she sent her children to stay with us. They lived in Melitopol until the Great Patriotic War began. Vera was a teacher of music and Alexandr was a university student when the war began. After the war we lost track of them.

Maria’s brothers helped her get a higher education. She finished a higher secondary school and Medical College. Upon graduation Maria married Terenti Kovalyov, a Russian man. They lived in Melitopol. I don’t know what Maria’s husband did for a living. Maria worked as a doctor. They had two children: daughter Lidia, born in 1925, and son Victor, born in 1927.

In 1938 Maria had a breast surgery in Kharkov: she had breast cancer. She stayed in Kharkov until the war began. After the war they returned to Melitopol. Maria and her husband died in the 1970s. After Maria died I lost contact with her children. All I know is that Lidia was a teacher of chemistry. She is a pensioner now. I don’t know what Victor did for a living.

My mother’s family also lived in Novovorontsovka. Of all my mother’s relatives I only knew her mother. Her children called her ‘Mother’ and the grandchildren called her ‘Grandmother.’ Nobody called her by her name. She was a housewife.

My mother’s father, Miron Shatovski, died in 1915 at the age of 60. I don’t know where he was born or how he earned his living. My grandmother and grandfather were about the same age.

They had six daughters and three sons. I only know my mother’s year of birth, so I will just tell you in what sequence they were born. The oldest daughter was Bertha; her Jewish name was Betia. Nastasia was born after her, her Jewish name was Nechama. The third sister was Maria, Mariam in Yiddish. The next was my mother Rosa, born in 1885. Her Jewish name was Reizl. Then came my mother’s sister Evgenia, or Genia.

After Evgenia three sons were born: Aron, Semyon – Shymon in Yiddish – and the third brother whose name I don’t remember. The youngest child was Anna, her Jewish name was Hana. The oldest daughter was 20 years older than the youngest.

At the time I knew my mother’s sisters and brothers they communicated in Russian, but I think that they spoke Yiddish with their parents. My maternal grandmother only spoke Yiddish and I asked her to speak Russian to me since I didn’t understand Yiddish.

I don’t know how religious my mother’s family was. At my time, my mother’s sisters or brothers were not religious and did not observe any Jewish traditions. When the children grew up most of them left Novovorontsovka. Betia, the oldest, moved to Moscow where she finished a college and worked as a chemist in a laboratory at a plant. She was single and lived in a small room next door to the laboratory at her plant. She died in Moscow in the 1960s.

My mother’s second sister Nastasia married a Jewish man from Kherson and moved to her husband. I don’t remember her husband’s name. She was a housewife. I met Nastasia when I came to Kherson to study in college. Her husband died in the 1930s. Nastasia had two daughters, Betia and Fenia. Betia was married to Lazar Bas, a Jewish man. They had a son and a daughter. Fenia had no children. Her husband was arrested in 1937 during [the Great Terror] 3 and she never remarried. I don’t have any information about Nastasia’s life after the war.

My mother’s sister Maria married a Russian man. She changed her last name to Treskunova after her husband. Maria had two sons, Rulah and Lazar. Lazar was born in 1910 and Rulah was a little older. They were at the front during the Great Patriotic War. Lazar was a tank man. After the war they lived in Moscow. Lazar became a design engineer; he designed tanks. He had a son and a daughter. I never met them. Rulah lost his legs in the war. He was single. I don’t know when Maria died.

I know little about my mother’s brother Aron. He lived with his family in the village Novaya Odessa in Odessa region. I never met his family. I think he had two sons. Uncle Aron was breeding horses. He perished during the occupation in 1941.

My mother’s brother Semyon lived in the village of Shesternia, Kherson region. He was a pharmacist. I saw Uncle Semyon once in my life, in 1930, when I was twelve. We lived in the village of Belaya Krinitsa, Kherson region, about 20 kilometers from Shesternia.

My mother allowed me to visit my uncle. I walked a whole day until I got to my uncle’s home. My uncle’s Russian wife Olga opened the door and I entered into a room where Uncle Semyon and his three-year-old son were sitting in an armchair and his seven-year-old daughter Maria was standing beside them. They looked as if they were going to be photographed. This is how they remain imprinted on my memory.

The Germans shot Semyon Shatovski during the occupation in 1941. They killed him at home in the presence of his wife and children. His teenager son’s hair grew gray then. The Germans let the rest of the family go. They evacuated to Siberia where they stayed for quite some time after the war. Semyon’s wife died shortly after the Great Patriotic War. His older daughter Maria and her family live in Kerch in the Crimea. I am not in contact with her.

I never met my mother’s third brother and don’t know his name.

My mother’s sister Anna had a sad love story in her life. She met a Jewish guy from Novovorontsovka. They were in love and were about to get engaged. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 4, when the Civil War 5 began Anna’s fiancé decided to move to the USA. Grandmother didn’t allow Anna to go with him. He left and Anna stayed. Anna never got married and lived with Grandmother. She was a vegetarian and a very kind person. She was very hospitable and gave whatever she could to every beggar that came to the house.

Around 1936 Grandmother and Anna moved to Uncle Aron in Novaya Odessa. When the Great Patriotic War began in 1941 and the Germans occupied Odessa, Uncle Aron, his family, Grandmother and Anna tried to evacuate on a horse-drawn cart. They perished in an air raid. We don’t even know the exact location where they were buried.

After finishing elementary school my mother went to study at the Russian grammar school for girls in Kherson. Although it was difficult for Jews [because of the five percent quota] 6 to enter a grammar school in tsarist Russia, there were exceptions made for advanced pupils and if they were successful they were even exempt from payment of the fee. My mother finished nine years in the grammar school. Graduates were allowed to work as teachers in an elementary school. My mother returned to Novovorontsovka and became a teacher in a local elementary school.

I don’t know how she met my father. They got married in 1908 and lived in Novovorontsovka. I don’t know whether they had a traditional Jewish wedding. After my paternal grandfather Iosif passed away my grandmother Hana came to live with my parents and lived with us for the rest of her life. My father worked in the village of Babino, some 10 kilometers from Novovorontsovka. He was a worker at a dock. My mother worked as a teacher.

My parents didn’t wear anything specifically Jewish. They wore common clothes like all other residents of the village. My mother wore dark dresses or a white blouse and a black skirt – this was what she thought a teacher should look like. My mother wore her thick, dark hair in a knot.

I don’t know whether the revolution of 1917 had an impact on the life of our family. We never discussed this subject in our family. I only know our life after the revolution. We were poor. Most of the residents of Novovorontsovka lived in the same way.

Growing Up

We had a small thatched-roof house that my father built from shell rock. There were two rooms and a kitchen in the house. There were a few pieces of furniture: plank beds, a table and a few chairs. There was a Russian stove 7 in the kitchen that served for cooking and heating. Water was fetched from a well in the street. There was a backyard with a woodshed and a smaller storage shed. There were few apple and pear trees and a flower garden near the house.

There were four children in the family. My older brother Lazar was born in 1910, his Jewish name was Leizer. I know that my brother was circumcised in accordance with the Jewish tradition. In 1913 my older sister Nadezhda was born, her Jewish name was Nechama. My sister Tamara was born in 1915, I don’t know whether she had a Jewish name.

I was the youngest child in the family. Once my mother told me that I was an unexpected child and she tried to get rid of this pregnancy. Since abortions were forbidden, my mother lifted weights and tried a hot sauna, but it didn’t work. I was born on 12th February 1918. I was named Polina and my Jewish name is Feiga.

We spoke Russian in the family. My grandmother Hana spoke Yiddish with our parents and horribly poor Russian with her grandchildren. My older brother Lazar could speak Yiddish; I don’t know where he learned it. He was the only one of all the children that knew Yiddish.

I don’t know whether my parents were religious. While Grandmother Hana was with us we observed Pesach, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Now I remember that we didn’t observe Pesach in accordance with all Jewish rules. My mother tried to make delicious meals, but my father didn’t conduct the seder. However, we didn’t have any bread at Pesach. I know that we always had matzah, but I don’t know where my parents got it from.

At Rosh Hashanah our mother put pieces of apples and a saucer with honey on the table. We dipped apple into honey and ate it. At Yom Kippur our grandmother fasted a whole day, but the children ate as usual. At Purim our mother made delicious little pies with poppy seeds. I don’t remember observing any other holidays. I can say for sure that we didn’t have a Sukkah in the yard, otherwise I would have remembered it.

We didn’t observe Sabbath either. Our mother cooked on Saturday and we lit lamps and started the stove as usual. We celebrated Soviet holidays. Our parents wore their best clothes and so did we. Our mother made a festive meal, sometimes we had guests. They were my mother’s colleagues. They sang Russian folk and contemporary songs and danced at such parties.

We had very few clothes. My older sister and brother got new clothes every now and then, but my sister Tamara and I only got their old clothes.

There was a Ukrainian and a Russian school in Novovorontsovka. My mother worked in the Russian school, which was located on the other side of the village. There was a Ukrainian school near our house and the closeness must have been a decisive factor when our parents were thinking of where to send their children.

Lazar and Nadezhda finished the Ukrainian lower secondary school. At that period children went to school at the age of eight. I was very jealous about my brother and older sister Nadezhda going to school. When they were doing their homework I was always around. I tried to listen and remember what they were learning.

In the fall of 1925 our family moved to the village of Babino. Our father worked at the dock where he loaded bags with grain on barges: they were delivered via elevators. When we lived in Novovorontsovka he had to walk to work 10 kilometers every day. It was too hard for him and our parents decided to move to live in Babino. They sold our house in Novovorontsovka and bought a small one in Babino. There were only a few Jewish families in Babino.

I had both Jewish and Ukrainian friends; nationality didn’t matter to us then. We were taught that we were Soviet children and belonged to the Soviet nation. Our neighbors were three Ukrainian families. After we moved there, their children and I became friends, we played hide-and-seek and ‘catch me.’ We didn’t have any toys and played outside games. This was a happy period of my childhood.

Babino was on the bank of the Dnieper, and in summer I spent all my free time at the bank of the river. My new friends taught me to swim. I remember my sister telling me that I wasn’t to die a natural death. Most likely, in her opinion, I was to drown. The Dnieper was very wide near Babino. I swam as far as the middle of the river and lay on my back. The waves brought me back to the bank. Against what my sister said, I never had any problems with swimming.

There were two Ukrainian lower secondary schools in Babino. At the age of seven I could read, write, knew adding and subtraction, so I decided for myself that I was prepared to go to school and went there on 1st September 1925. I was seven. I remember that my grandmother made me a school bag from gray cloth and a little pocket on its side for my inkpot. A teacher at school told me to go home and come next year. I was very upset and started crying. A senior boy approached me and said, ‘Don’t cry! Here, take a slice of bread!’ Now I think how miserably poor we must have been, if I found consolation just in a slice of bread.

I went to school in 1926. We studied in Ukrainian. We didn’t have any problems with Ukrainian since it was the main language spoken in the village and we communicated in it. I wouldn’t be sure now that I was the only Jewish girl in my class. There were no negative attitudes toward me, nationality didn’t really matter.

There was no anti-Semitism in the USSR before the Great Patriotic War, authorities suppressed any demonstration of it. If someone dared to speak about someone else’s nationality in an abusive manner, he might have been sued. There was punishment for such actions and one could even go to jail.

I studied well at school. I had almost all ‘excellent’ marks. I liked mathematic and when I became a senior pupil I came to like physics. Since I was one of the best pupils in class I was among the first ones to become a pioneer 8. I remember the ceremony. There was a monument to Lenin in the central square of Babino. On 22nd April, Lenin’s birthday, we came to the square. We stood in line.

The senior pioneer tutor at school said the oath of pioneers and we repeated after her: ‘I, young pioneer of the Soviet Union, take this oath to love my motherland with all my heart, live, study and struggle as great Lenin bequeathed, as the Communist Party teaches us!’ I never forgot these words.

Then Komsomol 9 members tied pioneer neckties on us and we marched back to school following a drummer and horn player that marched ahead of our column. I felt as if everybody was watching me and marched with a straight back proud of my new status. I was very serious about becoming a pioneer. I believed that a pioneer should have only excellent marks and I got very upset when I received an occasional ‘good’ mark.

I had my pioneer duties. I became a pioneer tutor in the 1st grade. I went to my pupils during intervals, read books to them and told them about heroic pioneers. We sang Soviet songs and recited poems. I attended their class meetings and felt like an adult. They asked me to advise them on various matters, help them with mathematics or Ukrainian language. I wanted to become a teacher like my mother and when I became a tutor, this wish became stronger. I attended a choir and a dance group at school. I was a sociable girl and had many friends at school. Teachers liked me, too.

My brother Lazar lived in Kherson, in about 70 kilometers from Babino. In 1926 he finished a lower secondary school in Babino and moved to Kherson where he wanted to continue his studies. He studied at Rabfak 10 at the Kherson College of Finance and Economy for two years. After finishing the Rabfak my brother entered the Kherson College of Finance and Economy. He lived at the hostel of the college sharing a room with four other students.

In 1929 my older sister Nadezhda also moved to Kherson. She also studied at the Rabfak of Pedagogical College for two years before she entered the College. Tamara stayed at home after finishing school. She helped our mother about the house.

In 1932 a famine 11 began in Ukraine. We ate bread made of flour half mixed with absinth. We had lunch at school. We got a boiled ground head of corn. In fall 1932 crops were good, but there was nobody to harvest since people couldn’t stand on their feet from hunger. Although it was officially announced that crops were poor, I don’t remember that it was really so. I remember well how Tamara and I went to the field to pick up spikelets. There were guards on horses that patrolled the fields and chased away villagers picking spikelets. Actually, those spikelets stayed in the field and became food for birds or grew anew, while people were not allowed to get them.

No one in our family starved to death. I think there is some exaggeration in how they present the famine nowadays. There was a real famine in Povolzhie, in Russia. People starved terribly there while we had something to eat even if it was bread with absinth. The famine lasted until 1933 and in summer 1934 life was like it used to be before the famine.

The school where my mother worked employed younger people with a diploma while my mother didn’t have higher education. She only finished grammar school. In 1933 she entered the extramural department of the Pedagogical College in Kherson where my sister Nadezhda studied. Twice a year our mother went to take exams in Kherson and for the rest of the year she received tasks by mail and mailed her homework back to the college. She had less free time and I was responsible for almost all the housekeeping.

I finished lower secondary school in Babino in 1934. I went to Kherson to continue my studies. My mother went there to take her summer exams and I went with her. I entered the Rabfak at the Pedagogical College. That same year I joined the Komsomol at the Rabfak. After a year of studying at the Rabfak I was admitted to the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of the Pedagogical College without entrance exams since I had all excellent marks. There were five other Jewish students in our group, and there were no prejudiced attitudes toward us. All Jewish students in my group were the best students.

We were all poor at that time. I wore my mother’s old coat, it wasn’t even possible to determine its original color so worn it was. I lived at the hostel of the Pedagogical College and received a stipend. I shared a room with five other girls. We had meals at the college canteen; we had cards for breakfast and lunch. We cooked dinner at the hostel in the evening. I often went to see Lazar and Nadezhda. We usually met on Sunday. It was a great support for me to know that my brother and sister were close by.

In 1934 my father was offered a job at the reception in an elevator in the village of Belaya Krinitsa, located between Dnepropetrovsk and Kherson. There was a morning train from Kherson to Dnepropetrovsk, and it stopped in Babino and Belaya Krinitsa. My father commuted by this train for some time, but it was very tiring and rather expensive and my parents decided to move to Belaya Krinitsa. Tamara and Grandmother Hana were with them.

My father received an apartment in the village. A long one-storied building was divided into sections; each section had two rooms and a kitchen. The toilet and water pump were outside. This apartment was heated by wood that we bought. My parents took their old furniture from Babino there.

There was another Jewish family in Belaya Krinitsa. The local residents were very friendly. My mother went to work in a Ukrainian lower secondary school and my father was accountant of grain at the elevator.

Shortly after they moved to Belaya Krinitsa, Tamara married a local man. His last name was Vasinov. My parents gave their consent to this marriage; they had no prejudiced attitude toward non-Jews. Tamara and her husband had a civil ceremony and a family dinner in the evening. They lived with our parents. Tamara was a housewife and her husband worked at the elevator with my father. In 1935 their son Alexandr was born.

Doctors in Belaya Krinitsa diagnosed that my father had tuberculosis. He continued to work, but he became weaker each day and had a heart problem. I remember visiting my parents on my first summer vacation in 1935. My mother went to take exams in Kherson. My father was developing dropsy. He had a huge stomach. After he returned home from work he went to bed. It took me a lot of effort to convince him to have some food.

In late August I went back to Kherson. Soon my mother notified me that my father was in hospital in Odessa. He died in this hospital in fall 1935. Only my mother was at the funeral. I don’t even know where my father was buried in Odessa or anything about the funeral.

My older sister Nadezhda fell ill with tuberculosis in Kherson. Shortly after our father died our mother and grandmother decided to move to Kherson. About a month we lived with Nadezhda, then my mother received part of a house at her work. Tamara and her family stayed in Belaya Krinitsa. In 1939, when World War II began 12, Tamara’s husband was recruited to the army. He perished in the war. Tamara and her son stayed in Belaya Krinitsa until the Great Patriotic War began.

My mother went to work at school in the suburb of Kherson. We received half of a house near the school. My mother was very concerned about Nadezhda’s condition. She needed good food, but we lived from hand to mouth and couldn’t help her. Then a miracle happened. Before the war all workers received a portion of their wages in state loan bonds. [Editor’s note: The Soviet power was in bad need of money for development of its industries and issued state loan bonds in the late 1920s. People were forced to buy these bonds].

In a year the amount reached the value of monthly wages. Of course, nobody hoped to win anything from it when all of a sudden our mother won 2500 rubles! This was a lot of money at the time. Of course, Mother was forced to contribute half for the development of DOSAAF [abbreviation for the public organization ‘Voluntary association of assistance to the army, Air Force and Navy’], to the orphan children fund, etc., but she still had 1250 rubles left.

Mother borrowed some money and bought a cow. She gave Nadezhda fresh milk. She believed it was the best treatment. It may be a coincidence but Nadezhda really got better. This cow was partly responsible for my mother’s death: when the Great Patriotic War began our mother refused to go into evacuation since she didn’t want to leave her cow.

Grandmother Hana died in Kherson in 1937. I was a 3rd-year student. I remember that I had to go to a meeting in college, but my mother asked me to stay since Grandmother could die at any instant. However, I went to the meeting. During the meeting a receptionist called me out of the conference room to tell me that my mother had called to say that my grandmother had died.

We buried Grandmother at the town cemetery in Kherson. It wasn’t a Jewish funeral. The coffin was taken to the cemetery on a horse-drawn cart. Our family sat on this cart, too: our mother, Lazar, Nadezhda, Tamara and I. I don’t even remember which cemetery it was.

Before graduation my sister Nadezhda married her co-student who was a Russian man. His last name was Stroganov. My sister and her husband went to work at school in Kherson. Nadezhda taught the Ukrainian language and literature and her husband was a Russian teacher. In 1937 their daughter Svetlana was born – it was a popular name at that time. In 1939 my sister’s husband was recruited to the army. On the first days of the war he went to the front and perished.

Nadezhda and her daughter moved to Siberia. From evacuation she came to Krivoy Rog where I lived with my husband’s parents. She went to work at school as a teacher of the Ukrainian language and literature. She still lives there, now she is a pensioner. Her daughter Svetlana is also a teacher, she teaches music. I don’t remember Svetlana’s last name in marriage. She has a son called Dmitri, two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren: Anton and Ivan.

My brother Lazar received a job assignment after  graduation, in the planning department of machine building plant in Kherson. He lived at the hostel of the plant.

In 1936 [during the Great Terror] arrests began and lasted until the Great Patriotic War. The husband of my cousin Fenia, daughter of my mother’s sister Nastasia, was arrested and executed. I truly believed that ‘enemies of the people’13 were guilty. I don’t know if my mother believed this was true, as she didn’t discuss this with us. If the Party said they were enemies then it was true. I still believe that there were not so many innocent people arrested. There were some, probably, but most of them were guilty, indeed.

In 1938 I finished my college and stayed to work in Kherson. I got a job assignment as teacher of physics and mathematics in a Ukrainian lower secondary school. I received ‘allowances’ – some money to last until the first salary. I got a room at the teacher’s hostel at school. Teachers and schoolchildren were friendly with me. I began my career on 1st September. I also was a tutor in the 6th grade. There were both Ukrainian and Jewish children at school and children of other nationalities.

I met my future husband Vassili Miach at school. He was a teacher of history. He finished Odessa Pedagogical College one year earlier than I and got a job assignment 14 to this school. Vassili was born into a common family of workers in Krivoy Rog in 1914. His father, Andrei Miach, was a turner at a plant. His mother, Anna Miach, was a housewife. Vassili had a younger sister called Lubov, born in 1918. She got married in 1940 and went to Siberia with her husband. There was a big construction there.

Vassili was Ukrainian, but it was no problem with my family or me. We never segregated people by their nationality. We got married on 1st October 1938, a month and a half after we met. We had a civil ceremony at the registry office and a small wedding dinner with our families and colleagues from school. Vassili’s parents treated me like their daughter from the very beginning.

In July 1939 our daughter Valeria was born. When she turned three months old my husband took us to his parents in Krivoy Rog. My father-in-law wanted us to live with them. He said he would give us a part of their garden and build a house for us. I dreamed about having a house of our own and having more children with my husband.

I had two months of maternity leave and my mother-in-law convinced me that she would look after my daughter so that I could go to work. I went to work as a teacher of physics in a Ukrainian school and my husband got a job there, too. He was a teacher of history.

Before World War II, teachers were released from the army, but then Voroshylov 15 issued an order to cancel all privileges and make all men subject to army service. On 29th November 1939 he was recruited to a tank unit and I never saw him again. He was sent to fight in the Finnish War 16. When his service term was coming to an end, the Great Patriotic War began and Vassili went to the front. He perished near Moscow in 1942.

During the War

On 22nd June 1941 I heard on the radio that the Great Patriotic War had begun. At 12 o’clock Molotov 17 spoke on the radio. He said that fascist Germany had attacked the USSR without an announcement of the war. It was strange that I didn’t feel any fear. I was sure that the war would last a few days at the most – this was what we were all told.

On 9th July evacuation began. My daughter was two years old. I decided to go to Melitopol where my father’s sister Maria and her family and my mother’s sister Evgenia lived. At that time Maria was at the oncology hospital in Kharkov. When the war began the clinic evacuated to Kuibyshev. Maria evacuated there, too. Her husband Terenti and their two children were still in Melitopol. Their son was in the army and their son’s wife was a student. She evacuated with her college and took Evgenia with her. My daughter and I stayed with Terenti. The situation in town was so quiet that I even went to work.

In Septembers rumors began that the Germans were encircling Melitopol. The Melitopol military registry office made arrangements for evacuation of all people willing to leave their town. Even when German aircrafts damaged the railroad it was restored immediately to let trains take people away.

There was an announcement in our school that there were ten horse-drawn carts for teachers waiting in the yard of the school. I took a warm blanket for my daughter and my husband’s new coat with me. Terenti gave me 300 rubles and some food products. We were told that we were heading to Ivan Dmitrievich in the evacuation hospital in Hasaviurt, Dagestan ASSR.

Our trip was long. On our way we got food from kind people. My daughter was all covered with lice. At Tikhoretsk station I asked people from another train whether my daughter and I could go with them. They said it was all right with them. There was a vocational school going into evacuation. We went to the Caucasus with them. They shared their food with us. We arrived at Babyurt station in Dagestan, 3000 kilometers from home.

We still needed to go to Khasaviurt. My daughter and I were in the last carriage in the train. We went to the toilet at the station when a button on my shoe got torn off. Then our train started setting off. I couldn’t run: my shoe was unfit and I had my daughter. Our co-travelers dropped our basket from the train. We took another train for railroad employees that headed to Khasaviurt.

There I went to the hospital and the employees told me that Ivan Dmitrievich was a commissar of the hospital. A woman offered us accommodation in her house. We washed ourselves and burned my daughter’s clothes with lice. On the second day I went to the military registry office and received 3000 rubles as a military’s wife. I bought food products for this woman and went to hospital again.

I got Ivan’s address. His family was friends with Maria’s family. He helped me to get employment at the hospital. I became an attendant and received a room in the hospital for my daughter and me. I was responsible for accounting of clothing, bed sheets and laundry. The personnel and patients were good to me. My daughter went to a nursery school. She broke her leg at the nursery school and the chief doctor appointed a nurse to look after Valeria while I was at work.

There was no correspondence from my husband, but I hoped that he was alive. In March 1942 my mother-in-law wrote me saying that she had received a death notification for my husband. It was a terrible blow and only the fact that I had my daughter with me helped me to get over it.

The Germans were poisoning water reservoirs with dysentery bacillus and a large number of people fell ill with dysentery at the same time. It was not safe to stay in Khasaviurt since we used water for the hospital from the town water supply system. In 1942 our hospital moved to Buinaksk, 50 kilometers from Khasaviurt.

In Buinaksk our hospital was located on the territory of a wine factory. Paramedical workers stayed in the basement where there were barrels with wine and doctors were in the administrative building. Patients also stayed there. There were 144 beds in the hospital. My daughter and I stayed in Buinaksk until 1944.

I corresponded with my brother Lazar. He was head of the financial department in unit 37 of the district air base. By the way, he was a party member; he joined the Party at the front in 1942. Their military unit went as far as Budapest from where they were sent to Kutaisi. From there my brother sent me a telegram telling me to come to stay with him.

The director of the hospital stamped this telegram with a stamp saying ‘approve resignation’ and my daughter and I could go to Kutaisi where I went to work in the military unit where my brother served. He rented a dwelling for us; a plank annex. There was a sofa by one wall of the room, a stool that served as table and a chair. I worked at the logistics department of this military unit. My daughter went to kindergarten.

My brother told me about what happened to our mother and sister Tamara. Our mother didn’t want to leave her cow and stayed in Kherson. At the beginning of the war my sister Tamara and her son Alexandr came to Kherson from Belaya Krinitsa. In 1942 the Germans organized a ghetto in Kherson. My mother, Tamara and her son were sent to the ghetto. The Germans allowed local residents to take some children that had one non-Jewish parent. A Russian family, the Ivanovs, took Alexandr. They had him stay with them until 1944.

When Lazar was in Budapest with his military unit he came to Kherson on vacation in 1944. He found Alexandr and took him to Moscow where my mother’s sister Bertha lived. Lazar asked Bertha to keep Alexandr until the end of the war. Lazar wanted to send Alexandr to a military college. Aunt Bertha was single, and she got so attached to Alexandr that she could not part with him. Aunt Bertha was about 80 in 1944.

I came to Moscow in 1948 and decided to visit Aunt Berta and Alexandr. She didn’t open the door until I promised to her that I was not going to take Alexandr away. Alexandr had the last name of Aunt Bertha – Shatovski. When he turned 16 and was to obtain a passport he changed his last name to his father’s last name of Vasinov. Alexandr finished Moscow Trade College and worked at the State Chamber of Commerce in Moscow.

He lived with Aunt Bertha until he got married. He married Nina, a Russian girl. They have two children: Inna and Veta. Veta finished a circus art school. She and her husband are gymnasts; she has her marital last name of Yablochkova. They have a son named Vladimir. Inna is also married. She has two sons, Maxim and Sergei.

Tamara and Mother perished in the ghetto in Kherson in 1942. They were buried in a common grave. I went on a boat cruise Kiev-Kherson-Kiev. When my co-travelers went on tour I went to the place where inmates of the ghetto were buried. I photographed a monument on their grave. There was an inscription: ‘1276 Soviet citizens were tormented to death here in 1942.’ I sent this photo to Alexandr, Tamara’s son.

I worked for over a year in military unit 37. Early in the morning of 9th May 1945 18 a messenger from headquarters brought the news to the military unit: the war was over. Then we heard an announcement on the radio that Germany had capitulated unconditionally. We were all happy. People in the streets greeted, hugged and kissed each other. Many had tears in their eyes. There were fireworks in the evening.

After the War

When the war was over my brother wasn’t demobilized from the army. Their military unit 37 was sent to Iran and Lazar’s service continued. I knew that Krivoy Rog was liberated in 1943. Since there were metallurgical plants there it was categorized as a strategic town and entrance there was not allowed. I went to a hospital in Kutaisi and told the management that I could escort their patients going back home to Krivoy Rog. So I managed to come to my husband’s family. They were happy to see us. My daughter and I settled down with them.

After the war anti-Semitism was evident. Before the war we didn’t even know who had what nationality; we simply didn’t care. Krivoy Rog was a town of workers, the majority of its residents were uneducated and there was anti-Semitism in everyday relationships. My mother-in-law offered me to change my Jewish last name to their Ukrainian name so that nobody could find out about my Jewish identity. Of course, I didn’t do it, but many at that time changed their names.

I kept looking for a job. There were only few pupils left at the school where I had worked before the war and there was no vacancy for me. I went to a construction agency hoping to get work at a construction site. They offered me a position as human resource manager.

Younger people were in the process of returning home from the front while there was lack of construction workers. Authorities mobilized older people of over 60 years of age to the construction. The work discipline was very strict: if somebody was late for work he might even have been arrested. Even if they had a valid excuse – they were older people and did not always feel fit to go to work – but they were kept responsible anyway, if they violated disciplinary requirements.

After I had to issue documents of one of such employee that was to go under trial, I went to the construction manager and said to him that I couldn’t go on working at the human resource department and was ready to become a worker. He tried to talk me out of it, but I insisted and he sent me to work at a woodwork factory.

I worked at the surface gage. The factory was out of town. There was no traffic and I had to stay at the barrack hostel of the factory. My work at the gage was dangerous. There were rotating blades and shafts that pushed a unit. One had to be careful working there. Once my friend got inattentive and had her four fingers cut.

My daughter stayed with my husband’s parents; she went to kindergarten. Children got food there and it was important since there was very little food we could get at that time. I spent Sundays with my daughter. Sunday was my day off.

After the war and up to 1948 there were bread coupons. There was no way to buy food in stores and I couldn’t afford to buy any at the market. I received a salary of 600 rubles while a loaf of bread cost 200 rubles at the market. I gave my coupons to my mother-in-law to get bread for my daughter. I ate corn that we planted around our barrack.

At that time I began to work at a special department of the NKVD 19. The military unit where I worked before moving to Krivoy Rog gave me a recommendation to work in this special department. I shall not speak to anyone about my work in the special department. I signed a non-disclosure obligation and nobody has canceled it ever since. I remember they told me that nobody, not even my brother, was supposed to know about what I get to know at work. In 1946 I received a medal ‘For the Defense of the Caucasus’ at the military registry office of Krivoy Rog. The military commissar awarded it to me. 

In late 1946 Lazar was demobilized from the army. He had a right to choose where he was going to reside and Lazar chose Uzhgorod in Subcarpathia 20. After the conference in Yalta 21, after the Great Patriotic War, Subcarpathia became a part of the USSR. Lazar got an assignment to the ‘Subcarpathia Forestry’ company where he became a financial employee.

Lazar got married in Uzhgorod. His first wife was a nice Jewish girl that moved to Uzhgorod with her family after the war. In 1947 their daughter Elena was born. My brother’s wife died from air embolism when she gave birth to her second child. Her newborn baby also died. They were buried at the town cemetery in Uzhgorod. Neither my brother nor his wife was religious. Elena lives in Moscow.

My brother got married again, to a Jewish woman named Anna, who  already had a child. They didn’t have children together. My brother died in Uzhgorod in 1985. We buried him near the grave of his first wife. My brother’s second wife died in 2000. Hesed 22 made all the arrangements for her funeral.

When he arrived in Uzhgorod my brother obtained an invitation for me to join him there. I had received an invitation and assignment to Chust, a town in Subcarpathia, some 100 kilometers from Uzhgorod. At my brother’s request the manager of the Public Education Department in Chust – he was at the front with my brother – employed me in Uzhgorod.

I’ve lived in Uzhgorod since 1947. I liked this small, quiet and cozy town at once. There was a synagogue and a Jewish school in Uzhgorod. The local population was loyal to those that came from the USSR to live in their town. However, later their attitude toward the Soviet power got worse, in particular, when perestroika 23 began.

When I arrived there my daughter and I got accommodation in a small room with plywood walls and a cement floor. There was a water drainage grid in the floor like in the street. I used a smaller room as a kitchen. There was a brick floor there. There was no water, toilet or bathroom. I lived there till 1949 and then I received this apartment where I live at the moment.

I went to work at a Ukrainian secondary school. I was a teacher of physics and mathematics in senior classes. My daughter went to the same school. She had my husband’s last name: Miach. I treated her like any other pupil at school.

There was anti-Semitism in Subcarpathia after the war. I faced anti-Semitism twice, and once it was directed at me. In 1955 I was a teacher in the 9th grade. They were nice and gifted children, I still remember these children. In this class children teased one of their classmates who was a Jew. I interfered and explained that they were wrong doing so, but I don’t know whether they understood.

Later, I saw an inscription ‘Polina - zhyd’ [kike] on a laboratory table in my classroom. I pulled myself together to get through that lesson, but during an interval I burst into tears in the teacher’s room. It was a trauma for me. I didn’t try to find out who did this; besides, I don’t think I would have come to know who did this. I was hurt. So, I cannot say that I didn’t face any anti-Semitism.

At that time military training at school was important. It involved schoolchildren and teachers. I attended classes and was even awarded a grade in rifle shooting. I had a serious attitude to these classes like to all others.

In 1948 the campaign against cosmopolitans 24 began. I put so much trust in our government that I believed that if they said that those people were enemies of the people then it was truly so. As for the Doctors’ Plot 25 that started in January 1953, I had a different attitude there. I couldn’t believe that professionals that took a Hippocratic oath could be accused of such crime!

In 1948 the state of Israel was founded 26 and we should not forget that the USSR was the first state to acknowledge it. I was to make a speech to express my attitude toward this event on the radio. I said that I had a positive attitude toward it, but that I was against any war to say nothing about the war in the Middle East.

Stalin’s death in March 1953 was a huge sorrow for me. He was an idol and leader for my contemporaries and me. Schoolchildren and teachers cried and were not ashamed of their tears. When Khrushchev 27 at the Twentieth Party Congress 28 denounced the cult of Stalin I didn’t believe him. I don’t believe anything bad about Stalin now. I still admire Lenin, any person can have his weak spots and a statesman is no exception.

I was going to join the Party after Stalin died in 1953. I had two letters of recommendation: one from a school inspector – this woman is still a party member, the Communist Party of Ukraine, and so am I. Another letter was from the director of the children’s home who was a member of our school party unit. The director of our school was supposed to issue a third letter of recommendation, but she refused. She didn’t explain the reason to me. So, I didn’t join the Party then. I decided that it was sufficient that I lived like a communist.

In 1970 Lenin’s 100th birthday anniversary was celebrated. I went to the town party committee to obtain an application form to join the Party. They told me there that I was soon to retire and why was it that I wanted to become a communist. I didn’t get a form and even cried a little when I left there. Then I thought to myself, ‘Do if I really have to beg them?’ and decided that no, I didn’t.

I retired in 1973. In 1990, at the age of 72, I submitted my application to the party committee. Many people at that time quit the Party. There was a meeting where they were expelling and admitting people. I was admitted. I still pay my monthly party fees, visit all party meetings. It’s difficult for me to do so any more now because I feel ill.

I was always involved in public activities. I was chairwoman of our trade union committee and at one time I was secretary of the town trade union committee. I had very little free time. When I came home from work I had to check schoolchildren’s homework and prepare for my classes on the next day. Often in the evening my schoolchildren came to have a class with me at home. I was a class tutor and my pupils often visited me.

On weekends we went to theaters and museums. In summer we often went hitchhiking in picturesque Subcarpathia or went on tours to other towns. My daughter spent her summer vacation with her grandparents in Krivoy Rog and when she grew older I took her with me.

We always celebrated Soviet holidays at home: 1st May, 7th November 29, 9th May – Victory Day. We also celebrated the New Year and our birthdays. On Soviet holidays we went to parades with my colleagues and schoolchildren. Then there was a concert at school and then teachers and schoolchildren came to our home. We sang songs, danced and recited poems. It was a lot of fun. My daughter’s friends visited her. Adults and children had parties in different rooms.

Valeria studied well at school and helped me with the housekeeping. She liked reading and spent all her free time reading. She read everything she could lay her hands on. I thought that she would go to a humanitarian college after finishing school, but she chose Odessa Communications College. She passed her entrance exams successfully and was admitted. She left for Odessa. Valeria lived in a hostel and spent her vacations at home. She had all excellent marks through all the years of her studies.

After finishing the college Valeria got an assignment for work at the  Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Communications. She works there now. In Moscow, Valeria met her future husband, Sergei Sokolov, a Russian man. I had no objections against their marriage. They got married and in 1965 their twin sons, Alexei and Adrei, were born. They are married and have sons. They all live in Moscow. Every year my daughter spends her vacations with me. My grandsons also come to see me. I like to visit Valeria and her family too, but now I can’t do it any longer.

When large numbers of Jews began to emigrate to Israel in the 1970s, I didn’t consider it for myself. I didn’t understand people that were leaving their Motherland for a different country, leaving everything behind. This was right at the time when I was to retire. My friends told me that I would get everything I needed if I moved to Israel, but I don’t agree that a person can agree to receive what one hasn’t earned. I cannot believe that people don’t pay for the wealth they get there.

I sympathized with perestroika when it began, but not with what it led to. It led to the fall of the USSR. Everything is turned upside down now! What kind of independence is this? We are so dependable. We were not afraid of having no crops in the past since other republics came to help. What is so good about this independence? There were more possibilities to study in the past. All children could get education, while now anybody whose parents can pay can to go to university. Graduates had guaranteed jobs and received an apartment.

I was devoted to the Soviet power. I wish the Soviet regime would still exist here. You know why? For free education and medical care. Those were the biggest achievements of the Soviet power. It seems to be such anarchy now: I cannot understand what is going on.

The only thing that has improved lately is Jewish life. I know what the attitude towards Jews was like in the past and how it has changed. There is a Jewish community in Uzhgorod. They restore Jewish traditions, but not only that. In 1994 my TV caused a big fire at my home. The Jewish community helped me a lot.

In 1999 Hesed was established in Uzhgorod. They improved our life significantly. I rarely take part in the numerous cultural events in Hesed. I don’t know traditions or the language, but I read a lot. I recently read about Purim, I read the Torah from time to time. Going out is a problem for me and Hesed sends a car to take me to a cultural event.

My life has become easier since Hesed supports me. Old people receive food packages and single old people have meals delivered to their homes. I’ve never had any housemaids, but now I have a woman who comes to help me about the house. It is very important, especially after I broke my leg.

Hesed provides big assistance: they provide medications to Jewish people in hospitals and also give us money to buy medications that we need. I’ve met many kind people in my life, but Hesed is the first organization doing good that I know.

Glossary:

Isaac Klinger
Odessa
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ada Goldferb
Date of interview: March 2003

Isaac Klinger is an elderly man. He will turn 95 this year. However, he has an excellent memory. Isaac tries to goes to the synagogue every morning when he feels well. He lives with his wife in a communal apartment 1 in the center of town. The couple makes use of volunteers from Hesed, who help them run errands and attend social events.

Family Background

Growing Up

The Great Terror and the Ukrainian Famine

During the War

After the War

Glossary

Family Background

My paternal grandfather, Itzyk Klinger, was born in Starokonstantinov, Khmelnitskiy region, in 1848. [Starokonstantinov was a district town in Volyn’ province. According to the census of 1897 its population was 16,300, 9,212 of them were Jewish.] In the late 1870s my grandparents and their four children moved to Mayaki [a village in Odessa district, Kherson province. According to the census of 1897 its population was 4,575; 648 of them were Jewish.]

My grandfather was a cabinetmaker. He had a shop where he manufactured doors and window frames. He rented an apartment. He couldn’t afford to buy a house since he just earned enough for the family to make ends meet. My father told me that Grandfather Itzyk was a very religious man. He went to the synagogue, observed the kashrut, kept all holidays and fasted at Yom Kippur. He didn’t work on Saturday.

Grandfather got married in 1869. My grandmother, Milia Klinger, was also born in Starokonstantinov, in 1851. I don’t know her maiden name. She was a housewife. She observed the kashrut, wore a kerchief and kept all Jewish holidays. My grandfather and grandmother spoke Yiddish. My grandmother died in Mayaki in 1883. She was only 32 years old. I don’t know why she died. My grandfather was to raise four children.

In 1884 my grandfather remarried. I don’t remember my father’s stepmother’s name. In his second marriage my grandfather had six children. My grandfather was raising his children religiously: they went to the synagogue on all Jewish holidays, observed the kashrut and Sabbath. My father and his brothers studied in cheder. My grandfather died in Mayaki in 1904. He had a Jewish funeral: my father and his older brother Motka recited the Kaddish and the family sat shivah. My grandfather had ten children. 

My father’s older brother Motka was born in Starokonstantinov in 1871. Motka was a cabinetmaker and worked together with Grandfather in his shop. In 1895 he moved to Odessa and married a Jewish girl. His wife’s name was Chaika. Her family lived in Moldavanka [poor Jewish neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa]. Motka and Chaika observed all Jewish holidays and fasted at Yom Kippur.

During the Civil War 3 Motka and his family moved to the village of Mayaki near Odessa. Motka starved to death in 1921 and Chaika died during the NEP 4 in 1928, I guess. They were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Mayaki.

They had twelve children. I knew three of them, born in Odessa. Their daughter Reveka, born in 1908, finished a likbez 5. She was married. Her husband, Yuzia Feldman, moved to Odessa from a smaller town. He was a galvanizing operator. Reveka and Yuzia had a son whose name was Marik. Reveka died in Odessa in 1971. Yuzia died in the 1990s. They were buried in the Jewish cemetery. Marik got married. He worked as an engineer. He moved to Germany with his family in the 1990s.

Motka’s daughter Zina was born in Odessa in 1910. She finished a Jewish school and got married at the age of 16. Her husband came from a wealthy family: his father owned a leather-currying factory during the NEP. After their only child died, Zina divorced her husband. He was a drunkard and a womanizer.

In 1934 she married a Jewish widower named Shtein, who had a son named Misha, born in 1928. Her second husband was a logistics manager. I don’t remember where he worked, though. In 1938 their son Alfred was born. During the Great Patriotic War 6 Zina and her children were in evacuation in Tashkent. Her husband perished at the front. In 1946 Zina became my second wife.

Motka’s son Isaac was born in 1912. He finished a lower secondary school – seven years, and worked in nickel plating in a shop in Odessa. He got married before the Great Patriotic War. His wife’s name was Raya and their daughter’s name was Asia. During the Great Patriotic War his wife and daughter were in evacuation in Tashkent. Isaac was in the ghetto in Odessa during the war, and a camp in Domanevka 7.

After the war he worked in the nickel-plating business. I don’t remember where exactly he worked. Isaac died in Odessa in 1993. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery. Motka’s children observed Jewish holidays and fasted at Yom Kippur, but they were not religious.

My father’s second brother, whose name I don’t remember, was born in Starokonstantinov in 1873. All I know about him is that he moved to the USA in 1893 to avoid military service in the tsarist army.

My father’s sister Reizl was born in Starokonstantinov in 1875. She had no education. She married a widower. Her husband was a clerk in a timber storage facility in the village of Zeltsy, Odessa region. This was a German colony 8. Her husband had a daughter from his first wife. They didn’t have children of their own. Reizl was a housewife. She died of diabetes in 1929. I don’t know when Reizl’s husband died. He probably lived with his daughter after Reizl died.

I know little about my father’s stepsister Chova: she was born in Mayaki in 1885. She got married and lived somewhere near the Turkish border – perhaps in Armenia. She had one son that drowned.

My father’s half-sister Anneta was born in1888. In 1911 she married a Jewish man from Odessa. They owned a small hardware store in Odessa. I don’t remember whether they sold their store or it was expropriated from them after the NEP.

Her son, whose name I don’t remember, was recruited to the army before the Great Patriotic War. He served in a frontier unit in Azerbaijan and perished at the border during the war with Iran. Anneta’s husband stayed in Odessa and perished.

Anneta evacuated to Tashkent with Uncle Motka’s son Isaac’s wife and daughter. After the war she returned to Odessa. She was 67 and spent the rest of her life in Isaac’s family. She died in Odessa in 1963. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery, but no Jewish rituals were followed, which was a common thing at the time.

Another half-brother of my father was born in Mayaki in 1892. I don’t remember his name and have no information about his life.

My father’s half-sister Sonia was born in 1895. She moved to Odessa in 1916 and married a Jewish man. His name was Israel Topelberg. He was a diver. Sonia was a housewife. She died in Odessa in 1938. I don’t remember when Israel died. They had two sons. Fascists hanged their older son Ziama in Odessa during the Great Patriotic War. He was a partisan. Their younger son Grisha was a driver. Grisha married his cousin sister Bella, Uncle Nuska’s daughter. Bella died in the late 1990s. Grisha lives in Odessa.

My father’s half-brother Nuska was born in 1897. He was handicapped. He had cerebral paralysis of his legs. In 1916 he also moved to Odessa. He had no education and worked as a shoemaker. He had a small shoe-repair shop. He had a license. He married a Jewish girl named Rukhl. They had two daughters: Bella and Lisa, and two sons: Izia and Misha.

When the Great Patriotic War began Nuska, his wife, their two daughters and Misha evacuated to Tashkent. Their son Izia stayed in Odessa. His cousin Ziama and he joined the underground movement and fascists hanged them as partisans.

After the war Nuska’s family returned to Odessa. Their older daughter Bella finished a medical college after the war and worked as a doctor. She married her cousin brother Grisha. They had two children: Petia and Roman.

Nuska died of infarction in Odessa in 1962. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery. I don’t remember when Rukhl died.

Nuska’s daughter Lisa was single. She moved to the USA in 1989. She worked as a medical nurse for eight years and then she returned to Odessa due to her health condition. She stayed in Odessa for a few years and then went back to the USA in 1999. She could live on her pension there.

Misha got married in evacuation in Tashkent. After the Great Patriotic War he worked as a shoemaker. Misha moved to Australia with his family. He died in 1999.

My father’s youngest half-brother Abram was born in Mayaki in 1900. He disappeared during the Civil War in 1919.

My father, Leizer Klinger, was born in Starokonstantinov, Khmelnitskiy region, in 1877. He studied in cheder and could read and write in Yiddish and Russian. In his teens he began to help Grandfather Itzyk in his cabinetmaking business, after Grandfather remarried. My father was raised in a Jewish family. He went to the synagogue, wore a kippah and fasted at Yom Kippur, but he didn’t have a beard. This is all I know from my father’s childhood.

In 1897 my father left Mayaki for Odessa looking for more prospects with regards to finding a job. He stayed in his brother Motka’s lodging. He got a job as a cabinetmaker for some construction subcontractor. In 1900 he was recruited to the tsarist army. He went to serve in Starokonstantinov. I don’t know whether he observed Jewish traditions there. I don’t think there was a ban for traditions. After his military service term was over my father returned to Odessa. He worked as cabinetmaker at the jute factory.

My mother’s father, Leib Volotsenko, was born in Mayaki, Belyayevskiy district, Odessa region, in 1852, and my maternal grandmother, Shyfra Volotsenko, was also born there in 1855. I don’t know her maiden name. In 1874 my grandmother and grandfather got married. Grandmother Shyfra was a housewife. She was religious: she prayed and went to the synagogue. My grandparents had four children, born in Mayaki.

Mayaki was located on the bank of the Dnestr River. Before 1940 the Dnestr was a border with Romania. It was a big village of about a thousand farms. It had a Jewish, Russian and Ukrainian population. Jews were craftsmen for the most part: cabinetmakers, carpenters, shoemakers and tailors. There were wealthier Jews dealing in timber that floated down the Dnestr River from Western Ukraine.

My mother told me that Grandfather Leib was a good tailor. He did mending, altering and made new clothes for his clients from neighboring villages. When his sons grew old enough he taught them his profession and they began to help him.

Grandfather Leib rented an apartment. He finished cheder and observed all Jewish traditions: he went to the synagogue, prayed with his tallit on, fasted at Yom Kippur and wore a kippah.

There were two synagogues in Mayaki: one for poor and another one for wealthy Jews. The synagogue for wealthy Jews was on the bank of the Dnestr River. I don’t know which synagogue my grandfather attended, but my parents went to the synagogue for wealthy Jews located near our house.

Grandfather was raising his children religiously. His two sons went to cheder. Grandfather taught his daughters to pray and they attended the synagogue. All children fasted at Yom Kippur. My grandmother taught my mother and her sister to observe the kashrut, cook Jewish food and observe holidays.

My grandmother died in Mayaki in 1903. I don’t know the cause of her death. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery and the Jewish tradition was observed. Grandfather Leib died in 1904. He must have died of some disease since old age simply couldn’t have been the reason of his death: he was not that old. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Mayaki. There was a Jewish funeral. His sons recited the Kaddish and sat shivah.  

My mother’s older brother Yankel was born in 1875. He finished cheder and could read and write in Yiddish and Russian. He followed into his father’s footsteps and became a tailor. Yankel lived in Mayaki and was married twice. His first wife Milia, a Jew, was a housewife. They had four children. After his wife died he remarried. His second wife Golda, also a Jew, was a housewife. They had six children.

During the Great Patriotic War fascists shot Yankel, Golda and their daughter Chasia in Mayaki in 1941. Yankel’s son Lyova perished at the front on the first days of the war. Yankel’s older daughter Zhenia lived in Odessa. She was married and had two sons and a daughter. During the war they were in evacuation somewhere. Lyova and Zhenia were Yankel’s children from his first wife Milia. I have no information about his other children from both marriages.

My mother’s other brother Zeilik was born in 1877. He finished cheder and could read and write in Yiddish and Russian. He also became a tailor. He got married and had two daughters and three sons. He lived in Mayaki. He died in Mayaki before the Great Patriotic War. I don’t remember what caused his death. His daughters Milia and Sima live in Odessa. I have no information about his sons.

My mother’s older sister Molka was born in 1880. She had no education. She married a Jewish man. Her husband, Yudka Kopshtyk, was a shoemaker. They had three daughters and two sons. Molka and her husband starved to death in 1921.

Their older son Mohnes was a shoemaker. He was raising his brothers and sisters after their parents died. Molka’s daughter Basia starved to death in Mayaki in the 1920s. Mohnes perished at the front during the Great Patriotic War. Milia and Taba evacuated to Middle Asia. Milia lived in Astrakhan after the war. Taba moved to Odessa after the war. Boris was at the front. He was wounded several times, but he survived. After the war he lived somewhere in Kuban [Krasnodarskiy region, Russia]. He was the director of a shoe shop. This is all the information I have about them. 

My mother, Riva Volotsenko, was born in Mayaki, Belyayevskiy district, Odessa region in 1883. She was the youngest daughter in the family. She didn’t go to school. She got religious education in the family: her father taught her prayers in Hebrew and her mother taught her all Jewish traditions. My mother learned to cook traditional food. She observed the kashrut and Sabbath and wore long-sleeved gowns that Jewish girls were supposed to wear. In 1903 she moved to Odessa looking for a job. She went to work at the jute factory. I don’t know where she lived. She probably rented a room. 

My parents met at the jute factory and got married in 1904. They had a traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah. Their friends and relatives helped them with the wedding. They rented a facility for the party. When my parents got married they rented a small one-room apartment on Hospitalnaya Street in the center of Moldavanka. They had a small room and a kitchen.

When my older brother Dodik was born in 1905 there was a big Jewish pogrom in Odessa 9. My father told me about it. About one thousand Jews perished then. There were Jewish defense units 10 armed with knives and self-made grenades. My father was also a member of such a group. Our family did not suffer during this pogrom, but many Jewish families in Moldavanka did.

Growing Up

In 1907 my mother was expecting another baby. She moved to her sister Molka in Mayaki, where my sister Shyfra was born. I was also born in Mayaki on 12th June 1908. At that time my father found a well-paid job at a timber facility in Vygoda near Odessa and our mother returned to Odessa with us. In 1911 my younger sister Milia was born in Odessa and in 1912 my brother Lyova was born.

My mother was religious. She wore a kerchief and long-sleeved dresses. In the evening on Sabbath my mother lit candles and prayed. She had challah made for Sabbath and my father said a blessing prayer over the bread. Then we had a meal. My mother had separate kosher utensils for meat and dairy products. We didn’t eat pork since it was non-kosher food. My mother took poultry to a shochet to have it slaughtered. We had matzah at Pesach. My mother made gefilte fish and keyzele at Pesach. We used special crockery that was kept in the attic during the year.

My mother and father went to the synagogue in Moldavanka on all Jewish holidays. However, my parents couldn’t afford to pay the high rental fees in Odessa considering that we were a big family and we moved to Mayaki.

When World War I began in 1914 my father was recruited to the army. He served in a field engineering unit that was responsible for building bridges. My father’s commandment was satisfied with my father’s performance. The chief engineer of his unit, a Russian colonel, respected my father a lot. I don’t know whether there were many Jews participating in World War I, but there was no anti-Semitism. I know that my father got it in the neck from his first sergeant for dirty heels in his boots. He hit him so hard that one hundred candles lit in my father’s eyes.

My mother and we, five children, stayed in Mayaki. My mother rented an apartment. We had one big room and a kitchen. We fetched water from a well. There was a toilet outside. We also had a cellar to store food. Milk and other dairy products were kept in the cellar. Our mother had to cook meals every day since there were no fridges to keep it. The stove was stoked with cane. We had old furniture: a cupboard, a table and chairs, a trunk and a shabby wardrobe.

In 1914 my younger brother Grisha was born. My father served near Odessa and our mother visited him several times. In 1917 our brother Froim was born and in 1918 the youngest Mayor was born. He fell ill with scarlet fever and died.

In 1916 I went to a Russian elementary school. We studied grammar, arithmetic and Russian. My older brother Dodik also went to a Russian school. I had a friend at school. He was also a Jewish boy. In the afternoon I attended classes in cheder. We were taught to pray in Hebrew. My mother went to the synagogue regularly: she had a seat of her own there.

In 1916 a wealthy Jewish family whose sons were Zionists organized a team of Jewish young men. They read lectures and distributed books. They spoke Yiddish. They explained that Jews had to move to live in Palestine. Jews in Mayaki sympathized with these young people. That was how I got to know who Zionists were.

My father returned home in 1918. In 1919 my mother died of pleurisy. My mother was buried in the Jewish cemetery and there was a Jewish funeral. There was no rabbi, though, since the rabbi from Mayaki and many other wealthy Jews moved abroad. I recited the Kaddish for eleven months.

By that time I had studied three years at school, Shyfra – four years and Dodik – five years. We didn’t go to school after our mother died. Our father didn’t remarry. Dodik and I began to help our father in his cabinetmaking shop, Shyfra was a housewife and Milia and Lyova went to school.

There were no pogroms in our area during the Civil War, but power switched from one side to another. At the end of the Civil War many units were fleeing from Odessa to Romania via Mayaki. I remember a Polish unit came to stay overnight. There was a rumor that they were going to slaughter all Jews. My father stood by the window with his rifle and Dodik and I were beside him. Dodik fell asleep late at night and I stayed shivering beside my father until morning. Nothing happened that night.

There was a famine and epidemic of typhoid in 1921. We were ill, but survived. This same year we moved to the village of Berezovka, Baltski district, for a short period of time. Probably, our father had a job there. We observed Jewish traditions. We spoke Yiddish with our father, but we communicated in Russian between ourselves and with friends.

I was helping my father. We made doors, window frames and repaired windows and doors. Dodik didn’t quite like what we were doing and he went to work at a farming guild. Many young Jews were attracted by communist ideas and he joined the Komsomol 11 in 1922. I also submitted my application following my brother’s example, but I had to wait for half a year until I turned 14. I gave up Jewish traditions after I joined the Komsomol.

The Great Terror and the Ukrainian Famine

In 1924 my brother Dodik organized a Jewish kolkhoz 12 in Mayaki. My brother was already a communist and was unanimously elected chairman of this kolkhoz. Two years later the Jewish and Russian kolkhozes 13 merged. Dodik was chairman of this kolkhoz until the Great Patriotic War.

In 1927, during the period of the Trotsky case 14 I was accused of ties with Trotskists without any grounds. I was arrested during a football game; I was a big football fan. A militiaman approached me and asked me to follow him. He pointed at a person and asked me whether I knew him. I knew this man and gave a positive answer. The militiaman said he was a Trotskist.

Therefore, I was taken to a prison in Belyayevka where they opened a case against me. I had to come to interrogations, but I was glad they did not beat me. I had to sleep on the cement floor in my cell. They didn’t even allow my father to send me warm clothes. I fell ill with pneumonia and was convoyed to a hospital where they applied cupping glasses.

I was supposed to stay in hospital, but my guard had an order to take me back to prison. We returned to prison. They were trying to convince me to sign some detractive papers, but I refused. I was ill for three months. I couldn’t move and my arms were paralyzed. They released me after I gave them a written undertaking not to leave the place.

When I recovered I worked with my father in a frontier unit in Mayaki at the border with Romania. We worked there as carpenters. A year and half later, in 1929 I moved to Odessa where I lived with my cousin sister Milia. In Odessa I worked in military units, and in 1931 I went to work at the shipyard.

In 1932 I married Luba Sharghel from Mayaki. She was born into a Jewish family in 1909. Her parents observed all Jewish traditions. Her father was a baker and her mother was a housewife. They owned a bakery, but they weren’t a wealthy family. I don’t remember their names. Luba was my schoolmate. I met her when I was in the third grade and she was in the second grade. In 1931 Luba moved to Odessa. She lived with her aunt. We met again in Odessa and fell in love.

We had our wedding in my father’s home in Mayaki. It was a Soviet wedding party since I was a Komsomol member. We invited friends and relatives. There was live music at the wedding – one of my friends played violin.

In Odessa we rented a small one-room apartment on Pishonovskaya Street. There was a small kitchen in the apartment. Luba was not a Komsomol member. She observed Jewish traditions. She made gefilte fish and chicken broth. In 1933 our son Roma was born. When he was eleven months old Roma fell ill with meningitis and died. We had a hard time then.   

During the period of famine in 1933 15 I was a crew leader in a carpenters’ crew working at the construction of a big apartment house for plant employees. We received food coupons, food packages and 300 grams of bread for lunch. We were building a house at the corner of Havannaya and Lanjeronovskaya Street in the very center of the town. The turnkey construction lasted four years. 

In 1935 our son Syoma was born. In 1938 Misha was born and in 1939 our son Tolik followed. We still lived in a one-room apartment. There was a wardrobe, beds, a small table and a few chairs in our room. There was also a pram and a cradle where Syoma and Misha slept. Tolik slept in the pram.

The children often fell ill. They contracted illnesses from one another. All three of them had scarlet fever and diphtheria. My wife was having a hard time looking after three children. Syoma went to kindergarten and Misha went to a nursery school.

In 1935 I went to work as a carpenter with a theatrical company. When the Finnish War 16 began in 1939 I received a subpoena to the military registry office. When they heard that I had three children they let me go home. Sometime later, however, I had to go to serve in a fire brigade. We lived in a barrack and did the job of firemen. I was there as long as the Finnish War lasted. When I returned home I resumed my work at the theatrical company.

My older brother Dodik, chairman of the kolkhoz in Mayaki, married Marusia, a Russian girl, in 1933. Their daughter’s name was Luda. Our father was far from chauvinistic, but he didn’t like Marusia. My older sister Shyfra married a Russian man, but my father respected her husband a lot. Shyfra’s husband, Tima Sivak, was a nice man. He was born in Mayaki in 1903. He was a driver. They had three children: Vitia, Roma and Lusia.

My younger sister Milia also got married. Her husband’s name was Grisha Dyogot. They had three children: Lyonia, Boria and Raya. Milia’s husband was a Jew. He observed all Jewish traditions.

My younger brothers Lyova, Grisha and Froim moved to Odessa in 1935. They lived with me. Lyova and Grisha worked as carpenters at the theatrical company. Froim studied at the Euromol School on the corner of Bazarnaya and Kanatnaya Street in the center of the town and worked as a turner there. Lyova and Froim were single. Grisha was also a bachelor before the Great Patriotic War.

Our father continued working as a cabinetmaker in a frontier unit. He lived in our old apartment in Mayaki. In 1929 I helped him to buy a house in Mayaki. My father lived in this house with Shyfra’s family. There were three rooms in the house: two bigger and one smaller room. There were old pieces of furniture. There was no place to buy furniture in the village. They stoked the stoves with coal and wood. They had a kitchen garden and kept poultry. We helped them with their kitchen garden.

We liked to visit our father. We went to the bank of the Dnestr, swam and lay in the sun. My father liked his grandchildren. He spoke Russian with them. Shyfra’s children spoke Yiddish – my father taught them.

There was no anti-Semitism in Odessa before the Great Patriotic War. People were not ashamed of their names. There was no national segregation between Jews and Russians. My wife and I often went to the Jewish theater in Odessa. My father and sisters also went to the Jewish theater on Grecheskaya Street when they came to visit me. We liked performances with Liya Bugova acting. She worked in the Russian theater after the war. We watched ‘A grois gevin’ by Sholem Aleichem 17 and ‘The Servant of Two Masters’ by Carlo Goldoni [(1707-1793): Italian playwright].

During the War

I remember very well how the radio broadcast announcing the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on 22nd June 1941. At 2 o’clock in the morning on 23rd June a courier delivered a subpoena to the military registry office to my home. I was to be at the registry office in the Water Engineering College the following morning. Three days later we went to a military camp at some location in Odessa region by a passenger train.

On 30th August our unit was formed and we went to the front line near Uman [Cherkassy region] on trucks. Our group stopped in a small forest by the side of the road before Uman. Fascists began to fire at us. Some of my comrades were wounded and some were killed. Intelligence officers of our military unit said they saw the general that was commander of our unit surrender to fascists.

We moved closer to the front line and took our position in a glen. A day later another commanding officer arrived and an intelligence officer reported the general’s surrender to him. He couldn’t believe it was true, but then all ten officers confirmed that it had happened right before their eyes. The commanding officer ordered us to change our positions and thus, we avoided many casualties. The traitor general knew our positions and soon German planes bombarded the glen.

I and a few other craftsmen were ordered to join a logistic unit in the army headquarters. A junior lieutenant ordered us to line up and began to ask questions: ‘Are there any carpenters?’ – I made a step forward and someone else did. ‘Bricklayers? Roofers? Armorers?’ In total he put together a group of ten craftsmen.

We crossed the Bug River. I was a joiner in a field engineering unit at the front under command of Budyonny. [Marshal Semyon Budyonny – one of the most famous Bolshevik Cavalry Commanders of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1920. Budyonny was one of the first five Soviet Marshals, and one of only two of them, who survived Stalin’s purges. In 1941-42 he was commanding officer of the southwestern and northern Caucasian directions]. He was appointed by Stalin, but he didn’t last as a commander.

We were retreating to Novorossiysk [700 km from Odessa] where I joined Primorskaya army and stayed there until the end of the war in Northern Caucasus and then in the Crimea. I was wounded twice. For me the war ended in Simferopol in 1945. I was first sergeant.

During the Great Patriotic War I corresponded with my family. I knew that my father and my sisters with their children evacuated to Kazakhstan. I don’t remember in what town they resided. Shyfra’s son Roma died at the age of five in evacuation. After the war my father, Shyfra, Milia and the children returned to Mayaki, repaired the house and continued living there.

After the War

My sisters’ husbands returned home from the war. Milia’s husband became an invalid after he was wounded at the front. My brother Lyova disappeared in 1941 and Froim died in hospital from his wounds in 1942. Dodik was released from army service as chairman of a kolkhoz, but being a communist he volunteered to the front. He worked in a hospital. Grisha participated in the defense of Odessa in 1941, in the village of Dalnik [near Odessa].

Grisha was wounded and captured by Romanians. He had a surgery in a hospital for prisoners-of-war. Some Jewish doctors, who were also prisoners, but worked in the hospital, got to know that Grisha was Jewish and gave him clothes, money and documents to escape to Balta [in Odessa region], where Grisha was in hiding for almost three years, living with Ukrainian families. He had documents under the Russian name of Samovalov. When Soviet troops liberated Balta he returned to Odessa and had documents with his real name issued anew. 

I had no information about my wife or sons until 1945. When I came to Odessa after the war I got to know that my wife Luba and the children had perished. They were in Odessa ghetto, then they were sent to Berezovka and from there they walked to Kotovka farm. They were showered with cold water on the way – and it was winter – and tortured. In Kotovka farm policemen shot them. There are 92 people buried there, including my boys and my wife. There is a memorial plague there, but I’ve never visited the site.

When I heard that my wife and my children had perished I didn’t know how to overcome this sorrow. I went to my old apartment. There was another tenant there. He gave me money to buy a two-room apartment in a half-ruined house on Kuznechnaya Street in the center of the town. I restored this apartment and returned to my prewar job in the theatrical company. 

One year later I met my uncle Motka’s daughter Zina. In 1945 Zina and her two children returned to Odessa from evacuation. Zina’s stepson Misha was 17. He was a cadet in a military boarding school. Her son Alfred was a small boy. We decided to get married in 1946. My father had no objections to our marriage. He knew Zina very well.

When Zina and I got married I treated Alfred like my own son, although I didn’t formally adopt him. Zina was a housewife. Life was hard after the war. There was not enough food, but we managed. I didn’t earn much. We couldn’t buy any new clothes, but we managed with what we had. My father lived with us.

My brother Grisha returned to Odessa and married a Jewish girl. His wife Zima worked in a state insurance company. Grisha worked with me in the theatrical company. They had a son named Lyonia. There were no jobs in Mayaki in the early 1950s and my sister Shyfra and her husband sold their house and bought half a house at the 7th station of the Bolshoi Fountain at the coastal area of the town. In 1957 my younger sister Milia’s husband died from his wounds at the front. Milia also sold her house and moved to her daughter and her family in Odessa. All my relatives settled down in Odessa. We kept in touch.

I didn’t support my relatives with any money since I had to provide for my own family, but since I was a carpenter and joiner I always helped them to repair their houses or apartments. We got together to celebrate birthdays and weddings, Soviet and Jewish holidays.

My father died in 1951. We buried him in the Jewish cemetery. It wasn’t a Jewish funeral since it wasn’t customary at that time, but I did recite Kaddish and sat shivah for seven days. After the war I went to the synagogue in Pushkinskaya Street and then switched to the synagogue in Peresyp.   

There were demonstrations of routinely anti-Semitism after the war. Jews were abused in stores and in the streets. They called Jews ‘unfinished’ – rude. There was no abuse at work, though. We tried not to speak Yiddish at work, particularly in the presence of Russian employees. I had Russian friends. My Russian colleague was not anti-Semitic.

When we heard that Israel was founded in 1948 18 we were very happy to have our own country. I read in a newspaper that Mrs. Golda Meir 19 had visited the USSR and Stalin gave her a friendly reception.

I remember well the period of the Doctors’ Plot 20 in 1953. A female doctor from Moscow blamed Jewish doctors of their intention to poison Stalin. [Editor’s note: Some historians insist that it was Stalin’s own forgery in order to spread anti-Semitism.] I remember people saying that all Jews were going to be deported to Siberia like the Crimean Tatars 21 and we were very concerned about it. In 1953 Stalin died and every Soviet citizen was grieving after him. We believed in him and idolized him. I went into attacks for him during the Great Patriotic War shouting, ‘For Stalin! For the Motherland!’

Life went on. I went to work and my stepson studied at school very successfully. He got all excellent marks. He didn’t identify himself as a Jew at school. My wife’s stepson Мisha finished his military school and was sent to a fire brigade in Ufa. Later he returned to Odessa and worked at a spare part factory where he was galvanic manager. He married Shyfra’s daughter Lusia. When their baby was born they lived with us for some time.

From 1955 to 1958 Alfred studied in the Railroad College. After finishing it in 1958 he was recruited to the army. He returned home in 1961. He went to work as a locomotive operator and began his studies in the evening department of the Technological College. In 1964 he married a Jewish girl named Ania. Their baby was born in 1965.

Zina and I decided to exchange our apartment on Kuznechhnaya Street to Pushkinskaya Street since my wife wanted to live near her sister. We moved to an apartment on Pushkinskaya Street, near the railway station, in the center of the town in 1965.

In the 1960s I went to health centers and recreation places every year: twice in Kharkov, twice in a health center in Western Ukraine and a few times in Odessa. I turned 60 in 1968. I was of the retirement age then, but I continued to work.  

Alfred had an infarction when he was a third-year student at the Technological College. This happened in 1967. He was not allowed to work at the railroad. I don’t remember the name of this office. He worked there until 1975.

In the 1960s my brother Dodik had to submit a letter of resignation from his position as chairman of the kolkhoz since he didn’t have any agricultural education. His replacement was a young agronomist. Dodik worked as assistant agronomist for some time, but later they sold their house in the village and were going to move to Odessa. They bought a house in Odessa, but Dodik was severely ill already. He died of cancer in 1970. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Odessa. As a communist he was buried in a red casket. [Editor’s note: In USSR sometimes people arranged the funeral in such a way.]

In the 1970s many Jews were moving to their historical motherland Israel. I sympathized with them. There was negative attitude towards those who decided to move. There was a common point of view that they received education here and it was not loyal of them to leave. Those who worked in an office or enterprise were fired immediately.

They also demanded to have their apartments repaired before leaving. There were terrible attitudes. I remember my colleagues saying, ‘They got complete education here and now they leave.’ I spoke my mind and said that if they had had a possibility the Russians would have moved as well. Actually, it was what happened. Once I talked with a taxi driver and he said that if they opened the border 90 percent of the Russians would leave the country. And that’s what actually what happened later.

My stepson said seeing a relative leaving at the railway station, ‘Look, Papa, they are Zionists, if it were for me I would shoot them all.’ I argued with him explaining who Zionists were. I knew from my childhood that Zionists wanted all Jews to come to live in Palestine. Zionists were harmless. They didn’t blast trains, and they didn’t do any harm to communists, while the communist propaganda condemned Zionists. Communists said that Zionists were bandits.

In 1971 my wife Zina died. In 1974 Alfred’s opinions changed so dramatically that he decided to move to Israel. He began to ask our relative to send him an invitation letter. In 1975 Alfred, his wife Ania and their two sons left for Israel at the invitation of our relative. I also had an invitation and was to go with them, but I didn’t want my daughter-in-law to look after me. I told them I would stay to have a gravestone installed on my wife Zina’s grave. I hoped to find a woman to go to Israel with together.

When Alfred was leaving his older son Alik was ten years old and his younger son Zhenia was one year and a half. They settled down in Nes Ziyyona, Israel. Alfred worked as a design engineer at a military plant and his wife worked as a medical nurse. Now they are pensioners. My older grandson Alik is a doctor. He is married and has three children: two girls and a boy. My younger grandson Zhenia is a lawyer.

After my grandson left I lived alone for a long time. There was a ban for departures to Israel after 1980, even though I had an invitation. I submitted my documents to obtain permission to leave several times, but each time I got an unmotivated refusal.

In 1987 my niece Raya, my sister Milia’s daughter, introduced me to her colleague Octiabrina Kocherga. She worked at the shoe repair factory. We got married in 1988 and lived in my apartment. Octiabrina is a Jewish woman. She was born in Odessa in 1924. Her maiden name was Savchenko. She had a Jewish mother and a Ukrainian father. He died when Octiabrina was six years old.

Before the Great Patriotic War, Octiabrina finished a secondary school and a school of medical nurses. During the war Octiabrina was a medical nurse in a hospital at the 3rd Ukrainian Front. She demobilized in 1946 and returned to Odessa where she soon met a military that became her husband in 1948. He was Ukrainian. In 1949 their daughter Natasha was born and in 1953 their daughter Galia was born. In 1953 Octiabrina’s husband perished in service. Octiabrina worked at the shoe repair factory raising her daughters.

In 1992 my sister Shyfra, her daughter Lusia, Lusia’s husband Misha Shtein, my second wife’s stepson, and Shyfra’s granddaughter moved to Israel. Misha was 64 years old and lived on welfare until he began to receive his pension in Israel. Lusia worked as chief accountant in Odessa, but in Israel she had to accept a job as a cleaning woman. Shyfra lived with her daughter and received a pension. She died in 1998. Her granddaughter Valia got married. She works in an emigration agency and her husband Zhenia is a broker. Shyfra’s son Vitia and his family lived in Odessa. He died recently.

My younger sister Milia followed my older sister. In the early 1990s her son Boria died in Odessa. He worked as a locomotive operator. Boria’s wife Ida was a teacher. They had a daughter named Zoya. After her son died, Milia decided to move to Israel. She moved with her daughter Raya, her son Lyonia and their families in 1992. Her son worked as a galvanic operator in Odessa and got the same job in Israel. Her daughter cleans house entrances and looks after old people in Israel. Milia and her son Lyonia are pensioners.  

I retired in 1993. In 1997 my younger brother Grisha who was severely ill, his son Lyonia, Lyonia’s wife and their two sons moved to Los Angeles, USA. A month after they arrived there, Grisha died in hospital in Los Angeles. I have no relatives left in Odessa. My stepson Alfred keeps in touch with me.

I went to the wedding of my younger grandson Zhenia in Israel in 1994. I was there for one month. I liked it in Israel. Alfred lives in a three-room apartment on the first floor in a house in Nes Ziyyona. I went to a synagogue in Nes Ziyyona. I liked it there. The only thing I didn’t like was that synagogues are opened only on Saturday in Israel. Another thing I didn’t like there is that there are no clubs for older people to meet and socialize. Old people sometimes can talk in a garden. In Odessa old people meet and exchange news every day. I am religious. Even when I lived in Mayaki I went to the synagogue. 

In 1992 the Jewish life in Odessa began to revive. The main synagogue was given back to the Jewish community. I go to the synagogue on Yevreyskaya Street. The synagogue on Yevreyskaya Street has been restored. It’s a beautiful building. It’s mainly attended by older people that come to pray on weekdays. There are more visitors on Friday and Saturday, but on holidays it has even more visitors.

There were Jewish schools open and children from Jewish schools also come to the synagogue. My wife Octiabrina’s grandson also goes to the Jewish school Or Sameach 22. They study prayers and Ivrit at school. On holidays they take part in concerts in the theater. We went to a concert. We also receive the Jewish newspapers Or Sameach and Shomrei Shabos in Russian and watch Jewish programs on TV.

The Jewish charity center Gmilus Hesed provides assistance to older Jews. A volunteer from this center visits Octiabrina and me regularly. We appreciate her help very much. She does our laundry, cleaning, the shopping and buys medications for us. In summer she takes my wife out and washes her in the bathroom.

My wife has two daughters, but she doesn’t communicate with her older daughter and her younger daughter has had two surgeries. She has cancer. Therefore, we badly need help that this volunteer provides. She also brings food packages provided by Hesed. What I mean is that if it were not for the Jewish community and Gmilus Hesed we would not have been able to live to this old age. We are very grateful for their care and concern for us.

Glossary:

Vladimir Khalfin
Chernovtsy
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Date of interview: March 2002

Vladimir Khalfin and his wife Silva live in an old house in the central street of Chernovtsy. Their apartment is kept clean. They have furniture bought in the 1970s: polished cupboard and bookcase, table and chairs covered with starched napkins, an old sofa and snow white curtains on the windows. Vladimir is a stout man. He has a limp, but he walks fast. His wife has been confined to bed for many years, she is in pain. Vladimir does the housekeeping and takes care of his wife. Until recently he was a volunteer in Hesed and visited elderly people every day bringing them food and reading newspaper, but he cannot leave alone his wife for long. Their only daughter lives in Kerch in the Crimea.

Family Background

Growing Up

​During the War

After the War

Glossary

Family Background

My parents’ families lived in the town of Luchinets, Kopaygorod district of Vinnitsa region, 250 km from Kiev. At least, few generations of my ancestors lived in Luchenets.

There were about 150 families in the town and over 50 were Jewish families. There was also a Ukrainian and Russian population in Luchenets. They were all good neighbors and helped each other. Ukrainian neighbors of Jewish families knew Yiddish and Jews spoke also Yiddish, Russian and Ukrainian. There were no national conflicts, Luchenets was a distant town and gangs 1 did not usually get there. There was a wooden synagogue in the town. Women prayed in a separate room with a little window for them to hear the rabbi’s sermon. Jews from surrounding village also came to this synagogue on Jewish holidays. There was a cheder in the synagogue before the revolution of 1917 2. Jews bought chickens and geese to have them slaughtered by a shochet. There was a market in Luchenets on Mondays and Fridays. Local farmers sold their fruit, vegetables, dairy products and poultry. There were no scales at the market. Products were measured by containers: bowls or buckets. On other days of the week there was a big market in Kopaygorod in about 15 km from Luchenets. Farmers from the outskirts of the town supplied all food products. Jews were mainly craftsmen and tradesmen. Jewish families resided in the central part of the town. Land was more expensive there and they couldn’t afford to have big gardens or orchards. Jewish families lived in small wooden houses with thatched roofs and richer families had tiled roofs.

My grandfather on my father’s side Aron Khalfin was born in 1862. My grandfather was a shochet in Luchenets. He inherited this job from his father after his father died. Grandfather Aron died in 1920 – long before I was born. We didn’t have any of his photos. I remember my grandmother Hayka. She was born in 1867. She married Aron when she was very young. My grandmother was a housewife. It was customary in Jewish families that women kept the house and raised children. My grandmother was a short fat woman with a kind smile. She had pink complexion. She didn’t wear a wig. She wore a dark woolen shawl in winter and a white cotton kerchief in summer. This was common casual clothing worn by women in villages.

Of all grandmother’s relatives I only knew her sister Rieva who was widowed when she was still young and raised two children. Rieva lived in Luchenets. My grandmother’s two older brothers lived rather far in Vinnitsa region. I don’t have any information about them.

The paternal grandparents had four children: Yankel, the oldest, was born in 1895. Then came Haim, born in 1897. The third was Moshe, born in 1898. My father Ruvin was the youngest of brothers. He was born in 1900. All children got Jewish education. They studied in cheder. Grandfather trained the two older sons to be shochets. Since there was only one shochet needed in the town Haim studied a tailor’s profession. Moshe became an apprentice of a shoemaker. My father Ruvin became a locksmith.

My grandfather’s family was religious. Every day, my grandfather went to pray to the only synagogue in the neighborhood. Grandmother joined him on Jewish holidays and Sabbath. My grandparents observed all Jewish traditions. Grandmother followed the kashrut strictly. She had specific dishes and utensils for dairy and meat products. She even washed her kitchenware with separate cloth. There was no bakery in Luchenets and my grandmother baked bread for a week and made hala bread for Sabbath. The only place to buy matzah for Pesach was in Kopaygorod, in about 30 km from Luchenets. My grandmother and other Jewish women got together in my grandmother’s kitchen to make matzah for all families. It took them quite a while since Jewish families were traditionally big and they needed a lot of matzah. Each family needed at least 16 kg matzah since it wasn’t allowed to eat bread or have any at home at Pesach. Grandmother had boards for rolling out dough, rolling pins and bowls for making dough. There was also a special wheel for making holes in matzah. Women worked in a team: one group sieved flour, another group mixed it with water in strict proportion, some kneaded dough and others rolled out dough. This process had to be very prompt since dough couldn’t be exposed to air for long. All families had big white linen bags used specifically for matzah. Grandfather conducted Seder at Pesach. My father posed traditional questions, but he didn’t tell me any details about the Seder night. All sons had bar mitzvah ritual when they turned 13.

After the revolution of 1917 collectivization 3 began in Luchinets. A Jewish collective farm was formed that included Jewish families from surrounding villages. The management was in Luchinets. Farmers were not enthusiastic about joining the collective farm since they had to give their cattle and all tools to common use. Those that hesitated to join the collective farm were having problems they didn't get a horse to plough their field or a cart to go to Kopaygorod or Vinnitsa.  Collective farmers received coupons to do shopping in the store and all goods were sold only to collective farmers. Those that did not join the collective farm couldn’t even buy a candle. My father and his brothers joined the collective farm. My father worked as a locksmith, Yankel made heavy coats in the collective farm shop and Moshe was a shoemaker. They were all married to Jewish women. Yankel had two children and so did Haim. Moshe had three children. The brothers were close, but didn’t see each other often. They were busy at work and at home. The synagogue in Luchinets functioned, but the cheder was closed. Instead, a Jewish 5-gread school was opened where all subjects were taught in Yiddish. 

After my grandfather died in 1920 Yankel became a shochet. His job in the collective farm was to slaughter at the market and he received his wages.

My grandfather on my mother’s side Haim Bergheener was born in the 1860s. He was short,  thin and wore a beard. He wore a yarmulka or a big black cap. He had several brothers and sisters, but they were all gone before I was born. Some died, some moved to other locations or emigrated to Argentina or Palestine. My grandmother on my mother’s side Leya (I don’t know her maiden name) was born in 1860s. She was of average height and had a very straight posture. She had wavy hair that she wore in a knot. She wore casual clothes like any other woman in the town. I remember that grandmother was duck-legged.

As far as I can remember the maternal grandparents had four children. I remember Hana, the older sister, born around 1893, Aron, born in 1895, and Gedalie, born in 1898. My mother Golda was born in 1902. I might have forgotten other children, if any. The boys studied at cheder. My mother and her sisters were taught at home. A melamed from cheder taught them Hebrew, Torah and Talmud. My mother could read and write in Yiddish and Hebrew. She had a book of prayers in Hebrew that she received from her father at bat mitzvah  – 12 years old. The sons of the family had bar mitzvah conducted at the age of 13.

They spoke Yiddish in the family and Ukrainian to their neighbors. They were a religious family. On Saturdays and Jewish holidays grandparents went to synagogue. When children grew older they also attended the synagogue. They all had special fancy clothing that they wore when they went to the synagogue. My grandmother wore a black shawl to the synagogue and the girls didn’t need a headpiece. This is all my mother told me.

They observed Sabbath. There was a big kitchen with a stove of two ovens in the corner, one stove for baking bread and the other for Sabbath meal where pots with cholent were kept overnight. Grandmother made food for two days on Friday. On Friday evening grandmother lit candles and said a prayer over them blessing her family. After saying a prayer the family sat down to dinner. Grandmother always made gefilte fish and hala bread for Sabbath. No work was allowed to do on Saturday, not even heating meals or turning on a kerosene lamp. Grandmother left food in pots in the oven and it stayed warm until Saturday. On Sabbath evening their Ukrainian neighbor came to light a kerosene lamp and stoke the stove in winter. They couldn’t even boil a kettle and children ran to their neighbors with a kettle to get some boiling water for tea.

The family observed all Jewish holidays. Grandparents and their children fasted at Rosh Hashanah (children fasted from the age of 6-7) and Yom Kippur. [Editor's note: fasting at Rosh Hashanah probably derives from some regional religious influence since it isn’t required by traditions.] My mother told me that when she was a child she took part in performances at Purim. Children dressed as Purim characters performed in Jewish houses and received small treatments or money for their performances. These performances were short in order to show them in as many houses as possible to get more money.

My grandfather owned a big store before the revolution. He sold food, groceries, clothing and shoes and haberdashery. Grandfather inherited this store from his father. Grandfather provided well for the family. His children started working at the store when they reached the age of 7-8. Only members of the family worked at the store. There were no other employees. After the revolution the Soviet authorities nationalized the store, but my grandfather’s family kept a part of the house where they lived. They had 3 rooms, one room was my grandparents’, another was their sons’ and one other room was for the girls. After losing his store grandfather had to do something else to make a living. He learned to make winter coats and his sons assisted him in this business. Farmers kept sheep and my grandfather purchased sheepskin from them. Grandfather and his sons made good coats and had many clients. They got money or food products for their work.

My mother’s brothers got married and lived in Luchinets. Aron had three children and Gedalie had a son and one daughter. My mother and her sisters became apprentices of a dressmaker. My mother learned to make plain clothes for village women. Hanna and mother worked for the dressmaker until they got married. Hanna married a Jewish man from Shargorod, but I don’t remember anything about him. She moved to her husband’s house, and she was a housewife. They had three children.

My mother never told me how she met my father. They probably got married through matchmakers since it was a common way of getting married for Jewish families at that time. My parents got married in 1925. They had a religious wedding since they both came from religious family. The young couple married standing under the chuppah and the rabbi registered their marriage in his books.

The collective farm gave my father a small wooden house with tiled roof. There were two rooms and a kitchen in the house. There was also a backyard with a shed and a toilet in the yard. There were few fruit trees in front of the house that my parents planted after their wedding: two apple trees, one pear tree and a plum tree. My mother was a housewife.

Growing Up

In 1927 my older sister Clara was born. On 5th April 1928 I was born. I got a Jewish name of Velvl at birth. Later I was called Vladimir, but I have the name of Velvl written in my birth certificate. My younger brother Itzyk was born in 1934. My brother and I were circumcised as required by Jewish tradition.

1932-33 was a period of famine in Ukraine 4. Many people starved to death at that time – whole villages got deserted. The Soviet authorities forced farmers to give them all agricultural products and grain. I have dim memories of this period. All I remember was that my sister and I woke up at night crying and asking for food. I remember mother dividing a slice of bread between the two of us. She ate breadcrumbs from the table. Mother had a bag of black flour on the attic that saved us from death. She added it into boiling water and we ate this sticky mixture. (Later we ate the same food in the ghetto during the war.) My paternal grandmother Haya, starved to death in 1933. Her sons were trying to help her as much as they could, but grandmother didn’t eat anything so that more meal remaine for the children, so she was fading away. She died in her sleep and was buried near grandfather Aron at the Jewish cemetery in Luchinets.

I don’t remember my father. He drowned in a lake in 1933. I was only 5 and all I remember is that my father went fishing and never came back. My mother was pregnant with Itzyk who was born after our father died. My father wanted his son to be named Itzyk after his distant relative and mother named him Itzyk. My mother was alone with three children and the chairman of the collective farm suggested that she sent my sister and me to a children’s house to be able to raise our baby brother, but my mother refused saying that Jews never gave up their children however hard life might treat them. My mother didn’t have any savings. Her brothers and sisters and in-laws provided some assistance, but they didn’t have much and mother went to do field work in the collective farm. After work she came home and did some sewing. She got orders from village women. I woke up at night from the sound of my mother’s sewing machine. Grandmother Leya came to look after the children during a day. Now I understand how difficult it was for my mother, but she never complained. I cannot even imagine at what cost our mother supported us. 

Grandmother Leya taught me and my sister some Yiddish. She also told us stories about the history of Jewish people and Jewish holidays. I remember the story of David winning a battle with Goliath, the story of Purim and how Mordecai saved Jewish people. We spoke Yiddish in the family. When my sister turned 8 she went to the Jewish school. I went to the same school in 1936. We studied all subjects in Yiddish. We had classes in Jewish history and general subjects. There were not many children in the Jewish school since many Jewish families preferred to send their children to Ukrainian school. There was a 5-year Jewish school and after finishing it children had to continue studies in a Ukrainian school. We also had to continue education in the Ukrainian lower secondary school. Besides, all higher educational institutions were Ukrainian or Russian and it was easier for Jewish children to have knowledge of these languages if they studied in Ukrainian or Russian schools. I was successful with all subjects, but I was particularly fond of mathematics. I became a pioneer at the Jewish primary school. There wasn’t much of a ceremony. We were lined up and said a pioneer oath. Then red neckties were tied. My life didn’t change after I became a pioneer.

My classmates were children of our neighbors and acquaintances. I had many friends. After classes, we played football with a ball that we made from rags and other games. We didn’t have any books at home. I borrowed books in Ukrainian and Yiddish from the school library. The Ukrainian books were about pioneers that were helping old people and struggled against enemies of the Soviet power. I remember reading a book of children’s poems by Ovsey Dreeze, a Jewish poet that wrote in Yiddish. When I grew up I read his lyrical poems.

At that time the Soviet authorities began struggle against religion 5. We learned at school that religion was vestige of the past and that religion helped capitalists to suppress working people. This was how it was described in our history textbooks and how our teachers and pioneer tutors taught us. We were told to educate our underdeveloped parents explaining to them that it was stupid to believe in God living in the country building communism. I once tried to tell my mother, but she firmly stated that Jews had carried their religion through centuries and that it was going to survive regardless of the Soviet persecutions. I didn’t quite understand the depth of this statement at that time, but I always remembered these words of my mother’s.

My mother kept on observing Jewish traditions. Since she had to work on Saturday she couldn’t  observe Sabbath, but she observed the Jewish holidays. On holidays our mother dressed up and went to the synagogue. The synagogue was closed in 1938 or 1939. We, children, didn’t go with her since we believed there was no God and became atheists, but we enjoyed observing the Jewish holidays at home. Mother made matzah and traditional food at Pesach. We were poor, but mother always saved for a festive dinner at Pesach gefilte fish, chicken broth with matzah dumplings and boiled chicken. Mother baked strudels with jam, nuts and raisins and cookies in the shape of hexagonal stars. We liked matzah pudding with eggs. On the first day of Pesach we visited mother’s parents. My mother’s brothers and sisters and their families also came there. Our grandmother wanted her family to get together in their parents’ home on high holidays. Grandfather conducted the Seder. I remember children waiting intently for Elijah the Prophet to come into the house. My mother explained to us that we couldn’t see him since he was a spirit, but every time I hoped to see wine in his glass stirring up when he touched it.

Mother fasted at Yom Kippur. My sister and I also fasted from the age of 5. Only little Itzyk didn’t have to fast. At Purim mother made hamantashen – triangle pies stuffed with poppy seeds and raisins. At Chanukkah mother always had her bronze chanukkiyah , her wedding gift, polished until it shined. On the first day of Chanukah mother lit two candles and every following day she lit one more candle. We got money from our relatives at Chanukkah. We bought sunflower seeds and lollypops with this money. At Sukkot we went to our neighbors that made a sukkah in their yard. We had meals there.

In June 1941 I finished Jewish school (5 years) and took my documents to the 6th form in Ukrainian school. I was looking forward to my summer vacations. In the morning of 22 June 1941 6 we woke up from the roar of explosions. In some time our neighbor came to tell us that it was the bombing of Mogilyov-Podolskiy in 30 km from our town. I remember that it didn’t raise any concern in us. We had no information about the war in Europe. We didn’t have a radio and mother didn’t buy newspapers. We were sure that our army would defeat enemy before we know. At 12 o’clock Molotov’s 7 speech was broadcast on the radio in the central square of the town. He announced the treacherous attack of Germany and declared that the Soviet army would beat the enemy soon.

During the War

Soviet troops were retreating past Luchinets. It was hot and soldiers came into the town to ask for water. Nobody was going to evacuate from the village since we didn’t know anything about brutality of fascists and were not afraid of Germans. In less than one month Germans came to the village. On the next day they shot over 100 Jewish men in the outskirts of the town. My father’s three brothers were among them. The central area of Luchinets where Jews resided was fenced with barbed wire. There were German posts along the fence. We were told that the area fenced with barbed wire was a Jewish ghetto and that we were not allowed to leave it. This happened in the first half of July 1941. We stayed in our house. Germans took groups of Jewish men to shoot in the vicinity of the village every day. They were forced to dig a long trench and then they were made to stand on its edge before they were shot.  Some of them didn’t die at once and were buried still alive. One of them managed to crawl out of the trench and get back to the ghetto. He was hid in a basement for a long time until his wounds healed.

Groups of exhausted and dirty Jews began to be taken to Luchinets. One could tell they had made a long trip. Many of them stayed overnight to continue on their way. Germans left Luchinets leaving Romanians and local police to guard the ghetto. After Germans left the ghetto the shootings stopped, but Romanians didn’t provide inmates with any food or medications and people starved to death or died from diseases. There were doctors and nurses among inmates of the ghetto, but they didn’t have any medications to give treatment. There was no place to get medications in the ghetto and inmates were not allowed to leave the territory of the ghetto even to buy drugs in the village. Romanians told us that all villages in Vinnitsa region were turned into Jewish ghettos. They also said that the opposite bank of the Dnestr River where Jews lived was also turned into a ghetto called Transnistria 8. There were Jews from Moldavia and Bessarabia taken to Luchinets. They were accommodated in local houses. We all lived in one room in our house and another room was occupied by a family from Bessarabia: a husband and wife and 12 children. They walked all the way from Ataki and the mother of the family carried a baby. There were groups of Jews walking through Luchinets. We didn’t know what to expect. Jewish men were taken to do road construction and repair work. They worked from 8 am till dark. They left the ghetto at 7 am and returned with convoy at 7 pm. The only food they had was what they could find in the fields around. Women worked inside the ghetto doing cleaning and work in the canteen. My mother also went to work.

In autumn 1942 Romanians became more loyal allowing inmates to leave the ghetto. They understood that we couldn’t escape anyway. My sister and I crawled under the barbed fencing to get some wood outside the ghetto to stoke the stove. We had a knife to cut branches. We had to get back before dawn. We dragged a bundle of brushwood home since we were too exhausted to carry it. My mother went out to work in the village sewing or helping village women to do housework. She got potatoes, flour or even a loaf of bread for her work. Mother boiled flour with water and we ate it in this way. The father of the family who was our tenant in our house was a strong man. He also went to do field work for villagers. He received a bucket of potatoes for three days of work. When he brought it home they ate all potatoes in half an hour. They starved even though we tried to support them.

Mother celebrated Jewish holidays even during the war. She prayed before each holiday. Of course, we didn’t have any special food, but mother didn’t eat bread at Pesach. She fasted at Yom Kippur. Older Jewish men got together for a minian at Sabbath and Jewish holidays. Women didn’t attend those gatherings.

In winter of 1942 mother’s parents Haim and Leya starved to death. Until March 1944 the population of the ghetto reduced dramatically. Inmates of the ghetto died of typhoid, exhaustion and hard work. There were anti sanitary conditions in the ghetto. Dirt and lice were a common problem. It’s hard to say how many inmates of the ghetto survived, but I know there weren’t many survivors. Fortunately, my mother, my brother and sister and I survived.

We had the roar of the front near Mogilyov-Podolskiy. We didn’t have a radio or newspapers to know the situation. On 28 March 1944 Soviet troops came to Luchinets. Romanians left the village two days before, but no Jews left the ghetto since we were afraid to go anywhere. How happy we were when the Soviet troops came to the village! We kissed the armor of Soviet tanks and hugged soldiers. They gave us sugar and dried bread. Inmates of the ghetto who came from other places left for their hometowns and villages. We had nothing to live on and Ukrainian neighbors supported us at the beginning giving us food and clothes. We heard news about our relatives. My mother’s brothers perished. When the war began they were working in another village. They never returned home from that village and we believed they were captured by Germans. Mother’s sister Hanna and her children perished in the ghetto in Shargorod. Her husband was shot there, too.

The synagogue and school were in the same territory where the ghetto was. They were closed during the war. After Luchinets was liberated the synagogue and the Jewish school were not opened. One of the Jewish men arranged a house of prayer for men to pray on Saturdays and Jewish holidays.

After the War

My mother didn’t want to stay in Luchinets. She decided it would be easier to find a job in a town. In summer 1944 we left for Mogilyov-Podolskiy. We sold our house in Luchinets just for peanuts. I had to support my family and became an apprentice for a shoemaker in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. My sister went to the 8th form and finished there the secondary lower school. My brother went to the 1st form of a Ukrainian school. Mother went to work in a shop that made working clothing: robes and gloves. We rented a room from a local woman.

Mother heard that there were many vacant apartments in Chernovtsy and we moved to the town in 1946. However, so many other Jews came to town before us that we couldn’t find a vacant apartment and we rented a room in a one-storied building in an old Jewish neighborhood. Our landlady, an old Jew, also was in the ghetto that was actually in the neighborhood during the war. There was no running water in the house, but there was a stove. This was the first time we were in a big town and we liked it. We liked the big old buildings with stucco moldings on the facades, big stores and wide streets. Almost 70% of the population was Jewish and one could hear people speaking Yiddish in the streets. We met new Jewish friends. There was a synagogue, a Jewish school and a Jewish theater in the town. My mother was very happy to live in a town with the majority of Jewish population. She was glad to speak Yiddish and go to the synagogue on Sabbath. We couldn’t afford to go to the Jewish theater. Only once our mother gave us tickets to the performance of ‘Teviye, the milkman’ by Sholem Alechem. It was in Yiddish. The acting was beautiful, there was a storm of applause. This was the only time I went to the Jewish theater and I remembered it for the rest of my life. We celebrated Jewish holidays at home. Before 1948 the synagogue sold matzah. Later we had to get it secretly. We were very poor and mother couldn’t afford to buy all necessary food for holidays, but she tried to make something special anyway. We didn’t celebrate Sabbath since Saturday was a working day and on Friday evening my mother came home too late to conduct the ceremony of lighting candles.

I became an apprentice of a worker at the shoe factory and then worked sometime at the mechanic plant. 1947-48 were hard years. Food sold at the market was far too expensive. After working I studied at the lower secondary evening school to get secondary education. After finishing this school I studied to make shoes. I couldn’t afford to continue education. I worked at a shoemaker shop for over 50 years. There were 10 other Jewish employees. I never faced any anti-Semitism at work. I was a skilled employee and my clients treated me with respect. 

My sister Clara went to work at the same shop where our mother was working in Chernovtsy. She also studied at the accounting school in the evenings. In 1948 she married a Jewish man Aron, but I don’t remember his last name. He moved to Chernovtsy after the war. He was an accountant at a plant. He came to Chernovtsy in 1944 and managed to find an apartment. My sister moved in with her husband. My mother and brother moved with her. After finishing the accounting school my sister went to work at the accounting office of the mechanic plant.

My mother didn’t receive any pension. All pre-war archives were lost and she didn’t have any document to prove that she had worked before the war. This was the way the Soviet law worked: they only paid pension to those who worked for the Soviet power. We helped and supported our mother in her old age. She died in 1992 at the age of 90. She was a nice and decent woman. We buried her in accordance with Jewish tradition at the Jewish corner of the town cemetery in Chernovtsy.

I wasn’t a Komsomol member or a communist. It wasn’t mandatory in the evening school where I studied to join the Komsomol and I didn’t feel like becoming a member of either Komsomol or the Communist Party. In March 1953 when Stalin died many people grieved after him. For me his death wasn’t something that made me sad. Of course, I was worried about the uncertain future. After ХХ Congress of the Communist Party 9 I believed that life might turn to better if they took the risk of denunciation the cult of Stalin, but I was wrong again. Since then I never took any interest in politics. Somehow I didn’t quite like the institution of this state since it only created problems for people. I didn’t even try to find a better job or to get promotion since I didn’t believe anything. I didn’t believe that a decent person could have a decent life in this country and I knew that I couldn’t lie to take advantage of things, so why try? I lived a quiet life and I didn’t become rich, but I went to bed with clear conscience and didn’t trade my principles. Other people that had higher position were worried about it and had to face intrigues and lies, but since I was just a shoemaker there were no problems that I might possibly have in this respect.

My brother tried to make a career. This was the period of state anti-Semitism and Ukrainian authorities preferred to appoint Ukrainians to higher positions. My brother was an economist at a plant and wanted to get another job at a research institute, at the human resources department. He wasn’t rejected or accepted, but every time he went there they were telling him to come another time. He wasn’t told that he couldn’t be employed due to his Jewish nationality, but it was clear that the reason was there. My brother had the feeling of being hurt for the rest of his life. My brother was married to a Jewish woman from Chernovtsy. They had a civil marriage. In 1960 their son was born. My brother wasn’t religious and his family didn’t observe any Jewish traditions. However, they had their son circumcised. My brother, my sister, their families and I usually met on holidays – birthdays or wedding anniversaries – when we visited our mother. Itzyk died of infarction in Chernovtsy in 1982.

I found my wife through a matchmaker, an old Jewish 75-year old woman. She came to my mother and offered her to introduce me to a nice girl. My mother told me about it and I gave my consent. The matchmaker took me to my future wife’s family. My wife Silva Shelak was born in Mogilyov-Podolskiy on 2 March 1928. Her father Gersh Shelak was a shoemaker and her mother Ida Shelak was a housewife. Silva had a younger brother Jacob, born in 1932. Her father was deaf, but he was recruited to the front anyway when the Great Patriotic War began. Silva, her mother and brother were in the ghetto in Mogilyov-Podolskiy during the war. In 1942 Silva’s mother died in the ghetto during an epidemic of typhoid. I cannot imagine how two orphan children survived in the ghetto. They stayed in Mogilyov-Podolskiy until their father returned from the front in 1945. They moved to Chernovtsy where Silva finished a lower secondary school and an accounting course. The years spent in the ghetto had their impact on her health – she was weak and sickly. Her brother was also sickly and died at 40.

We got married in 1955. We had a civil ceremony and a small dinner for relatives and friends where we sang Jewish songs and danced, but we didn’t have a chuppah. I moved into my wife’s apartment, she stayed at home after we got married. She was too weak to go to work. Our daughter Ida named after Silva’s mother was born in 1955. Later we began to call her Ludmila, which is a Russian name. She finished secondary school and graduated from Business College. She married a nice Jewish man Evgeny Smoliansky, who also studied at the Business College with her. They moved to Kerch in the Crimea. She calls us from there and spends her vacations with us, sometimes with the husband and the kid, sometimes alone. Our daughter and her husband both worked. Financially they have been provided - did not starve, but also anything superfluous did not presume. They live amicably. Our only granddaughter Maria studied under Sochnut 10 student exchange program in Israel. After finishing her secondary school there, she returned to Ukraine. We couldn’t afford to pay for her getting a higher education in Israel. Maria is a student at the Institute of Economy in Simferopol.

My wife and I observed Jewish traditions however difficult it was at different times. During the Soviet times there was an underground Jewish bakery where they made matzah for Pesach. We brought flour there at night and the following night we could pick bags with matzah. It was a problem to buy necessary food products for celebration. One had to stand in line for hours to buy chicken, but we celebrated our holidays anyway. We always gathered with the siblings and our mother. We also celebrated Soviet holidays and the happiest of them was Victory Day on 9 May 11. In the morning my wife and I went to the parade where we met our friends. We got together for a party on such holidays. My wife had prepared food for the party. We talked and sang Jewish songs, shared our memories about the wartime and were happy to have survived.

When Jews began to move to Israel in 1970s we couldn’t go: my wife was confined to bed. Of course, if it hadn’t been for my wife’s illness we would have gone to Israel. Our daughter wanted to go to Israel, but she was reluctant to leave us on our own. I would love to visit Israel and hope I will get a chance to go there. It’s a happy person who can say that he has had freedom to do what he wanted. I haven’t had an opportunity to spend my vacation elsewhere in 20 years. I couldn’t leave my wife. She is a nice person and we’ve lived our life in love and consent. She has cancer in the last stage and all I can do now is just try to relieve her pain, if possible. Since she didn’t work due to her illnesses she received a pension of 35 rubles [Editor’s note: 35 rubles is less than $7]. Only in the last 3 years she has received allowances paid to former inmates of ghettos by Germany. We are grateful to those that remember people that suffered from fascism.

I left Chernovtsy only once in 1999 when I had to obtain a certificate of a former inmate of the ghetto from the archive of Luchinets. I was overwhelmed by reminiscences when I came there. The town made an impression of being decayed. There were old houses that I remembered since my childhood. There are no new houses. Where our house was there is a kitchen garden.

After Ukraine declared its independence in 1991 Jewish life began to revive. In 1993 Joint organized Hesed in Chernovtsy. Hesed takes good care of old people. We receive food packages. Hesed also delivers food home. We can ask them to do the laundry. Nurses are visiting us who help to do the shopping and cleaning. There are clubs and various classes in Hesed. Every Jew can find interesting things to do there regardless of age. I began to attend Hesed from the first days after it opened.

My wife and I are members of association of former inmates of the ghetto. Until last years I was a volunteer in Hesed. I visited older people. Once I was asked to pay a visit to an old lonely woman in hospital. When I came to see her I saw that she was blind. Nobody came to pick her from hospital and personnel of the hospital were not willing to take care of her. I think it would be a good idea to organize an elderly people’s home or hospital for lonely old people by the Hesed. They are very unfortunate, these people like that old woman. It is hard to see how lonely and helpless people become in their old age. I would like to take part in organization of such hospital, but I don’t have time for anything now. My wife needs me and I have to be beside her. It’s my duty.

Glossary:

Sheindlia Krishtal
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Inna Zlotnik

Sheindlia Krishtal lives in a two-room apartment in Kharkovskiy neighborhood in the outskirts of Kiev. She moved into this apartment with her husband in 1995. He husband died 6 years ago. Sheindlia is a short slim woman with a neat hairdo. She wears glasses. She is nice and kind. She likes to do things about the house. She cleans her apartment regularly regardless of her poor sight. She has a set of furniture of the 1960s: a cupboard, bookcase, sofa, table and chairs, two armchairs and a low table. She has a collection of Russian, Jewish and Ukrainian books.  Evgenia edited many of these books by herself.  Behind the glass in her cupboard she has portraits of her husband and sisters. Evgenia always helped people that had problems. Her former colleagues haven’t forgotten her: they call he regularly.  Her nieces from Kiriat-Ono remember her and her nephew calls her from Boston.  She receives food packages from Hesed. Her son lives in Kiev and supports her. 

Family Background

​Growing Up

​During the War

​After the War

Glossary

Family Background

My grandfather on my father’s side Shmuel Kryshtal was born in Ostrog, Western Ukraine, in 1850. My father told me that he was a tall, slim, dark-haired man. He was selling fabrics and haberdashery. I have never been in Ostrog, but I’ve read and heard that it is located on the banks of the Vilia and Goryn rivers. It was a district town in Volyn province, Russia. In the middle of ХIХ century Jews constituted half of population of Ostrog, and the rest of the population was Polish, Ukrainian, German, Lithuanian and Russian. This town was one of the biggest centers of the Jewish culture and trade in Volyn. The choral synagogue in Ostrog was a center of spiritual life. There was a cheder, yeshiva and a hospital at the main synagogue. There were few smaller synagogues. The Jewish theater and choir were popular with the local population. They also went on tours to the neighboring provinces.

My grandmother on my father’s side was also born in Ostrog. I don’t know her nee name – I only know that she was 7 years younger than my grandfather. My grandparents got married in the late 1870s – they had a traditional Jewish wedding with a huppah and there was also a rabbi at their wedding. They had a house of their own in Ostrog. I remember their photo where they were probably photographed at the beginning of ХХ century. My grandfather was a respectable gray-haired man with smiling eyes. He had a moustache and a small beard. He wore a dark suit and a black yarmulke on his head.  My grandmother was a fat serious woman with thick fair hair wearing a dark dress. My grandmother was a housewife. My grandmother and grandfather were religious. They raised their children religious and my father and brother and grandparents often went to the synagogue together.  The family observed Jewish traditions and celebrated holidays.

My father Gersh Kryshtal was born in 1878 He had a brother and few sisters. His brother Michael and sister Sonia were a little younger that my father. My father told me that his brother sang at the synagogue when he was a small boy and his sister was very handy – she could saw and knit. I don’t know anything about my father’s younger sisters.  My father went to cheder when he was three. He enjoyed studying, but he didn’t continue his studies and after finishing cheder he began to assist his father with his trading business. My grandfather died in early 1900s and my grandmother died in 1920s. After my grandfather died my father moved to Zaslavl, near Ostrog in Volyn. [In 1910 the town was renamed to Iziaslav]. I don’t know for what reason they moved.  In few years he opened a store there. In 1905 my father bought a two-storied house in the central square. I don’t know how he met my mother, but they got married in 1906. My mother told me that they had a Jewish wedding: there was a huppah in the yard of my mother parents’ home and there were kleizmers playing.  There were many guests. 

My mother Liya Gontar was born in 1887in Zaslavl – a small picturesque town near Ostrog in Volyn located in the hilly area. Jews constituted about half of population – there were about 300 hundred Jewish families. Jews were mostly involved in crafts and trade. There were few synagogues and cheder in the town. The majority of Jewish families lived in the central part of the town. The majority of population was Ukrainian – they were cattle breeders and lived in the outskirts of the town. There were also Polish families in the town. There were no conflicts between national communities – people got along well with one another and supported each other. A catholic cathedral, church and synagogues were very harmonious in the central square. Her father Israel Gontar was also born in Zaslavl in 1850s. I’ve seen him on a photograph. He was a big man with fair eyes, gray hair and a thick beard of average length. He wore a yarmulke.  My mother told me that my grandfather was a tradesman, but I don’t know what exactly he did.  My grandmother Rachel Gontar was born in a small town near Zaslavl in 1860s. I remember that she wore a kerchief, traditional for Jewish women. I also remember her kind smile.  She lived in the family of her son Bencion, my mother’s older brother. It was also customary for Jews that parents lived with their sons’ families. My grandmother was religious – she lit candles on Friday evening and said a prayer over them. She only ate kosher food, celebrated all Jewish holidays and attended a synagogue. 

My mother was the youngest daughter in the family. Her brother Bencion died when I was very young. I don’t know whether my grandmother had other children. I remember that Bencion had a wife and two daughters: Ida and Polia and two sons: Buzia and Shulim. Ida got married after the war. She lived in Ivano-Frankovsk. She has a daughter Raya: in 1970s they moved to Philadelphia, USA. Ida died in 1990s. We don’t correspond with Raya. Polia moved to Kiev in 1930s. She got married after the war and had two children: a daughter and a son – I don’t remember their names. In 1970s Polia and her children moved to Los-Angeles. She died in 1990s. Buzia, an older son, was wounded during the war. After the war he was shop superintendent at a plant in Kiev.  He is a very nice man. His wife Dusia was an imperious woman. Their son Boria was born in 1950. He graduated from mechanic technical faculty of Moscow University. Dusia was a spoiled and jealous woman. She and Buzia got divorced. Buzia remarried and had another son – I don’t remember his name. Buzia, his 2nd wife and their son live in Haifa and Boria and his family lives in Jerusalem – he is a well-known scientist.  Shulim and his family also live in Israel, but I don’t know anything about them. 

My father and mother lived in the center of the town where they had a haberdashery store that occupied a part of their two-storied house. In 1908 their older daughter Fira was born. Before her there were stillborn twins. In 1911 my brother Samuel was born, in 1914 Faina, in 1916 Riva and I was born in 1922. The revolution of 1917 didn’t bring any changes into my parents’ life. Our family continued to live in a big house with a front and a backyard entrance. There was a big and fancy front door that led into a corridor, then to the kitchen with a big stove and to the backyard. There were lilac bushes (white, lilac and purple) in the yard and a nice orchard. We were a wealthy family. We had a housewife – Marta, a German woman. I remember her singing me German songs. I could understand German. My mother tongue is Yiddish, but we also spoke Russian and Ukrainian at home.

Growing Up

On the first floor we had 3 big rooms with high ceilings. Riva and I lived in one. We had carved wooden beds. There was also a desk and a wardrobe with carved doors. We also had a small corner where our dolls lived. Martha lived in another room. The biggest room was a living room with light flowered walls and goldish curtains on the windows. There was a light cupboard with fancy dishes in it and a long table with chairs around it upholstered with silk of the color of faded leaves. We had electricity. I also remember a big chandelier with three shades on the lamps. Samuel, Fira and Faina lived on the 2nd floor. 

Our parents were religious: on Friday my mother lit a candle, my father said a prayer and the family sat down to a festive dinner. My mother made delicious kigeleh – “dumplings’ in Yiddish – from potatoes, flour or matsah. We also had chicken broth. On Saturday morning my parents went to the synagogue and when they returned the family had a rest: we read books – fiction on the most, had a festive dinner and sometimes my parents’ friends came to see us. On Saturday my father, my mother and Samuel went to the synagogue. We had an old Bible and Torah in Russian and in Hebrew with beautiful pictures. I enjoyed reading the Torah in Russian. I don’t remember going to the synagogue. There were few synagogues in Iziaslav  - one of them was near my grandmother’s house in the old town where many Jewish families resided.

We celebrated all Jewish holidays at this table. I especially remember Pesach. One day before the holiday Martha took fancy dishes from the attic: plates with lovely patterns big plates with a blue pattern. I also remember a silver wine glass and other glasses. The house was thoroughly cleaned and any breadcrumbs were removed.  On Seder my father put on his thales with wide black and yellow stripes and sat at the head of the table.  My mother sat beside him and the children were sitting around the table.  I enjoyed looking for matsah hid in the pillows to get it so that my father didn’t notice. We ate matsah, clear soup with kigeleh, Gefilte fish, forshmak [herring] and tsymes – stewed carrots or pumpkin with milk. 

I joined Martha to go to the market in the center of the town. I remember women in white aprons selling dairy products. I was a small girl and didn’t ask which food was kosher and which was not, but I know for sure that at that time there were only kosher products at home.  There was meat, fruit and berries sold at the market. On the bank of Goryn there was a Bernadine cathedral. It was a Polish neighborhood in Iziaslav.

In 1928 my grandmother Rachel died and my mother was grieving much after her. Shortly after my grandmother died our well being broke to pieces. We were ordered to move out of our house. I was only 7 years old and have only dim memories of the event. It happened in 1929 and now I understand that NKVD confiscated our house and store. We had never seen our father nervous before, but when it happened he became rather irritable. Martha disappeared all of a sudden. I couldn’t understand what was happening. We moved to the outskirts of the town. My father rented a small apartment of one room and kitchen. Our landlady – Basia Belous, a Jewish woman, was a dressmaker.  She had two daughters: daughter Gusta and son Munia. They were a nice hardworking family. Gusta got married before the war and moved to Shepetovka, but in 1941 her family was killed by Germans. Our life changed dramatically since we moved. My mother baked bread by herself and we rode a horse-driven cart to buy food products in a village. My father didn’t have a job and we were constantly hungry. We dropped observing Jewish traditions or celebrating holiday. Authorities struggled against religion (1), and we were scared of these authorities – we didn’t quite know what to expect from them.

After we moved I fell ill with scarlet fever and we didn’t have any medications. My mother gave me warm water with milk. This has become my main medicine – if I get ill I have some warm water with milk.  Scarlet fever resulted in problems with kidneys that I’ve suffered from ever since.

My mother had a stroke and was confined to bed when she was only a little over 40. Riva and I stayed with our parents – the other children moved to other locations. Riva and I were responsible for housekeeping. Riva used to say: “O’K – I will knit you a hat and you wash the floor." Faina became a schoolteacher in a school near Iziaslav when she was 16.  Fira finished an accounting school and worked as accountant at the Wapniarka station – office of Odessa railroad. 

My brother Samuel and his friend Motia Precizen went to work at the Crimean metallurgical plant in 1928. My brother studied at the Railroad College by correspondence. He graduated and went to work at the railroad shops near protection of the Virgin nunnery in Kiev. He rented a room in 15, Pokrovskogo Street in the center of the city. He must have told his Jewish landlords about his life and that his mother was very ill. There were more medical opportunities in Kiev and my father, Samuel and sisters decided to move to Kiev. 

There was an annex in the yard of the house where Samuel lived. He refurbished it and our family moved in there from Iziaslav. This happened in 1933 during famine (2), and the situation was more favorable in Kiev. For us a piece of bread and a glass of milk was royal food. Of course, the situation was very tough, but I can’t remember that we were starving, but people in villages were starving to death.

In 1929 I went to Ukrainian secondary school. There were small classrooms at school and many pupils. The school was far away and in winter younger children were taken by older ones on sleighs. We learned to read and write in Ukrainian at school. After the war I met with my classmates in Chernovtsy. In the second form I became a pioneer, but I don’t remember any involvement in the pioneer activities. There were quite a few Jewish children in our class, but there was no anti-Semitism. I studied 4 years at this school.

My father constructed another room to our room, but we still didn’t have enough space. Our father was very hardworking. I remember going to a village near Kiev with him. He was purchasing leather for leather industry. Shortly after we moved to Kiev my mother had another stroke and again she had to stay in bed. At that time Fira divorced her husband came back from Wapniarka to take care of her mother. Faina resided in a very small room in a communal apartment in Luteranskaya Street in the center. Soon my brother married a Jewish woman, her name was written as Ginda in her passport, but she was commonly called Donia.  He moved to his wife in Smirnov-Lastochkin Street. Samuel studied in Kiev Industrial Institute by correspondence. He began to work there as a worker and reached a position of superintendent at the Mechanic plant.  Faina entered Financial Economic Institute. She studied well and got a job at the Ministry of Finance.  She often went on business trips to Rovno. Riva entered Chemical technological Institute – she studied and worked as a pioneer leader at school  in Artyom Street. Riva married Motia Precizen, Samuel’s friend - he finished military college. He had a room in the building for military on the corner of Proreznaya and Kreschatik. Before the war Motia was sent to Peremyshl and Riva had to give up her studies at the Institute and go to Peremyshl.  

I went to the fifth form at school #21. It was a Ukrainian school.  It was an old and beautiful building with high halls and big windows. Later our school moved to another building in Chekhov Lane. I was fond of languages and liked Russian and Ukrainian classes.  Our class tutor Maya Afanasievna was a very nice woman.  Later she went to work in a different school in Artyom Street. I always protected the weak ones in my class. My classmate Lilia was a not quite fond of studying. Once she failed at an exam. Other children that were not quite strong were more resourceful, including my friend Fania Wolfman, and managed at the exam. Our class had a meeting where Lilia was reprimanded for her poor performance. I couldn’t stand injustice and spoke at the meeting telling them the truth. Fania was angry with me, but later she forgave me. Later, when I worked at the editor’s house, I helped many people that asked me for help. My other close friend beside Fania was Nadia Belan. We were friends after the war, too. There were Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish children in my class – we got along very well and never cared about national origins. I spent my summer vacations in town – we went to the river to swim or walked in parks. We were poor and my parents couldn’t afford to pay for my vacations elsewhere. I never left home before 1941. 

In 1938 when I turned 16 I received a passport. I was commonly called Zhenia, and at home I was seldom called Sheindlia. I decided to keep my Jewish name in the passport and I am very proud of it.

My mother was ill and we took her to sanatorium 4 and to the railroad hospital, but in vain. She died in 1938 and was buried at Lukianovskoye Jewish cemetery.

In 1939 I finished school and decided to enter philology faculty in Kiev University. My classmates Alla Fisenko and Fania Wolfman also went to University. They finished school with honors and were in a privileged position, but I firmly decided for myself that I would fight for getting there.  I passed all exams successfully and entered the philology faculty of Kiev University. My Jewish classmates also entered higher educational institutions. There was no national segregation at that time.

When I was a 2nd year student we were trained to be medical nurses. The war was in the air.  We didn’t believe that Hitler could attack the Soviet Union. Newspapers and radio programs were convincing us that this could not happen.

During the War

When the war began on 22 June 1941 (3) students went to excavate trenches in the vicinity of Kiev. Soon evacuation was announced at the plant where my brother worked.  My father, Fira, Faina and I evacuated with Samuel’s family to Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan [about 4 thousand km from Kiev].  Our trip lasted for about two months. We went on freight train that was continuously bombed on the way. We went through Kuibyshev where Riva and her 6-months old daughter had to stop. Lilia got ill from exhaustion and had to stay in hospital for 6 months. Faina stayed in Kuibyshev with Riva to look after Lilia and Samuel, my father ad Fira went to Alma-Ata. 

I went to study in the university in Alma-Ata I wanted to continue studies at the faculty of philology. As for university, there was a university in each republic with a number of different faculties. During my studies I lived in the hostel in Alma-Ata-2 – that was the center of the town and Alma-Ata-1 was in the outskirts of the city. My father and Fira lived in Alma-Ata-1 (the city of Alma-Ata was administratively divided into two parts: Alma-Ata-1 and Alma-Ata-2).  On weekends I walked 7 km to visit my relatives. Fira worked at the accounting office of the railroad and my father was her assistant.  In half a year Faina, Riva and Lilia came from Kuibyshev. Fira found a job at the Ministry of Finance. She got a room at a hostel not far from the hostel where I lived. Riva went to work at a kindergarten. She received letters from her husband – she knew that he was in a tank division at the front. His tank was burning once, but he survived.  Samuel, Donia and Israel lived separately and we didn’t keep in touch with them. Our Kiev University was evacuated to Kzyl-Orda in Kazakhstan. Lecturers from Moscow and Leningrad Universities were also in evacuation and taught at my University. I decided not to go to Kzyl-Orda, as there was a very high level of teaching at our University. There were students from all corners of the Soviet Union in our hostel: Rumania, Ukraine and Russia. We were young and didn’t focus on hardships – we were not starving and that was all right. We made soup with flour and water that we called zatirukha.  We had meals at the canteen. I took an active part in public activities. I always went to Komsomol meetings and was a political officer in our troops that were sent to do agricultural work.

I studied and worked at the radio committee in Alma-Ata and wrote about the situation at the front about Polish, Russian, Jewish and Ukrainian soldiers and their heroic struggle against fascist occupants.  

In 1944 I finished the university in Alma-Ata and continued my work at the radio committee until reevacuation was announced in 1945. How happy we were to come back home. There were fireworks on Victory Day of 9 May 1945 – people came out into the streets greeting each other on victory, crying and laughing.  We: my father and I, Fira, Faina, Riva, Lilia and Samuel with his family returned to Kiev by train via Moscow. The trip lasted 7 days. I went to the radio committee in Moscow and hoped to obtain a job assignment to Kiev, but they suggested that I addressed the radio agency in Kiev.

After the War

Our house was destroyed. My father found a small room in a basement in 9, Vorovskogo Street.  It was an awful dwelling, but we were glad to have a roof over our heads. Riva’s house was ruined during the war and Riva, her husband and Lilia moved to Germany and later – to the border with China in the Far East. Their second daughter Natasha was born there. Fira and Faina lived in Kiev after the war, but their personal life left much to be desired. Fira lived in Riva’s family for some time. She didn’t remarry. Faina gave birth to a daughter – Bella in 1954. Samuel, Donia and Israel also returned to Kiev and settled down in their previous apartment in Smirnov-Lastochkin Street. After the war their daughter Elizabeth was born. We call her Lialia. She was named after her grandmother – our mother’s name was Liya. 

I went to the radio committee – I thought I was a good journalist and my materials were valued highly in Moscow radio agency.  However, it was difficult for a Jew to get an employment – I was rejected. I addressed this issue to the Communist party Central Committee – how naïve I was thinking that they might help. I heard that the Regional Police agency was looking for a teacher of the Russian language.  I submitted my documents and in some time they sent me their request to visit them regarding my employment issue.  I became a Russian teacher and, as it usually happens I also had a job offer from a popular Ukrainian newspaper ‘Youth of Ukraine”. I began to work in newspaper.

There was little food after the war, but we were young and took it easy. In 1947 we received food coupons and rationed food, but it was all right with us. 

I went on business trips as correspondent and then I got an offer to go to Chernovtsy as correspondent  [400 km from Kiev]. I made tours of Stanislavskaya and Chernovitskaya region. There were Jews in these villages and I didn’t face any anti-Semitism. I lived in a rabbi’s house in Chernovtsy. He was in the ghetto during the Holocaust with his wife and daughter. They had to go through terrible hardships, but they survived.  I lived in the room that formerly belonged to the rabbi’s family and they were not happy to have another tenant. The rabbi was a short man wearing a yarmulke, his wife was a short woman, too. The synagogue was closed and they constantly prayed at home. I viewed them as vestige of the past. I met with Tania – my former roommate in Alma-Ata. She lived nearby. She knew the rabbi’s family and told them that they didn’t have to fear anything and that I was a Jew – how happy they were.  They began to treat me in a different way. I had a telephone installed in my room and got an opportunity to transmit my materials to editor’s office in Kiev. 

I didn’t stay in Kiev long. I replaced Irina Shkarovskaya, head of the department of studying young people. Irina got a new job at the “Barvinok” magazine in Kiev and recommended me to her former position. This position had to be approved by the Komsomol Central Committee. I was a Komsomol leader and had a good reputation. I was approved and began head of the department: I wrote about schools and higher educational institutions.

At the end of 1947 Shabsai Khandros, (he was generally called Sasha) returned from the construction of automobile factory. He became head of the department of propaganda in the “Youth of Ukraine” newspaper. I transmitted my materials to him by phone. This was how we met.  We had food coupons and went together to have meals at the canteen in 22, Vorovskogo Street. He began to court me – he brought me a little food to the train when I was going on business one day.  Or he would put an orange into my desk when oranges where hard to get. Sasha was a taciturn man and when he said something it was interesting and smart. We began to date and built up very warm relationships.  

In 1948 our father died at the age of 69. We buried him near the Babiy Yar in Lukiyanovskoye cemetery (4). In 1980s authorities planned to build a TV center at the area where the cemetery was located and some people moved their ancestors’ graves to the Jewish corner (area 49) on Baikovoye cemetery, the central cemetery in Kiev. While my father was alive we tried to stick to the Jewish traditions: we celebrated Pesach and my father fasted at Yom Kippur, but after he died we lead a life like any other ordinary Soviet family. 

In 1949 Sasha got a problem during his night shift at the printing house - the central committee of the Communist party discovered a typo in the newspaper.  This happened during the period of struggle against cosmopolitism (5) and the Central Committee insisted that he was dismissed. He was deeply upset about it and we all felt sorry for him, but his boss couldn’t help him, because they got instructions from higher authorities. Sasha was a war veteran and had an order of the Great patriotic War and few medals. He wrote letters to all newspapers looking for justice and even the “Komsomol Truth”, a most popular newspaper in the former USSR, published his letter, but there was nothing to do. His editor valued him high and gave him a job assignment in Donbass. He lived there at the hotel and we corresponded for whole year. Later our editor Mr. Statipko was promoted and replaced by Mr. Kolomiets, a former secretary for propaganda of the Chernovtsy regional Party committee.  We worked together in Western Ukraine and developed nice relationships. Kolomiets was aware that Sasha and I were close and assured me that he would help. He helped to return Khandros to the propaganda department in Kiev, only Sasha couldn’t be restored on his former position. 

Our deputy editor kept telling me to join the party and said that he would give his recommendation. But during the period of struggle against cosmopolitism he changed his attitude dramatically. Once I joined a group of representatives of the Central Committee of Komsomol of Ukraine (headed by 2nd secretary Semichastniy) going to Stanislav region to monitor how they managed with their work with young people.  Zaslavskiy, our former deputy editor, asked me to take a letter to director of Stanislav garment factory: during the war Zaslavskiy, his wife and director of the factory were frontline friends. I called this woman when we arrived to tell her that I had a letter for her. She said that she would be happy to see me, only she couldn’t invite me home, because it was so cold in her house and there were no utilities functioning.  We decided to meet at a restaurant, she ordered schnitzel and coffee and I gave her the letter.  On the following day I came to the café where our group was having dinner and said “hallo” to Semichastniy. He smiled and said “Well, well, we’ve come here to criticize director of the factory and you, a Komsomol secretary and a journalist, meet with him at the restaurant?”  - these people had their informers everywhere. I went to see him in his office later to explain that a frontline friends of director of the factory asked me to give them a letter. He smiled and said “Well, I understand, but you know how wicked ideas people can have”. When I returned to Kiev deputy editor that was also secretary of the Party organization asked me in his office and said “Here we criticize director of the factory for his failure to organize work with young people and our correspondent enjoys herself in a restaurant with them!”  This happened during the period of struggle against cosmopolitism and my boss could accuse me of “slackening of political awareness”, but fortunately, it didn’t happen. Semichastniy was a decent man and didn’t pay attention to this event.

After Sasha returned to Kiev in 1949 we got married. Since we were both journalists I decided against changing my last name to my husband’s and remained Krishtal. After the civil ceremony our colleagues arranged a wedding party for us in the office. They bought a bottle of champaign and changed the sign “Champaign” to Komsomol youth wedding #1” and also glued our photos on the label.  They also gave us a beautiful set of dishes made in Czechoslovakia – I still have 3 pieces from it.  So, we celebrated our Komsomol youth wedding in our basement in Vorovskogo Street. 

My husband Shabsai Khandros was born in Kiev in 1913. Due to residential restrictions the Khandros family lived in Demeevka, a neighborhood in the vicinity of Kiev (6). Sasha’s great grandfather served in the tsarist army for 25 years – he was a cantonist (7). Cantonists were often forced to convert to Christianity, but his great grandfather didn’t do it. They were a purely Jewish family.  Sasha’s parents lived in two small rooms in a one-storied building. His father Joseph Khandros died in evacuation during the Great patriotic war. I don’t know what he did for a living. His mother’s name was Rachel.  Sasha’s older sister Sonia lived in Moscow. Her husband was editor of a military newspaper before the war. He went to the front when the Great Patriotic war began and perished at the front in Byelorussia. His parents were revolutionaries; they lived in Russia and held high official posts. During the war Sonia and her daughter Ira were in evacuation in Siberia and after the war her deceased husband's family helped her to get a job at a plant in Moscow. She worked at technical; archives department. She was a very smart woman.

My husband worked at a shoe factory in Kiev before the war. He was a smart man and often wrote articles about the life of workers. He sent them to newspapers.  He was noticed and employed by “Komsomolets of Ukraine” newspaper after the war this newspaper was renamed to “Youth of Ukraine”[a big all-Ukrainian weekly newspaper]. Before the war Sasha studied at the philology faculty in Kiev University. He was at the front during the war and became a Party member in the army. 

After the wedding we didn’t have a place to live. Sasha lived with his mother in two rooms that they were renting, his younger sister Zhenia lived in another room with her husband Zhenia and son Lyonia. I moved to my husband and we settled down in a small room.  Sasha needed a desk to write. He bought a desk that occupied three fourths of our room. We also had a narrow steel bed.  We didn’t observe any Jewish traditions. It wasn’t popular to lead a religious way of life and religiosity was persecuted.  Our landlady leased apartments in the house where we lived to Jewish families, so we had Jewish neighbors. 

This was the period of persecution of Jews, but we couldn’t speak our mind, even though we understood that there was much injustice. I would like to tell you the story of journalist Shmushkevich that worked for the “Stalin’s kinship” newspaper before the war.  During the war he was in captivity, but he managed to escape and struggled in the French resistance Movement. When he returned to his home country Soviet authorities put him in jail and we didn’t hear from him for a longtime. 

On 5 March 1953 Stalin died and there was mourning declared all over the country. People had to wear black armbands, there were meetings and many people were crying. There was terrible uncertainty about what was going to happen. Many people believed Stalin, but there were those, including Sasha and I that doubted his impeccability remembering 1937, cosmopolitism and  “doctors” case (9). After Stalin died the period of rehabilitation began and Smushkevich returned in two years’ time. People looked at him as at an enemy. Only after the closed ХХth Party Congress (9) in 1956 the Party decisions were announced at closed party meetings. The cult of Stalin was denounced, but it was still not safe to speak about it openly. Sasha was a member of the Party and told me confidentially about the situation.

In 1954 our son Yura was born. We had no comforts: no gas or running water. My sister Faina managed to exchange our room in the basement to a 12-square-meter room on the corner of Saksaganskogo and Tarasovskaya Street, one of central neighborhoods in Kiev [central districts of towns are more prestigious to live at due to more extensive infrastructure, public transportation, closeness to work.]. Later she received a room in a communal apartment in Kirov Street and we could have her room in Saksaganskogo Street at our disposal.  Our neighbors were the family of Dunayevskiye – very nice people.  The father of the family worked at the railroad department. His wife was paralyzed and he looked after her, but their son was a rascal. The Dunaevskiy family lived in a bigger room with a balcony and we resided in a smaller room. There was another Jewish family in this apartment. We got along well with our neighbors except for the son of Dunayevskiy. He treated his parents badly and I could hardly stand injustice, as usual.  

Young journalists came to work in our newspaper. They were very young that had a long road ahead of them to accumulate some experience, but they brought in national rows that I couldn’t live in piece with. Our editor was anti-Semite and wished to get rid of me. I complained to the Central Committee of Komsomol – they knew me and I needed their protection. I stayed at work, but I lost my position of head of department.  A University graduate held my position, but I had to do all work by myself. We hired a baby sitter for our son – a very nice woman, but she quit. We hired another one, but she wasn’t quite suitable and we decided that it was better for me to quit work and stay at home. My husband kept his job, because he was a veteran of the war and had worked in this newspaper for many years. I became a part-time correspondent in 1955 for the “Socialist culture” and “Pravda” newspapers. 

The Central Committee of the Party founded the “Rabochaya Gazette” and Sasha was recommended to this newspaper as one of the best journalists. His colleague Elena Riabukha said to me once: “You know how people call your husband? They call him tsadik – he is so very special”.  This is exactly what Sasha was like: smart, intelligent and decent.  The “Rabochaya Gazette” became a trade union organ and they began to build a house for their employees in Vinnitskaya Street. In 1962 we received a two-room apartment on the 1st floor in this home. We were so happy to have an apartment of our own – and the neighborhood was very nice, quiet, green and located near the center of the city.

I worked part-time for almost 9 years. It was convenient – my husband often went on business trips and I stayed at home to look after our son. I used to write at night. When our son went to the 2nd form at school I went to work for “Sviatoshinskaya Gazette”: I was a corrector, editor, correspondent and I also went on business trips. Our friends visited us sometimes – we had tea and various discussions. We didn’t celebrate Soviet holidays – we usually worked on these days, and, besides, they weren’t so important for my husband and me.  My husband and I went to theaters, cinema and read foreign and Russian classical books. 

Yura was a smart and nice boy. He studied at Ukrainian school #115. Yura was fond of mathematic. After finishing the 8th form he heard about admission to school #145 with deeper study of mathematic and physics. This school was within the structure of Kiev State University. Their teachers were at the same time lecturers in the University and best pupils were admitted to the university without exams after finishing school. He didn’t tell us a word, went there and passed entrance exams. He was admitted to school.  He took part in various mathematical contests and once took the first place in Olympiad of Moscow University. He got an official invitation to study at the University. In  1971 Yura finished school and submitted his documents to Mechanical Physical Faculty of Moscow University. He knew that it was hard to get there without bribes or acquaintances, but he went to take exams.  We didn’t have any money to bribe people and we didn’t have any acquaintances. Yura failed to enter Moscow University and submitted his documents to Kiev University. He got a “four” in mathematic, although he gave correct answers. I went to the dean of the faculty and demanded that they founded a commission. The commission checked his test – it was correct. The dean told me to take it easy since it didn’t matter much whether he got a “four” or “five”.  But Yura was admitted as an evening student.  It meant that he was subject to mobilization to the army after the first year. The dean promised me to transfer Yura to the daytime course after the first year. But what happened was that he transferred another student to the daytime course and I decided to talk to the rector. I didn’t tell Yura about my plans – he had a strong character and might not allow me to go. I talked to the rector – no results. I lost me temper and called him an anti-Semite. He said he was going to call the police. “Yes, call the police – I am staying here, but you do not transfer my son, because he is a Jew”. He didn’t call the police, but he didn’t transfer my son to the daytime course either. 

Yura served in the Navy in Severomorsk. He has been in the North Pole. 

I worked as editor at the technical information department of the Ministry of timber and logging industry in Kreschatik. I went on tours to all forestries in Ukraine, including the Carpathian Mountains.  When I was about 50 I fainted at a meeting and was sent to neurological clinic. My eyesight became worse. I became an invalid of the third category. At 51 I was classified as an invalid of the 2nd category and it gave me the right to retie before term. When my condition improved I continued to write as part-time correspondent and worked at the Ukrainian Association of blind people. I worked 39 years in total.

Yura returned home in 3 years. He matured in the army. 

Yura studied at the University and worked at the design office of the Ministry of Agriculture.  He met a candidate of seines from the Institute of cybernetics. He told a doctor of sciences from this Institute about Yura. This doctor of sciences invited Yura to work at the Institute. Yura met his future wife Luda there. She is Ukrainian and had a son before she met Yura. Yura doesn’t have any children. Of course, I wanted him to marry a Jewish woman. And have children of his own, but it turned out differently.  Luda is a nice woman and they live well and this is most important for me.

In 1978 my brother Samuel’s son moved to Boston, USA. Samuel’s daughter Lialia married a Russian man. She has a son – Alyosha, but she divorced her husband. Samuel passed away in 1980 – he was a very intelligent and responsible man. We buried him in the Jewish corner in Berkovtsy cemetery. Lialia moved to Israel shortly afterward and his wife Donia lives in Kiev with her elderly mother.  

My sister Faina’s daughter Bella was ill with asthma and they moved to Israel in 1991 to have an opportunity to give Bella a proper treatment. Riva’s daughter Lilia moved to Israel from Petrovo-Dalnee in Podmoscoviye  where she worked as children’s doctor. Her husband Yulik worked at the construction of a big power plant and when it was completed they moved to Israel.  Lilia has fluent Hebrew and works as a doctor at a trade school.  Lilia observes Jewish traditions: she lights candles on Friday and attends a synagogue.  Her son Zhenia turned 32. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Haifa and works in the Navy. He is a tall and handsome young man. He is single.  

In 1995 my husband and I received a two-room apartment in Kharkovskiy neighborhood in the outskirts of Kiev.  My son and his family live in our old apartment. We were so happy to get this apartment, but Sasha didn’t long afterward – he passed away in 1996. We buried him at Lesnoy cemetery  - there are no Jewish corners there. Fira died one year later. She was buried at Jewish corner near her parents' grave. 

In 1996 I visited Israel. I enjoyed my stay there and admired the beauty of the country, but I never thought of leaving Kiev - my home, my friends and my job. I met with my relatives – they are well settled. I am happy for Faina – Bella likes it there. They live in Kiriat-Ono near Tel-Aviv. I saw Faina for the last time – she passed away 4 years ago.

My sister Riva died in 1999- she was buried in Chernovtsy.

I am very happy that my son lives in Kiev and often comes to see me. Lilia and Bella call from Israel. I often call my former colleagues, but I feel lonely in this place without my husband. It is hard for me to go outside. I receive packaged food every month from Hesed.  They arrange lectures and concerts in Hesed, but I can’t go there by bus – I get sick.  Many Jews of my age have come back to the Jewish culture: they attend synagogues and celebrate Jewish holidays. I take an interest in the Jewish culture and history, but I don’t go to the synagogue; my husband and I didn’t attend synagogues, as it was difficult for us to change our attitudes.  

I receive 59 hrivna of pension and my son supports me. I like to do the house myself. My friends visit me every now and then and we discuss the latest news. Life goes on.

Glossary:

Herta Vysna
Slovakia

Family Background and Growing Up

During the War

After the War

Family Background and Growing Up

I was born in 1930 in Nitra, Slovakia, a town only 7 kilometers from the former labor camp in Sered. I lived with my parents and brother on our estate. I started school in Sered; however, as soon as the anti-Jewish legislation was introduced, my parents transferred me to Trnava, where I lived with friends of my family.

My father, Bernhardt Wohlstein, was born in 1888 in Sulovace. He had three brothers: Viliam, Gustav and Adolf. Their father, Samuel Wohlstein, was born in Krnca in 1860. Their mother’s name was Katarina.

My mother, Renata Schubertova-Wohlsteinova, was born in Cataj in 1900. Her brother was named Julius, and her sister was Melania, who married Mr. Kulko. Her parents were Maximilian and Lolka Schubert.

My parents were married in 1920; they died in the concentration camp at Birkenau.

During the War

I witnessed several pogroms in Trnava. I saw Slovak Hlinka guards cruelly attacking and beating Jews as they left the local synagogue. In the spring of 1942, the deportations started; my parents decided it would be safer for me to be at home with them, and they brought me back.

Our estate and farm were formally Aryanized by a deputy of the Slovak parliament. He was a Lutheran and was very decent to my family. Hlinka guards attempted to round us up three times; finally, they succeeded in taking us to the Sered labor camp but, thanks to our protector, we were released.

As the situation got worse, my father decided to take the family to Bratislava and stay there illegally. We lived in one room, and my father pretended every morning that he was leaving for work. In fact, he spent the whole day near the Danube. After the air raids started, we had to hide in the cellar. We had been hiding in that room and had never been seen leaving before then. The house residents recognized us as strangers, and someone immediately reported our presence to the Gestapo. We were caught once again and again deported to the labor camp in Sered. After spending some time in Sered, we were deported to Birkenau, where my parents died. I survived the death march and was liberated by partisans in Czech Vrchlabi.

After the War

After liberation, I came to Bratislava where I went to the Red Cross office to search for my parents and relatives. I learned that only my brother survived. I went with him to Pata and stayed there for some time. Then I moved to Bratislava, married Lorand and had two daughters, Dagmar and Lydia.

Now I am retired and involved in Jewish community life, particularly helping elderly survivors of the Holocaust.

Sarrah Muller

Kiev

Ukraine

Interviewer: Tatiana Chaika

Date of interview: June 2002

Sarrah Muller lives with her daughter Inna Lisovaya’s family in a three-bedroom apartment in Obolon, one of new districts in Kiev. Sarrah is a short thin woman with bright black eyes. She opens the door for me and tells me that she hasn’t slept all night thinking about our meeting and her life. The apartment is full of light and cozy. There are Inna’s pictures on the walls and the toys she’s made on the bookshelves. Inna, a thin woman with big eyes is also present during our conversation and takes part in it.  She adds to her mother’s story and tells me a lot about herself and her father.

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

My family came from Western Ukraine, the town of Kamenets-Podolskiy [about 400km from Kiev], an old town near the Romanian border. It’s a small town that has developed at the interfaces between different cultures. It has been a multinational town and absorbed all these cultures. There was a Christian church, a Catholic church, a Greek and an Armenian churches in the Old Town near the building of the Town Hall with an old clock on it. There were also two synagogues in this spot – located across the street from one another: the synagogue of tailors and the synagogue of shoemakers. My maternal grandfather Avraam Melzer went to the big, beautiful, and decorated with old stained glass patterns, located on the steep bank of the Smotrich River, since his childhood.  He was born to the family of a tailor in the 1860s and became a popular tailor in the town. His wife, my grandmother Sarrah, whose maiden name I don’t know, was also born in Kamenets-Podolskiy around the same period as my grandfather. My grandmother was a housewife that was common for Jewish families. The Melzer house was in the lower town. This neighborhood was called Karavassary, the district of merchants, craftsmen and balagula cabmen. My grandfather was working from morning till night. My mother told me that he started his day from a morning prayer with his tallit and tefillin on and went to the synagogue. On Saturday and on holidays my grandmother and the children went with him.

My mother was the youngest in the Melzer family. Avraam and Sarrah Melzers had three sons and two girls besides her. They called my mother Tsina. Including her, there were six children in the family. The boys were given primary education and the girls had no education at all: my grandfather probably believed that the girls didn’t need any education and that they only had to learn to be a good mother and housewife. My mother’s older brothers Mordukhai and Benesh, born in the early 1880s, moved to America some time in 1901 or 1902, and there were no contacts with them afterward. Their third son Gedali was my grandfather’s apprentice. When WWI began, and there were trains with the wounded military going through Kamenets-Podolskiy, Gedali, who was to be recruited to the army, lost his mind from fear that he might be one of them. Shortly afterward he died from mental illness in the hospital.   

My mother’s oldest sister Ita lived in Kamenets-Podolskiy. She and her husband Gershl Nudelmann had ten children. Ita’s oldest daughter Clara and middle daughter Tsylia married military men who were on service in Makhachkala [today Dagestan Autonomous Republic within Russian Federation] in Central Asia. Clara married David Muhmacher and Tsylia married Ziama Slutskiy. They and their sisters Braina and Sonia, who joined their sisters in Makhachkala at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War 1 survived in the war. David and Ziama were at the front and returned home after the war. Tsylia and her children and younger sisters Braina and Sonia were in evacuation in Stalinabad [today Dushanbe, Tajikistan]. After the war they returned to Makhachkala. Clara died from cancer in the early 1950s, her sisters passed away in the middle of the 1980s and Tsylia died recently in Israel. Tsylia’s son Roman, born in the middle of the 1930s, lives in Moscow region. He has a Russian wife. Semyon, who was born with his twin-brother, lives in Voronezh. His twin brother died shortly after he was born in 1942. Only Ita of Clara’s four children, born after the war and named after her grandmother, who had perished during the Holocaust, is living now. Ita’s daughter Tuba (everybody called her Tania 2) married a journalist from Birobidzhan 3. In June 1941 she came to Kamenets on vacation with her little son, when the Great Patriotic War began. Ita and her husband and Tuba and her son perished in the shooting of Jews in 1941. Ita’s sons Isaac and Heva perished at the front. Only Ita’s son Gershl returned from the war and lived in Voronezh.  

My mother’s younger sister Huva married a Romanian Jew in the early 1900s and moved to Romania. Her husband was a baker and owned a bakery. Before the Revolution of 1917 4 my mother visited her sister in Romania several times. After the Civil War 5 Huva’s family happened to be living abroad. This is all information we had about Huva. Most likely, they all perished during the Holocaust. 

My mother Tsyna Melzer, the youngest in the family, was born in 1888. She didn’t get any education and was helping her mother about the house since she was a child. In 1902 my mother also was about to leave her parents’ home. Her fiancé, a Jew from Kamenets-Podolskiy, whose name I don’t remember, had emigrated to America a year before and grew rich. He prepared all necessary documents for my mother to travel to America and even sent his people to meet her on the border. Everything was ready for their wedding on this distant continent, but grandmother Sarrah, who wanted to keep mother at home, said that if she left home, she would throw herself into a well. So, my mother daring not to disobey her parents refused her fiancé and stayed with grandfather and grandmother. In 1904 she married my papa.

My papa Avrum Halfin, born in 1887, arrived at Kamenets-Podoskiy from nearby Khotin. He was a hereditary baker – my grandfather Motl Halfin, who was the same age as my maternal grandfather, owned a bakery in Khotin and provided well for his family and he believed himself to be a lord. He didn’t work actually, letting his wife Haya and their sons to do all work. All day long he would have strolled around the synagogue wearing a three-piece suit and having his expensive stick in his hand. Motl greeted all Jewish passers-by and particularly tried to draw attention of wealthier Jews to his person. In the evening Motl made a summary of how many people he greeted during the day and who gave him what answer.

I don’t know how my parents met, but there was no shadkhan involved. The Halfin’s family was not happy with Avrum’s choice. Of course, they were not: a rich son married a poor tailor’s daughter. Their wedding took place in Kamenets-Podolskiy in 1904. Shortly after the marriage grandfather Motl left his family and moved to America where his traces disappeared. Grandmother Haya remarried and lived with her husband in a village near Kamenets-Podolskiy. My father kept out of touch with her without explaining the reasons, and this is all I know about her. All I know about my father’s brothers and sisters is that four of them and their families perished during the Holocaust. Moisey, one of them, moved to Mexico in 1928 and also got lost.

My future parents settled down in Kamenets-Podolskiy with grandmother and grandfather Melzers.  My father went to work in the bakery and soon became one of the best bakers in the town making the most delicious and puffy rolls.  My father grew up in a religious family. He and my mother went to the synagogue of tailors, observed Jewish traditions and celebrated holidays.

In 1905 my parents’ first baby – my sister Basia was born. After her my mother had miscarriages seven years in a row. Then, 8 yeas later, in 1913 my sister Ena was born and in 1915 – my brother Isaac. When WWI began, my father was recruited to Czarist army. He served for a shot while before he was captured by Austrians. My father enjoyed telling about how kind the Austrians, whom he worked for, were. My father returned home in 1917. In 1919 a boy was born and in 1920 – a girl, but they died shortly after they were born. This was the hard period of the civil war and pogroms 6. My grandfather and grandmother Avraam and Sarrah Melzer perished in one of the biggest pogroms in early 1921. I don’t know any details – it was hard for my mother to talk about it.  When I was born in March 1921, I was named after my deceased grandmother Sarrah.

Growing up

I was born in the midst of sorrow and devastation. In 1924, in the same month, when my older sister Basia married Bencion Vizrabin (she also had a Jewish wedding) my younger sister Fira was born. Basia had a rich wedding. My father’s brothers from America sent a parcel with a wedding gown, a suit for the bridegroom and 100 dollars. This was the last time we heard from my father’s brothers. In the following ten years everything happened as it should in an Orthodox Jewish family: my mother and her oldest daughter Basia were giving birth to babies. My mother had two girls and a boy, but they died in infancy, regretfully. Feiga, one of the girls, died after I dropped her incidentally. I suffered from guilt for many years, but my mother was calming me down saying that these kids were weak from birth and destined to die. Basia had four kids before the war.

My first childhood memories go back to our small two-bedroom apartment in the center of the town that we rented.  Our family was very poor. One room was bigger, but the second one was dark and had no windows. The corridor served as a kitchen: there was a stove and a kerosene stove in it. In 1932 my sister Ena got married and her husband moved in with us. They lived in the dark room and we all plus their kids, who were born one after another, were gadding about in the bigger room. We slept on big iron beds. My father slept on a narrow couch in the corridor. Besides the beds, there was a big dinner table and a wardrobe in the room. The room was decorated with paper napkins – there were particularly many of them on the bookstand with textbooks. There were also old Jewish books on the bookstand: Siddur, Talmud and maybe Tannakh that grandfather Avraam left. My father liked reading books in Hebrew in the evenings. We must have been very poor since only the older children had more or less decent clothes. As for the others, the only places where we were dressed decently were school and the synagogue. We went to the synagogue with our parents on holidays.

My favorite holidays in my childhood were Pesach and Chanukkah, when it was very beautiful at the synagogue. There was a cantor singing, and I always associated attending the synagogue with a holiday. However, we stopped going to the synagogue in 1927, when my father was admitted to the party as a representative of the poor proletariat and we could not go to the synagogue. However, our life did not improve. I remember being often hungry, though we always had enough bread to eat.  Our family consisted of ten of us at that time. My mother put just a quarter of a chicken to make soup for the whole family and not a bit more. I remember how struck I was, when I visited my friend Elka and her parents gave her a quarter of a chicken and she didn’t want it, and her parents gave her money to make her eat it. Elka’s father Josef Lak wasn’t a communist. He made work robes selling them in Kamenets-Podolskiy and neighboring towns, but they were much better off than we. However, at the end of NEP 7, in 1928, Josef had to give away everything he had and he himself was sent away from the town nobody knew where.

My father, being a young communist and a promoted worker, was appointed director of a dining room for workers. My father was very honest and even during famine in 1932-33 8 he never ever brought anything home from his work. My mother begged him to bring at least soup leftovers, but he said that he wanted to sleep quietly and that he could not do any ‘machinations’.  His honesty was not appreciated at its true value. An audit discovered extra stocks and accused my father of theft and off-records of stocks. My father felt very hurt, threw his party membership card on their table and quit work. His party management came several times offering their apologies and asking him to resume his work, but he refused. My father became a baker and this probably rescued us during the famine.  We always had bread and also helped my older sister Basia, aunt Ita and even any person, who came in to beg for food. I remember my mother giving bread to a man from the street, who cried and kissed her hands. I saw the man again that night – only he was dead lying not far from our house. Early in the morning a special crew picked the dead and drove them to the cemetery where they were buried in common graves – Jews and Christians. 

After my father gave up his communist career, the family resumed observation of Jewish traditions.  We went to the synagogue on holidays, celebrated Sabbath at home and my father read his religious books again. However, I never saw him praying at home. We didn’t follow kashrut strictly either, though my mother or father never ate pork. As for the kids, we ate pork that our father’s Christian colleagues treated us to since we rarely had meat at home. As for the Sabbath celebration, it went like this: we went to school on Friday and Saturday, but when we came home, we entered a different world. There were challit, kicheleh and many other delicious things on the table that we never had on weekdays. For Pesach we had special kosher crockery and ate many dishes from matzah. We didn’t eat any bread through 8 days of the holiday. My father made ordinary and special egg matzah for the holiday and my mother made our favorite white cake. We particularly liked Kicheleh with matzah and potatoes. 

My first childhood friends were my cousin sisters, my mother sister Ita’s children: Tania, Tsylia and Zelda. Zelda, one of her ten children, was the closest to me, but she died in 1931. Ita and Gershl’s family was even poorer than ours. Gershl was a harness maker. He also made leather sandals and his older children were assisting him. At first he obtained a license for this work, but when it turned out that he didn’t make enough money to pay for the license, he decided to work without a license.  One of their neighbors reported on them and a financial inspector [state officer responsible for identification of illegal businesses] fined Gershl, but since they ha no money to pay the fine, they took away their belongings, which were few: all they had were iron beds with no bed sheets on them, a table and a bench and many pot plants. So they took these away. Gershl kept complaining saying that it was the Soviet power to blame and aunt Ita was calming him down pointing at their kids, who studied well, danced in a choreographic ensemble, and sang in the choir. She said it wasn’t possible during the old regime, and by the way, she was right.

So, we kept discovering the world with Ita’s children. We ran across the Old Town and knew it inside out, and also knew the old fortress in Kamenets. Residents of the town spoke Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech and Romanian, but we lived in the Jewish surrounding. I remember our janitor was Ukrainian. We only spoke Yiddish, and our non-Jewish friends also knew Yiddish.

All children in our family went to school. Isaac studied two years in a cheder and then went to the Jewish school. I went to the Jewish school in 10 minutes’ walk from our home right by a Ukrainian school in 1928. It was an ordinary Soviet school, but we studied in Yiddish. We didn’t have good practice in Russian and Ukrainian. I remember that our Russian teacher spoke Russian to us in our Russian classes and we replied in Yiddish. We had our textbooks in Yiddish. It was a secular school and we had no religious textbooks. I was the best pupil at school. I became a pioneer. During the period of famine pioneers went to gather spikelets and I was the best at gathering them. I was awarded a coat from a Joint 9 parcel. This was the first coat in my life. I had worn a thick woolen jacket that my mother knitted for me before.

Whatever poor we were we didn’t lose hearts. My father became a pace maker at his work. He developed a practice of baking twice as much bread using the same quantity of fuel. He was elected to the district deputy council. I remember how proud I felt, when workers carried his portrait at a 1 May parade. However, my father never resumed his membership in the party.

I was an active pioneer and Komsomol 10 member. I was even elected secretary of the Komsomol unit of school. I was fond of literature, theater and signing. We studied Jewish writers and poets Sholom Aleichem 11, Perez Markish 12,   Kvitko 13 at school. I was fortunate to have met these great people. When I was in the 5th form, I broke my leg sliding from a hill. After a surgery I got a free trip to the recreation center for the children of officials. They held me as an example at the recreation center, for I ate better than other children. There were other Jewish children there. I made friends with the daughter of the second secretary of the regional party committee (Kamenets was a regional town then) Tsylia Galperina. After we returned home, I often visited her at home, and her parents allowed me to pick anything I wanted in their garden. In their house I met Kvitko and Markish, who came there on vacation. On the next day I brought my school friend Gershl Pilin to read them his poems and they enjoyed listening to him.

I loved theater. There was an amateur Jewish theater in Kamenets-Podolskiy. Young people of all nationalities staged Jewish, Ukrainian and Russian classics in the ‘Sovrabotnik’ [Soviet worker] club. Sholom Aleichem’s ‘Tevie the milkman’ was the hit (my future second husband Wolf Muller and his brother Gershl also played in this theater). I watched their performances. I sang in the ensemble lead my Gurfinkel, a music teacher, in the club of the military unit deployed in the town. I had a very good voice, when I was young.  There were three violinists, a pianist and a tambourine player in the orchestra: eight musicians from the military units, ad we, 8 girls, sang. We mainly sang Jewish folk songs and Soviet Jewish patriotic songs. However, we had to attend rehearsals in secret to avoid Jewish scandal-mongers, who were not appreciative of young girls going to the military unit.  The patriarchal standards of the town were very strong. However, I need to mention here that we really became friends with the military guys and they treated us with much respect. 

In 1934 my brother Isaac moved to Birobidzhan, falling for the soviet propaganda in mass media and radio. They promised a lot, work and accommodation and provided traveling allowances to those, who agreed to go there. We didn’t receive letters from Isaac for almost half year. My mother was concerned and cried at nights. Then my father told mother and us that he was going to work in Dunayevtsy, a neighboring town, and went to Birobidzhan in search of his son. He got a job there. He worked as baker in a recreation center for over a month, but he couldn’t stay to live there: he was allergic to mosquitoes. My father went to Khabarovsk to go home from there. He spent all money he earned on medications and the trip. However, he bumped into Isaac in Khabarovsk. They returned home together and Isaac even had some money that he had earned with him. This was quite an event, when the family reunited. Isaac told us his bitter story about his hard life in Birobidzhan and that all those people, who went to live there, were actually told lies. 

In 1936 I finished the 7th form and had to quit school to go to work to help my parents. My uncle helped me to become an apprentice in a bank and soon I became an operator there. However, I had to improve my Russian, I realized. I learned Russian and Ukrainian in a short time. In 1939 I was sent for training in Odessa 14, and after finishing this course of training I became an instructor. I worked in the bank till 1941. I became secretary of the Komsomol unit and took an active part in public activities.

This was the period of Stalin’s arrests. My mother was very concerned about my father’s experience in the dining room and about having relatives in America. My parents never discussed the situation in the country with us. We even didn’t know that our distant relative became a victim during this period. My father’s cousin brother Anatoliy Havkin, chief engineer of the Solikamsk plant, was arrested and sentenced to ‘10 years without the right to correspondence’ that meant death sentence. His wife changed her surname back to her maiden’s name and came to her homeland with her 8-year old son to avoid arrest. This boy had no idea what happened to his father. His mother just told him she had divorced him. 

Many residents of Kamenets-Podolskiy were arrested. Some of them were accused of having been rich before the revolution, others – of ties with the Bund members 15 an Zionists 16, and somebody else of membership in Maccabi 17, the Zionist organization of young people in the town that existed in the 1920s. People went to sleep in fear that the ‘Black Raven’ (‘Black Mary’) [a special black car called ‘Voron’ – ‘raven’ in Russian, bringing trouble] would not miss their house that night. Fortunately, this disaster had no impact on our family.

I became very fond of cinema like many other young people. There was a big cinema theater named after Vuykov in our town, tickets cost 20 kopeck and we could afford to watch the movies that we liked 5-6 times. They were Soviet comedies ‘Circus’, ‘Merry Guys’ and others. There were also serious movies: ‘Professor Mamlock’ 18, a film about Nazis and Hitler’s hatred of Jews. I remember how deeply impressed we were, though older people, who remembered WWI, used to say this was the Soviet propaganda and that Germans could not be what they were shown like in this movie. Our teacher of music Gurfinkel believed Germans to be a very cultured nation. In 1939, when the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 19 was executed, the moves showing the truth about fascists disappeared from screens. Newspapers and radio talked about Hitler as a friend of the Soviet Union. This was at least strange, but at this young age I didn’t give much thought to such serious things, though there were many things happening to give an impulse to consideration. When Poland was occupied by fascists from the west and Soviet troops from the east 20 many refugees were coming from there. They were Polish Jews mainly. They didn’t know yet about future shootings of Jews and were escaping from Suppression: ghettos, barbed wire and a ban on trade. Many of these Jews settled down in Lvov [today Lviv, Ukraine], Lutsk, Rovno, and there were some in our town. Some Jews from western parts of Poland wanted to go back home – and were sent in the opposite direction – to Stalin’s camps, to the gulag 21. The convoys of them passed Kamenets-Podolskiy and I can still remember trucks full of people with bags and packs. Many of them perished in the camps, and only during the war the polish Government that escaped to London entered into an agreement with Stalin. The Polish survivors were released and formed the Polish army that was our ally in the war.

In 1940 I met David Herman, a young political officer of the Soviet army. David was born in our town in 1916. He finished the political School in Gorkiy, served in Western Ukraine and took part in the Finnish War 22. When the Finnish War was over, he came to his hometown on leave. I liked David very much, we began to see each other and he proposed to me. Our wedding took place in February 1941. I was the first one in our family to have no Jewish wedding. This was quite common at the time. Besides, my husband and I were convinced atheists, though we did have traditional Jewish food at the wedding party. Gurfinkel’s orchestra played at the wedding. 

I followed my husband to Lvov where he was on service. We lived in a small room in Grumbalsky Street. I liked Lvov, a cozy town with beautiful architecture. There was also sufficient Jewish population and a synagogue in Lvov. I particularly liked the Jewish theater that we visited several times. In May 1941 my husband was sent to Kiev and from there – to Starokonstantinov town in Vinnitsa region for the formation of tank units. I followed him to this town.

During the war

There I was in Starokonstantinov, when the Great Patriotic War began. On the first day of the war my husband went to the front. We hardly had time to bid farewells and he apologized for being with me for such a short period of time. He also said that the tanks and other plant were relocated for repairs and they were going to the front with rifles and about 7 bullets each. Two days later I received a message from my husband. A first sergeant brought the note where my husband wrote that he  hadn’t had a baptism of fire yet and asked me to love him and wait for him. I took my husband’s watch off my wrist and send it to him along with a note.  This was the last time I heard from my husband. Much later, in 1944, I received a notification from a military registration office that my husband David Hermann disappeared on the first days of the war. He must have perished shortly after we parted.

David’s sister, a schoolgirl from Kamenets-Podolskiy, was visiting with us at this time. She asked me to send her home and I found a truck driving to Kamenets-Podolskiy to take her home. I also wanted to go there to evacuate with my parents and sisters. I had no doubts about evacuation, not only because I was a Jew, but also – because I was the wife of a political officer and a Komsomol member. However, like everybody else, I thought it wasn’t going to be for long, a month or two at the maximum. One or two days after I sent my husband’s sister to Kamenets-Podolskiy my younger sister Fira arrived. I didn’t recognize her at once: a coal black girl approached me. It turned out my parents sent her for me and she traveled in a railcar with coal.  Fira told me that our sisters’ husbands Beniamin and Gershl went to the front. We failed to go to Kamenets-Podolskiy, though: there were no passenger trains going to the west, just military ones. So it happened that my parents and sisters stayed in the occupation: my parents, my sister Basia with her children Semyon, Israel, Sarrah and Shloime, sister Ena with her son and daughter Mania, my favorite, aunt Ita and uncle Gershl. My brother Isaac, who went to work in Groznyi in1939, was recruited to the army from there. Isaac perished on the first days of the war.

I evacuated in the train for the wives and children of officers of our unit. Fira was with me: I registered her as David’s sister, or she wouldn’t have been able to join me. We arrived at Troitsk town in Cheliabinsk region, 2500 km from home. The military registry office accommodated us in a room with six beds. There were four young women with no children sharing this room with us. I didn’t have pillows or blankets with me. We stuffed the mattresses with grass and life went on. We shared food and cooked together. Some time later some women found their relatives and went to live with them and others moved to another town. Fira and I went to live with local Jews. There were only three Jewish families in this town before the war and local residents didn’t know who Jews were. I went to work in a bank and later Komsomol authorities sent me to harvesting. We also worked in a hospital washing used gauze bandages. Later I went to work as a cashier in a shop where I worked till spring 1944. I faced clear anti-Semitism here for the first time in my life. My lady boss said she would be glad to exterminate all Jews, leaving me alone, though. She was good to me since I closed my eyes to her machinations. She was selling chocolate and butter that we received for children, took and gave bribes and made a fortune by the end of the war.

I sent Fira to a vocational school to study a profession. She was to become a communication operator, but instead, she got a job of an assembly mechanic of a freight train and according to the rules of the wartime she was considered liable to call up. He came to see me on weekends. I also met Jews from Kiev in Troitsk. Mostootriad, a bridge crew from Kiev with their chide Barenboim, a Jewish man, evacuated to Troitsk. I made friends with a Jewish woman who worked in the design office of this organization. We often discussed the news and our families in occupation. The first article of Erenburg 23 about atrocities of fascists was published and I understood that most likely, my dear ones were not among the living any longer.

My friends included me in the lists of Mostootriad employees, which enabled me to reevacuate to Kiev with them in March 1944. Fira was not allowed to quit her job and had to stay in Troitsk for this reason. I arrived in Kiev in April 1944. I stayed with some acquaintances in Gorky Street in Kiev. Kiev was bombed several times in April 1944.

In spring 1944  went to Babi Yar 24 with my landlords. They wanted to see where their relatives had been killed and I was drawn there irresistibly: I understood that my dear ones were lying in one of those ravines in Ukraine. We took a tram there. The slope of Babi Yar was covered with blooming trees – it was hard to believe there were thousands lying there. The ravine reminded of the tragedy: it was filled with concrete. Fascists wanted to eliminate the traces of their crimes incinerating the corpses and filling the pit with concrete. I was eager to go to my homeland. On 16 May 1945 I arrived at Kamenets-Podolskiy. According to local residents, during the first action in 1941  Ita, her husband and children, my sisters Basia and Ena with her son and little Manechka were killed. My father was to do the town maintenance work. He perished in spring 1942, during the second action. Our house was ruined. There were our belongings scattered on the ashes:  remains of my mother’s favorite kerchief, sodden photographs. I picked them and took with me. Unfortunately, only few photographs could be saved. By that time I knew that Beniamin, Basia’s husband, and my brother Isaac perished at the front. Our teacher Gurfinkel, who never left Kamenets and his daughter, the violoncello player from the Philharmonic, also perished. Of all my classmates only four survived: I, another girl and two guys who were at the front. So I was there all by myself in 1944, a 23-year old widow.

After the war

I stayed to live with a woman whom I knew in Kamenets before the war and went to work as an accountant. The postwar years, particularly 1946, were hard. He brightest memory was the execution of traitors and fascists in Kreshatik [Kreshatik is the main street of Kiev] after the trial in Kiev in spring 1946. There were thousands of people to watch the execution: 13 prisoners, sentenced to hanging, were standing by the gallows. It seemed strange to me that many people were crying, but probably this was a normal response to people’s suffering. One of prisoners resisted to fixing the loop on him. One of the executed fell from the gallows, though he was already dead. This was a horrifying view, but I knew that our people and I had reasons to take the revenge. 

Anti-Semitism was strong in Kiev. There was a Jewish pogrom in 1946. The reason for it was a conflict between a Jewish man who had returned from the front and the Ukrainians who settled down in his apartment. They were abusing the man and he shot his offenders. He was arrested and sentenced to death. The funeral of those whom he killed grew into a march and its participants began to beat Jews. However, there was equestrian police watching the funeral and they held the march in check. The attitude toward Jews was getting worse and often during routinely conflicts one could hear regrets that not all Jews were killed in Babi Yar. Fortunately I was not alone at this hard time. In 1946 I was introduced to Wolf Muller from Kamenets-Podolskiy, whom I married soon. My husband’s story is worth hearing.

Wolf was born in Kamenets-Podolskiy in 1911. His family was miserably poor. Misfortunes were falling on them like from cornucopia. Wolf’s father Moshe Muller was an accountant, but only had occasional jobs. The family was so poor that the children dreamed of getting ill: when then fell ill, their parents bought milk for them. In 1920 Wolf’s mother, Miriam the beauty, died from typhus within few days. Wolf’s youngest sister Beba also died with her. There were four children left: Gershl, Grigoriy, my husband Wolf and their sister Fania, two years younger than Wolf. Moshe cared about his children and missed Miriam terribly. He was a very good father. Moshe’s sister, whose name was forgotten, took care of the orphans. Her husband had left for work in Poland many years before and stopped writing from there. The woman who didn’t speak Russian, Polish or German went to look for her husband. She traveled across Poland and Germany before she got to England where she found her husband who had married another woman long before. She divorced him and returned to her town. She decided to dedicate herself to her brother’s children. She made wigs for Jewish matrons and supported the family. However in due time … Moshe remarried. His young wife’s name was Miriam as well. The children’s aunt got angry and talked to the children against the young stepmother. Grigoriy didn’t like his stepmother and left his home at an early age. Wolf and Fania loved their stepmother with all their heart. They called her ‘mother’ and this was who she was for them. Wolf got two brothers: Shymon and Leizer, whom she had from Moshe. They were sweet, and Leizer, the youngest, was very handsome.

My husband’s family was very religious. Wolf went to the synagogue with his father from early childhood. The children studied in cheder school and received Jewish education. Shymon and Leizer had a melamed to teach them at home since there were no melamed teachers in the Soviet time. Leizer, the younger boy, once began crossing himself pronouncing: ‘Lord, give me mercy!’ when he saw the melamed his teacher. He probably ran into a Christian church and saw people doing this. Melamed left the house hurriedly and this was the end of the children’s religious education. Wolf studied at school a few years. When he turned 11, and the family was starving, he was sent to become an apprentice of confectioner Itzykovich. Probably Wolf had a talent to this vocation since he became a highly skilled confectioner. During the famine in 1933 Wolf actually rescued the whole family.

I remembered my husband: he and his brother Gershl actively participated in the Jewish theater that I ran to when a girl. Wolf and Gershl played in the theater and Gershl having an absolute ear for music, also worked as a prompter for touring theaters.  Later Gershl moved to Kiev and Wolf followed him. During the war Wolf was recruited to the army, but since he had osseous tuberculosis he served in the headquarters of the South western Front for a year and a half and in the end of the war he worked in the labor army in a mine in Siberia from where he returned to Kiev. His father Moshe died shortly before the war. Gershl perished in Kiev at the very beginning of the war – he was a flak gunner. Shymon who had moved to Kiev in the late 1930s and was a cadet of the Kiev Artillery Military School, also perished in the first months of the war. Wolf’s stepmother and Leizer also perished during mass shooting in Kamenets-Podolskiy. Leizer’s Ukrainian friend offered him to escape, but Leizer didn’t want to leave his mother. Fania who lived in Slavuta with her husband and children evacuated and survived. Her older daughter Mara died in evacuation, but her three other children managed.

Wolf and I had much I common: our hometown, and that we both lost our dear ones. Wolf was a beautiful, caring and kind man. About two months after we met I went to visit my only surviving relative – my father’s cousin brother lawyer Lev Muller in Chernovtsy. Wolf followed me there soon and asked me to become his wife. We had our small wedding there as well.

In Kiev we settled down in the apartment that my husband lived in before the war – the one in Komintern Street. This was a communal apartment 25. We had a 16-square meter room and a corridor where we had a stove and a door to a neighbor’s room. There was also exit to the yard. We had a big polished wardrobe that our daughters and their friends used to look at themselves as if in the mirror, a big table, a white plywood cupboard and a very beautiful nickel plated bed. Later, when we had children, my husband bought an old piano for the girls to study music. There was a carpet on the wall, which was posh for the time, and embroidered napkins on the bookshelves.

Fira visited us shortly after we got married. Fira married a Polish Jew and was going to Poland with him. She wanted us to go with them, but we refused. Fira left this man then and stayed in Kiev with us.

In 1947 my daughter Inna was born. I worked as an accountant in the voentorg [Editor’s note: department responsible for food and commodity supplies to military units and organizations of the town], Wolf worked as a production engineer at the food preserve factory and in the early 1950s – at the town bakery factory. His was the period of state anti-Semitic campaigns and struggle against cosmopolites 26, and, unfortunately, our family didn’t avoid them. During the period of the ‘poisoning doctors’ case 27, my husband replaced his colleague – pie shop superintendent at the factory. On this day the pies were not as good as usual. Some buyers began to shout against poisoning people (the fear of being poisoned was overwhelming then) and called the police. This ended in my husband’s arrest, though he had nothing to do with this shop whatsoever. They puffed up a gigantic, so-called ‘pie-related case’ from this whole incident. My husband’s friend, superintendent of this shop, a Jewish man, was arrested. My husband was a witness for this trial. He was fired from work immediately and we became desperately poor. We gradually pawned our belongings and began to borrow money from friends and relatives. We feared each coming day. The trial lasted long. Though all pies were tested for poisoning substances that were not detected in any of them the shop superintendent and others were pleaded guilty and the formulation of the guilt was as follows: ‘as of the date of testing the poison was not detected due to little quantity that they put’. The shop superintendent was sentenced to death. Fortunately it all ended in March 1953 after Stalin’s death. All prisoners were released.

This was the horrifying period, when we also learned who was or who was not a friend. My deceased sister Ena’s husband Gershl Shuster often came to see us. He returned from the front and remarried, but he could not forget Ena and their children. He talked about them and about our hard Jewish fate. He was the one to tell us about the plan to deport Jews to Birobidzhan and there were rumors about it in the town, but only in the 1990s we learned that Stalin actually had this plan in truth and only the death of the chief prevented this from happening. Then my friend Yelizaveta Levit, an obstetrician – she was my doctor, when Inna was born, visited us. Her husband Vasiliy Ivanov, Russian, a field surgeon, a wonderful doctor and person, said once during the period of the doctors’ plot that he knew doctor Vovsi (editor’s note: a talented Jewish doctor, one of the accused in the doctors’ case), and other accused and didn’t believe this slander. All at once the ‘organs’ took to Vasiliy. He was made to prove his Slavic origin in presence of all members of the bureau of the district party committee showing his uncircumcised genital. After this humiliation Vasiliy fell ill. His wife came to see us and said that Jews were going to be sent to the Far East and that her husband was going with us. We were horrified; I was yelling that I would rather burn my house and myself than leave home. I was expecting a baby. My second daughter Alla was born on 7 February 1953. And then miracles began all at once. Stalin died, accused doctors were released, the ‘pie case’ was closed and all accused, including Mishnayevskiy, sentenced to death was released. My husband was employed by the refrigeration factory reimbursing him for the time he was away from work. Yelizaveta’s husband Vasiliy, though, died almost at the same time as Stalin.

In those years my husband’s uncles living in the USA found us through third parties. They sent us a big parcel with clothes for my husband and daughter. Some time later the Foreign Legal Collegium invited us to their office and informed us that our relatives died and that we were their heirs. They left us three thousand dollars, but at that time this was an incredible fortune.  However, considering the current situation and attitudes toward Jews, my husband refused from this money. We didn’t agree to receive it for a few years in a row: firstly, we knew that the state would get it one way or another, and secondly, we were just afraid. We finally received it in the late 1960s, when contacts with foreigners were not criminal any longer. We needed this money a lot: my husband was very ill and had been bedridden for almost three years. We spent all this money on doctors and medications. Wolf recovered, but he often felt ill since then. My husband died in 1983. We lived a happy life, full of love and understanding. We spent a lot of time together, went out of town, and liked spending our vacations at the seashore whenever we could afford it. My husband and I read a lot, loved theater and attended all premier performances. We spent a lot of time with our daughters teaching them to like good literature, theater, listen to music, talked a lot in the evenings to raise harmonious and spiritual people of them.  

We raised wonderful daughters. Inna, the older one, showed talents since childhood. She played the piano beautifully, drew and wrote poems. She knew about Babi Yar and death of her relatives in Kamenets-Podolskiy. She heard Gershl’s story about his family. Inna knew all details of the ‘pie case’. She identified herself as a Jew since early childhood, felt responsible for her people and shared their sorrow. Inna has faced everyday anti-Semitism since she was a child, but what is amazing is that Inna tried to find explanation when other children called her ‘zhydovka’ – in their hard postwar childhood, poverty and lack of education. Inna studied very well, but when she was in the second form, she fell ill with poliomyelitis. She spent a lot of time in hospital and in a recreation center.  A few years afterward Inna walked on crutches, but when she walked without them, the doctors were struck by her strong will and spirit. When my daughter fell ill, I had to quit work to take care of her. I took work home, and the whole family helped me to knit bags that I took to the shop and they paid very little for this work. Inna attended an art studio and submitted her documents to the Art College and failed, naturally. It was next to impossible for a Jewish girl to enter this kind of a higher educational institution in Kiev. After her second effort that failed Inna’s friends advised her to send her works to Moscow Polygraphist College. She did and soon she entered the Faculty of Book Design. She studied by correspondence, and I always accompanied her to Moscow, when she went to take her exams. Inna finished the college very successfully. At that time she already had an interesting job.  She made dolls since childhood and this became her profession. She made sketches and sample dolls for several toy factories. Inna received a decent reward for her work. She also drew pictures just for herself. In recent years Inna’s talent in literature has shown up. She had a few books published and her works published in magazines in Kiev, Israel and USA. Inna writes about Jews – the ones she knew or heard about in her childhood. Regretfully, my daughter has suffered from poor sight lately, but she continues her work. Inna married Arnold Lesovoy, a Jewish guy, in 1974. He was born in Chernovtsy in 1946. Arnold is a brilliant mathematician. They’ve had a happy life together for many years. In 1976 Inna’s son Maxim was born. Maxim got fond of Judaism after he went to a Jewish camp in his teens. This became the essence of his life. Maxim is a religious Orthodox Jew, one of the leaders of the religious community in Kiev. His Jewish name given to him at the brit milah ritual conducted in his adulthood is Moshe Elizeer. Maxim is married and has a daughter. His family follow kashrut strictly, celebrates Sabbath and observes all Jewish religious traditions. I live with my daughter and son-in-law. We celebrate all Jewish holidays and try to observe Sabbath. In 1999 my grandson insisted that Inna and Arnold stood under the chuppah at the Brodskiy synagogue on their ‘silver wedding’. This was very moving and ceremonious.

My second daughter Alla dedicated herself to music. She failed to enter the Conservatory in Kiev and went to Gorkiy where there are no prejudiced attitudes to Jews. She finished the conservatory there and became a pianist. Alla married a Jewish guy. Her husband Victor Gotlib, born in 1948, became a scientist in mathematic and chemistry. She was thinking of returning to Kiev for many years, but when Chernobyl occurred we convinced her that they should stay away from here.  Alla has two sons: Yuriy, born in 1979, and Vladimir, born in 1986. In the early 1990s they moved to Israel where they live in Ashdod. Alla’s sons had a circumcision ritual in Israel. Now their names are Uri (Yuriy) and Zeev (Vladimir).

Now let me tell you a few words about my sister Fira. She lived with my family for several years after she returned from evacuation before she married Boris Dimenstein, a welder. Fira has two children: Alla and Edward. Fira, her husband and their son Edward moved to Israel in the late 1970s. Her husband died a few years ago. Her daughter Alla lives in Ukraine.

We’ve often discussed the subject of emigration in our family. We’ve always been interested in Israel, particularly during the 6-Day War 28 and the War of Judgment Day 29. We’ve always been concerned about this country that we believe to be ours. However, we didn’t venture to emigrate. First my husband was ill and now it is my daughter. Besides, she cannot part with her pictures – there are about 100 of them and we won’t be allowed to take them with us. But what is most important is that Inna cannot imagine leaving Ukraine and Russia. She has grown up in this culture and became an artist and a writer. As for me, I wouldn’t mind moving to Israel despite my old age. I think that my grandson Maxim and his family will take this decision and will finally become citizens of Israel, though his cause of revival the Jewish religion and traditions in Ukraine is also very important.

Our family was very enthusiastic about perestroika 30. Finally all bans disappeared and people got to know the truth about the totalitarian regime and these infinite lies in which we had to live our lives. All borders were opened, the literature that was under a ban before came up and religious life was reborn. Of course, the material part of life has become more difficult, but I hope these are temporary hardships and Ukraine will become a free and prosperous country.

My daughter and I have not become religious. We do not observe traditions or celebrate holidays, but I order a memorial prayer for my dear ones at the synagogue every year on Yom Kippur. I took this vow back in 1944, when I got to know that my family perished. I also pray for my daughters and grandchildren wishing them happiness. I think that I’ve lived a happy life despite all the suffering that I had to live through. I loved and was loved.

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