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B. E. 78 éves, de koránál jó tíz évvel fiatalabbnak néz ki. Népszínház utcai hatvanas évekbeli, kényelmesen berendezett lakásában férje 1987-ben bekövetkezett halála óta egyedül él. Szenvedélyes utazó, igényli és élvezi változatosságot. Lányával és unokájával napi kapcsolatot tart. Szellemileg és fizikailag aktív, bridzsel, színházba, moziba jár, és barátaival is gyakran találkozik. Az interjú három ülésben készült.

Nem tudom, hogy honnan ered a családom. Az anyai családomat S.-nek hívták, amiből arra következtetek, hogy Ausztriából származhattak. Talán a híres S. szállító családhoz is van közük, de lehet, hogy tévedek.

A[z apai] nagyszüleim hamar meghaltak, én még nagyon kicsi voltam, ezért nem sok mindenre emlékszem. Az apai nagyapám, B. I. Nagyszöllősön született 1855-ben. Szabó volt. Első felesége korán meghalt, nem született gyermekük. Második felesége, az én nagyanyám, K. K. volt, akinek öt gyereke született, kétévente egy. Mivel apám még gyerek volt, amikor az anyja meghalt, róla végképp nem tudok semmit. A nagyapám időskorában velünk lakott a Bérkocsis utcában [Budapesten]. Amikor lementem vele sétálni, a barátai nagyon kedvesek voltak velem. Másra nem is emlékszem vele kapcsolatban. Négy éves voltam, amikor 1930-ban meghalt.

Apunak, B. Á.-nak négy testvére volt: B., K., D. és J. K. még az 1920-as években meghalt. B. az első világháború után Buenos Airesbe ment, mást nem is tudok róla. D. Szegeden élt, és utazóként kereste a kenyerét, paprikát adott el nagykereskedőknek. A családjával együtt Ausztriába került [a holokauszt alatt], onnan jöttek haza [Randolph Braham kutatásai szerint 1944 nyarán Szegedről az első két transzportot Auschwitzba irányították, „de csak az egyik jutott el oda. A másikat a németek Strasshofba irányították, cserébe a vonatrakomány kecskeméti zsidóért, akiknek Ausztriába kellett volna menniük, de figyelmetlenségből és rutinszerűen Auschwitzba parancsolták őket”. A harmadik transzportot eleve Strasshofba irányították, az ezekben lévő 5739 ember túlnyomó többsége túlélte a deportálást. – A szerk.]. D. bácsi a háború után, az 1960-as években halt meg. Egy lánya volt, aki nemrég halt meg. J. Budapesten élt, és utazó volt [lásd: kereskedelmi utazó]. Nem tudom, mivel kereskedett. Egy lánya, egy fia és egy keresztény nevelt lánya volt. A lánya Újvidékre ment férjhez ment, és ott a gyerekével együtt a Dunába lőtték [lásd: újvidéki vérengzés]. A fia az Adria Biztosítónak volt az igazgatója. 1938-ban kitették, és elvitték munkaszolgálatra. 1942-ben leszerelték, majd megint elvitték. Másodszorra már nem jött vissza. A nevelt lány a háború alatt bújtatta a családot. Ennyit tudok az édesapám családjáról.

Anyai nagypapám, S. G. egészen kis koromban meghalt, ezért róla semmi emlékem sincsen. Annyit tudok, hogy az eredeti szakmája cipész volt, és amíg élt, a családi szatócsüzletben dolgozott. A nagymama, L. A. Tiszabőn született [Tiszabő nagyközség volt Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok vm.-ben, 1910-ben 2200, 1920-ban 2100 főnyi lakossal. – A szerk.]. A polgári [lásd: polgári iskola] után férjhez ment a nagypapához, és egymás után szülte a gyerekeket. Haláláig a háztartást vezette, és a családi üzletben dolgozott. A család eredetileg Tiszabőn lakott, de az első világháború idején átköltöztek Törökszentmiklósra [Törökszentmiklós – nagyközség Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok vm.-ben, 1910-ben 25 100, 1920-ban 26 300 lakossal. Járási szolgabírói hivatal székhelye volt, több nagy téglagyára volt a 20. század első évtizedeiben, és volt polgári iskolája. – A szerk.]. A gyerekek mind Tiszabőn születtek. Ros Hásánákor és Jom Kipurkor a nagyanyám és a nagynénéim bezárták az üzletet. Nem voltak kóserek, de nem ettek disznóhúst, és disznózsírral sem főztek [lásd: étkezési törvények]. A zsidó nagyünnepeket megtartották, de azt nem tudom, hogy templomba jártak-e. Kiskoromtól minden nyáron Törökszentmiklóson nyaraltam.

L. A., a nagymama egyik testvére könyvkötő volt. A feleségével, S. P.-val és a gyerekeikkel Pesten élt. Ez egy dupla rokonság volt, mert anyám testvérének a férje és P. testvérek voltak. A. a háború alatt halt meg. P. és a lányok bujkáltak. Az egyiket a keresztény férje bújtatta. A lányok még élnek.

A nagyszüleimnek anyuval együtt összesen nyolc gyereke született: S., P., A., I., E., L. és D. S. kereskedő volt Dévaványán [Dévaványa – nagyközség volt Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok vm.-ben, 1910-ben 13 500, 1920-ban 13 300 lakossal. – A szerk.]. Elvitték [azaz deportálták], és nem jött vissza. P. Törökszentmiklósról Pestre, a Dob utcába költözött. A férje vaskereskedő volt. Két gyerekük született. A fiút elvitték munkaszolgálatra, és Kiskunhalason agyonverték. A lány férje őskeresztény volt, ő úgy menekült meg, hogy bújtatta a férje családja. B. órás volt, Kunhegyesen élt. Két fia született: egy fiú az első házasságából, aki Auschwitzban halt meg, és még egy fiú a háború után, a második házasságából. B. túlélte a háborút, és az 1950-es években halt meg, Budapesten. I. kereskedő volt, Törökszentmiklóson a családi boltot vitte. Későn, 1940-ben ment férjhez azért, hogy ne maradjon egyedül. Auschwitzba deportálták a férjével együtt. Nem jöttek vissza. E. 1938-ban vagy 1939-ben ment férjhez. Egészen addig, míg Pestre nem költözött, I.-vel, L.-val és nagymamával együtt a családi üzletben dolgozott. Később háztartásbeli volt, egy lánya született. Budapesten volt gettóban. 1987-ben halt meg. L. tanult szakmája cipész volt, de ő is a családi üzletben dolgozott. Egy S. I. nevű nőt vett feleségül. A háború után két gyerekük született. Mindketten Budapesten élnek. L. 1994-ben halt meg Budapesten. D. háztartásbeli volt. Budapesten halt meg az 1950-es években. Egy gyerekük volt, ő a 1980-as években, Buenos Airesben halt meg.

Anyám, S. E. 1902-ben született, Tiszabőn. Békés természetű, szép asszony volt. Fekete, kis gömbölyű, de szép. 1923-ban jött fel Pestre. A nagymamám egyik lánytestvérének a Dob utca környékén volt egy étkezdéje, és oda hozták fel anyut. Van egy édes családi mendemonda, ami jól mutatja, milyen egyszerű volt anyu, amikor vidékről felkerült. Még soha nem volt moziban, ezért a nagynénje elvitte. Rajta kívül mindenki ült, és anyám csak állt. A nagynénje megkérdezte: „Miért nem ülsz le?” Mire azt mondta: „Hova üljek, hát nincsen székem!”

Apám, B. Á. 1894-ben született Budapesten. Magas, jóképű ember volt. Hirtelen haragú ember volt, de nem a családjával szemben. Nem tudok semmit a gyerekkoráról. Az eredeti szakmája géplakatos volt [A melléklet fénykép tanúsága szerint a MIKÉFE-ben szerzett képesítést 3 éves tanonckodás után, 1910-ben. – A szerk.]. Baloldali szocdem volt, de nem járt el politikai körökbe. Tagja volt a Vasas Szakszervezetnek, ott futballozott. Nem tudom, mikor és miért nyergelt át a kereskedelemre. Mire én megszülettem, a szüleim már kereskedők voltak, és edénnyel foglalkoztak. 1944-ben halt meg Günskirchenben [Az apja vagy nem Günskirchenben halt meg, vagy 1945-ben halt meg: a günskircheni tábort ugyanis 1945. március 12-én létesítették. Lásd a szócikket. – A szerk.].

A szüleim úgy ismerkedtek meg, hogy bemutatták őket egymásnak. 1923-ban esküdtek a Rumbach Sebestyén utcai templomban [lásd: házasság, esküvői szertartás]. Jól megvoltak. Nem tudok arról, hogy vita vagy veszekedés lett volna közöttük. Én 1926-ban születtem. Az öcsém, B. G. három évvel később, 1929-ben. Jól kijöttünk egymással, de azért előfordult, hogy gyepáltuk egymást. Volt néhány féltékenységi jelenet, mikor az öcsém még kicsi volt. Akkoriban divat volt a boykabát, ami egy sötétkék egyenkabát, aranygombokkal. Mivel idősebb és a nagyobb voltam, én kaptam meg az új boykabátot. G. jól megsértődött, amiért a levetett dolgaimat kellett hordania.

A Bérkocsis utcában, egy szoba-konyhás utcai lakásban éltünk, nagyon szerény körülmények között. Két ágy, két éjjeliszekrény, egy dívány és két szekrény között egy asztal állt benne székekkel. A vécé kinn volt a folyosón. A konyhában mosakodtunk lavórban. A vizet a tűzhelyen melegítettük. Hetente kétszer dézsában fürödtünk, a konyhában. Mindenkinek külön vizet melegítettek.

A Népszínház utcában volt az üzletünk. Zománcedényt, vasárut, üveget és porcelánt árultunk. Nem volt nagy az üzlet, de raktár is tartozott hozzá, ahol az árut tárolták. Kirakata is volt. Nem álltunk rosszul, négy alkalmazottunk és egy teherautónk is volt, amivel a szüleim vásárra jártak. Anyu vezette a háztartást, és segített apunak. Anyu is ment apuval, szóval mindketten szerezték az árut. Apu zománcedényt árult a vásárokon. Amikor 1936-ban itt, a házban nyitottak egy üzletet, anyu is árult. És apu járt – mert volt sofőr – a vásárokra. A szüleim nem nagyon jártak össze senkivel a családon kívül. Nem sok idejük volt. Sokszor éjjel kettőkor keltek fel, és mentek dolgozni, attól függően, hogy hol, milyen távolságra volt a vásár. Akkor hazajöttek, lepakoltak. Néha, amikor a szüleim elfoglaltak voltak, jött egy lány, aki vigyázott rám és a testvéremre. Előfordult, hogy nálunk is aludt.

A vasárnap volt általában véve az egyetlen, amikor együtt volt a család. Szép nagy család voltunk. Vasárnaponként P. néniéknél jött össze a család. Vasárnap délelőtt apám mindig elment a Mienk Kávéházba, ami a Bérkocsis utca és a [József] körút sarkán volt. Az egy nagy kávéház volt, nyomdászok, kávésok, mind összejöttek délelőtt, kártyáztak és beszélgettek. Délben apu hazajött ebédelni, és délután átmentünk a P. néniékhez, ahol mindenki összejött, aki Pesten élt. Ott éltük az életünket, gyerekek és a felnőttek. Ez olyan jó volt. Sajnos a második világháború után ez megszűnt. De addig ez egy olyan élmény volt, ami tényleg felejthetetlen, mert kellemes volt, és az ember érezte a családi összetartozást.

Elemi iskolába a Rökk Szilárd utcai államiba jártam. Akkoriban természetes volt, hogy elemiben és polgáriban [lásd: polgári iskola] hittanóra volt, ezért én is jártam. A németet utáltam egyből, úgyhogy nehezen tanultam meg. De tanulni kellett, nem volt mese. Polgáriba a Tisza Kálmán téri iskolába jártam. Sütő Irén, aki később színésznő lett, az osztálytársam volt [Sütő Irén (1926–1991) – színésznő, 1962-től haláláig a Thália Színházban játszott. A Reflektor Színpad alapítója és művészeti vezetője volt 1978–1990 között. – A szerk.]. Mindketten nagyon rosszak voltunk. Volt olyan tanárnő, aki bejött, és azzal kezdte az órát, hogy azt mondta, hogy Sütő ebbe a sarokba, te abba a sarokba. Télen felöntötték az iskola udvarát, és ott lehetett korcsolyázni. Nem csak ott lehetett, mert abban az időben általában minden udvaron lehetett korizni, amit nagyon szerettem.

Ha valamelyik zsidó gyerek nem tudott valamit, az osztályfőnököm és magyartanárom, Boczainé, akinek a férje alezredes volt, azt mondta, hogy „Menj Palesztinába!”. Abban az időben ő méltóságos asszony volt [A „méltóságos” megszólítás a III–V. fizetési osztályba tartozó vagy magas kitüntetéssel bíró vagy főnemesi származású (grófi és újabb időkben bárói címmel rendelkező) személyeket (és feleségüket) illette meg. – A szerk.]. A férje a háború alatt fogságba került és meghalt. A Döbrentei téren lakott, egyedül maradt. A háború után néhányszor bejött az üzletünkbe, és akkor adott anyám neki pénzt meg edényt.

Volt egy osztálytársnőnk, Horváth Erzsinek hívták. A nagyszülei kocsmája a Rákóczi tér egyik mellékutcájában volt. Mindig lopta a kasszát. Elvitt két forintot, hármat. Akkoriban tíz fillér volt egy fagylalt. Jó néhányan összejöttünk, és elmentünk az olasz fagylaltozókba, ahol Erzsike fizette a fagyikat, mert nekünk nem volt pénzünk. Néha moziba is befizetett bennünket. Az első sorban ültünk, mert csak arra volt pénzünk. Majd kitört a nyakunk.

Az elemiben és a polgáriban is hetente egyszer vagy kétszer kötelező volt a hittanóra. Héberül is tanultam az iskolában, de nem tudok se olvasni, se írni. Minden pénteken délután külön istentisztelet volt a diákoknak a Dohány templomban [lásd: Dohány utcai zsinagóga]. Az nem volt kötelező, de mentünk az osztálytársaimmal. A összes gimnáziumból, polgáriból, kereskedelmiből, mindenhonnan ott voltunk. A földszint tele volt a diákokkal. Együtt voltunk, és énekeltük a ’löcho dajdi’-t [lásd: „Lechá dodi”]. Ma már csak ennyit tudok. Nem is tudom tovább. Amikor 1940-ben elvégeztem a negyedik polgárit, a zsidótörvény [lásd: zsidótörvények Magyarországon] miatt már nem mehettem se gimnáziumba, se kereskedelmibe. Így varrni tanultam.

Eljártam a Hanhacba [lásd: Hanoár Hacioni Magyarországon], akik a Király utca és a Vörösmarty utca sarkán voltak. Nagyon jól éreztem ott magam, mert nagyon jó társaság volt együtt. Sok érdekes szihánk [héber: ’beszélgetés, megbeszélés’ – A szerk.] volt, amikből sokat lehetett tanulni, és hóráztunk [lásd: hóra] is néha. A fiúk nagy része a Kereskedelmi Akadémia – akkor úgy hívták Kerak – diákja volt. A lányok is helyesek voltak, polgári társaság volt. Ez 1939–1940-ben volt, amikor tizenhárom-tizennégy éves voltam, fiatalabb, mint a három-négy évvel idősebb többiek. A szüleimet nem zavarta, hogy eljárok. Apámnak egy kikötése volt, hogy este nyolcra haza kellett menni. Pénzem nem volt. A Király utcából hazáig végig rohantam, hogy nyolc órára otthon legyek. Aztán elmaradtam a cionistáktól. Azt hiszem, hogy megszűnt, vagy nem tudom, mi volt.

Néha a Goldmark Terembe is elmentünk táncolni. Nagyon jó vegyes társaság jött össze, már nem emlékszem, hogyan jöttünk össze, de nagyon jóban voltunk. Mindennap összejártunk. Ott voltak a barátnőim: Blau Juli, akit első polgáritól ismertem, Práder Ili, aki keresztény volt, és Komlósi Éva. És persze ott voltak a fiúk is.

Nem voltunk vallásosak, de a nagyobb ünnepeket megtartottuk. Az ünnep nálunk azt jelentette, hogy az üzlet be volt zárva, és ünnepi vacsora volt. Anyám péntek este gyertyát gyújtott, de szombaton nem zártunk be [lásd: szombati munkavégzés tilalma; gyertyagyújtás; szombat]. A bárheszt mindig apám vágta fel. Ünnepi ebéd és vacsora csak Ros Hásánákor volt. Azon a napon anyám imádkozott, és elment a Dohány utcai templomba. Arra nem emlékszem, hogy apám templomba ment volna. Jom Kipurkor böjtöltünk. Utána otthon mindig volt kuglóf meg kávé vagy kakaó és ünnepi vacsora. Anyu ment a templomba, mi meg a Luluval, a barátnőmmel [Blau Julianna] szórakoztunk. Egyszer Jom Kipurkor az ő cselédlányuk ruháiban mentünk el a templomba. Otthon soha nem tartottunk szédert, de macesz volt otthon meg, azt hiszem, kenyér is. Egyszer a szomszédunk, aki vallásos volt, meghívott széderre. A testvéremnek adták a maceszt, hogy dugja el [lásd: áfikómen], ő meg ráült, hogy nehogy megtalálják. Emlékezetes széder volt. Egyszer, tizenkét-tizenhárom éves koromban a Nagy Fuvaros utcai templomban volt egy Purim ünnepély, ahol Ahasvérus királynak öltöztem. A palástot egy lepedővel váltottam ki, azzal voltam körbetekerve. Ahogy fölléptem a színpadra, belebotlottam a palástba, és Ahasvérus király egyből hason feküdt. Ez egy emlékezetes Purim volt. Hanukakor nem gyújtottunk gyertyát, de nagyon szerettünk trenderlizni. Se a karácsonyt, se a húsvétot nem ünnepeltük. Húsvétkor jöttek locsolni a szomszédok meg ismerősök, de más nem volt.

A testvéremnek tizenhárom éves korában volt bár micvója. Nekem is volt bát micvóm a Dohány utcai templomban. Nem tudom már, hogy melyik rabbi csinálta, csak arra emlékszem, hogy nagyon sokan voltunk ott egyszerre. Minden iskolából ott voltak a lányok, akik péntekenként is lejártak a zsinagógába. Nem kellett külön készülni rá. Csak ott álltunk, és a rabbi megáldott minket. Nem kaptam ajándékot, és ünnepi vacsora sem volt.

A szüleimmel nem jártunk nyaralni. Kicsi koromtól kezdve Törökszentmiklóson töltöttem a nyarakat, úgy két hónapot, mikor az iskola befejeződött. A testvérem is lent volt, de nem olyan sokat, mint én. Amikor ő már nagyobb volt, nemigen akart lejönni. Nagyon szerettem ott lent lenni, mert megvolt a társaságom, és nagyon jól éreztem magam.

A nagyszüleim, a nagynénéim, I. és E. és L., a nagybátyám is Törökszentmiklóson éltek. Szatócsüzletük volt, ahol fűszert, edényt, porcelánt és vegyescikkeket árultak. Piac idején kipakoltak, és akkor ott is árultak. Egy évben egyszer nagyvásár volt, akkor edényt árultak. Négyen vitték az üzletet. A nagyvásár óriási élmény volt. Mindig augusztus vége felé tartották, és akkor apuék is lejöttek árulni a teherautóval. A testvéremmel azt nagyon élveztük, a nagymamáméktól apuékig szaladgáltunk. Az volt a nyaralásunk vége, hogy a szüleink hazahoztak a teherautóval bennünket.

A nagyanyámék és a nagynénémék normális anyagi körülmények között éltek, nem jobban. Minden vagyonuk az üzlet és az a kis ház volt, ahol a laktak. Nagyon szerettem a régi házat, mert olyan kis aranyos, tipikus vidéki ház volt. Úgy nézett ki, hogy bementünk, és az ajtótól kezdődött egy köves folyosó. Abból nyílt az előszoba, a végében pedig egy kamra volt. Volt még egy nagyszoba és egy kisszoba is. Mindkét szobának földpadlója volt [vagyis döngölt agyag]. Villany nem volt, petróleumlámpát használtunk. Ahogy bementünk a kapun, volt egy kis virágos- és zöldségeskert, és a kerítés hajnalkával volt befuttatva. Volt még egy hátsó udvar is, ahol egy nyári konyha volt. A nagyszoba sötét volt, hálószobának volt berendezve: két ágy, két éjjeliszekrény, egy nagy tükör, egy dívány és egy mosdóállvány volt benne. A kisebbik szobában két ágy és egy kisasztal volt. Nem volt se bejárónő, se cseléd.

Törökszentmiklóson sok zsidó élt [Az 1920-as népszámlálás adatai szerint a lakosok 2,5%-a, 671 fő volt izraelita vallású. – A szerk.]. Úgy tudom, hogy nemigen jártak össze. Zsidó klub vagy hasonló nem volt Törökszentmiklóson. De nekem volt ott egy zsidó barátnőm és udvarlóm is, amikor már nagyobb voltam. Két keresztény barátnőm volt, akikkel a tánciskolába jártunk. A gazdakörben volt a tánciskola, és minden nyári szünetben lejött egy tánctanár.

Nagyon sok kereszténnyel voltunk jóban. A szomszédunk szintén keresztény volt, a Banai Ilonka, akivel nagyon jóban voltam, együtt mentünk a libáikat legeltetni, amikor kicsik voltunk. Mivel mi zsidók voltunk, nálunk libazsír volt a főzéshez. Náluk disznót öltek, és disznózsírt használtak. Én szerettem a disznózsíros kenyeret, Ilonka szerette a libazsíros kenyeret, így aztán elcseréltük az uzsonnára csomagolt zsíros kenyereket. A nagyanyámékkal szemben lakott a Mikházi néni. Amikor kicsi voltam, akkor mindig jött a Mikházi néni, hogy „Jössz répát enni ki a földre?” „Megyek!” És akkor kimentem vele a földre. Kiszedte a répát a földből, megtörülte, és én ott, helyben jóízűen megeszegettem. Emlékszem, hogy mindig tudtuk, mikor megy a Horthy Kenderesre a rezidenciájára [Kenderes mintegy 20 km-re van Törökszentmiklóstól], mert akkor az úton végig csendőrök álltak, és vigyáztak. Egyébként nem tapasztaltam én akkor még semmit. Keresztényekkel éppen úgy jóban voltam, mint zsidókkal.

1940-ben, amikor már a nagyszüleim nem éltek, I.-ék eladták a kis házat, és vettek egy nagy, háromszobás házat a Főutcán. A nagy házban ugyanaz a bútor volt, mint a régiben. Fürdőszoba ott sem volt, de már volt villany, és nem föld volt a padló. A nagy házat nem szerettem, mert olyan üres volt a kertje. Abban a házban kevés időt töltöttem.

Apámat 1938-tól kezdve állandóan behívták. Amíg katona lehetett, addig katonaként vonult be. Vöröskeresztes szanitéc volt, és sofőrködött Esztergomban, aztán kikerült az orosz frontra. A hadsereg a teherautónkat 1944 előtt is igénybe vette, hol apuval együtt, hol sofőrrel vitték el. A végén úgy elvitték, hogy többet vissza sem hozták. Amikor már nem lehetett katona, elvitték munkaszolgálatra. Esztergom-Táborban volt, és még máshol is, de nem tudom pontosan, hol.

Ahogy jöttek a zsidótörvények [lásd: zsidótörvények Magyarországon], az üzletet meg kellett szüntetni. Amikor bezártuk a Népszínház utcai üzletet, leadtuk a ház pincéjébe ládában az alpakka evőeszközöket meg a megmaradt árut. Volt egy nagyon készséges, udvarias segédünk. Anyám látta, hogy röhögött, amikor fölpakolta és elvitte a dolgainkat. A nagykereskedőnknél dolgozott egy adminisztratív dolgozó, akinek a férjével apám összeismerkedett. 1943-ban a Rózsa utca és a Dob utca sarkán apu nyitott egy üzletet. Minden a férfi nevén volt, merthogy ő volt a stróman. Amikor megvolt minden berendezés, akkor a férfi szépen kirúgta apámat, úgyhogy odaveszett minden.

1944 telén lent voltam Törökszentmiklóson. Akkor már csak I. nagynéném és a férje éltek a házban, a nagymama addigra már meghalt. Beverték az ablakainkat. Tizenöt éves voltam. Nagyon megijedtem. A nagynénémék is nagyon megijedtek. Amikor ez történt, odaszaladtak hozzám, mert én egy másik szobában laktam. A néhány napig, amit még lent voltam, nem mertem külön aludni, annyira féltem az ablakbeveréstől. Nagyon rossz érzés volt, ami történt, félelem maradt bennem utána. Nem csak a mienkét verték be, hanem az összes házét, ahol zsidók laktak. Pár nappal az után, hogy ez történt, el is jöttem. Két nappal később, március tizenkilencedikén bejöttek a németek [lásd: Magyarország német megszállása].

1944. március tizenkilencedike vasárnap volt. Apám hazarohant, és mondta, hogy Budapestet megszállták a németek, és már a Népszava Kiadót, ami itt volt a Conti utcában, is elfoglalták. Akkor lementem az utcára, és láttam, ahogy ott vonultak a német katonák. Nem volt szép látvány nekem, főleg mert voltak, akik éljenezték őket. 1944 júniusában a Bérkocsis utcából a nagynénémhez, P.-hez és a férjéhez költöztünk, a Dob utca 71-be, mert az ő lakásuk egy csillagos házban volt.

A németek bejövetele után Komlósi Ibi barátnőmmel együtt a Persil gyárban dolgoztunk. Dobozokat csináltunk egy gépsoron. Volt ott egy részleg, ahol a zsidó lányokat foglalkoztatták. Amikor hadiüzemmé nyilvánították a gyárat, az igazgató azonnal elküldött minket, mert nem akarta, hogy elvigyenek bennünket. Ezenkívül együtt takarítottunk romot. Vertük a téglát a [Teréz és Erzsébet] körút és az Andrássy út sarkán. Azért mentem romot takarítani, mert a barátaimtól úgy tudtam, hogy munkaszolgálatnak minősül. Azt hittem, ha csinálom, akkor nem visznek el. Nem katona, hanem egy építőmester felügyelte a munkánkat.

1944. október tizedikén romot takarítottam. Október tizenötödikén volt a Horthy proklamációja. Ez volt egy óra körül, és mi két órakor a Dob utca 71-ben voltunk a zsidó házban, ahol a nagynénémék laktak. Két órakor az SS-ek lezavartak a pincébe bennünket, mert azt mondták, hogy kilőttünk a Royal Szállóra, ami ott volt, sréhen szemben. Azt hittük, hogy agyonlőnek bennünket, mert a magyar nyilasok gépfegyverrel a mellettünk lévő házban is lelőttek embereket. A férfiakat – a testvéremet és apámat is – elvitték a Tattersalba, a nőket pedig a Rumbach templomba. De közben ott este egy nyilas nő, aki már beszélni se tudott, csak ugatott állati hangon, gránátot akart közénk vágni, de az SS nem engedte meg. A Rumbach templomban voltunk két-három napot bezárva. Akkor hazaengedtek bennünket. A testvéremet egy rendőr hozta ki a Tattersalból, mert látta, hogy kis vékony fiú. Tizennégy éves volt a testvérem. Végtelenül rendes, jóindulatú rendőr volt, aki el nem fogadott semmit az ég adta világon. Apu otthon volt, bujtattuk, hogy ne kelljen neki bevonulnia.

Nekem voltak munkaszolgálatos barátaim, akik a Vörösmarty utcában, a skót iskolában voltak elszállásolva [A Budapesti Református Egyház Skót Misszió Polgári Leányiskolájában. A Skót egyház 1838-ban indította meg az ún. zsidó missziót, és 1841-ben Pesten is létesített állomást. A szabadságharc után egy ideig szüneteltették a tevékenységüket, majd folytatták munkájukat. A misszió épületében elemi és polgári leányiskola és leányotthon működött, ahova főleg zsidó származású lányokat vettek föl. A misszió élén egy skót és egy magyar lelkész állt, az iskolákban pedig 16 tanerő tanított. – A szerk.]. Aztán a KISOK-pályára kellett vonulni, október végén volt, de a napra nem emlékszem. A nyilasok összeírták és összeszedték az embereket. Hangszórón mondták be, hogy ki merre, hová menjen. A fiúk azt mondták nekünk, hogy aki időt nyer, az életet nyer. Ne jelentkezzünk be. Nem kell nekünk elsőknek lenni. És ott összeverődtünk mi, lányok, akik romot takarítottunk. Vagy tízen voltunk. Azt csináltuk, hogy mikor idejött valaki nyilas vagy csendőr vagy rendőr meg katona, akkor mondtuk, hogy nekünk azt mondták, hogy mi ide álljunk. Egyik sarokból a másikba álltunk. Úgyhogy valahogy kihúztuk, és akkor este bekiabálták mikrofonba, hogy aki eddig nem ment el, az menjen haza, és majd kell jelentkezni. November tizedikén a házból szedtek össze. Apámat a munkaszolgálatos fiúk bevitték a skót iskolába. Ezek a fiúk, a barátaim, akik mindig jöttek velünk, vigyáztak ránk tényleg.

Azt hittem, hogy én mentesítve vagyok, de pechem volt, mert nem. Engem elvittek. Így kerültem Lichtenwörthbe. Végig zuhogott az eső, ahogy mentünk. És a különböző állomáshelyeken, Dorogon, Piliscsabán nyitott helyeken voltunk, egyik helyen a futballpályán, a másik helyen a piactéren voltunk ömlő esőben. Nem tudom pontosan, hogy Dorogon vagy Piliscsabán volt-e, hogy egy katonatiszt azt ordította, rohadt zsidók, ilyen zsidók, olyan zsidók. Mi hátul mentünk. Egyszer csak odajött hozzánk, és azt mondta: „Én nem látok semmit, megyek előre, és amerre tudnak, szaladjanak, menjenek szét, mert viszik magukat Németországba!” És ugyanezt csinálta azokkal, akik elöl voltak. Úgyhogy teljesen szétengedte a társaságot. A nyilasok előtt azt mutatta, hogy ő milyen zsidógyűlölő, ugyanakkor rendes volt. De mi hatan, lányok, akik romot takarítottunk, együtt maradtunk. Azt mondtuk: „Hát most hova menjünk, mit csináljunk?” Inkább együtt maradtunk, és így kivittek bennünket. Azok se jártak sokkal-sokkal jobban, akik elbújtak, mert a nyilasok összeszedték, kocsira rakták, és utánunk hozták őket.

Harkáig végig gyalog mentünk [Harka Soprontól délre van az osztrák határnál. Lásd még: halálmenetek Hegyeshalomba. – A szerk.]. Ott nyitott pajtákban voltunk elhelyezve, szalmán. Ezek a pajták elöl-hátul nyitva voltak. Egy lavórt adtak, aztán kint az udvaron mosdottunk meztelenül, hogyha nem akartunk már rögtön tetvesek lenni. Ott jöttek-mentek a parasztok, és mi meg szégyentelenül mosakodtunk, mert nem lehetett mit csinálni. A latrinára a kert végén, valahova elég messze kellett menni, ahová egy magyar nyilas kísért bennünket, nehogy megszökjünk. Úgyhogy ő ott végigasszisztálta, amíg mi elvégeztük a dolgunkat. Ott kihajtottak bennünket sáncot ásni a határba. Ástuk a sáncot, hogyha az orosz tankok jönnek, akkor legyen min nevetniük.

A németek felügyeltek bennünket, volt ott Wehrmacht meg SS, akik mindig lovon jöttek. Az egyik Wehrmacht-tiszt egész rendes volt. Nagyon sokat dolgoztunk, hogy minél nagyobb legyen az árok. Decemberben már nem kaptunk ennivalót. Mellettünk egy disznóól volt, és amikor a paraszt kihozta a disznóknak a főtt krumplit, szegény disznók éhen haltak, mert mi ettük meg, amit nekik szántak. Gyorsan kiszedtük a krumplit a vályúból, és azt ettük, meg a száraz kukoricát, ami föl volt akasztva.

Ez decemberben volt, Harkán. Egyik este jöttek a németek, és elkezdtek ütni-verni, rugdosni bennünket, ahol értek. Azt hiszem, akkor este kihajtottak bennünket az állomásra, és akkor vonatra ültünk. Valamikor éjszaka érkeztünk Lichtenwörthbe. Csak utólag tudtuk meg, hogy hol vagyunk. Ott egy gyárépületben szállásoltak el bennünket, amit az első napokban ragyogónak éreztünk, mert egy fedett csarnokban voltunk. A sorok hajókra volt osztva: első, második, harmadik. Én az ötödik hajóban voltam. Szalmán feküdtünk, és egyszerre fordultunk jobbra és balra, mert másként nem volt hely. Fűtés nem volt. Körülbelül kétezerötszázan voltunk a csarnokban, főleg nők, csak nagyon kevés férfi volt. És csukott vályú volt, ahol lehetett mosakodni. Tehát nem nyíltan. De ott is vegyesen: férfiak, nők együtt. Egy magas, szőke SS volt a lágerparancsnok. Hát itt se kaptunk enni, minimális volt az ennivaló. Eltetvesedtünk rettenetesen, úgyhogy a napi szórakozásunk az volt, hogy tetveztük magunkat. De hiába. És itt aztán elöl-hátul, szóval itt körben haltak meg az emberek. Nagyon-nagyon rossz körülmények közé kerültünk. Ha kaptunk egy-egy negyed kiló kenyeret, nem tudom én, hány napra, ha hoztak egy valamilyen levest kondérban, akkor annak se íze, se bűze nem volt, de legalább volt valami. Borzasztó volt látni, ahogy az emberek belemásztak a kondérba, és egymást ölve próbálták, ami a kondérban volt még, kikaparni. Embertelen körülmények között voltunk.

Volt egy olyan idő, amikor egy másik parancsnok jött a szőke helyett, és az egy kicsit engedékenyebb volt. Voltak lányok, akik kiszöktek este a faluba, mert voltak olyan családok, osztrákok, akik várták, és krumplit, kenyeret adtak enni. De akik kimentek, nem adtak másoknak semmit. Voltak falusiak, akik nagyon rendesek voltak. Lichtenwörthben emlékmű is van azoknak az osztrákoknak az emlékére, akiket kivégeztek a németek, mert segítettek a táborlakóknak.

1945. április másodikán, délben fél egykor szabadultunk fel, húsvét hétfője volt. Már ezt megelőzően is hallottuk, hogy Wienerneustadtot és Bécset erősen bombázták, mert közel voltunk. Az SS-ek meg a németek már egy pár nappal korábban menekültek. Hallottam, amikor nem sokkal korábban arról beszéltek, hogy itt van egy kocsi, amelyik fertőtleníteni fog bennünket, és a ruhákat, mindent kivisznek, és úgy fertőtlenítenek. Az volt a problémánk, hogy miben leszünk akkor, hogyha lefertőtlenítenek. Mert mi nem hallottunk Auschwitzról, mi nem tudtuk, hogy ott mi történt. És most tudtuk meg Szita Szabolcs holokausztkutatótól, hogy egy pár nappal korábban ott járt az Eichmann. Tehát ha nem jönnek be az oroszok, akkor mi se vagyunk, mert ugyanúgy fertőtlenítettek volna bennünket, mint Auschwitzban [Tudniillik elgázosították volna őket. – A szerk.].

Április elsején éjjel már egyedül maradtunk. Ez nagy boldogság volt, mert tudtuk, hogy itt van a vége a dolgoknak. Valahonnan összeszedtek valami fehéret, amit kiraktak a tetőre. Az első orosz katona másnap fél egykor jött be. Ez volt a felszabadulásunk. Kinyitották a raktárt, ami tömve volt ennivalóval. Sajnos az emberek megrohanták a raktárt, és ez volt a haláluk, hogy ettek. El voltunk szokva az ennivalótól, és ebben is nagyon sokan meghaltak.

Lichtenwörthben volt egy szoba, amit tetvesszobának hívtunk. Aki föladta, és nem tetvezte magát, oda bekerült, onnan ki nem jött. Én tífuszos voltam, mert általában tífuszosak voltunk. Lábra se tudtam állni. Amikor felszabadultunk, azt mondtam, hogy én nagyon félek, és ha a kapuig ki tudok menni, akkor elindulok, mert nem tudom, hogy az SS-ek nem jönnek-e vissza, és nem gyilkolnak-e le bennünket. Ki tudtam menni a kapuig.

Még Harkán találkoztam össze az unokabátyám menyasszonyával, Feit Marival és az anyjával. Végig együtt is maradtunk, hárman együtt jöttünk haza. A néni nem volt flekkes [A flekktífusz vagy kiütéses tífusz magas lázzal és fejfájással járó fertőző betegség, főleg a ruhatetvek terjesztik. – A szerk.], de Mari nem volt magánál. Ő még él, hál’ istennek. Szoktam vele találkozni, amikor a lichtenwörthiekkel összejövünk.

Elindultunk. Az első éjjel az erdőben aludtunk. Másnap bementünk egy házba, és ott töltöttük a napot. Utána gyalog indultunk el haza. Útközben találkoztunk francia katonákkal, akik szintén azon a környéken voltak deportálva. Rendesek voltak, enni adtak. Marit betették egy tolókocsiba, és egy ideig tolták, mert menni se tudott. Én még valahogy elgyalogoltam. Aztán fölvettek bennünket orosz teherautóra. Elvittek bennünket valahova, mondták, hogy hazahoznak Magyarországra, de aztán otthagytak. Ahogy így vándoroltunk, bekerültünk egy gazdaságba, ahol enni adtak nekünk. Így kerültünk át a határra, Csornára. Csornán akkor indult az első vonat, arra fölszálltunk, és a platón utaztunk. Székesfehérváron át kellett szállni egy másik vonatra, amivel a ferencvárosi pályaudvarig jöttünk.

Addig nem is gondoltam arra, hogy nekem esetleg nincs meg senkim. Nem tudtam, hogy mire jövök haza. Amikor leszálltunk a pályaudvaron, ott állt a peronon egy nő, és egyből látta, hogy én deportálásból jövök. Csak rám kellett nézni, csont és bőr voltam és tiszta rongy. Érdeklődött, mert az ő férjét is elvitték Auschwitzba. Akkor tudtam meg, hogy mi volt ott. Addig nem tudtam.

Auschwitz szigorúan el volt zárva. Aki azt mondja, hogy hallott róla, nem hitte el. Van, aki azt mondja, hogy nem hallott róla. Azt tudtuk, hogy vannak koncentrációs táborok, de azt nem, hogy gázkamrák vannak. És azt se tudtuk, hogy szétválasztják az embereket. Utána tudtuk meg, hogy mi történt. Szegény nagynénémet Törökszentmiklósról elvitték Auschwitzba. Nem is jött vissza. Írt egy lapot, amire az volt írva, hogy a munka dicsőség. Még küldhettek egy lapot ezzel a felirattal, és hogy jól vannak [Mint Randolph L. Braham: A népirtás politikája. A holokauszt Magyarországon (Új Mandátum Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 2003) című könyvének glosszáriumában olvasható: „ A deportált zsidóktól, akik közül sokat mindjárt elgázosítottak, megkövetelték, hogy e »helységet« (ti. Waldsee-t) feltüntetve írják meg haza, hogy jól vannak.” – A szerk.]. És aztán kész, ennyi volt. Anyu törökszentmiklósi családjából senki sem jött vissza Auschwitzból.

Harminc kilóval jöttem haza, a bőr rám volt száradva, csont és bőr voltam. Amikor megérkeztem, és összetalálkoztam az ismerősökkel, összevissza csókoltak, öleltek. Az elsők között voltam, aki hazajöhettem. Ott voltak a Bokor lányok, akik tisztítósok voltak, és egy nagyon rendes bácsi, egy szabó mondta, hogy az anyám és a testvérem megvan, ami már egy nagy megnyugvás volt. Azt is mondták, hogy apámról nem tudnak semmit. Amikor megérkeztem a Dob utca 71-be, rögtön a kádba raktak. A ruhámat, mindent bedobtak egyből a kályhába, mert a hajam is így lengett a tetűtől. Küldtek P. nagynénémért. Anyám nem volt otthon, mert akkor már megnyitott itt a házban [a Népszínház utcában, ahol a háború előtt a boltjuk volt. – A szerk.], a mi volt üzletünkben. Anyu kiigényelte az üzlethelyiséget, és megkapta. Teljesen üres volt, amikor megkapta, a nagybátyám adott árut. Mindenfélét árult, amit a nagybátyám adott neki, mert nekik vasnagykereskedésük volt. A nagybátyám veje őskeresztény volt, és annak a nevén maradt az üzlet. És próbálta segíteni anyámat, hogy valamit csináljon, hogy valamit kezdeni tudjunk.

Úgy tudom, hogy apám, amikor megtudta, hogy engem elvittek, utánam jött, hogy megtaláljon. Utána már csak annyit tudtam róla, hogy ő Sopronkőhidán volt, és aztán elvitték Mauthausenbe. Onnan került át Günskirchenbe [Mauthausen egyik altábora volt. – A szerk.], kórházba és ott halt meg. Ötven éves volt, a legszebb férfikorban vitték el. Volt egy zsidó alkalmazottunk, aki apával együtt volt deportálva Mauthausenbe, és a felszabadulás után jött, hogy jön haza apám, mert ő is fölszabadult. Tévedett. Amikor az újságban közölték a Mauthausenban elhunytakat, apám az elsők között volt. Állítólag kapott egy furunkulust vagy egy vérmérgezést, és abba halt bele.

Az öcsém egy ideig bent volt a Vadász utcában, ahol a svédeknek volt valami gyerekmentő részük [A Vadász utca 29-ben a svájci követség kivándorlási osztálya működött, és itt volt a haluc fiatalok illegális tevékenységének központja is. Lásd: Üvegház; haluc fiatalok. – A szerk.], és a Perczel Mór utcában is volt a Vöröskeresztnél [lásd: vöröskeresztes gyermekmentés]. Anyu a nagynénémékkel a gettóban, a Nyár utcában volt. Amikor a testvérem megtudta, hogy anyu benn van a gettóban, elszökött a Vadász utcából, és bement hozzá. Ők végig anyámmal a gettóban voltak. A Nyár utcai házat, ahol a családom a gettóban volt, bombatalálat érte. A testvérem és a nagybátyám fönt voltak az emeleten, a lakásban, mikor ez a bombatalálat levitte a fél emeletet. Szerencsére, mellettük szakadt le az emelet. Átköltöztek a Rumbach Sebestyén utcába az unokanővéremhez. A felszabadulás után is ott maradtak egy darabig, mert a régi lakásba nem lehetett visszamenni, mivel azt egy kibombázott foglalta el.

A volt nagykereskedőnk ebben a házban [a Népszínház utcában, ahol a háború előtt a boltjuk volt – A szerk.] lakott, a harmadik emeleten egy nagy, négyszobás lakásban. A nagykereskedése a szomszéd házban volt. Ő szintén zsidó volt, és a családját elvitték. Azt mondta, hogy jöjjünk ide, amíg a családja nem jön vissza. Így kerültünk a Népszínház utcába. Az unokáját kivéve senki se jött vissza. A nagykereskedő lakása a mostani lakásom mellett volt. Ebben a lakásban korábban a Toldyék laktak. A férfi annak a csendőrezredesnek volt a testvére, aki az aranyvonatot vitte ki. De ő akkor már nem élt, csak a felesége meg a két lánya és a veje. Amikor ők is elköltöztek, megürült a lakás. Akkor mondta Toldy néni, hogy jöjjünk át, és elmentünk elintézni, hogy a társbérletet megkapjuk. A két szobát megkaptuk, és a harmadik maradt az övék. Nem volt semmink. Kaptunk kölcsön paplant meg dunnát, és a földön aludtunk. Nulláról kellett kezdeni mindent.

Tizenhét éves voltam ekkor. Az iskolába nem mentem vissza. Nem is tudtam volna, mert anyunak segítettem az üzletben. Edényt és porcelánt is árultunk. Az üzleten kívül a hetipiacon is árult anyu. Amikor a piacra ment, én voltam az üzletben.

Blau Juli barátnőmmel a fölszabadulás után beszéltünk róla, hogy elmegyünk Magyarországról, de énnekem se volt otthon apám, neki se volt otthon az apja, ezért úgy döntöttünk, hogy megvárjuk, míg hazajönnek. Aztán mindketten férjhez mentünk, és itthon maradtunk.

A férjemet, B. K.-t 1945-ben ismertem meg. 1915-ben született Ózdon. A szülei korán meghaltak. Miskolcon élt, kirakatrendezőként dolgozott. Miskolcról Debrecenbe menekült, egy szanatóriumba, onnan deportálták Ausztriába [Braham egyik forrása szerint Debrecenből 6841 zsidót Strasshofba deportáltak. Lásd: Strasshof. – A szerk.]. Szintén Bécs mellett volt, valamilyen tejgazdaságban dolgozott. Amikor fölszabadult, akkor nem ment vissza Miskolcra, hanem idejött lakni a nagynénjéhez, aki az emeleten lakott. A házban ismerkedtünk össze, és ebből szerelem lett. 1947-ben megesküdtünk a nyolcadik kerületi elöljáróságon. Csak polgári esküvőnk volt. 1949-ben szültem. Amikor 1947-ben férjhez mentem, akkor Toldy néni meg is halt, így megkaptuk az egész lakást. Anyámmal együtt laktunk ebben a lakásban.

1950-ben bezártuk az üzletet, mert nem ment. Anyu itt maradt a gyerekkel, én meg elmentem dolgozni a Felvonógyárba. Segédmunkásként a mintaraktárba kerültem. Regisztráltam az öntőnek és az öntőalkatrészeknek a mintáit, amibe a vasat öntik. Halvány gőzöm nem volt, hogy eszik vagy isszák az egészet. Aztán belejöttem valahogy. Akkor áthelyeztek meósnak [MEO – minőségellenőrzési osztály – A szerk.]. Ott a már kész gépekhez kaptunk egy több oldalas műszaki leírást. A legkisebb csavartól egészen a kész felvonók alkatrészeiig kellett ellenőriznem, hogy jól összeállították-e a darabokat. A festést is ellenőriztük. Nekem teljesen idegen volt ez a közeg, de végül annyit voltam lent a műhelyben, szinte ott éltem, hogy megszerettem, és szerettem volna esztergályosnak tanulni.

Elküldtek gépipari tanfolyamra, alapfokú és felsőfokú MEO-tanfolyamra és mindenféle más tanfolyamra. A személyzetis állandóan szekált, hogy menjek gépipari technikumba, végezzem el a gépipari technikumot. Semmi indíttatásom nem volt rá, hogy elvégezzem. 1954-ben elkerültem a Felvonóból a Fővárosi Kézműipari Vállalathoz. Ott is el kellett végeznem egy MEO-tanfolyamot. Utána kétéves vezetői tanfolyamra mentem a Leövey Klára Közgazdasági Technikumba. Ott volt két tanár, a matematika, és aki tervet tanított. Ők beszéltek rá, hogy jelentkezzek, és el is végeztem a négy évet. Munka után jártam iskolába. Nagy szerencsém volt anyámmal, mert főzött, nekem nem kellett háztartást vezetni, hanem tudtam tanulni. Négyen összefogtunk, és együtt tanultunk. Volt egy matematikatanárunk, aki mindig itt volt nálam fönn. Úgyhogy ő foglalkozott velünk. Együtt készültünk a beszámolókra, beosztottuk, hogy ki mit tud jól, és akkor az nagyon jól megtanulta, aki tudott jobban, az tanította a másikat.

Esti dolgozók évfolyama volt, de rendesen le kellett érettségizni, úgyhogy a bizonyítványom egész jó lett. Nyelv kivételével minden tárgy volt. Szakmai tárgyak is: könyvelés, terv, statisztika, matematika, anyagismeret. Politikai gazdaságtant is kellett tanulnunk. Nem volt egyszerű, mert megkövetelték nagyon a tudást. Negyven éves voltam, amikor leérettségiztem. Az előmenetelemnek nem volt feltétele az érettségi, én már akkor is részlegvezető voltam. Beadtam az érettségi bizonyítványomat, beírták a számot. Soha az életben többet nem kérték. Csak az számított, hogy jól vagy rosszul végzem a munkám. Ötvenkét évesen még elküldtek a könnyűipari minisztériumi középkáderképző kétéves iskolájára. A Láng Gépgyárba jártunk. Nem vettük komolyan ezt a kétéves dolgot. Amikor befejeztem, fölhívtam a személyzetist, és megmondtam, hogy ez volt az életem utolsó vizsgája. Engem többet nem küldjenek iskolába.

A testvérem is négy polgárit végzett. A Német utcába járt, akkor ott volt a polgári iskola. Gyönyörűen rajzolt. Cinkográfus szeretett volna lenni, de zsidóként már nem vették föl. A felszabadulás után letette aztán a nyomdai gépmester vizsgát, és elhelyezkedett egy nyomdában. Nem sokáig dolgozott gépmesterként, mert behívták katonának. Ott kiemelték a jó íráskészsége miatt. Ez 1950-ben volt, amikor az első újságíró-iskola indult. Géza bekerült, és elvégezte az újságíró főiskolát. Utána a honvédség lapjánál volt rovatvezető, ha jól tudom. Onnan átkerült a vasúthoz, ahol szintén egy rovatot vitt.

Megnősült, és 1952-ben megszületett a fia. 1956-ban kimentek Svédországba [Az 1956-os forradalmat követő hetekben mintegy 200 000 ember hagyta el az országot. Lásd: 1956-os forradalom; disszidálás. – A szerk.]. Ott már nem tudott újságíróként dolgozni. Megkeresték őt az ottani magyarok, de Magyarország ellen kellett volna cikkeket írni neki, amit nem akart, mert családja volt Magyarországon, és haza is akart majd jönni, ha lehetséges.

Svédországban a legnagyobb újságkiadó nyomdájában dolgozott mint gépmester. A nyelvet, ha nem is olyan hamar, de megtanulta. Most is azt mondja, hogy még most se tud jól beszélni, mert a magyar akcentusa megmaradt. Két kisebbik fia már Svédországban született, ők már svédek, nem is tudnak magyarul. A testvéremnek szép nyugdíja van, gondtalan, és a gyerekei is mind nagyon jól vannak. Az öcsém első felesége zsidó volt, a második nem. Szóval a három fia és az unokák már mind svédek, ők nem is mondják azt, hogy ők zsidók. Svédországban azt mondják, hogy ők nem tudják, mi az, hogy zsidó. A feleségek meg abszolút svédek.

Mindig tartottuk a kapcsolatot. Miután elmentek, elkezdtem a Szabad Európát hallgatni. 1967-ben pont akkor voltam náluk Svédországban, amikor Izraelben kitört a háború [lásd: hatnapos háború]. Az öcsém minden évben jött, és most is minden évben jön.

Hetvenöt éves koromig dolgoztam a Kézműipari Vállalatnál. Végig részlegvezető voltam. Nyugdíjasként 1987-től a nyugdíjas szakosztályt vezettem. Eleinte nagyon sok, ezerkétszáz vagy ezerháromszáz nyugdíjasunk volt. Nagy kultúréletet éltünk. A Majában, úgy hívtuk, a Majakovszkij utcában [ma: Király utca – A szerk.], a Gólya [Áruház] fölött volt egy nagy kultúrhelyiségünk. Egy terem volt színpaddal. Voltak nyugdíjasrendezvények, kirándulások. Segélyeket adtunk, üdülés volt. Volt a vállalatnak nyaralója Tahiban [Tahitótfaluban]. Nagyon szép nyaraló, ahova nagyon szerettek a nyugdíjasok menni.

A dolgozóim általában szerettek. Nagyon sokat jártam vidékre, mert parasztasszonyokat tanítottunk be varrni. Több vidéki egységem volt, amit megszerveztem, megalakítottam. Tanácselnökökkel volt kapcsolatom, mert ők biztosították a klubhelyiséget, és ezért velük kellett megbeszélnem a dolgokat. Nem volt semmi problémám munkaügyi vonalon.

Az 1950-es években kerestük a helyünket. Fiatalok voltunk még, megvoltak a lehetőségeink a szórakozásra. Elmehettünk étterembe, nem okozott problémát elmenni ebédelni vagy vacsorázni. Dacára annak, hogy sosem voltunk nagy jövedelmű emberek, nem éreztük soha, hogy nélkülözünk. Négyen éltünk együtt, ketten kerestünk, kettőt el kellett tartani. Anyukámnak nem volt semmi jövedelme, se nyugdíja, se kegydíja, semmit nem kapott. És persze a lányomat is el kellett tartani, iskoláztatni, ruházni. Bár a férjem 1954-től kijárt külföldre, nem volt kacsalábon forgó palotánk.

Megvolt a társaságunk, és nem foglalkoztunk politikával. Vegyes társaságunk volt: zsidó és keresztény barátaink is voltak, de a közvetlen barátaink, akikkel összejöttünk, inkább zsidók voltak. Éltük az életünket. Jártunk párttaggyűlésre, amikor volt. A körülmények és az események arra predesztináltak, hogy belépjek a pártba. Mindig baloldali érzelmű voltam. 1945-től MSZMP tag voltam [A kommunista párt csak az 1956-os forradalom után vette fel az MSZMP nevet a kompromittált MKP, illetve MDP név helyett. – A szerk.] egészen addig, ameddig megszűnt az MSZMP, és MSZP lett. Az MSZP-be már nem léptem be. 1950 óta szakszervezeti tag vagyok. Először szakszervezeti vonalon dolgoztam, a munkaügyi bizottságnak voltam az egyik tagja. Aztán már, nem emlékszem, hogyan, a vállalatnál beneveztek pártvezetőségi tagnak. A gazdasági vonalon voltam, ami azt jelentette, hogy a pártbélyegeket osztottam szét a bizalmiknak, összeszedtem, és elmentem a pártbizottságra. A pártban nem volt téma, hogy kinek milyen a vallása. Szóba se nagyon került a téma, akkor ez nem volt jellemző. Nem beszéltünk róla, mert tudták, hogy zsidó vagyok.

A férjem kirakatrendező volt, dekoratőr. Az Illatszer [kereskedelmi vállalat volt] dekorációrészlegének volt a vezetője. A Hungexpo révén magyar kiállításokat rendezett külföldön. Kijárt külföldre a magyar kiállításokkal. Ő volt az első, aki 1958-ban, Brüsszelben az első magyar világkiállítási részvétel alkalmával a dekorációt csinálta. Kint volt kilenc hónapig.

Nem volt kellemetlenségem amiatt, hogy az öcsém disszidált. Érdekes módon, soha nem merült fel a dolog, pedig a férjem kijárt külföldre. 1958-ban, amikor a férjem szerette volna, hogy kimenjek hozzá, akkor voltak nehézségek, és akkor a férjem kiverte a huppot, hogy bezzeg a Váci utcából a maszekok megkapták az útlevelet és kimentek, a feleségem meg nem [lásd: utazás külföldre 1945 után; kék útlevél]. És akkor a Bihari elvtárs volt a belügyminiszter-helyettes, elintézte, hogy ki tudjak menni. Végül két hónapig kint voltam. Az volt az első nyugati utam életemben.

1956-ban [lásd: 1956-os forradalom] is mindenáron el akartam menni. Két cirkuszt már megéltem itt, egy harmadikat már nem akarok itt megélni. A Kézműnél dolgoztam, a Váci utca 12-ben volt a részleg. Október huszonharmadikán délelőtt jöttek a belkerből a lányok, hogy jaj, gyertek ki az utcára, forrong minden. Sinkovits Imre [(1928–2001 ) – színész, 1963-tól a Nemzeti Színház örökös tagja volt, a Nemzet Színésze cím birtokosa. – A szerk.] a 12 pontot szavalta a Petőfi-szobornál, darutollas kalapokban mentek a Váci utcában. Amikor láttam kiírva, hogy „Itzig, nem viszünk Auschwitzig”, mindenképpen el akartam menni. A probléma csak az volt, hogy nem volt pénzünk. Gondolkodtunk, hogy most mit csináljunk. Volt egy szomszédunk, aki azt mondta, hogy ha kitesszük a lábunkat, akkor bejön a lakásba. Ha anyámat itt hagytuk volna, mit csinál pénz nélkül? Vagy vittük volna magunkkal? Azt se tudtuk, hogy mi mit tudnánk csinálni. És akkor mi lesz, ha vissza kell jönni, mert elkapnak a határon? A férjem nem akart jönni. Minden barátja kiment. Az egész környék kiürült, ismerősök, barátok, mindenki elment Nyugatra, Amerikába, Kanadába, mindenfelé.

A szomszéd házban lakott egy házaspár, akivel jóban voltam. A nővel sokat hülyéskedtünk, mondtuk, hogy na, kimegyünk Izraelbe. 1956-ban, amikor a cirkuszok voltak, vagy talán 1957 elején, fogták magukat, és tényleg kimentek Izraelbe. Pár hónap vagy fél év múlva visszajöttek. Egy másik barátunk is kiment Izraelbe, de három hónap múlva visszajött, mert nem tudott megszokni ott. Mi itt maradtunk. A barátaink minden nap telefonáltak Bécsből, hogy gyertek, várunk benneteket. Minden áldott este vita, veszekedés volt, mert én nagyon menni akartam, a férjem viszont hallani se akart róla. Ő szívvel-lélekkel baloldali ember volt, és semmi ingerenciája nem volt, hogy kapitalista országba menjen. Az igazsághoz tartozik az is, hogy ő vezető állásban volt, és ezért nem bírta volna elviselni, hogy neki dirigáljanak.

Zsidó érzelmű vagyok, de nem vagyok vallásos. A férjem jesivába járt, de ő sem volt vallásos. Nem tartottuk a zsidó ünnepeket, de a karácsonyt vagy a húsvétot sem. A hozzátartozóim mind zsidó temetőben vannak eltemetve. Néha mondok kádist [A kádis elmondásának szigorú szabályai vannak. Lásd: kádis. – A szerk.], megtartom a jahrzeitokat, és Jom Kipurkor böjtölök. Anyám emlékére elmegyek a Dohány utcai templomba nagyünnepekkor.

Anyuval mindvégig négyesben laktunk. Jól kijöttek a férjemmel. Nagyon sokat segített nekem. Ő vitte a háztartást, és a gyereket is ő nevelte, mert én reggeltől estig dolgoztam, meg iskolába jártam. 1970-ben halt meg.

A háború előtt jóban voltam az unokatestvéreimmel. Az egyik unokahúgom Németországban él, a másik Ausztráliában, de már meghalt. Akik itt vannak, azokkal van, akivel jóban vagyok [van, akivel nem]. Például a nagybátyámnak a fiát harminc éve láttam utoljára. Teljesen szétesett ez a család.

Korán maradtam egyedül. A férjem 1987-ben halt meg. Zsidó temetőben van eltemetve. Aktív életet élek, olvasok, nézem a hírműsorokat, eljárok színházba és moziba, bridzselek. Nagyon szeretek utazni, már majdnem egész Európát bejártam. Kétszer voltam Izraelben. Először 1991-ben, az öbölháború előtt voltam kint. Az nagyon nagy élmény volt nekem. Végigbőgtem az egész utat, kezdve itt, Ferihegyen, mert együtt mentünk az oroszok egy részével [Az 1990-es években több ezer szovjet zsidó Magyarországon keresztül vándorolt ki Izraelbe. – A szerk.]. Nekem borzasztó volt látni ezeket az embereket, batyuval, kutyával. Öregek, sánták, tolókocsival. Borzalmas volt.

A barátnőmmel, Luluval és a férjével, Sándorral utaztunk együtt. Hajnalban érkeztünk Tel-Avivba. Amikor kinéztem a repülő ablakán, láttam, hogy nagy tömeg áll ott lent. Mondom a barátaimnak, hogy ezek nem minket várnak. De integettek és énekeltek. Az oroszokat várták. Mondanom se kell, hogy sírva szálltunk le a gépről. A nyakunkba borultak. Mondtuk, hogy mi nem vagyunk oroszok. Nem baj, mondták. Az oroszokat félrevitték, és adtak nekik vodkát.

Ez egy nagyon szép út volt. Netanián laktunk szállodában. Az egyik barátnőm, akivel 1944-ben romot takarítottunk, Rison Lecionban él. Amikor megérkeztem, fölhívtam telefonon, hogy itt vagyok kint, Netanián. Ők már voltak kétszer Pesten, mielőtt én kimentem. Egy napra odamentem hozzájuk látogatóba. Nagy boldogság volt vele találkozni. Olyan boldog voltam látni azt a sok gyereket, azt a sok fiatalt. És olyan gyönyörű volt tényleg minden. Szombaton egy ligetben sétáltunk. A gyerekek ott játszottak, minden vidám volt. Minden.

Pont úgy voltam kint, hogy volt egy gyásznap is akkor. A gyásznap borzasztó volt. Rettenetes rossz élmény volt látni a tévén, ahogy hozták ezeket a fiatalokat, akik meghaltak a háború alatt. Megszólalt a sziréna, és minden megállt, mi is leálltunk. Üzletben voltunk, és mint a cövek, egy pillanatra le kellett állnunk. Aznap este kezdődött a függetlenség ünnepe [A Jom Hacmaut, azaz a Függetlenség Napja, amelyen Izrael állam megalakulását ünneplik, a zsidó naptár szerint Ijar hónap 4-én van, ami 1991-ben április 18-ra esett. – A szerk.]. Az valami csodálatos élmény volt. A főutcához közel dobogók voltak felállítva, és mindenütt zene és vidámság volt. A fiatalok mindenkit és mindent bespricceltek fehér habbal. Szóval tényleg csodálatos volt.

1989 nem volt különösebb megrázkódtatás nekem. Nem éreztem meg az átmenetet valahogy. Ugyanannál a vállalatnál ugyanolyan beosztásban voltam. Ugyanúgy kellett dolgozni. Szóval nem éreztem, kivéve, hogy sok emberben csalódtam. Különösen olyanokban, akik korábban melldöngető funkcionáriusok voltak, és most ugyanolyan nagy melldöngetéssel pont az ellenkezőjét csinálták. Ettől hányingere van az embernek. Nézem a tévét, és látom, hogy emberek úgy mennek egyik pártból a másikba, keringenek, mint gólyafos – ahogy szokták mondani – a levegőben. Ezek a karrieristák. Én a legaljasabbnak azokat az embereket tartom, akik pálfordulást csinálnak. 1989-ban szabadott már mindenfélét mondani. Akkor talán nem voltak annyira antiszemita felhangok. De azért azóta mindenki szépen hallatja a hangját.

Fantasztikus, hogy megint érzik az emberek, hogy össze kell tartozni. Mert valahova tartozni kell. A keresztényekhez nem tud az ember úgy tartozni, mert egy szólás, akaratlanul egy rossz szó, az már az embert taszítja. A zsidóknál se azt kapja az ember, amit szeretne. De azt inkább el tudja fogadni, ha nehezen is. Tényleg úgy van, mint a Cyrano orr-monológjában, hogy ha más szid, azt nem tűröm, de magamat kigúnyolom, ha kell. Mert ha egy zsidó vagy én azt mondom, hogy „egy ronda zsidó”, az más, mint hogyha egy keresztény mondja, hogy „ez egy ronda zsidó”. Vagy más az, hogy mikor azt mondja – mint a keresztények szokták mondani, ugye –, hogy ez egy nagyon rendes zsidó ember vagy egy nagyon rendes zsidó orvos, vagy egy nagyon rendes… Azért mindig hozzáteszik, mert ez úgy hozzátartozik nekik, hogy „na hát ez egy rendes zsidó”.

Az, hogy zsidó vagyok, azt hiszem, mindent megmond. Minden, ami a zsidósággal történik, megérint. A rossz fáj, a jónak örülök. Ezt jelenti nekem a zsidóság. Más életformánk is van, az bizonyos. Nem másképp élünk, mint a keresztények, de talán zártabban élünk. A zsidók általában véve, bármi történt, mindig talpra tudtak állni. Nem koldultak, nem kértek, most se járnak az önkormányzathoz segélyért. Ez az, amit nem tudnak megbocsátani nekünk. És az is szálka mások szemében, hogy a zsidó családokban mindig a legtöbbet akarják kihozni a gyerekekből. Ez egy olyan hozzáállás, hogy „mutasd meg, több legyél!”. A Nobel-díjasok hetven százaléka zsidó. Sok a művész is, mert földet nem lehetett venni [Magyarországon a zsidók az 1850-es évekig nem rendelkezhettek földdel, telekkel és ingatlannal, nem foglalhattak el állami hivatalokat sem. Árutermeléssel és eladással, valamint pénzügyletekkel foglalkoztak. – A szerk.]. Mi lett a zsidókból? Kereskedő, orvos, ügyvéd, művész – mind szellemi foglalkozás.

Járni nem járok oda, de a Nagy Fuvaros utcai templomból minden hónapban jön egy hölgy, akinek fizetek adót. Négy-öt éve lehetett, hogy Ági barátnőmnek, aki Izraelben él, jött a barátnőjének a lánya és a férje Izraelből. Megkértek, hogy mivel pont Pészahra jönnek, széderre próbáljak valamit szervezni. Elmentünk a Nagy Fuvaros utcába, és mondtam, hogy az ismerőseim Izraelből jöttek, és szeretnénk itt széderezni. Csodálatos széder volt, mert a sok kis öreg körbefogta őket a rabbival együtt, és énekeltek.

Minden hónap utolsó hétfőjén a Síp utcában összejövetelük van a lichtenwörthieknek. És még hál’ istennek, elég szép számmal jövünk össze. Gedei Márta a vezetőnk, nagyon szépen összetartja a csoportot. Arra mindig elmegyek. Ott egy beszámoló van, hogy ki mit végzett, mit csinált egy hónap alatt. Sajnos sorban halnak meg az emberek. Én még fiatalnak számítok a hetvennyolc évemmel, amit én se akarok elhinni már. Kaptam kárpótlást a Claims Conference-en keresztül.

Egyszer voltam kinn Lichtenwörthben, már nem tudom, hányadik évfordulón. Semmit nem éreztem. Teljesen megváltozott, modern irodaépületet állítottak elé. Az udvarba be lehetett menni. Benéztem az ötös hajóba, ahol feküdtem. Egy vályúban mosakodtunk, és ott volt a tetűsszoba, ahová ha bekerült valaki, onnan már ki nem jött, mert a tetűk megették. Ez már sehol sincs, nyoma se maradt. Auschwitzba, Mauthausenbe vagy ilyen helyre nem mennék el, az biztos. Menjen az, aki nem látta.

Csak addig akarok élni, ameddig el tudom magam látni, szellemileg és fizikailag rendben vagyok. Ha Isten őrizz, lerobbanok, akkor inkább a halál, mint élni tovább. Amikor belegondolok, nem tudom elképzelni magam a koromnak. Valahogy nem megy.

Janina Wiener

Janina Wiener
Cracow
Poland
Interviewer: Jolanta Jaworska
Date of interview: July-August 2005

Mrs. Janina Wiener is 83 years old and was born in Lwow. She talks about herself and her family – a family with the sense of a Jewish identity, yet culturally to a large extent integrated into Polish society. The history of her family shows how rich and diverse the Jewish world was. It refutes the stereotype that the Polish Jew was poor and simple, wore payot, or was a communist, or that he was so assimilated that only anti-Semites saw a Jew in him. Here we have a culturally very rich Polish and European family of Jews, where children are given Polish names and at the same time attend Hebrew lessons at the Tarbut 1.

My name is Janina Wiener [nee Bodenstein] and I was born on 13th April 1922 in Lwow. I remember my great-grandmother, because she died when I was already ten years old; that was in 1932. I remember her very well. She was my maternal great-grandmother, the mother of my maternal grandmother. Her name was Klara Urich, but I don’t know her maiden name. Great-grandmother was a very dignified, grey-haired lady. Always dressed in black, with a large black polished bag. When she visited us, she’d sit me on her lap and kiss me, which was very unpleasant, because she probably already had, you know… facial hair. She’d prickle me. She’d prickle me with those kisses, and she’d treat me with paradise apples, the small, red ones, which she’d take out of her polished bag. And I felt miserable, literally miserable. Whenever she came I’d run away however I could. I’d hide away in some tight corner so that they wouldn’t find me and take me to Great-grandmother.

Great-grandmother was a widow. About her husband – my great-grandfather – I know virtually nothing. Great-grandmother’s latter years were affluent and prosperous; she had this companion with whom she lived and who’d escort her to us, even though Great-grandmother was physically and mentally sound, really OK. I remember that we spoke only in Polish. I don’t remember which street she lived on; I don’t think I ever visited her at home. Usually it was her who’d come to us. I have no idea whether she was religious. She is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Lwow.

My maternal grandmother’s name was Charlota [Singer, nee Urich]. I don’t know how they spelled it, but everyone called her Loti. Oh, she was a great person. She was short, she was plump, always with a smile on her face. A warm person, of whom it was said in the family she had the ‘white liver,’ [a composed, cool person] because grandfather – Jakub Singer – was a pyknic [Editor’s note: Mrs. Wiener means he was explosive], an impulsive personality. Grandfather was very impulsive. And when he’d get one of his fits, Grandmother would sit at the table and start eating. As long as he was raging, she kept eating. And they were a couple, Jakub and Charlota. Both were born in Lwow. Moreover, I very much liked to visit Grandmother when she was doing something, and sometimes – though they had a cook – she’d cook something herself. I remember how she used to make those favorite cakes of mine, her sleeves rolled up. Those hands were so plump, with little dimples, and I loved to kiss Grandmother on those dimples. And she would never chase me away from the kitchen. Never.

Though Grandfather was very impulsive, I never irritated him. He’d never yell at me. I remember him as a very large man, powerfully built, with very large hands, yet those hands were so delicate that if something got into my eye or I got a splinter in my finger, I’d run to Grandfather to pull it out, rather than to my mother. Grandfather was grey-haired; his hair was somehow wavy and parted in the middle. He never wore glasses. Grandfather was a very wealthy man. So much so he could afford to spend the whole of World War I in Vienna with six children, his wife, a nanny – which, you’ve got to admit, was something. They returned to Lwow only after the war, not after the regaining of independence [see Poland’s independence, 1918] 2 but a bit later, I think, after that Polish-Ukrainian war [see Battle for Lwow] 3.

After the war [World War I], Grandfather worked as a sales representative for various foreign companies in Poland. Among other things, he was a distributor for Oetker [Dr. Oetker, German maker of baking additives and desserts; the company’s first production plant in Poland opened in 1922 in Gdansk]. A nationwide distributor. Among other things. Then I remember there was a company I was very much interested in: Victor Schmidt und Soehne from Vienna. It was a confectionery company, they made chocolate. Every Christmas I’d get from them a whole box of chocolate figurines for hanging on the Christmas tree. Besides that, I remember I once got from them a tiny Rosenthal dolls’ tea set. I also got dolls from them – so that the company and its name somehow stuck in my memory. I also remember a company called Globin Globus, they made metal-cleaning agents or something of the sort.

Those were Austrian companies and certainly also German ones, because I remember that Grandfather often went on business to Leipzig, Vienna, and Gdansk. He always brought me, his granddaughter, gifts back from those trips.

Grandfather had an office in the house where he lived. The address was 35 Skarbkowska Street [now Lesi Ukrainki], and we lived next door at 37. That was the center of Lwow. Grandfather owned both houses, and that’s why I was so close to them. Both houses had two stories. Like us, Grandfather lived on the second floor. His apartment was very spacious, and from the living room you entered a balcony overlooking the street. The balcony had beautiful metalwork, hammered by some village blacksmith. Grandfather had bought those houses, but I don’t know when. I can’t say whether Grandfather owned any other real estate except those two townhouses.

In the kitchen they had this huge tiled stove with a top plate for cooking. A door led from the kitchen to the dining room, and when you entered, on the right there was a niche, a cabinet set into the wall, with a metal door – all that was wallpapered. There were shelves there, and on the lower shelf stood tins full of cookies. All kinds of cookies: salty ones of the cracker variety with poppy-seed, sweet ones…

It was a Jewish home, of course. It was a home where all the holidays were observed. On the eve of the major holidays, the important ones, we usually had a festive dinner – because a holiday always starts at dusk of the previous day. During Easter [the practice of using the name Easter instead of Pesach to describe the Jewish holiday is widespread with secular, deeply assimilated Polish Jews] you can’t, of course, eat bread, so we ate matzah, and when the holidays ended, we’d eat that matzah with ham. Grandmother’s cuisine wasn’t kosher – nothing of the sort. Neither ours nor my grandparents’ was.

The whole family would gather at Grandfather’s during those major holidays. Grandfather had six children, and all of them were married, both the sons and the daughters, except the youngest son, who still lived with my grandparents, while they all lived in their own places in various parts of the city. They weren’t practicing… Absolutely none of them, unfortunately. Unfortunately, I say… There was no mention of it whatsoever. They never went to the synagogue, but for those holiday dinners they’d all come as one man. Oh yes, they sat respectfully at the table. And those were the holidays, the most important Jewish holidays. Then Grandmother’s birthday, Grandfather’s birthday, their wedding anniversary – those were the days when the whole family would meet at their home.

The Friday [Sabbath] dinners were also held at Grandfather’s. Everyone who could and wanted to could attend. Oh yes. Everyone could come, and I went there too, because I was very fond of Jewish-style fish [gefilte fish]. Grandmother would light the candles. Grandfather would arrive, for he had been to prayer at the Tempel [synagogue built in 1843-1846 on Lwow’s Old Market Place, blown up by the Germans during World War II], and the candles would have already been lit. Then Grandfather would stand up – there was this silver ritual cup, filled with wine – and give the blessing. And that was it; we’d sit down and start eating. A proper dinner.

So it was like that – on the one hand, the major holidays were observed, Grandfather and Grandmother prayed at the city’s most progressive synagogue, the Tempel. They had their benches there, and I remember the metal plaques with their names engraved. I’d also often go to Grandmother’s for those major holidays, because Grandmother was then able to show off her granddaughter to all the ladies. I had to curtsy, of course, and behave. That I remember. Yet in everyday life, it was a very typical home – typical in terms of Polish customs and habits, though, for instance, my grandparents never had a Christmas tree, but we always had one. That didn’t bother Grandfather. Not the slightest bit. Neither Grandfather nor any of his brothers or sisters had anything to do with orthodoxy. They all were very much assimilated. The language in use at my grandparents’ was Polish, though very often they spoke German. Yes… Grandfather and Grandmother might very well talk German at dinner. For Grandfather, it didn’t matter which language he spoke. At the Tempel, my grandparents prayed with prayer books, so they obviously knew some Hebrew. I suppose so, but I’m not sure. I never heard them speak Yiddish or Hebrew. Unfortunately not.

My grandfather was a great fan, to use a modern word, of Emperor Franz Joseph 4. Under Franz Joseph, everything was good. I remember that when I was due to go to school for the first time, Grandfather went with me to a store to buy notebooks, crayons, pencils, and so on. That was 1928, ten years after [the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918]. And at some point, I don’t remember whether it was about pencils or crayons, Grandfather asked the shop assistant, ‘But don’t you have pre-war ones? From before that war?’ I found the expression ‘Don’t you have pre-war ones?’ so appealing that when one time they sent me for fresh rolls to the grocer’s, which happened rarely, but that one time they did send me, I asked in the shop whether they didn’t have pre-war ones. And when I was already a grown-up girl and passed that shop, the owner would always ask me, ‘Do you remember, Miss, how you wanted to buy pre-war rolls?’ Another detail that has now surfaced from memory. Pre-war ones. So, for my grandfather, everything that came from the Franz Joseph era was simply better than anything else.

Grandfather Jakub had three brothers, Wolf, Adolf, and Ludwik, and two sisters whose names I don’t remember. One lived in Vienna, the other in Lwow. The one that lived in Lwow was married to, I think, an optician. I don’t know about the other one, but I know that she visited Lwow several times and stayed with my grandparents. And I know that her daughter, called Mitzi, also paid a visit to Lwow one time. All of Grandfather’s brothers lived in Lwow. Ludwik Singer, a doctor, died during World War I of typhus, having contracted it from a patient. My grandfather’s second brother, Wolf, operated a fur trading business. The third one, Adolf, was a poet, who had kept a shop, but the business went bankrupt because he didn’t look after it at all.

Adolf was a poet in the metaphorical sense of the word, i.e. had his head in the clouds and cared only for literature. Later my grandfather and his brother Wolf gave Adolf some money to set up a tailor’s shop. And I remember a family row – Grandfather was such a hothead – with him striding around the room and saying, ‘Perhaps I love Heine and Goethe too, perhaps I’d also like to be reading them instead of watching over the business!’ Then that second venture also went bust – and he had six children, that Adolf. Five daughters and a boy. I remember Marysia [Maria], Irena, Dziunia. What Dziunia was short for, I don’t know. One was probably named Antonina, for they called her Toncia. I don’t remember the name of the fifth daughter. The son was the youngest of them, and his name was Henryk.

I was close to Toncia’s daughter, Niuka – she was really called Anna – because we were roughly the same age, were growing up together, our mothers, besides being cousins, were friends, we went on summer vacation together, and so on. All those daughters and the son had higher education. I don’t know how he’d managed – I guess the family had helped him, and, on the other hand, there was this hunger [among Adolf’s children] for knowledge, for studying and making a prestigious career. They could have taken apprenticeships with a tailor or a shoemaker, but in that place everyone wanted a prestigious profession.

As far as my grandmother Charlota’s siblings are concerned, I remember two of her brothers. One was called Joachim, the other Franciszek. Everyone called Joachim ‘Bolo,’ but I don’t know why. Franciszek went by the name Franz, the Galician way [the majority of the population of Galicia spoke German, hence the Germanization of the Polish name]. Both were dental surgeons. They had an excellent practice on Kopernika Street. Franciszek was a confirmed bachelor. He married very, very late. An assistant of his. They had no children. I remember that Joachim had a wife and a son, Henryk, much older than me.

I know little about my paternal grandparents. They came from Vienna. My father’s father was a musician, a music teacher at the Vienna Conservatory. His name was Ignacy Bodenstein. I really know nothing about him. He simply died very early. My father was born in 1892 and grandfather died when my father was 16, i.e. 1908. I don’t know when or why my father’s family moved from Vienna to Lwow, but then it was all Galicia 5 … It was one state. I remember well that there was a cousin in Vienna, who married an Austrian girl, she wasn’t Jewish. They had two children, I think. I don’t remember that cousin’s name, but it was probably the only mixed marriage in our family.

My father’s mother was called Dora Bodenstein, nee Poss, and, if I remember right, she lived at 83 Zolkiewska Street [now Khmelnytskoho] in Lwow. I didn’t like to go there, because the apartment somehow seemed very large and gloomy. Grandmother never had a job in her life, and was provided for by her two sons, my uncle Ludwik and my father. As I see it today, she should have been drawing some pension after her husband, shouldn’t she? But she wasn’t. I somehow wasn’t drawn to her, because she was very… how to say it… she was always admonishing me, ‘Sit like this,’ ‘Don’t sit like that,’ ‘Hold yourself straight,’ and so on. She was scolding a small child, so I wasn’t close with her. Uncle Ludwik had no children, so all her affection was focused on me. Grandmother was assimilated and didn’t even go to pray to the synagogue. Nothing. Neither did my uncle or my father.

My grandparents had two sons: the older one Ludwik and the younger one, my father. Ludwik later became a lawyer in Lwow and lived on Sykstuska Street [now Doroshenka]. He completed his law studies in Lwow. As there were only the two of them, they were very close to each other. With the reservation that Uncle would visit us more often than we would visit him, because as a child I didn’t really have anything to do at his home.

My father’s name was Zygmunt. He was born on 3rd July 1892 in Jaroslaw [some 150 km west of Lwow]. Why there? I don’t know; his family had never lived there. My father completed a… cadet school, I guess, and if not that, then something of the sort. An Austrian one. A military school, simply. Yes, and he served in the Austrian [KuK] army 6 as an Austrian officer. In 1915 or 1916, wounded in the leg, he was taken prisoner by the Russians, and returned only after the war, after the [Russian] Revolution [of 1917] 7, in fact. I don’t know precisely, but I think he spent two years of captivity in Krasnoyarsk [now Russia, third-largest city in Siberia]. He said he had been billeted somewhere, it was not a camp or anything of the sort – a billet. He had an orderly and received 50 rubles a month for expenses – from the tsarist government, as a prisoner of war. All the officers received money, it was like soldiers’ pay. I don’t know how it was with that orderly, whether he paid his expenses? I guess so. I don’t know the details.

Well, he also told me he had had some good time there with the daughters of all those local nabobs… the term is ‘kupechiskaya doch’ [in Russian], the merchant’s daughter. He played the piano very well, danced nicely – that I can imagine… And then he was released. Yes, when the Revolution broke out [1917], he forged his way back to Poland. On his own. I don’t know the details. Later, in Poland, he joined the Polish Army [On 11th November 1918, Jozef Pilsudski took command of the 30,000-strong Polish army. Within two months, he brought it up to 100,000]. He was in the Polish Army, but he never served in the [Polish] Legions 8.

My mother’s name was Henryka, and she was born on 23rd March 1900 in Lwow, I remember the date exactly. Grandfather Singer had six kids. All were born in Lwow. The oldest one, Leopold, took over the business. He worked there first, and then, when Grandfather, so to speak, opted out, he took over. He had studied something, but I don’t remember what it was. Leopold may have been a year or two older than my mother. There wasn’t much age difference between them. My mother was closer with him than with any other of her siblings. Leopold married a very beautiful lady. I was there at their wedding because I remember I carried the bride’s train. I don’t remember her name. The wedding took place at the Tempel. I remember, I was wearing this pink dress, with roses… not hemmed, but arranged in a semicircle at the bottom. I was very proud of that dress, that’s why I remember it so well. I was seven, perhaps eight years old. Their daughter’s name was Ilona. They lived on Kollataja Street [now Mentsynskoho].

After Leopold, Grandfather had daughters. One after another. First came my mother. She studied what today you’d call biology, at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwow [founded 1817 as Lwow University, 1920-1939 known as the Jan Kazimierz University, famous for its scientific schools, among other things: the Lwow School of Mathematics, the Lwow-Warsaw School of Philosophy, and the Lwow School of Anthropology. Now: Ivan Franko National University in Lwow]. But she never worked a single day in her life. Neither Mama nor any of her sisters. They had help at home. Of course. They had cooks, there was a nanny.

After Mother, two aunts were born: Malwina and Felicja. Malwina was the elder. Felicja was the youngest of the sisters. I don’t know whether Malwina completed any studies. She married Jakub Wueschik. I remember them very well because after getting married they lived for a long time with my grandparents. I guess they got married shortly after I was born. I don’t remember where he worked, but I think it was some office. They had a daughter named Ela who was born late, very late. In the 1930s. Of the cousins, I was the eldest, then came my brother Jerzy, I guess, then Ilona, and Ela was the youngest.

Felicja completed the ‘Kunstgewerbeschule’ in Vienna. That was something like a fine arts college. She was a wonderful embroiderer. She’d make a drawing and then transfer it onto the canvas. She married later than Malwina, much later. I don’t remember her husband’s first name, but his last name was Mantel because I remember her as Felusia Mantel. Her husband was a very nice, affable man. They had no children.

My mother’s brother Maurycy completed the German polytechnic in Brno in Czechoslovakia, after which he returned to Lwow. Mother’s youngest brother was called Edward, and he had a law degree from Jan Kazimierz University. He had graduated and was preparing for his internship exam I guess. I remember him pacing to and fro in my grandparents’ dim bedroom with those books, learning. Edward was a bachelor and until the last moment lived with his parents. I was very close with him, my youngest uncle. The age difference between us was eleven years. I always went to him when I couldn’t solve some homework problem.

I don’t know how my parents met, but it was a marriage of love, that’s for sure. The wedding took place on 29th June 1921, on Peter and Paul [an important saints’ day in Poland]. I remember that because it was an anniversary that we celebrated every year. I remember my parents’ wedding photo. My father was dressed in his lieutenant’s uniform and when they left the Tempel, his officer friends held up their sabers [crossed in a guard of honor above the newlyweds’ heads, for luck]. There was a photo of that at home. I know they were wed by Rabbi Freund. My father had dark blonde hair, blue eyes, and a small moustache. He was extremely handsome. My mother, as I remember her, was beautiful. She had chestnut-brown hair, dark eyes, very fair skin, and beautiful hands. At first she kept her hair in a bun, but then suddenly she started cropping it.

My mother was very kind. Father was firmer, he was the master of the house. I didn’t fear my mother, I feared my father. This means that if I was supposed to be back home at eight, I’d be back not five past eight but five to eight. No one ever hit me or anything, but it was enough when my father looked at me… He was so firm that when I was asking him for something, I’d always say, ‘Daddy, Daddy, please don’t say no at once.’

I don’t know whether it was from the beginning of his military service, but when I was about to be born, my father was stationed in Bedzin [a town in Upper Silesia, some 15 km north of Katowice]. My mother was staying with him in Bedzin, but when the delivery date was nearing, she returned to Lwow to be with her family. Then my father was demobilized, after which he came to Lwow and got a job in bank. I don’t know when precisely, but I suppose it was shortly after my birth [1922]. He was demobilized rather than quitting himself. Eventually, he was promoted to the position of assistant manager, and the institution’s full name was Powszechny Bank Zwiazkowy, Main Branch in Lwow, Headquarters in Warsaw. It was the largest private bank in Poland.

My brother’s name was Jerzy and he was six years younger than me. He was born on 1st August 1928. A tall blonde man with blue eyes, a classic Nordic type. His hobby was DIY. That I remember. Dismantling everything and then putting it back together. We weren’t on good terms, I mean the terms were such that he was very… how to put it… I’d sometimes dress in secret in those very thin stockings, which I bought with my pocket money. That was towards the end, around 1938, 1939. Those stockings often would run, because it wasn’t nylon, after all. And I remember he’d stalk me, and when he saw I had those stockings on, he’d blackmail me he’d tell Mother. I had to give him 10 or 20 groszy. Yes, I got pocket money. I actually got double pocket money: from my parents and from Grandfather. Besides that, I also got money for the tram. Every day, and I always went on foot. So that was extra money that I saved. My brother hadn’t started gymnasium when the war broke out.

Our apartment at 37 Skarbkowska was smaller than my grandparents’: it had four rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. There was a bedroom, a dining room, my room, and my father’s study, which, after my brother was born, became his room. I remember that in the dining room hung a beautiful mirror in a gilded frame, a very large one, from the floor almost to the ceiling. A huge one. In the dining room there was also a lounge section. There was a table, some chairs, a dining area.

In my room there was a three-section wardrobe with a mirror on the outside. There was a couch, a small desk, a chair. And that was it. The room wasn’t large. The windows overlooked the backyard. Those in my parents’ bedroom and in the dining room overlooked the street. We had gas – I’m talking about the last years. The bathroom had a gas heater, and there was gas in the kitchen. It wasn’t a regular cooker, but just two burners set into a tiled shelf. There was also a standard tiled stove in the kitchen. Dinner was usually prepared on that standard stove, on the hot plate. The bathroom was accessed from my parents’ bedroom. The bathroom had no window, and wasn’t large. There was a bathtub, and a toilet. The entrance to the other toilet was in the hall – no one else lived on the first floor. Only we lived there.

We spoke Polish at home. Initially, when my parents didn’t want me to understand, they’d switch to German. Later they could no longer do that because I learned German. My mother knew French, that I remember for sure. That was part of a good upbringing. A couple of years before the war, not many, say, three years – more or less – my father started learning English. I don’t know why, obviously he needed it for something.

My parents subscribed to Chwila 6. The editor-in-chief of Chwila was [Marian] Hemar’s brother – Marian Hemar 7 was only his pen name. His real name was Hescheles. I’m sure my parents bought Chwila every day. And I remember there was some popular evening paper, only I’m not sure what it was called… Ekspress Wieczorny [Ekspress Wieczorny Ilustrowany] or something like that. My mother was an avid reader, and Father liked to read too.

I remember that every day at 12 noon my mother went to a café that was called Roma, on Akademicki Square [now Shevchenky Prospekt]. There she’d meet with her friends, and then she’d come back home. We, the children, had had our dinner earlier. Mother waited for Father to come back from work. I guess they ate their dinner at three, perhaps half past three. After dinner, Father played patience. He never slept during the daytime. Mother would take a nap, and at seven in the evening they’d go out. That’s how people lived then. [They’d go] to a restaurant, a café, to friends’ homes.

My father had a hobby at home: playing patience and playing an instrument. From his father, a musician in Vienna, he had inherited a good ear for music. Yes, and we had a piano at home. Father was very fond of those Russian ballads, songs like ‘Ochi Chyornye’ [Russian for ‘Black Eyes’]. And he liked to play that. Besides, I remember him playing Schubert songs, and other pieces by various composers. But it wasn’t as though he played every day; it was from time to time. He was a reserve officer, from time to time he was called up for maneuvers. Sometime in the 1930s he went on maneuvers in Kobryn [now in western Belarus, some 50 km from the Polish border] in the Polesie area. And I even remember he was in the 83rd Infantry Regiment.

I remember also that my father was a sports activist. There was a sports club called Hasmonea Lwow 11, and Father was an official there. He had played football as a boy, but after he was wounded in the knee, football became impossible. He had friends. There was a guy named Wacek Kuchar, for instance, a sports activist, and I think they were friends. From early childhood I went with Father to all the football matches. From Hasmonea I remember… Sztejerman [Zygmunt Stauermann, one of the team’s leading players], the name has somehow stuck. Sztejerman [Stauermann]. Perhaps I’m mixing something up, I’m not sure. My father was a believer in sport. I swam and skied. With school we went to a swimming pool called Zelazna Woda [Polish for ‘Iron Water,’ an open-air swimming pool in Lwow]. We often went swimming instead of gymnastics, but that was only in the summer. Or in the spring, if it was warm. In the winter, I skied. I had my own skis, my own ski suit, my own everything.

My father’s political views… above all, he was an admirer of Pilsudski 12. He was a fervent supporter of his, and Zionism didn’t prevent him at all from being so. I don’t remember whether he belonged to any Zionist party. My parents never thought of emigrating from Poland, they never had such plans. But in 1935 or 1936 my mother’s younger brother, Maurycy, left. I think there was supposed to be a Maccabiada [now called the Maccabiah Games, an Olympic-style event first held in 1932 in Palestine] and he left Lwow with the Maccabi 13 team and then got through to Palestine. He returned two years later. Why? Well, he obviously didn’t like it. He married a girl from Cracow there and they returned, but not to Lwow. They went to Cracow, and he worked somewhere half an hour away in a quarry. I don’t remember whether it was Krzeszowice or some other place. Somewhere where there were stone pits [quarries can be found across the whole Cracow-Czestochowa Uplands, also near Krzeszowice]. I don’t remember what that wife of his was called, but I remember from when he came to visit us with her that she was very ugly.

We had a nanny at home, my mother’s wet nurse. In fact, she had been with Grandfather’s family in Vienna, and it was her who actually brought me up. When I was born in 1922, she had been with the family for 22 years. Her name was Jula. What was her last name? I don’t know, to us she was always simply Jula, Nanny Jula. She was Polish, the illegitimate daughter of a landlord and a governess, I remember that, but I don’t remember where her father’s estate was. She lived in the same house as us. We lived on the first floor, and she lived on the second, in something like a studio. She had been given it for life. And she virtually governed the whole house. The relationship was such that she’d give mother a free hand to do this or that, but she wasn’t a harridan. She was simply extremely devoted to my mother and my mother was the most important person in the world for her.

She brought me up, and she brought up my brother. I remember how she used to tell him bedtime stories and I would listen in. And one more thing – all the Polish, i.e. Catholic, holidays were always celebrated at our home. Yes, she always organized them. There was always a Christmas tree. The tree, the Christmas Eve dinner [the high point of the Polish Christmas], the sharing of the wafer [a thin, communion-style wafer, shared with family before eating Christmas Eve dinner to accompany the giving of Christmas wishes]. She’d share the wafer with us. Yes, and the gifts… we never had gifts under the tree. Gifts were given on 6th December, St. Nicholas day. That was the gift-giving day. You had to place all your shoes and slippers in front of your bed, and, in the morning, there’d be gifts there. I was given gifts on my birthday and on St. Nicholas day.

At the Dominican church, I knew all the altars, which one was for which saint. Nanny took first me to church, and then my brother, as there was six years’ age difference between us and, at some point, I stopped going. With Nanny I went to the Catholic church, and with our maid to the Uniate one. That Uniate church [the Greek Catholic Church of the Transubstantiation, originally the Trinitarian church] on Krakowska Street… well, I know every little stone there. They [the nanny and the maid] went there every Sunday, so they’d take us with them. And my parents wouldn’t say anything – no, no! People didn’t devote as much time to children then as they do today. My parents led a very intense social life. And the children brought themselves up at home. There was a nanny, there was a maid, so the kids were virtually on their own.

Besides the maid there was also a cook, but they kept changing. The servants kept changing, but the nanny was always the same. The last cook we had – I remember her well – got married. She slept in the kitchen. There was a recess there, and that’s where she slept. Most of those were Ruthenian women; no one used the name ‘Ukrainian’ back then. [The denomination ‘Ruthenian’ was used to describe a number of Eastern Slavic nations or ethnic groups such as the Ukrainians, Lemkos, Boykos, and Hutsuls.]

On the second floor of our house lived Lila Amirowicz. She was Armenian, and the same age as me. Her father was the director, or vice-director, of the Polish Post Office in Lwow. She played with us in the courtyard and often dragged us… no, wrong word – took us to the Armenian Cathedral that stood at our street [Editor’s note: this cathedral was built in 1356-1363 as an Armenian church to the design of the Italian architect Dorchi; major changes in 1908; mosaics by Jozef Mehoffer, paintings by Jakiv Rosen; returned to the community in 2002.] Only a little way down the street. Lwow had three archbishops: a Roman Catholic one, a Greek Catholic one, and an Armenian one [Jozef Teodorowicz, 1864-1938, archbishop 1902-1938]. Both the Armenian Cathedral and the Armenian archbishop’s residence stood at Skarbkowska. And we often played in the residence’s courtyards and gardens.

My [favorite] playmate at that time was Marysia Jodlowska. She was Ukrainian. Her father had worked as caretaker at Grandfather’s two houses since time immemorial, in any case since before the [Great] War. Later, my grandfather paid for Marysia’s high school, a Ukrainian one that she had been accepted to. Marysia was a year younger than me. We played either outside or at our place. At home we played with dolls. I had a dolls’ house with all the fittings, which I’d been given by Grandmother, Father’s mother. I had heaps of dolls, and because they all had porcelain faces, something was always happening to one or the other of them. And I remember that there was this ‘Doll Clinic,’ this shop where you could take china dolls to be mended. In the yard we played hopscotch, ball, and ‘two fires’ [Polish ‘dwa ognie,’ a team ball game]. Other kids would come to play with us too, but no boys, only girls. Lila would come, too. Because the two houses stood next to each other, there was a wall between them, and in the wall, a gate. The backyard of the house where I lived was small, but the backyard of my grandparents’ house was huge, ending with a wall at Strzelecki Square [now Danyly Halytskoho], so in fact there were two plots. Some very nice sycamore trees grew there.

Yes, I wanted to go to school. It was an ordinary Polish school, named after Stanislaw Staszic. A public school. With a good reputation. Next to it stood the Stanislaw Staszic School for Boys, and the entrance to that one was from Skarbkowska, and the entrance to the one for girls, because it was on the corner, was from either Podwale or from Strzelecki Square. The girls’ school faced the buildings of the fire brigade and the medical emergency service. And from there it was very near to Waly Gubernatorskie [Governor’s Embankment, raised in the 19th century in the place of the former city fortifications, a popular promenade] – something like an uneven levee. You climbed up steps. On the embankment was a very broad, huge chestnut-lined avenue. There was also a historical monument, the Baszta Prochowa [Gunpowder Tower, a powder magazine built in 1554-1556, presently the Architects’ House]. We called it the Powder House, but we never went there. And down there, quite far, it seems to me, on the other side, was a street.

My first reminiscences from school are that I was very happy to be assigned to ‘A’ class, because ‘A’ was for ‘angels,’ and ‘B’ was something bad. But when Mother took me to school for the first time, she met her former teacher there, a Mrs. Madejska, who advised her to move me to the ‘B’ class after all. And Mom moved me to ‘B’ right away.

Mrs. Madejska was my first-grade class tutor. My subsequent tutors included Gertruda Ajrhorn and Zofia Gubrynowicz. In fact, Zofia Gubrynowicz was my tutor for a longer time than Miss Ajrhorn. The latter, despite her German name, was a great Polish patriot. Most of the teachers were, I guess, Polish. But I was simply not interested in all that at that time. Miss Ajrhorn was an old maid, in a long black skirt and a long-sleeved blouse, with a stand-up collar and a beautiful gold cameo. It was actually her who infected me with love for literature. Mrs. Gubrynowicz, in turn, was married and had sons who sometimes visited her at school. She was very cheerful. We loved her very much. We feared the other one [Ajrhorn], and her we loved.

I was actually the best student. I had no difficulties whatsoever. My favorite subjects? Polish literature. I also liked history and natural science. There was even a period when I was wondering whether not to become a naturalist. I had a fantastic memory. I learned to read from Zipper’s Greek myths at the age of four. There was a library at home, and that book stood on the lower shelf, which I could reach, and had beautiful illustrations. I suppose Nanny must have taught me some, because someone had to help me with letters, right? It wasn’t only street signboards… And I also remember that in the second grade my teacher, Mrs. Madejska, called my mother to ask her not to do my homework for me; the thing was that I wrote a composition that started like this: ‘Zeus lived on Olympus, Zeus was the god of the Greeks.’ That was the first sentence and the teacher was convinced my mother had helped me write it. And it turned out that I had already read the whole of Greek mythology.

No, I didn’t have any male friends. The only boys I knew were the sons of my parents’ relatives or friends. I had no other boy friends whatsoever. And girl friends – well, I had them. I had girl friends, classmates, it was always a circle here, a circle there. In my class there were Ukrainian kids, Polish ones, and Jewish ones. The Polish, i.e. the Roman Catholic ones, were the most numerous, then the Jewish ones, and the Ruthenian girls were relatively few. I remember religious classes. My elementary school religion teacher was called Wurm. I don’t remember his first name. There was also a Greek Catholic teacher, and a Roman Catholic one. They’d always arrive all three together. We’d go to the different classrooms, and the lessons took place simultaneously. We learned above all the Torah, and besides that, it was Jewish history. I don’t remember much because I never cared for it. Present in body, absent in mind. I was simply not interested in all that.

My father, who was a Zionist, had decided his daughter should know Hebrew, so twice a week, I think, I went to the Tarbut for two hours to learn Hebrew. The Tarbut was located at Za Zbrojownia Street. It’s easy to calculate – I was six when I went to elementary school, and I went there for six years, i.e. until the age of twelve. During that time, I learned Hebrew, only I don’t remember whether it was for three years or four. Anyway, I studied it for quite a long time. It was a co-ed class. Boys and girls. The teachers were all men, and the classes came in pairs. The first class was based on the Torah, and I remember that towards the end of my education at the Tarbut, we were reading not only the main text but also one of the commentaries, because under the Hebrew text of the Torah there are Rashi’s commentaries in small print. That was the first class, and the second one was based on some [non-religious] texts.

I attended those lessons all angry, because instead of playing with my girl friends, I had to sit there and study. And, in fact, I was probably the worst student in my class. I remember that when I went to high school and met there one of the girls that had been at the Tarbut with me, she was surprised that I was such a good student, because she remembered me as having trouble in school all the time. I simply didn’t want to be learning Hebrew. I was learning it against myself because my father wanted me to. My father didn’t know Hebrew so he couldn’t examine me. Absolutely. No one in the family could.

I belonged to no interest groups or organizations. I didn’t want to, and there was no talk about it at home either. I was all absorbed with school, and I was also going to the Tarbut. I remember that if I went with anyone for a walk as a child, it was to the [Governor’s] Embankment, the High Castle [Lwow’s highest hill with the ruins of a fortress destroyed by the Swedes in 1704], or to the Stryjski Park. Later, as a teenage girl, I had to go to school from eight in the morning, and after school there was dinner, there was homework to do, there were meetings to attend, so I didn’t really have that much time for myself, and at eight I had to be back home. It wasn’t like I could come five or ten past. Discipline was really strict. Of course, during the day I could play in the backyard, but to play on the street – that was out of the question. The street was only ‘there and back.’

My mother chose the gymnasium and high school for me. In fact, she directed my whole education, Father didn’t interfere at all. I took exams in Polish literature and math. It was Dr. Adela Karp-Fuchsowa’s private gymnasium and high school. There were three good private high schools in Lwow: [Zofia] Strzalkowska’s, Karp-Fuchsowa’s, and Olga Filippi-Zychowiczowa’s; my mother went to the latter, but she considered it too far from home. There were twenty-odd of us in the class. There were two classes. Unlike my elementary school, the high school was situated a long way from home, on Krasickich Street [now Ohiyenka]. It was for everyone, not only Jews.

Our class tutor at high school was Wanda Ladniewska-Blankenheim. My history teacher was Halina Poeckhowa. A very eloquent lady, and a very beautiful one too. I remember that the husband of the owner and superior, Zygmunt Fuchs, was a professor at the Lwow Polytechnic [Poland’s oldest technical university, founded 1844], at the aerodynamics faculty [head of the Aerodynamic Laboratory at the mechanics faculty] where not a single Jew was admitted [due to Anti-Semitism in Poland in the 1930s] 14. And he, though he was a Jew, was a professor there. The Fuchses lived in the school building and we often met the professor on the stairs. We called him Malzon, from ‘malzonek’ [Polish for ‘husband’], or Prince Husband. I know that in 1937 or 1938 they were in the United States for half a year, and he was offered tenure, but she wouldn’t agree because the school was her life’s work and she couldn’t imagine not going back. And so they returned, and both lost their lives.

On 3rd May 15 and 11th November [celebration of Poland’s independence, 1918] there were always street parades and the whole school had to attend. I don’t remember going on those parades in elementary school, but in high school we did. Obligatorily. I remember that when Pilsudski went to Madeira [Portuguese island in the Atlantic where Pilsudski took a vacation between December 1930 and March 1931], I was probably in elementary school. Each of the pupils had written a name-day greetings card that we then sent to Madeira [Pilsudski’s name day was 19th March]. There was a cult surrounding Pilsudski in elementary school and in high school, absolutely. Yes, [on the wall] there was the Polish eagle [national emblem], a portrait of Moscicki [Ignacy Moscicki, president of Poland 1926-1939], and a portrait of Pilsudski.

Books. All my life books have been my hobby. First fairytales. All kinds of them. Then my first book was ‘The Heart of a Boy’ by Amicis [Edmondo De, Italian writer, 1846-1908]. Many people were raised on it at that time. Those were short stories in which there was always some poor person, and in the end that person was always rewarded by fate – he or she would come out the winner. Then came a period of adventure books. I read almost all the novels by Karl May [1842-1912, German writer, author of popular adventure books about Native Americans and the Wild West]. And, in 1937, 1938, I suddenly started discovering great literature. I remember that it started with the French writers of literature and Alexandre Dumas. I also read Ehrenburg’s 16 ‘13 Pipes’ and ‘The Love of Jeanne Ney.’ In 1939 or in early 1940 my father gave me the ‘Silent Don’ [epic novel about the Don Cossacks; consecutive volumes in 1928, 1932, 1940, by Mikhail Sholokhov (1905-1984), Russian novelist and Nobel prize winner] to read. All that, of course, in Polish translation. Then came Romain Rolland [1866-1944, French writer and Nobel prize winner] and his ‘Colas Breugnon’ [1918], a book I’ve loved ever since and which I reach for every time I feel blue. Generally, however, no one recommended books to me. I took some off the shelf myself, I borrowed others.

I remember that one of the Tempel’s three rabbis, Dr. Dawid Kahane 17, was, in the latter part of my high school education, my religion teacher. He was very handsome, actually, and we all had a crush on him. I remember precisely the Tempel’s interior of that period. It was shaped like a semicircle. The balconies were white with gold ornaments, and the balustrades were red saffian. Next to those balustrades was a white-and-gold grating that separated the men from the women, as women were, of course, not allowed to sit with men. The men sat downstairs, and the women upstairs, on those balconies. There were three balconies, so there were three floors. On the right, on the top floor, stood the choir. What kind of windows did the Tempel have? In any case, kind of semicircular ones. There was the Ark of the Covenant [aron kodesh], placed in roughly the same place as the stage in a theater, rather than in the center. And on both sides of the Ark, on that platform, there were kind of stalls, each with three seats. On the one side sat the three rabbis, and on the other the cantors. And that was the elevated part. You went up the stairs. The Great Synagogue in Malmo, Sweden, actually shares this design, though it is not as beautiful. What else I remember… wooden benches, prayer book compartments in them, on the compartment lid was a nameplate. Everyone had their own place paid up.

But how do I remember all that? It’s not only that I went to the synagogue with Grandma – I used to go with her as a girl, but later, when I was 14 or 15, I no longer went with her. When I was in high school, roughly once a month we attended the so-called exhortation [a sermon, religious lecture, directed at a specific audience, usually students] at the Tempel. We went there with our religion teacher. Jewish male and female students would come, and a service was held, and then a lecture in Polish. The lecture was often delivered by the incumbent rabbi, Dr. Jecheskiel Lewin. Those were marvelous sermons – delivered in pure, beautiful Polish. Those sermons were very moving.

Dr. Jecheskiel Lewin lived with his wife and daughter at 3 Kollataja Street, on the first floor. I remember, because on the third floor of the same house lived Leopold, my mother’s brother. The oldest of the Tempel’s three rabbis was Rabbi Freund, short, with a little gray beard – the one that had wed my parents. All three sat together during the service. Not always, sometimes only two of them, but on the important holidays, when I went there with Grandmother, there were all three. In fact, of all the temples I went to, I liked the Tempel synagogue the most [Mrs. Wiener is comparing the Tempel with churches in Lwow]. The Tempel was located on Zolkiewska Street. Not where Grandmother lived, but much farther up the street [Dora Bodenstein lived at 83 Zolkiewska].

Somewhere towards the end of Zolkiewska, close to Sloneczna Street, was the Jewish quarter [see Lwow Jewish district] 18. I don’t know what it was called. There certainly were Orthodox Jews in Lwow, absolutely there were, but you just didn’t see them in the city. They kept within their quarter. Did I ever go there? As a teenager – not as a girl – perhaps. My grandmother lived on Zolkiewska so it’s not impossible that I may have wandered there on some occasion.

In my high school days, I never wore anything but a navy blue uniform or a navy blue skirt with a white blouse. Oh yes. I didn’t have any other clothes, I mean, I did, in the summer, have various summer dresses, for the vacations, but during the school year – the uniform. I don’t mean a single uniform. There was a woolen one, a georgette one, but it was always the same cut; moreover, the woolen ones had an inset, which in gymnasium was blue, and in high school it was maroon. The berets were the same, with a blue or maroon inset. I also wore a badge with the school’s number on my coat. And at some point, it must have been late 1938, or early 1939, I rebelled against that. And even my grandparents intervened that perhaps it would make sense to… and so on… And my parents somehow consented to that. I remember that Mother said then, ‘It’ll be better if you go with Father.’ And indeed, when I went with Father, I got material for a coat, I got material for a dress – because in those times clothes were made by tailors. I also got a handbag and a pair of shoes. I got much more than I would have if I had gone with Mother.

My mother had [her own] dressmaker. I don’t remember where the shop was located, but I remember where Mother had her hats made. I got my first two hats from Mother’s milliner. The first was a kind of cherry red… It was a felt hat with kind of laps [a turned up brim] and here [under the chin] it had strings like small girls wore – so that it didn’t fall off. The strings were made of the same felt. And I remember I cried for a long time there because I wanted the hat to be without it. The other hat was a small tricorn, a bit like the French kepi. It was navy blue, decorated with a tartan ribbon.

At high school, we went to the theater every month, and it was chiefly with school that I went to the theater. My parents never refused me money for school or the movies. I remember my first film, it was a nature documentary. I remember the movies from 1937, 1938, 1939, because I used to go to the movies a lot then. I remember French films, which I very much liked. My favorite actress was Michèle Morgan [b. 1920, French actress], who acted with Jean Gabin [1904-1976, French actor] in ‘People in the Fog’ [Editor’s note: actually called ‘Port of Shadows,’ 1938, directed by Marcel Carne, acknowledged as a masterpiece of poetic realism]. I also liked those musicals with Jeanette MacDonald [1903-1965; American actress], such as ‘Rose-Marie’ [1936]. I somehow wasn’t one of those girls who fall in love with movie actors, get crazy about them, collect their photos – nothing of the sort.

I used to go to the movies with a girl friend of mine, and always for the afternoon show. Never with my parents. I remember that every Sunday, I don’t know what time, probably 9pm, the city would become deserted, with everyone hurrying home to listen to the Wesola Lwowska Fala [Jolly Lwow Wave], a [radio] show [Radio Lwow’s hugely popular weekly show, broadcast nationally in 1933-1939. Created by Wiktor Budzynski, author of most of the scripts. The show presented a broad range of Lwow yokel types, including, most popular of all, a ‘batyar’ (Lwow street smart) double act: Szczepko (K. Wajda) and Toncio (Henryk Vogelfaenger) and comedians parodying the Jewish accent: Aprikosenkrantz and Untenbaum]. And I certainly listened to all those shows.

In my family, no one had a car. We lived so centrally we didn’t have to; if we needed to get somewhere, we could always take the tram. But, in fact, I always went everywhere on foot. I remember that the father of one of my friends had a car, a Buick. He did. One time, it was 1937, perhaps 1938, we went to Jaremcze [now Yaremche, Ukraine, known as the ‘pearl of the Carpathians,’ above all as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients] on vacation. All the girls and boys were there with their mothers, and the fathers would usually come [every Saturday]. And one day the father of that friend of mine came by car, and took us for a ride. His chauffeur drove, because in those times few people drove themselves, even if they had a car and liked to drive.

I always spent my vacations in the mountains. And it was always the Prut Valley, or the Opor Valley [in the Eastern Carpathians, also known as the Ukrainian Carpathians]. So either it was Jaremcze-Worochta [now Vorokhta, Ukraine, famous for its Hutsul history and traditions, some 20 km from Yaremche; approx. 200 km south of Lwow], or Skole-Hrebenov [some 120 km south of Lwow]. I never saw the Polish sea. Once, one single time, I went with Father to Zakopane [Poland’s largest ski and mountaineering resort]. We stayed in a hotel called Stamara. I remember that one time I got really cold and we stopped at some inn at the entrance to the Strazyska valley to drink… not hot mead, I don’t know – something with dried fruit and nuts. I felt very proud, and later I told all my friends about it.

In Jaremcze and in Skole we usually stayed in guest houses. The one in Jaremcze was called Majestic, it was quite large. I don’t remember what the one in Worochta was called, because we went to Jaremcze more often than to Worochta, and always stayed in the same place. We always went with Mother; Father would only come for the weekends. We went for two months, July-August. Once, when my brother was ill, I spent some time in Brzuchowice [now Briukhovychi, Ukraine] near Lwow. It was a beautiful place set in a pine forest. I went there with Nanny to be with him, because Mother could not.

I remember that in September 1938 my father went for treatment to Truskawiec [now Truskavets, Ukraine, some 100 km south of Lwow, one of the newest and most popular health resorts of the interwar period; known above all for treatments for the digestive system], and he demanded I come to accompany him. As soon as I arrived, I had to leave, because everything in that place smelled of petroleum. I could neither eat nor drink anything, because of those deposits [deposits of ozokerite, ‘mountain wax,’ as well as springs of natural mineral water with a high content of organic oil-derived compounds].

My parents were friends with the Fisch couple. The Fisches had two daughters. One was older than me and was called Fela, the other was younger and her name was Tusia. Fela was a black-eyed blonde. I, as you can see, am chestnut-haired by nature. The younger one, Tusia, had red hair and green eyes. We frequently went on summer vacation together. To keep each other company and not get bored, our mothers would arrange where to go on vacation every year together. Our two families, I mean. Tusia and Fela’s father was a businessman, but what his business was, I don’t know. If I remember correctly, we stayed in Skole, in a villa called Arkadia.

We had these dirndl dresses, with short, leg-of-mutton sleeves, tight here [at the waist], wide there [at the bottom]. All the dirndls were black, with flowers embroidered on a black background – I don’t remember who had flowers of what color. There were blue ones, red ones, and green ones, and to go with that a matching mini-apron. Yes, those aprons were the same color as the flowers. And I remember that when we appeared for the first time on the promenade, some boys we knew nicknamed us ‘the three graces from Arkadia.’

The tallest of those boys was named Kubus Rosenbaum. His uncle was called Probst and worked as a doctor in Skole, and Kubus would come to stay with him for the vacation from some other place, not a large one, where, if I’m not wrong, his father was a public notary. I also remember Marian Urich – not a relative of ours – and Edek Bertrand, I remember those boys. That Edek Bertrand was from Lwow, he was younger than me, and Marian Urich was a friend of Tusia’s. I also remember Jozef Grosskopf and Danuta Wilk. If the weather was good we’d spend the mornings by the river. The Opor and the Prut are mountain rivers, but you could always find somewhere to bathe. I remember that we played volleyball, too. After dinner we would go for walks, and then supper and to sleep.

My girl friend went to the Strzalkowska high school, and her name was Rena Ruker. Our parents knew each other. Perhaps they weren’t friends, but they knew each other well, and we met somewhere, sometime, during the summer vacation. After that, we’d almost always go together. Her father was the director of the Baczewski plant [famous vodka and liqueur manufacturer]. Those were the best vodkas in pre-war Poland. The plant was founded in 1782, and I remember the following anecdote: in some exam, the examiner wanted to direct the student to the right date, so he asks him, ‘And what does the year 1782 tell you?’ And the student says, ‘The founding of Baczewski.’

Another person I remember from Lwow is Stanislaw Lem 19. I knew him as a young boy. He is older than me. I knew the crowd to which he belonged. After the war, however, I had no contact with Lem whatsoever. I simply learned very late that Stanislaw Lem was that boy Manius I had known before the war. Yes. He lived on Brajerowska Street [now Lepkoho], near my high school, I even remember which house. Yes.

I remember one street demonstration in Lwow [see Workers’ demonstrations in Lwow in 1936] 20. It all started when a worker died and an order came to bury him at the Lyczakowski cemetery. The medical school was nearby, the dissection rooms, so I guess it was there [his autopsy was done]. In any case, there’s no doubt he was supposed to be buried at the Lyczakowski. There were two cemeteries in Lwow: the Lyczakowski and the Janowski. The Janowski one was, so to say, more proletarian. And those who were leading the funeral protest march suddenly decided to bury that worker at the Janowski, and so the demonstration marched through the whole city, because the cemeteries were at opposite ends. I remember that because as they marched they broke all the windows. And among other things they broke a window in the bank where my father worked. And it happened as the protesters wanted – he was buried at the Janowski. I, naturally, wasn’t watching that protest march, in fact, if anything was going off, no one would let me out of the house.

Neither in elementary school nor in high school did I ever come up against anti-Semitism. Absolutely never. I actually never even thought about it… I simply accepted the fact that there were different kinds of people. There was no problem for me, until around 1938 when there were riots in the universities and three students got killed [see Murders of Jewish students in Lwow 1938-1939] 21. I remember their names: Karol Celermajer, Marian Probeller, I don’t remember what the third one’s first name was, but his last name was Wasserberg or Wasserman.

The procedure was that the Polytechnic came to beat up [Jewish students] at the University, and the university students went to play hell at the Polytechnic. For instance, I mean. It wasn’t that students from one school would beat up students from the same school. They used clubs, clubs with razors. And as well, at the turn of October and November, but above all in November, some streets were out of bounds, because you’d get beaten up there. I don’t know why then. One such street, for instance, was Lozinskiego [now Hertzena], where a dormitory was located, only I don’t remember which school’s. The Polytechnic’s? Anyway, everyone knew that in November Lozinskiego and the end of Akademicka were out of bounds to Jews. And that was when I came up against the problem [of anti-Semitism] for the first time.

I passed my high school finals in May 1939. I must have taken Polish and math, but I simply don’t remember that! [Mrs. Wiener says she has repressed many memories concerning the war and the period immediately preceding it.] I wanted to study microbiology. And then it all somehow… [Mrs. Wiener passed the entrance exams for the microbiology faculty at the Jan Kazimierz University in 1939.]

My father kept saying there’d be a war. Above all – that’s my hypothesis – he came to believe in that war, in its inevitability, I mean, after the Germans had taken Czechoslovakia [see German occupation of Czechoslovakia] 22. Absolutely, because Austria, you know, it was Hitler’s homeland, a German-speaking country – so that was understandable. When, following the Anschluss 23, Hitler entered Vienna, he threw all the Jews who had Polish rather than Austrian citizenship out to Poland. Among them was my father’s cousin, and I remember that when that cousin came to Lwow, the whole family took care of him. And he kept missing his wife, who wasn’t a Jew, and his two children. She was an Austrian and had stayed with the children in Vienna. And he missed them terribly. That I remember. I don’t remember his name.

I didn’t think of the war as a real threat at all. Absolutely not. On 1st September [see September Campaign 1939] 24, it was Friday, I think, I was with a boy friend of mine at the High Castle. We were sitting on a kind of promontory, near the Sobieski Rock, we looked – there were airplanes coming. As we were looking at those planes, we thought we heard explosions, and came to the conclusion it was some military exercise, because it was the last days, you know. The army had been mobilized [on 30th August a general mobilization order had been announced and subsequently repealed, and on 31st August a mobilization order was announced again]. And at some point some people came up to us and say: ‘What are you doing here? There’re ruins in the city, corpses, and you’re sitting here like doves!’ And we ran [home] right away.

A strange thing. Believe me now, please, that all those years have been erased, that the period right after the war has also been erased from my memory. Oh yes. The war period, well, I won’t be talking about it. Nothing. I don’t want to return to… that period at all… those few years… it doesn’t exist [Editor’s note: Mrs. Wiener has mentioned a few facts that make it possible to a small degree to reconstruct her and her family’s wartime experiences]. I know it was a very harsh winter. That I remember, but when I think of Lwow, I only see the pre-war Lwow. The Lwow of the first few months after the end of military action… it’s all blurry. I never remember it the way I saw it during the war.

I remember that from 9th September we were sitting in a basement, because Lwow was not only being bombed from the air, it was being bombed from the very beginning, but it was also taking artillery fire. That I remember. We sat in that basement all the time, slept there. You climbed up to the apartment to cook something or to fetch something, but you didn’t stay there. And on the 17th my father must have been listening to the radio, because we had a radio – ‘It’s the end!’ He believed that if they [the Russians] were entering Lwow, then it was the end of the Polish state. We had already returned home, the shelling had ended, because for a couple of days they [the Russians] stood at one turnpike and the Germans at the other and some kind of negotiations were taking place – the city wasn’t being shelled anymore. Then, on the 21st, they marched into Lwow. There was a barricade made of stones, of flagstones, on our street, and the first tank that had arrived couldn’t go through. So they ordered the local inhabitants to dismantle the barricade and my father was among them, and because he knew Russian, he made some small talk with the tank driver. Then he returned and said, ‘Nothing has changed there. The same ragged uniforms, the same old rifles and stinking tobacco, only now they have oblasts instead of guberniyas [Russian for ‘districts’ (the Soviet and tsarist terms, respectively)].’

I remember that Grandfather [Jakub] got sick. My father was fired from his bank job. I remember a meeting of the bank’s trade union was held and everyone had to present his or her CV, and someone asked my father: ‘Why didn’t you say that you served in the Polish army?’ Father said, ‘I did,’ and the next day he was fired. And then Mr. Fisch, who was a very enterprising man, found some job for Father in some company, some cooperative that had already been created somewhere.

Grandfather’s tenement houses were nationalized immediately. We were allowed to stay, only Grandfather – because his was a large apartment – was assigned tenants, Russian civilians. A married couple. Uncle Maurycy was already living there too – he and his family had come from Cracow – but there was still excess space in the apartment. They didn’t assign us any extra tenants, because we had already taken in some fugitives from Cracow [see Flight eastwards, 1939] 25.

I left Lwow in 1941, when the Russians were still there. That was the last time I saw my parents. I didn’t say goodbye to them. Things were so that I couldn’t. It was… there were some circumstances… I spent the rest of the war in Russia. I was in Turkestan, in Kazakhstan. Turkestan is a city in Kazakhstan. Everyone mixes it up [thinking Turkestan was one of the Soviet republics] because the whole stretch of land was once called Turkestan. There was no Kazakhstan, no Uzbekistan, there was only Turkestan, and only later did the Soviets divide it up.

I worked as a nurse in an orphanage. I had no previous experience. I was trained. The only thing you could do there besides working was to read. I read a lot. In fact, where I was, in Turkestan, the only thing that was there was a superb city library which had been evacuated from Kharkov or Kiev. So I read there the whole of 19th-century French literature in Russian, let alone the fact that I also read the whole of Russian 19th-century literature in the original. I also learned Russian there – just from listening to it, from various situations, for after all, in Lwow I had nothing to do with Russian. Sure, I spoke Ukrainian, which was then called Ruthenian. I did, because some of our maids sang songs so that I was familiar with it and spoke the language, but after I found myself there, Russian supplanted Ukrainian to the extent that I understand today when Ukrainians speak but I can no longer speak it myself. There I met my husband, Maurycy Wiener, and there I got married. The wedding was non-religious. My husband was born on 1st October 1906 in Cracow. He took a law degree and before the war worked as a lawyer in Cracow.

It was from the radio that I learned the war was over. It wasn’t radio in our sense of the word, but rather a kind of loudspeaker everyone had at home, through which a central message was broadcast. It was like a disk, a black cardboard bowl, and in the centre a metal something. And that was the kind of radio that people in Russia had. It was Radio Moscow broadcast, the Moscow news. The device worked so that I couldn’t change the frequency but only turn it down or off. I saw some light in the tunnel that I would get myself out of Asia.

It was somewhere towards the end of 1945. Repatriation had started [see Evacuation of Poles from the USSR] 26, you had to register and prove you had Polish citizenship. I had an ID card. School ID. It so happened that in Turkestan, where we lived, there were no Poles, but I know that in other places there were. The entire Polish population was repatriated, only reportedly somewhere in Siberia, or somewhere far in the deserts, where people didn’t know, they stayed there.

We repatriated ourselves in due course with all the other pre-war Polish citizens. I was able to choose where I wanted to go. I wouldn’t have gone to Palestine at that time. After the Kazakh steppes, the only thing I wanted was a big city. In fact, I’m a city kid. I simply don’t see myself in the countryside or some Asian city. My husband, because he was a Cracovian, chose Cracow. I didn’t want to go to Lwow because it’s very hard to go back to your home town knowing that no door will open for you. That I have no one to go to. The only door that will open for me will be a hotel door. I really couldn’t understand my husband. For him it was unimportant. For me, it was everything. That our families were dead, that there had been an extermination of the Jews we learned only in Turkestan [in 1939, some 110,000 Jews lived in Lwow, 33% of the population; several thousand returned after the war from the Soviet Union]. I had never imagined anything of the sort.

From Kazakhstan to Poland we went by train. A cargo train. The train stopped only where it was allowed to, i.e. at large stations, sometimes waiting for a free track at some junction. The conditions? The conditions were such that when I came to Cracow and saw a streetcar, I touched it. For me, that tram was a symbol of civilization. The journey lasted from 17th or 18th April to 5th May. We arrived in Cracow-Plaszow on 5th May [1946].

As far as my family is concerned, Anna [Niuka, daughter of Toncia and granddaughter of Adolf], my second-degree cousin, her aunt Irena and myself are the only survivors of the Holocaust. From such a huge family. These two girls. I in Russia and she here, under the occupation, on false papers. Irena survived in Poland, but soon, right after the war ended, immigrated to Switzerland. She had a seriously ill daughter who could be helped only in Switzerland. Apart from her, my whole family perished. Without exception. I learned about their fate from Marysia Jodlowska, my childhood playmate. I had written letters to my grandparents’ address, to our own address, and so on, and those letters somehow found their way to her. And she wrote me back.

Cracow was my husband’s home, but his home as such didn’t exist because his parents were dead. My husband had only one brother, Juliusz, and he was the only one that survived. Juliusz served in the Anders’ army 27, he left Russia with it and never returned to Poland, immigrating right away to Palestine. My husband couldn’t return to his parents’ apartment [because it had already been occupied by someone else] but he had a cousin in Cracow who had come earlier and was already set up. We stayed with him. As my husband was a lawyer, a member of the Cracow bar, he immediately started working at a law firm and earning money.

I will admit honestly that after leaving Russia, the Soviets I mean, when I came to Poland, Cracow was a strange city to me. I had no full sense of returning to my homeland, because one has two homelands: the one meaning of the word ‘homeland’ is language, culture, history, and the other is the house where you lived, the street where your house stood, the commons where you strolled in Lwow. I was returning to my homeland in the broad sense, but everything was strange for me. And one has to have a sense of being at home. But that sense of strangeness soon wore off.

After returning from Russia, I wanted to study, but first I had to prove I had my high school diploma, which I ultimately reconstructed in court on the basis of evidence given by two of my former teachers. Halina Poeckhowa lived in Bytom. I went to see her. She still worked as a teacher. She later died of cancer. Wanda Ladniewska-Blankenheim lived in Paris. She sent her testimony in writing. I tried, I wanted to start studying in 1948, but it turned out I was pregnant and I had to postpone those plans. I delivered a boy – my son [Jerzy], I brought him up a little bit, and in 1952 I went to the Jagiellonian University 28. Yes. I chose the easiest option. Being fluent in Russian, I knew I’d easily pass the entrance exams. The fact that I had read so much Russian literature in Turkestan made my studying easier. I completed my studies in 1956 and immediately got a job at the [Jagiellonian University’s] Russian Philology Institute.

During my studies and even later, I lived a similar life to my parents before the war in Lwow. First, when I was studying, we had a classroom at Golebia Street, and the faculty where I worked after graduating was at Pilsudskiego [these streets are close to each other and close to Cracow’s Main Square]. And I’d walk downtown the normal way through the Square. Later, when I worked at the Collegium Paderevianum [the Jagiellonian University’s main philology building since 1964], my classes ended at roughly 1pm and instead of returning home, down Trzech Wieszczy Avenue, I went along Krupnicza. Then I would take Szewska to the Square, then Slawkowska to the Literacka café, and I knew that when I’d arrive there, at quarter or twenty past one, there’d be a table until half past two where my friends would be sitting. And they were. Marysia Buczynska among them. That was my early afternoon. Then I’d return home, my husband would return from the office, we’d have dinner. At first, my husband worked in an office at 51 or 52 Dluga, and then at 60 Grodzka. He was involved in all kinds of cases, both criminal and civil. In the evening, at seven or eight, we’d meet friends at the Europejska café or at Wierzynek [a restaurant in the Main Square]. Wierzynek was very fashionable in those days. That kind of life I led for a very long time, in fact for as long as I worked.

Soon after the war I met some of my friends from Lwow. I met a close girl friend of mine from high school, from the same class. She’s very sick now, here, in Cracow. She’s my only high school friend in Cracow, a person very close to me. Very, very close. She has changed her last name, and her first name too because [during the war] she lived on Aryan papers. She wasn’t my friend then, only a classmate. Her name was Adela. I don’t want to say any more, because I don’t know whether she would want it.

As far as my friends from my pre-war vacations in Skole are concerned, one who survived the war was Kubus Rosenbaum, whom I met in Frankfurt am Main. My husband’s cousin, who, as it turned out, knew Rosenbaum, also lived in Frankfurt. One day, in some conversation, my name was mentioned. The cousin told me later that Rosenbaum was very pleased to hear it, and said: ‘She was my friend from vacation.’ I don’t remember where he came from, but not from Lwow. And one time, when I went to visit that cousin, I met him – that was a surprise. Rosenbaum was married to a German girl, a pretty blonde. He died some eight or ten years ago. Another girl who lives in Frankfurt is Danuta Wilk. She is alive, but she is a vegetable, not a person. I met Jozef Grosskopf in 1957, when I visited Israel for the first time. He was an officer in the Israeli army. If I remember correctly, he spent the war in Russia. He told me he was in the escort that took Herzl’s 29 ashes from Vienna to Israel.

Rabbi Kahane from the Tempel I met twice after the war. He and his wife had been saved by Archbishop Szeptycki 30 [who hid them] in the vaults of the church of St. Yur [the Uniate cathedral church, called Lwow’s supreme church]. In fact, I have Rabbi Kahane’s account of this story somewhere, only it is in English, if I’m not mistaken, or in Hebrew, because I brought it back from Israel. In fact, Szeptycki also hid the daughter of Rabbi Jecheskiel Lewin, and I know that she survived too.

The first time I met Rabbi Kahane [after the war] was at the opening of the Auschwitz Museum [June 1947, opening of a permanent exhibition on the site of the former Auschwitz I camp, and thus of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum]. I was there with my husband. In fact, it was the first and last time I visited Auschwitz. Altars had been placed in front of the individual barracks, and priests of a dozen denominations were praying. When Kahane turned around, because he was standing with his back to the congregation, I suddenly recognized him and later approached him. We talked. The second and last time, I met him in 1957 in Israel. Each compatriot society 31 in Israel holds a hazkara [Heb.: commemoration] on the day of the destruction of the given community. It is a different date for each community. And while in Jerusalem I read in a Polish-language newspaper published there, which is called… [Nowiny Kurier; since 1992 the weekly Weekendowe Nowiny Kurier] that the Lwow hazkara was to be held the next day in Tel Aviv. I went, and when I entered the room, I suddenly heard exclamations: ‘It’s Janka!’, ‘It’s Janka!’ And I met my friends. He [Kahane] was leading the hazkara, praying. In fact, shortly after the war he had been the chief rabbi of the [communist] Polish Army, here in Poland. Then he left for Israel, and at the time when I was there, he was the rabbi of the Israeli air force. In Israel, yes. My teacher.

I can’t say how many times I’ve been to Israel. It wasn’t that often, but I simply never counted. I remember the first time, because it was the first time. It was 1957. Israel is a very beautiful country. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see everything because Jerusalem, for instance, was divided [ed. note. Jerusalem was divided ten years later, after the 1967 war]. But for me, it was above all a family trip. I wanted to meet my husband’s relatives. My husband’s brother, Juliusz, was a lawyer and public notary there. My husband’s two paternal uncles were still alive. Those uncles were living on state pensions, and they were very well-off people who had fled Germany before Hitler, or already under Hitler, at the beginning, and settled in Palestine long, long before the war. I don’t remember what their names were. They left large families, those uncles. One of my husband’s cousins, for instance, Aaron Wiener, is one of the few water management experts in the world. He designed the whole water management system in Israel.

And look, a blessing in disguise [the Hebrew classes at the Tarbut]. When I’m in Israel these days, when I arrive in Israel, after a few days I can understand what people say to me. I mean, I understand bits and pieces, but I’m not completely dumbstruck. I can still write my name [in Hebrew] today.

Our son, Jerzy, knew he was a Jew, but he wasn’t raised in any particularly religious way. To the extent that one time he asked his father: ‘Daddy, why did you marry such an ignoramus?’ So my husband asked him: ‘Why ignoramus?’ ‘Well, because mommy believes in God, so she’s an ignoramus.’ And there he received his first lesson in tolerance from his father: ‘Mom believes in God, I don’t, but look – we love each other and it isn’t a problem for us. And you will do as you like. When you grow up, you’ll understand, you’ll make a choice.’ My husband was a left-winger and had joined the PZPR 32. I never joined the party.

In 1967, Jerzy passed the entrance exams and was admitted to Cracow Polytechnic [now Cracow University of Technology], and then, two years later, he emigrated. To Sweden. He emigrated because of March [1968] [see Gomulka Campaign] 33. He had encountered no problems, but I simply realized that he could expect nothing here. Oh yes. There were very many of those youths, but those who there were, left. In fact, almost all of them. But I must say that I experienced no harassment whatsoever from the Jagiellonian University.

My initial reaction to March was one of incredulity. I couldn’t believe it even when I was seeing it with my very eyes… How did it go? ‘Zionists to Zion’? [One of the most popular propaganda slogans of the 1967-1968 anti-Semitic campaign in Poland.] I saw such banners. Yes, there were TV reports from various workers’ meetings, where those poor workers knew neither what the Zionists were nor what Siam was [the ignorance of the banners’ authors was such that the banners often read ‘Zionists to Siam’ – the words ‘Zion’ and ‘Siam’ are pronounced similarly in Polish]. Yes. So first there was incredulity, then anger, and finally indifference to everything that was happening here [in Poland].

If I go to Israel, I go there chiefly for family reasons, because very many of my husband’s relatives live there. And, of course, curiosity also, but I already visited all the interesting places when it was possible to do so. When it was still safe to do so. Otherwise, as far as the East is concerned, I want to visit neither the Middle East, nor the Far East, nor Africa. The only place I can go to is the Canary Islands, where I have been going for many years. Barring Israel and the Canaries, I took my last big trip in 1989. A year before my husband’s death we took a cruise through the Mediterranean Sea.

The history of my visits to Lwow starts with the fact that I didn’t want to go there at all. Really. I could have, but didn’t want to because I was afraid of it, but I dreamed about it, and all my friends who went there had the duty of photographing [for me] all those [family] houses and those various places in Lwow. And one time, it was 1980 or 1981, one of my colleagues went to Almatur [a student travel bureau] and it turned out they had five seats free on a bus trip for university students. And she booked those five seats. It was Monday, I had a class [with students] at the Collegium Paderevianum, she knocked on the door and said, ‘Janka, on Wednesday at 5am you’re going to Lwow.’ I got so agitated I had to dismiss the class. I couldn’t continue.

And so we went to Lwow. With a group of Theater Studies students. The first time I was there, I saw Lwow as a boorish place. That’s probably the best word for it. Simply boorish. I saw a poor, provincial city. Poor, impoverished, neglected, terrible. Cobbles dating back to Franz Joseph’s times. Besides, I was plagued by that peculiar smell, the smell that all Soviet cities have. Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not a Russophobe, absolutely not, but their cities have this characteristic smell, when you enter a doorway or pass an open one. I don’t know whether it’s some disinfectant or something. Besides, when I looked into the doorways of the various houses in which my uncles or aunts had lived, remembering those beautiful, wonderful houses, the walls in all those doorways were painted to halfway up with this disgusting oil paint. And everything was completely run down, the whole downtown. That was my impression.

All the time I felt like a stranger. I didn’t feel it was my city, but one day, with one of my friends, we went to the High Castle. It was winter, and there, at the High Castle, with that beautiful white snow, something started to awaken, something closer… And then we’re walking down that High Castle, walking on foot, down Kurkowa Street [now Lysenko], which is rather steep – in fact, all streets in Lwow run either up or down. We’re walking and down there I see the building of the pre-war Karol Szajnocha high school. This is the high school that Stanislaw Lem commemorated in his ‘High Castle’ [1966; biographical novel on the writer’s childhood in Lwow]. And at that moment, when, walking down that snow-covered Kurkowa Street, I saw that high school building, it was the only moment when I lost my sense of reality. I thought: God, I’m in Lwow! I’m in Lwow!

And suddenly I’m trying to recall the image of Cracow, that, you know, I’m from Cracow… I’m only visiting this place. The reality is: I’m only visiting this place. I’m not here, I’m only visiting. And I’m trying to get this image of Cracow… and I can’t. I can’t focus my concentration enough to recall anything from there. And finally I saw the green-painted door of the house where I live in Cracow. It was the only image my memory managed to recall. Cracow was an empty sound, a name that signified nothing. It was that one and only moment, which lasted… I don’t know. A minute, two? Other than that, I knew all the time it wasn’t my city. And after that visit I completely lost the sense of longing for Lwow, it drifted away somewhere. Today, when I’m in Sweden [since 1991, Mrs. Wiener has been spending a couple of months each year in Sweden] or am traveling the world, I long only for Cracow. What makes you love a city are its people. Not the buildings. Only the people, and I knew that there were no doors that would open before me there. This is something that has finally ended, but it ended when I actually went to Lwow.

I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t go there [to her parents’ apartment] at all. I was walking around Lwow with those friends of mine, showing them the various historical buildings, churches, museums. Only one of them knew Lwow, but not as well as I did. And on the last-but-one day of our stay we were at the Sobieski Museum on the Main Square and at some point, looking at the various exhibits, I suddenly realized that on the next day I’d be leaving and would not have been there. And I said to them: ‘Listen, we’ll meet at the hotel.’ I left them and dashed off alone.

And then I went there for the first time. I knew that the house which we had lived in before the war had had the front, stairs, and interior design altered because during the war it had taken a direct shell hit. I approached, the front door was closed. The completely changed facade, the little balconies where they hadn’t been before… But the other house, where Grandfather had lived, was precisely as I remembered it… I will only look at the yard [I thought]. And I entered. The sycamores weren’t there, someone must have found them a nuisance. Wooden stairs led inside, which before the war had been regularly polished, covered always with a red carpet, I saw the golden hooks that used to hold it, still in place. The banister, also wooden, ending, like everything in Lwow, with a lion’s head. The lion’s head wasn’t there anymore, only a round knob. So many years, everything had changed. I put my hand on the knob and I don’t know, don’t remember the moment when I found myself on the first floor pressing the doorbell to my grandparents’ apartment. Those few seconds were simply lost. I don’t remember going up those stairs. In any case, I was woken up by the shrill sound of the doorbell. And then the door opens and a petite lady is standing in front of me, completely grey-haired. It was winter, February. Those Bulgarian sheepskin coats were in fashion then. I stood in that coat, a very nice one, brown, with a hood and white finish. It was clear I wasn’t from there, that I was a foreigner. She looks at me inquiringly.

‘I lived here before the war,’ I said, in Russian. I was a senior lecturer in Russian philology then. She says: ‘Come on in,’ and lets me into the hall, which is tiny and divided, and I remember that it was very large, taking a turn at one point like the letter L. The door ahead, to Grandfather’s former living room, was in place. I always remembered those rooms as very large, very high. And when I now found myself in that apartment, I was surprised to see they weren’t that very large or high at all. They were large, but not as huge as I remembered. I enter, some tall man is standing there, and my ears are all clogged up, as if I had plugged them with cotton wool – I didn’t hear what he said, only her reply: ‘She says she used to live here.’ The man helps me with my coat: sit down, please, and tells his wife to bring something to drink. She brought cognac, he poured it into a glass and says: drink, please. When I drank it, I, so to say… came to. And I say excuse me, but it wasn’t me who lived here, but my grandfather. He asks me: what was his name? Jakub Singer, I say. And I’m sitting facing the windows, and there used to be two windows there, and between them the balcony door. And I see only one window and the balcony door, and yet I remember two windows, for God’s sake, and I either said something to that effect or he saw my gaze fixed on those windows, and he goes: yes, yes, you aren’t wrong, this apartment was very large, it has been divided into three separate apartments. We moved a wall to make the other room larger. Our son lives there. And he asks me whether I want to see that part? No, I say, I don’t.

I don’t remember their name, but he told me he had been a doctor, head of a Russian military hospital. Before the war, at 39 [Skarbkowska Street], there stood a business college, I don’t remember what it was called, but a business college. On seizing Lwow in 1944 [27th July], the Russians set up a hospital there, and he sequestered the apartment next door for himself. My grandparents weren’t there, of course, because they were dead. A Polish family lived there named Sliwinski, and it was from them they sequestered a part of the apartment. Where did they [the doctor’s family] come from? What happened to that hospital?… It was probably wound up, and he retired. I don’t know. I wasn’t interested in that. He didn’t go into specifics about it, but he told me that I must have been aware of what had happened to the Lwow Jews. And he asked me whether I remembered the janitor. I said I remembered him very well, his name was Jodlowski, and he was a janitor in both of those two houses. And he says, ‘You know, I’m intrigued by the fact that his daughter went to college, and there were fees to pay…’ Yes, you know, my grandfather, the greedy capitalist, paid for that talented girl’s, the janitor’s daughter’s Ukrainian college. He told me then that Marysia had been arrested by the NKVD 34 for membership of the UPA [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists] 35, and the whole Jodlowski family had been deported. I didn’t learn anything more. Besides, none of the [former] non-Jewish tenants were there, they had all repatriated to Poland. Where, what, how? I don’t know. I didn’t happen upon any trace of them.

We had gone to Lwow by bus, a brand-new university coach. When we were on our way back and we crossed the border, when we rode into Przemysl [some 15 km from the Ukrainian-Polish border], I felt like I was in Paris, and when we rode into Rzeszow [some 100 km from the Ukrainian-Polish border], I thought I was in New York. After Lwow.

I retired two years past my retirement age 60, i.e. in 1984, but I could have kept on working. I have very good memories of my professional career. Very nice. And, more importantly, my students do, too. My students are everywhere, they’re here, they’re in the West.

Since mid-January 1991 I have been living part of the year here, part of the year in Sweden. In December 1990 my husband died suddenly. My son had been urging us to move to Sweden even before that. Both me and my husband had already secured permanent stay permits. I’ve been here [in Cracow] for four months now, and soon I’m going to Sweden for two months, to Lund.

My son got married in Sweden, works as a dental surgeon and lives in Lund [a university town of approx. 100,000 some 10 km from Malmö]. He has two sons. They’re called Jerry and Edward, but we all call him Tedi. Tedi has just been admitted to a teacher training college but I don’t know whether he won’t change his mind, because he first wanted to be a pilot, then a sailor, and his interests aren’t really specified. Tedi understands a lot of Polish, but doesn’t speak it so well.

Jerry speaks Polish and is 35 today. He is a businessman and runs his own company. He has just… What day do we have today? Wednesday? Jerry was here Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Here in Cracow. He came with his colleagues. Jerry has a child, but no wife. My great-granddaughter is called Natalie and is 15 years old. They live together near Lund, in Steffanstorp.

My German has gradually been effaced by Swedish. Just as Russian earlier superseded my Ukrainian. I used to be fluent in German, and now, when me and a friend of mine were in Frankfurt last time, and I was buying something in a shop, at one point she gives me a nudge. I look at her, and she says, ‘You said the first sentence in German, but now you’re speaking Swedish.’

In 1991, it turned out that the son of Joachim, my grandmother Charlota’s brother, survived, lives in London, and is a university professor emeritus. First I read in ‘Tygodnik Powszechny’ [Catholic socio-cultural weekly published since 1945] that the Jurzykowski award [the award of the New York-based Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation for Polish artists and scientists] had gone to Professor Henryk Urich. I wasn’t sure it was the same Urich, but I wrote him a letter. In the letter, I stated a few facts that no one from outside the family could have known. Such as that his father was nicknamed Bolo, and his brother, Franciszek – Franz. He immediately wrote me back. He had no family, a childless bachelor. We started exchanging letters. Not very often, but, unfortunately, it so happened that his letter announcing his visit to Cracow arrived when I was away in Sweden. And we didn’t meet. I later called him and that has been it so far.

My cousin Niuka died three years ago in Stockholm. She visited me twice, I think, in Cracow, but when she was visiting Poland, it was usually Warsaw, because that’s where she had lived before settling in Sweden. She got married and took her husband’s surname, Sznap. Her son lives in Stockholm, has three kids. Her daughter has one son.

I am religious. Unlike my husband, who was an agnostic, I am deeply religious. There is no tradition at my home, but there’s this one prayer, called Kol Nidre [prayer recited in the synagogue at the beginning of the evening service on the Day of Atonement] and my son then has to take me to Malmö, because that day, that evening, I want to spend praying in the synagogue. That is mine… I believe that… not so much talk, because you can’t talk with God, but pray to God, or ask him for something, or speak to him – that you can do on your own, without intermediaries.

Three years ago my son gave me a surprise present – a trip to Lwow as a gift for my 80th birthday. I was told only a few days before departure. Everyone in Lund knew but no one had said a word. And everything was arranged perfectly. I went with my son and his wife. We spent three full days there, not counting the flight day. We went by plane, and returned by plane. And those three days were completely like a dream. But it wasn’t like during the first visit because, with my son at my one side and my daughter-in-law at the other, all my sensations, my feelings were somehow different. It was no longer me alone in confrontation with my memories, this time I was with my family.

Of course, we went to those houses, because my son wanted to see his roots. We entered my grandfather’s house, we’re walking up the stairs, and some young man of about 30 passes us and asks – because it’s clear again that we’re foreigners – to whom? My son tells him that his grandparents lived there, that we just want to look around, and the man says, ‘Yes, yes. I know about this. One heiress from Cracow has already been here.’ And my son says, ‘This is the lady from Cracow. We’re from Cracow.’ I don’t remember how that young man reacted to the ‘heiress,’ but he told us that the doctor and his wife had died, and now he had a studio there, because he was a painter. He led us into the apartment, not through the main door but through the porch to the kitchen. And when we were standing in the kitchen, my son asks me, ‘Mama, do you remember?’ And I say, ‘Yes, I remember everything, only, you know, this kitchen looked different, there was a huge tiled stove here with a top plate, and it’s gone. A gas cooker stood in that place. And the door from the kitchen,’ I went on –it was closed – ‘led to the dining room, and on the right when you entered, that was a closet in the wall, wallpapered, with an iron door, and on the lower shelf there always stood tins of cookies.’ And the painter said that the door was gone, but the closet was still there, and so were the shelves. He opened the door, we entered, and indeed, and I looked and saw that the shelf was really low, and I remembered that I had had to stand on my toes to reach for those boxes – the memories of a little girl! A two, three-year-old one.

That visit three years ago with my son and daughter-in-law was a completely different story. It was like when you go as a tourist to visit Florence or some other beautiful city. My son was enthusiastic. He said he hadn’t imagined it was such a beautiful city. And now, when I picture [the old] Lwow in my mind, I see a smiling, beautiful, joyous city, beautifully illuminated in the night. When it rained, the wet sidewalks reflected the illuminated shop windows of the high streets, with elegant stores, well-dressed, smiling, pleasant people, because it was a unique city and the people were unique too. Pleasant to each other. Please show me another city where people on the streets smile at each other. Such a city it was, but it’s gone now.

Glossary

1 Tarbut

Zionist educational organization. Founded in the Soviet Union in 1917, it was soon dissolved by the Soviet authorities. It continued its activity in Central and Eastern European countries; in Poland from 1922. The language of instruction in Tarbut schools was Hebrew; the curriculum included biblical and contemporary Hebrew literature, sciences, Polish, and technical and vocational subjects.

2 Poland’s independence, 1918

In 1918 Poland regained its independence after over 100 years under the partitions, when it was divided up between Russia, Austria and Prussia. World War I ended with the defeat of all three partitioning powers, which made the liberation of Poland possible. On 8 January 1918 the president of the USA, Woodrow Wilson, declaimed his 14 points, the 13th of which dealt with Poland’s independence. In the spring of the same year, the Triple Entente was in secret negotiations with Austria-Hungary, offering them integrity and some of Poland in exchange for parting company with their German ally, but the talks were a fiasco and in June the Entente reverted to its original demands of full independence for Poland. In the face of the defeat of the Central Powers, on 7 October 1918 the Regency Council issued a statement to the Polish nation proclaiming its independence and the reunion of Poland. Institutions representing the Polish nation on the international arena began to spring up, as did units disarming the partitioning powers’ armed forces and others organizing a system of authority for the needs of the future state. In the night of 6-7 November 1918, in Lublin, a Provisional Government of the Republic of Poland was formed under Ignacy Daszynski. Its core comprised supporters of Pilsudski. On 11 November 1918 the armistice was signed on the western front, and the Regency Council entrusted Pilsudski with the supreme command of the nascent army. On 14 November the Regency Council dissolved, handing all civilian power to Pilsudski; the Lublin government also submitted to his rule. On 17 November Pilsudski appointed a government, which on 21 November issued a manifesto promising agricultural reforms and the nationalization of certain branches of industry. It also introduced labor legislation that strongly favored the workers, and announced parliamentary elections. On 22 November Pilsudski announced himself Head of State and signed a decree on the provisional authorities in the Republic of Poland. The revolutionary left, from December 1918 united in the Communist Workers’ Party of Poland, came out against the government and independence, but the program of Pilsudski’s government satisfied the expectations of the majority of society and emboldened it to fight for its goals within the parliamentary democracy of the independent Polish state. In January and June 1919 the first elections to the Legislative Sejm were held. On 20 February 1919 the Legislative Sejm passed the ‘small constitution’; Pilsudski remained Head of State. The first stage of establishing statehood was completed, despite the fact that the issue of Poland’s borders had not yet been resolved.

3 Battle for Lwow, 1918

in the night of 31st October-1st November 1918, a Ukrainian detachment (previously operating within the Austro-Hungarian army) under Dymytr Vitovsky occupied all the key buildings in Lwow, so taking control of the city. Early in the morning of 1st November, fighting against the Poles began. After a few days of fierce combat, in which civilians, including Polish schoolchildren and scouts, took a major part, a frontline established itself: the western part of the city was in Polish hands, the eastern part under Ukrainian control. Relief was dispatched from Cracow. On 20th November a detachment of the Polish Army under Michal Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski entered the city, and after a day’s fighting, the Ukrainians were forced out of the city. The defense of Lwow, and in particular the very young participants of the battle, known as the ‘Young Eagles,’ were the object of a major cult in the Second Polish Republic [Poland between the world wars].

4 Franz Joseph I von Habsburg (1830-1916)

emperor of Austria from 1848, king of Hungary from 1867. In 1948 he suppressed a revolution in Austria (the ‘Springtime of the Peoples’), whereupon he abolished the constitution and political concessions. His foreign policy defeats – the loss of Italy in 1859, loss of influences in the German lands, separatism in Hungary, defeat in war against the Prussians in 1866 – and the dire condition of the state finances convinced him that reforms were vital. In 1867 the country was reformed as a federation of two states: the Austrian empire and the Hungarian kingdom, united by a personal union in the person of Franz Joseph. A constitutional parliamentary system was also adopted, which guaranteed the various countries within the state (including Galicia, an area now largely in southern Poland) a considerable measure of internal autonomy. In the area of foreign policy, Franz Joseph united Austria-Hungary with Germany by a treaty signed in 1892, which became the basis for the Triple Alliance. The conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina was the spark that ignited World War I. Subsequent generations remembered the second part of Franz Joseph’s rule as a period of stabilization and prosperity.

5 Galicia

Informal name for the lands of the former Polish Republic under Habsburg rule (1772–1918), derived from the official name bestowed on these lands by Austria: the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. From 1815 the lands west of the river San (including Krakow) began by common consent to be called Western Galicia, and the remaining part (including Lemberg), with its dominant Ukrainian population Eastern Galicia. Galicia was agricultural territory, an economically backward region. Its villages were poor and overcrowded (hence the term ‘Galician misery’), which, given the low level of industrial development (on the whole processing of agricultural and crude-oil based products) prompted mass economic emigration from the 1890s; mainly to the Americas. After 1918 the name Eastern Malopolska for Eastern Galicia was popularized in Poland, but Ukrainians called it Western Ukraine.

6 KuK (Kaiserlich und Koeniglich) army

The name ‘Imperial and Royal’ was used for the army of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, as well as for other state institutions of the Monarchy originated from the dual political system. Following the Compromise of 1867, which established the Dual Monarchy, Austrian emperor and Hungarian King Franz Joseph was the head of the state and also commander-in-chief of the army. Hence the name ‘Imperial and Royal’.

7 Russian Revolution of 1917

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

8 Polish Legions

a military formation operating in the period 1914-17, formally subordinate to the Austro-Hungarian army but fighting for Polish independence. Commanded by Jozef Pilsudski. From 1915 the Legions came under German command, but some of the Legionnaires refused, which led to the collapse of the organization.

9 Chwila [the Moment]

a Jewish daily political, social and cultural affairs paper with a Zionist accent, published in 1919-1939 in Lwow, in Polish. From 1931 the editor-in-chief was Henryk Hescheles. Chwila also published the important Dodatek Naukowo-Literacki [Academic and Literary Supplement], with contributors including the historians Majer Balaban and Mojzesz Schorr, the literary critics Maksymilian Biebenstock and Artur Sandauer, the writers Bernard Singer and Julian Stryjkowski, the politicians Ignacy Schwarzbart and Emil Sommerstein, and many others.

10 Hemar, Marian (1901-1972), real name Jan Marian Hescheles

Polish satirist of Jewish descent. Studied medicine and philosophy in Lwow, but abandoned his degree course in favor of literature. From 1920 wrote for satirical cabaret acts and revue, and was a contributor to Szczutek [Flick, a satirical publication] and Gazeta Lwowska [the Lwow Newspaper]. In 1925 he moved to Warsaw. He was linked to the literary group Skamandra. He wrote plays, political cameos, vaudeville, satirical cabaret sketches, political poems, columns, and above all songs, of which he penned over 3,000, many of them hits. He was the literary director of the famous pre-war Warsaw cabarets Qui pro Quo, Banda [the Gang], Cyganeria Warszawska [Warsaw Bohemia] and Cyrulik Warszawski [the Barber of Warsaw]. He spent the war in emigration. He managed to get to Egypt and fought with the Carpathian Brigade at Tobruk. He also wrote the Brigade’s hymn. From 1943 in England. He cooperated with the émigré press and Radio Free Europe. He also founded the Bialy Orzel [White Eagle] satirical cabaret group, and in 1955 the Teatr Hemara [Hemar Theater]. He is also the author of some excellent translations of sonnets by Shakespeare and Horace.

11 Hasmonea Lwow

Jewish sports club founded in 1908 by Adolf Kohn. One of four Lwow league clubs in the interwar period. For two seasons its soccer section played in the league, coming 11th in 1927 and 13th in 1928. The club also boasted a strong boxing section (H. Grosz and F. Strauss were vice-champions) and table tennis section (A. Erlich). The athlete Irena Bella Hornstein of Hasmonea competed for Poland in 1937-1939.

12 Pilsudski, Jozef (1867-1935)

Polish activist in the independence cause, politician, statesman, marshal. With regard to the cause of Polish independence he represented the pro-Austrian current, which believed that the Polish state would be reconstructed with the assistance of Austria-Hungary. When Poland regained its independence in January 1919, he was elected Head of State by the Legislative Sejm. In March 1920 he was nominated marshal, and until December 1922 he held the positions of Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army. After the murder of the president, Gabriel Narutowicz, he resigned from all his posts and withdrew from politics. He returned in 1926 in a political coup. He refused the presidency offered to him, and in the new government held the posts of war minister and general inspector of the armed forces. He was prime minister twice, from 1926-1928, and in 1930. He worked to create a system of national security by concluding bilateral non-aggression pacts with the USSR (1932) and Germany (1934). He sought opportunities to conclude firm alliances with France and Britain. In 1932 owing to his deteriorating health, Pilsudski resigned from his functions. He was buried in the Crypt of Honor in Wawel Cathedral in the Royal Castle in Cracow.

13 Maccabi World Union

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

14 Anti-Semitism in Poland in the 1930s

From 1935-39 the activities of Polish anti-Semitic propaganda intensified. The Sejm introduced barriers to ritual slaughter, restrictions of Jews’ access to education and certain professions. Nationalistic factions postulated the removal of Jews from political, social and cultural life, and agitated for economic boycotts to persuade all the country’s Jews to emigrate. Nationalist activists took up posts outside Jewish shops and stalls, attempting to prevent Poles from patronizing them. Such campaigns were often combined with damage and looting of shops and beatings, sometimes with fatal consequences. From June 1935 until 1937 there were over a dozen pogroms, the most publicized of which was the pogrom in Przytyk in 1936. The Catholic Church also contributed to the rise of anti-Semitism.

15 3rd May Constitution

Constitutional treaty from 1791, adopted during the Four-Year Sejm by the patriotic party as a result of a compromise with the royalist party. The constitution was an attempt to redress the internal relations in Poland after the first partition (1772). It created the foundations for the structure of modern Poland as a constitutional monarchy. In the first article the constitution guaranteed freedom of conscience and religion, although Catholicism remained the dominant religion. Members of other religions were assured ‘governmental protection.’ The constitution instituted the division of power, restricted the privileges of the nobility, granted far-ranging rights to townspeople and assured governmental protection to peasants. Four years later, in 1795, Poland finally lost its independence and was fully divided up between its three powerful neighbors: Russia, Prussia and Austria.

16 Ehrenburg, Ilya Grigoryevich (1891-1967)

Famous Russian Jewish novelist, poet and journalist who spent his early years in France. His first important novel, The Extraordinary Adventures of Julio Jurenito (1922), is a satire on modern European civilization. His other novels include The Thaw (1955), a forthright piece about Stalin’s regime which gave its name to the period of relaxation of censorship after Stalin’s death.

17 Kahane, Dawid (1903-1998)

rabbi of the Lwow community. Educated in religious schools in Berlin, Wroclaw and Vienna. After his return to Poland he taught religious studies in schools in Lwow, subsequently became rabbi in Tykocin, and from 1929 was a rabbi in Lwow, at the synagogue on Sykstuska Street. He was also head of the Tanach study institute that functioned as part of the Jewish Religious Community. During the occupation he remained a member of the rabbinate and was also a member of Lwow’s Judenrat. After escaping from the Janowska Street camp in Lwow he survived in hiding thanks to the assistance of the Greek Catholic metropolitan archbishop of Lwow, Andriy Szeptycki. In 1945, after his return to Poland, he became chief rabbi in the Polish Army. He was also chairman of the Executive Committee of the Supreme Religious Council within the Jewish Religious Congregations’ Organizational Committee in Poland, as the Mizrachi representative. In 1949 he emigrated to Israel. In 1967-1975 he was chief rabbi of Argentina. Thereafter he returned to Israel, and lived in Tel Aviv until his death. He published his memoirs in Hebrew, Diary from the Lwow Ghetto and After the Flood.

18 Lwow Jewish district

Jewish settlements in Lwow date back to the 14th century. At first the Jews lived on the streets later called Zolkiewska and Krakowskie Przedmiescie. In 1350 there was a huge fire, which destroyed the city. It was rebuilt outside its previous boundaries. Thereafter, the Jews settled in the southeastern part of the new city, where a Zydowska [Jewish] Street came into being (from 1871 Blacharska Street). However, some of the Jews remained in the original district, hence the genesis of two separate Jewish religious communities in Lwow: the downtown one and that on Krakowskie Przedmiescie. In 1582 the first synagogue in the downtown community was built, the Golden Rose Synagogue, at 27 Blacharska Street. The oldest of the suburban synagogues dates from ca. 1624. The downtown Jewish district grew in time to extend beyond Blacharska into Wekslarska (later Boimow), Serbska and Ruska. In 1795 the Austrian authorities imposed a ban on Jews living on other streets. This ban was officially lifted in 1868.

19 Lem, Stanislaw (b

1921): writer and essayist, author of science fiction novels. Debuted in 1946 with the novel ‘Man from Mars,’ some lyric poems, popular science articles, and short adventure and war stories. Following the publication of his contemporary novel ‘Time Saved’ (originally ‘Hospital of the Transfiguration’), which was heavily censored, Lem devoted himself to science fiction. He was a pioneer in this genre, and his works quickly became classics. His science fiction novels also address the issue of the consequences of civil and scientific progress (‘Solaris,’ ‘The Futurological Congress,’ ‘Fiasco’); while some contain parodies of and grotesque twists on the sci-fi theme (‘The Book of Robots’). Another group of works are collections of fictional reviews and introductions to non-existent books (‘A Perfect Vacuum’). In his essays, Lem describes the impact of technological progress on the evolution of human philosophy. His most famous essay is Summa Technologiae. Lem’s works have been translated into several languages, and have also been adapted for the screen.

20 Workers’ demonstrations in Lwow in 1936

On 14th April 1936 a demonstration of the unemployed was attacked by the police. A skirmish ensued, in which a Ukrainian by the name of Kozak was killed. The police attack provoked a huge strike, and Kozak’s funeral, on 16th April, served as the forum for a demonstration with the participation of thousands of workers. The police attempted to scatter the demonstrators using live ammunition. The crowd responded with stones, and in several places barricades were erected and street fighting broke out. 31 workers died, and some 300 were injured. The events in Lwow coincided with similar unrest in Cracow and Czestochowa.

21 Murders of Jewish students in Lwow 1938-1939

in 1937 a resolution by the rector enforced the ‘bench ghetto’ at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwow. Jewish students refused to comply with the rule, and some Polish students supported them. Nationalist hit squads attempted to execute the ghetto rule by force, making Jews sit in the allocated places. On 24th November 1938 some Jewish pharmacology students were knifed. Two of them, Karol Zellermayer and Samuel Proweller, died from their wounds. A police investigation found that the attackers were members of an ND hit squad, and some of them were arrested. Zellermayer’s funeral grew into a demonstration against violence at the University, attended by Jews, members of a range of social organizations, students, and some of the teaching staff, including the rector. On 24th May 1939 another Jew, a freshman called Markus Landsberg, was killed during unrest at the Lwow Polytechnic. The Polytechnic’s Senate called on student organizations to condemn the crime; 18 refused to do so. 16 lecturers published a memorandum to the prime minister demanding that the authorities take steps to quash destructive elements among the student population.

22 German occupation of Czechoslovakia

On 14th March 1939 Slovakia proclaimed its independence, i.e. its breakaway from Czechoslovakia. The next day, German troops marched into the Czech Republic. Hitler forced the Czech president, Emil Hacha to sign a declaration announcing the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, a Czech state entirely under German control.

23 Anschluss

The annexation of Austria to Germany. The 1919 peace treaty of St. Germain prohibited the Anschluss, to prevent a resurgence of a strong Germany. On 12th March 1938 Hitler occupied Austria, and, to popular approval, annexed it as the province of Ostmark. In April 1945 Austria regained independence, legalizing it with the Austrian State Treaty in 1955.

24 September Campaign 1939

armed struggle in defense of Poland’s independence from 1st September to 6th October 1939 against German and, from 17 September, also Soviet aggression; the start of World War II. The German plan of aggression (‘Fall Weiss’) assumed all-out, lightning warfare (Blitzkrieg). The Polish plan of defense planned engagement of battle in the border region (a length of some 1,600 km), and then organization of resistance further inside the country along subsequent lines of defense (chiefly along the Narwa, Vistula and San) until an allied (French and British) offensive on the western front. Poland’s armed forces, commanded by the Supreme Commander, Marshal Edward Rydz-Smigly, numbered some 1 m soldiers. Poland defended itself in isolation; on 3rd September Britain and France declared war on Germany, yet did not undertake offensive action on a larger scale. Following a battle on the border the main Polish line of defense was broken, and the Polish forces retreated in battles on the Vistula and the San. On 8th September, the German army reached Warsaw, and on 12th September Lwow. From 14-16 September the Germans closed their ring on the Bug. On 9th September Polish divisions commanded by General Tadeusz Kutrzeba went into battle with the Germans on the Bzura, but after initial successes were surrounded and largely smashed (by 22 September), although some of the troops managed to get to Warsaw. Defense was continued by isolated centers of resistance, where the civilian population cooperated with the army in defense. On 17th September Soviet forces numbering more than 800,000 men crossed Poland’s eastern border, broke through the defense of the Polish forces and advanced nearly as far as the Narwa-Bug-Vistula-San line. In the night of 17-18 September the president of Poland, the government and the Supreme Commander crossed the Polish-Romanian border and were interned. Lwow capitulated on 22nd September (surrendered to Soviet units), Warsaw on 28th September, Modlin on 29th September, and Hel on 2nd October.

25 Flight eastwards, 1939

From the moment of the German attack on Poland on 1st September 1939, Poles began to flee from areas in immediate danger of invasion to the eastern territories, which gave the impression of being safer. When in the wake of the Soviet aggression (17th September) Poland was divided into Soviet and German-occupied zones, hundreds of thousands of refugees from central and western Poland found themselves in the Soviet zone, and more continued to arrive, often waiting weeks for permits to cross the border. The majority of those fleeing the German occupation were Jews. The status of the refugees was different to that of locals: they were treated as dubious elements. During the passport campaign (the issue of passports, i.e. ID, to the new USSR – formerly Polish – citizens) of spring 1940, refugees were issued with documents bearing the proviso that they were prohibited from settling within 100 km of the border. At the end of June 1940 the Soviet authorities launched a vast deportation campaign, during which 82,000 refugees were transported deep into the Soviet Union, mainly to the Novosibirsk and Archangelsk districts. 84% of those deported in that campaign were Jews, and 11% Poles. The deportees were subjected to harsh physical labor. Paradoxically, for the Jews exile proved their salvation: a year later, when the western border areas were occupied by the Germans, those Jews who had managed to stay put perished in the Holocaust.

26 Evacuation of Poles from the USSR

From 1939-41 there were some 2 million citizens of the Second Polish Republic from lands annexed to the Soviet Union in the heart of the USSR (Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians). The resettlement of Poles and Jews to Poland (within its new borders) began in 1944. The process was coordinated by a political organization subordinate to the Soviet authorities, the Union of Polish Patriots (operated until July 1946). The main purpose of the resettlement was to purge Polish lands annexed into the Soviet Union during World War II of their ethnic Polish population. The campaign was accompanied by the removal of Ukrainian and Belarusian populations to the USSR. Between 1944 and 1948 some 1.5 million Poles and Jews returned to Poland with military units or under the repatriation program.

27 Anders’ Army

The Polish Armed Forces in the USSR, subsequently the Polish Army in the East, known as Anders’ Army: an operations unit of the Polish Armed Forces formed pursuant to the Polish-Soviet Pact of 30 July 1941 and the military agreement of 14 July 1941. It comprised Polish citizens who had been deported into the heart of the USSR: soldiers imprisoned in 1939-41 and civilians amnestied in 1941 (some 1.25-1.6m people, including a recruitment base of 100,000-150,000). The commander-in-chief of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR was General Wladyslaw Anders. The army never reached its full quota (in February 1942 it numbered 48,000, and in March 1942 around 66,000). In terms of operations it was answerable to the Supreme Command of the Red Army, and in terms of organization and personnel to the Supreme Commander, General Wladyslaw Sikorski and the Polish government in exile. In March-April 1942 part of the Army (with Stalin’s consent) was sent to Iran (33,000 soldiers and approx. 10,000 civilians). The final evacuation took place in August-September 1942 pursuant to Soviet-British agreements concluded in July 1942 (it was the aim of General Anders and the British powers to withdraw Polish forces from the USSR); some 114,000 people, including 25,000 civilians (over 13,000 children) left the Soviet Union. The units that had been evacuated were merged with the Polish Army in the Middle East to form the Polish Army in the East, commanded by Anders.

28 Jagiellonian University

In Polish ‘Uniwersytet Jagiellonski’, it is the university of Cracow, founded in 1364 by Casimir III of Poland and maintained high level learning ever since. In the 19th century the university was named Jagiellonian to commemorate the dynasty of Polish kings. (Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagellonian_University)

29 Herzl, Theodor (1860-1904)

Jewish journalist and writer, the founder of modern political Zionism. Born in Budapest, Hungary, Herzl settled in Vienna, Austria, where he received legal education. However, he devoted himself to journalism and literature. He was a correspondent for the Neue Freie Presse in Paris between 1891-1895, and in his articles he closely followed French society and politics at the time of the Dreyfuss affair. It was this court case which made him interested in his Jewishness and in the fate of Jews. Beginning in 1896, when the English translation of his Judenstaat (The Jewish State) appeared, his career and reputation changed. He became the founder and one of the most indefatigable promoters of modern political Zionism. In addition to his literary activity for the cause of Zionism, he traveled all over Europe to meet and negotiate with politicians, public figures and monarchs. He set up the first Zionist world congress and was active in organizing several subsequent ones.

30 Sheptytsky, Andriy (1865-1944)

real name Szeptycki Roman Aleksander, monastic name Andriy; monk in the Congregation of St. Basil, Greek-Catholic archbishop of Lwow, and metropolitan archbishop of Halitz from 1900, active ecumenist. 1901-1914 deputy to the Galician National Diet, 1903-1914 member of the Austrian House of Lords. Active in the Ukrainian nationalist and independence movement, in particular a supporter of the Ukrainian National Democratic Union. Spoke out in defense of Ukrainian rights on many occasions, though rejected the use of terror as a means to political struggle. During World War II he supported the collaboration of Ukrainian nationalists with the Germans and assisted in the creation of a Ukrainian division of the SS. Nevertheless, in letters to Rome he enumerated German crimes, and in November 1942 he published a pastoral letter entitled “Thou shalt not kill,” in which some see condemnation of the murder of the Jews and a warning to Ukrainians not to collaborate in it. Thanks to his help, some 150 Jews found shelter in Uniate monasteries and in his own residence. He also sought to bring an end to Polish-Ukrainian fighting in Volhynia and Galicia.

31 Compatriot societies (Yiddish

landsmanshaftn): émigré organizations for people from specific towns or regions. They serve a mutual aid and social purpose, and often also work to assist their fellow compatriots still in their original country in emigrating. The first Jewish compatriot societies were founded in the 19th century in USA émigré circles centered on synagogues. Gradually they took on secular form. In the interwar years compatriot societies sprang up in Latin America and Palestine. In the 1930s they offered redoubled aid to those of their compatriots who wished to emigrate, using instruments such as group visas to the US and Palestine. After World War II and the reception of the wave of Holocaust survivors, one of the compatriot societies’ key areas of activity was documenting the history of Jewish towns, one form of which is the publication of books of remembrance (yizkor bukh, sefer yizkor). Another type of compatriot society emerged in the Polish ghettos during the occupation: these were mutual aid organizations created by those who had been resettled from other towns. After the war compatriot societies were created to provide assistance in searching for relatives in Poland and abroad, and to rebuild the shattered Jewish communities of particular towns.

32 Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR)

communist party formed in Poland in December 1948 by the fusion of the PPR (Polish Workers’ Party) and the PPS (Polish Socialist Party). Until 1989 it was the only party in the country; it held power, but was subordinate to the Soviet Union. After losing the elections in June 1989 it lost its monopoly. On 29th January 1990 the party was dissolved.

33 Gomulka Campaign

a campaign to sack Jews employed in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the army and the central administration. The trigger of this anti-Semitic campaign was the involvement of the Socialist Bloc countries on the Arab side in the Middle East conflict, in connection with which Moscow ordered purges in state institutions. On 19th June 1967, at a trade union congress, the then First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party [PZPR], Wladyslaw Gomulka, accused the Jews of lack of loyalty to the state and of publicly demonstrating their enthusiasm for Israel’s victory in the Six-Day-War. This marked the start of purges among journalists and people of other creative professions. Poland also severed diplomatic relations with Israel. On 8th March 1968 there was a protest at Warsaw University. The Ministry of Internal Affairs responded by launching a press campaign and organizing mass demonstrations in factories and workplaces during which ‘Zionists’ and ‘trouble-makers’ were indicted and anti-Semitic and anti-intelligentsia slogans shouted. Following the events of March purges were also staged in all state institutions, from factories to universities, on criteria of nationality and race. ‘Family liability’ was also introduced (e.g. with respect to people whose spouses were Jewish). Jews were forced to emigrate. From 1968-1971 15,000-30,000 people left Poland. They were stripped of their citizenship and right of return.

34 NKVD

(Russian: Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del), People’s Committee of Internal Affairs, the supreme security authority in the USSR – the secret police. Founded by Lenin in 1917, it nevertheless played an insignificant role until 1934, when it took over the GPU (the State Political Administration), the political police. The NKVD had its own police and military formations, and also possessed the powers to pass sentence on political matters, and as such in practice had total control over society. Under Stalin’s rule the NKVD was the key instrument used to terrorize the civilian population. The NKVD ran a network of labor camps for millions of prisoners, the Gulag. The heads of the NKVD were as follows: Genrikh Yagoda (to 1936), Nikolai Yezhov (to 1938) and Lavrenti Beria. During the war against Germany the political police, the KGB, was spun off from the NKVD. After the war it also operated on USSR-occupied territories, including in Poland, where it assisted the nascent communist authorities in suppressing opposition. In 1946 the NKVD was renamed the Ministry of the Interior.

35 . Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Ukr

Orhanizatsiya ukrainskykh natsionalistiv, (OUN): clandestine organization created in 1929. From 1930 carried out sabotage and diversion campaigns against Poles and Ukrainians favorably disposed towards Poland. In 1940 the organization split into the OUN-Banderivtsi (or Revolutionaries) and the OUN-Melnykivtsi, named after their respective leaders, Bander and Melnyk. The OUN-Melnykivtsi collaborated with the Germans, creating Ukrainian military divisions of the German Army (SS Galicia Division). The OUN-Banderists created the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

Anna Hyndrakova

Anna Hyndrakova
Prague
Czech Republic
Interviewer: Pavla Neuner
Date of interview: June 2003

Anna Hyndrakova is retired but still a very active person. She works for the Jewish Museum in Prague and with the Association of Former Prisoners of the Terezin Ghetto.

She lives on her own in a nicely furnished apartment. The room where the interview took place is her cabinet, in which she has a lot of books and a desk with a computer.

She is proud of having learnt how to work on a computer and using the Internet. She showed me a number of belongings treasured from World War II including a toothbrush from Terezin.

My family background
Growing up
My school years
During the war
Our deportation to Terezin
From Auschwitz to Christianstadt
Post-war
My children
Glossary

My family background

My grandfather on my father's side was called Vilem Kovanic, but I don't know when he was born. I didn't know him at all. It was said that he might have been a dealer in feathers. I know that he came from a Czech family and they spoke Czech, but he also spoke German.

His first wife died but she left him a son, Izak. I didn't really know him though; he seemed really old to me. I know that he lived in Lanskroun and that his two daughters, Truda and Hana, immigrated to Palestine. Izak died before World War II.

My grandmother on my father's side was called Julie Kovanicova, nee Kopecka. She was a housewife and gave birth to nine children. My grandmother died when her last daughter, Olga, was born in 1898. Until that time, my grandparents had been living in Kolin.

After my grandmother died, my grandfather moved to Prague and got a housekeeper, Marjanka Zazova. His eldest daughter Irma and Izak also looked after him a lot. My grandfather died in Prague in 1924. He had a Jewish funeral.

My paternal grandparents had nine children together: Arnost, Irma, Leo, Elza, Petr, my father Pavel, Zdenek, Ota and Olga. Arnost had a workshop with his brother Petr in Liberec and was killed in Auschwitz. Irma was a married housewife with two children. She was killed in a concentration camp.

Leo survived Terezin 1 as he was able to show that he was living in a mixed marriage - his Russian Jewish wife had burnt all her papers and persuaded White Guards 2 to draw up new ones to say she was Christian Orthodox. Her name was Polina, but we called her Aunt Pesa.

Elza and her husband Jindrich Flusser had a shop in Prague called Bambino where they sold children's clothes. She ended up in Auschwitz, along with her three sons and husband.

Petr, who was my dad's twin, was executed in the concentration camp Flossenburg in Germany. He had a little workshop in Liberec for calculating machines, something like calculators; it was called Mira. Anyway, some 'treuhender' [trustee] who wanted it denounced him as a spy. Petr had two sons, Heinzi and Harry, but they also perished.

Zdenek survived Terezin because his wife Ruzena was an Aryan and he had been baptized. Their three children, Vera, Pavel and Zdenek, also survived.

Ota also had an Aryan wife; he was in Terezin for about two or three months and survived. Ota had four children: Ota, Milca, Milan and Jiri. Milca died before the war. Ota and Jiri perished during the Holocaust. Milan survived a concentration camp.

Olga was the only one to remain single; she helped her sister Elza with her youngest son. Somehow she couldn't find a suitable match, so her family sent her to America to stay with relatives. The journey was by ship, and she sat out on the deck sunbathing until she got really burnt. She arrived in America but because she was red all over, she didn't appeal to anyone, so she went back. She was later sent to the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

My grandmother on my mother's side was called Katerina Spitzova, nee Adlerova, and was born in 1861 in Berkovice, which is about 30 kilometers from Prague. She spoke Czech but I don't know what family she came from. All I know is that she had a sister and two brothers. I didn't know my maternal grandfather at all, because he died before I was born. He was called Bedrich Spitz.

My grandmother lived with us in one apartment. She was quite a self- conscious and self-sufficient woman. When they went out for a beer in the evening, for instance, she would order a stout, but she always gave dad the money for it. My grandmother was the most religious person in our house; she kept to a kosher cuisine. She had a small haberdashery store in the center of town, where she sold thread, pins, needles, thimbles, press studs and tape measures.

I used to play in that little shop and I would also arrange the goods. On Sundays she would put everything into a sack and go round villages on the outskirts of Prague selling things. Her shop was in a good place, near the Jewish Quarter. Right opposite was Mrs. Gachova's little store, a kosher butcher's. But it was then decided that this house would be pulled down, so Mrs. Gachova and my grandmother were given notice to quit.

From all the turmoil, my grandmother had a stroke in 1933. It happened in the house where we were living, at the butcher's, where she had just gone to buy me a sausage. She kept that sausage in her hand for three days, for they couldn't wrest it from her grasp. After that, she was paralyzed down one side of her body for seven years and mum looked after her at home. When it got worse, later on, she stayed at the Masaryk Home in a medical place for the terminally ill, where she died in 1940. I was very fond of her; she was a nice person. Whenever I go to the Jewish cemetery, I always say to her, 'Hello grandma', and I feel she can hear me. After her death we didn't keep the Jewish traditions at home like we had done before.

Growing up

My dad was called Pavel Kovanic and he was born in 1891 in Kolin. He went to a Czech elementary school and probably trained as a shop assistant later. He came from a Czech family, so we spoke Czech at home. My dad and mum spoke German together only when they didn't want me to know what they were saying. My dad could also speak Russian, because he had been in Russian captivity in World War I as a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army [see KUK army] 3.

He was still in captivity in Moscow with his brother Leo in 1917, when they applied to join the [Czech] Legion. They got a letter which read: 'Brothers, your application is being dealt with. For the time being watch out for Jewish Bolshevik agents who are mixing with POWs.' After reading that, they couldn't give a damn about the Legionnaires, so they stayed in captivity until the end of the war.

Uncle Leo came back with a Siberian Jewess named Polina who he had married over there. My dad was a supporter of Masaryk 4 and a patriot. He wept whenever he heard patriotic anthems like Our Czech Song [Ta nase pisnicka ceska]. He respected Masaryk for the stance he took in the Hilsner Trial 5.

My mum was called Augusta Kovanicova, nee Spitzova. She was born in 1894 in Prague. She had seven brothers and sisters, but only three reached adulthood - Eduard, Julius and Matylda. Eduard and his wife Anna had two children, Eva and Didi. The whole family died in a concentration camp. Julius died along with his wife; they didn't have any children. Matylda and her husband died in the Holocaust; only their son Ervin survived.

Mum went to a German-language school, but not out of conviction, it's just that there weren't Czech schools everywhere. She spoke Czech with my grandmother but wasn't too confidant about her written Czech. She had a compulsory education. Mum made friends with my dad's sister Elza and it was through her that she met him.

Elza was actually my mother's best friend. Dad often used to say how they had been together at some gathering and that he accompanied all the girls home but took Mum home only at the end, because he liked her. Even back then, when I was little, I used to ask myself why he didn't take her home first if he liked her. They had a Jewish wedding and were married by Rabbi Reach.

My mother wasn't as religious as my father. She took the Jewish religion more as a historical tradition. She was a housewife; she did all the sewing for us and, whenever necessary, helped out my grandmother in the store.

Mum was a very small lady. Once, when I was sick, she went to the school to ask what they were learning about at the moment. My teacher later said to me, 'Anicka, that small dark-haired lady that was here, was that your mum?' I said, 'No, my mum is tall.' But she was actually smaller than me - she just seemed tall to me at the time. At the age of 14 I was already taller than she was.

My dad became a commercial traveler, selling perfume for a firm called Korwig. He usually traveled by train; he didn't have a car. He used to give me these little tubes of toothpaste, which my friends and I liked to suck on - we'd then spit out the foam on the street. He often met up with other commercial travelers; they all knew each other and probably went on trips together. I knew some of them, because they and their families often went on holiday with us in the summer.

Dad had his bar mitzvah, but he wasn't religious and he never fasted on Yom Kippur. I recall that one day my dad went off to a have a snack on Yom Kippur but said he was going to the synagogue, and I remember my mum said, 'Pavel, just so long as grandma doesn't find out!' I never saw him wearing a tallit, tefillin or a kippah.

My parents were traditional Czech Jews who liked it over here. In 1930 they registered as Czechs, not Jews. [Editor's note: There was an official census in 1930 and people could choose the nationality - like Czech, German, Jewish etc.] My dad was amused when, during the war, I started to go to meetings of Hashomer Hatzair 6, which was a left-wing Zionist movement.

He said that Zionism is when one Jew sends another Jew to Palestine with a third Jew's money. During the occupation, when we were entirely dependent on the Jewish community, as the community was our only authority through which everything got arranged, my dad had a whole-hearted dislike of them [Jewish officials of the community, who were closer to Jews who professed Judaism before than to assimilants].

Every Sunday my dad would go to the Bulvar Cafe. That was on Wenceslas Square in the center of Prague. In the afternoon I used to go with mum to fetch him. From time to time he liked to smoke a cigar or a Virginia. He was a great person - so nice and kind. I remember that he had really beautiful hands.

When the weather was nice, we used to go to a garden restaurant on Letna Plain in the afternoon. I'd get a glass of syrup and water - a kind of raspberry flavored soda water. Mum had a coffee and dad might have had a beer. We also went on day trips to Krc Wood, at the end of which there was a pub where we had beer and cheese.

My sister was called Gertruda Kowanitzova, nee Kovanicova, and was born in 1921 in Prague. She was seven years older than me. I think she went to a Czech high school and then to a private school of advertising. She then got a job in an office somewhere and drew for fashion magazines, from which she earned a living on the side. She was very clever and good with her hands. She could speak French and German and was really smart and beautiful. She could also play the piano, even though we didn't have one.

Mum was really skilful - she made clothes for us and she always sewed something for me with whatever material was left from a dress she had just made for my sister. Needless to say, my sister wasn't happy about this - she said she went around in the same clothes as I did and that everyone would see the brat was my sister - because when she went on a date, I used to loiter behind her with a friend. In fact, we liked each other a lot, but we only realized this during the war, when it was too late for everything.

Until I went to school I was at home with mum. We didn't have a nanny. When mum needed to be in the store in place of my grandmother, she took my sister and me with her. One day, my sister - this was when she was little, before I was born - vanished from the store and wasn't anywhere to be found.

They all ran around like crazy looking for her, and in the end they found her. As it turned out, she had taken a brush and had gone out to sweep the pavement - she swept and swept until she ended up four blocks away.

I didn't want to eat anything as a child, as I wasn't interested in food. I usually 'sabotaged' afternoon tea somehow, but whenever mum gave me fifty halers or a crown to buy an apple, then I would go get some sausages from the horsemeat butcher. I was afraid mum would find out, but she would have been glad to know I was eating at least some meat: minced horsemeat and horsemeat sausages with a slice of bread; the butcher, Mr. Karabec, always had really soft bread which was very floury underneath.

One day at home they were looking for a small pan, which I had somehow managed to lose and my sister became suspicious. She looked behind this tall clock and there was the little pan, in which there were some dried out, moldy scrambled eggs. As long as I could eat, I didn't, and when I wanted to eat later on, there wasn't any food.

My school years

I went to a Czech elementary school. After that it was on to either the council school or the grammar school. Grammar school was for people who wanted to get a higher education; the council school was for those who didn't expect they would be carrying on with their studies or who would get an apprenticeship or go to a technical school, perhaps to a commercial academy.

At the time of the Munich Pact 7, my parents wanted me and my sister to learn foreign languages, so that it would be possible for us to emigrate.

They sent me to a preparatory school, preparing me for an English grammar school. Actually, I repeated my fifth year of elementary school here, but this time everything was in English. It was excellent and I learnt a lot there. We had several language lessons every day.

I then took an entrance exam for the English grammar school, but I wasn't accepted [see Exclusion of Jews from schools in the Protectorate] 8. They called for my dad and told him that my exam results were excellent but that they had a policy of 'numerus clausus' for Jews, which meant that no more than 2.7 percent of pupils could be Jewish. [Editor's note: The number of Jewish pupils was constantly restricted until no Jewish pupil was allowed to study.]

Anyway, they suggested he apply for an exception. That was at the end of the school year 1939/1940. Well, my dad got really angry and said he couldn't give a damn about asking for permission to send his child to go to school, so he went and enrolled me in a Jewish school.

In September 1940 it was no longer possible [for Jews] to go to a normal school. I was lucky to have already enrolled in the Jewish school, because I wouldn't have got there after that. For example, a friend of mine at the time and to this day, Bohunda, didn't make it to school.

There were probably around 60 of us in the class, but a deportation train then took away half of the children and teachers. They took on more at the school and those who didn't make it had lessons in groups where they sometimes did exams later on. Dad said to me: 'You've done the fifth year [of elementary school] twice, so you're a clever girl.' He then put me straight down for the second year [of high school].

And then, on the order of the Germans, they skipped a year in order to increase the size of the labor force. As a result, I then went on to the fourth year. I went to the Jewish council school only for two years.

I used to enjoy Czech and art lessons a lot in council school. I wrote nice compositions and wanted to become a writer. But I hated German and arithmetic - I sabotaged these lessons and always got poor marks. I wrote composition exercises that I swapped with boys for lines they had written in German. In Czech lessons we were given the task of writing compositions on themes like 'My holidays' or 'Sundays with my parents', and the teacher, Mrs. Lauscherova, often gave me lines for being naughty during German lessons. I would have to repeatedly write out, for example, the declension of adjectives and nouns in the singular and plural, which I had to do by the next day. Once I had to write out 180 lines by the next day. Anyway, some boys wrote the German lines for me, because the teacher didn't read them anyway; she just glanced over them to see if they had been written and then tore up the paper.

Our Czech language teacher was excellent, but I hated Mrs. Lauscherova. She just couldn't understand why we were so naughty. For her, German was the language of Goethe and Schiller and she couldn't see that for us it was the language of the occupiers. She really tormented me with German. If only she had said something like 'Hey, just learn a bit.

After all, you're not stupid and we'll be deported anyway, so it might come in useful.' Instead, she preferred to give me poor marks in German, even though she knew I would have to do a resit. It was just vindictive of her. In order to move on from the second year I had to learn a long poem by Goethe in German, which I know to this day, in the same way I don't know the grammar to this day.

Mrs. Lauscherova taught everything; she actually knew everything, apart from pedagogy. Even after the war she gave lessons in Greek, Latin, physics, German, needlework, cookery, chemistry and math. She even gave lessons to children who came back and wanted to study to make up for lost time.

I also had my first religion lessons at the council school. In addition to religion itself, there was Judaism and Hebrew. I also had poor marks in that subject because I didn't want to learn it. Otherwise there were excellent teachers there, for instance secondary school professors who were now out of work.

This Jewish council school was based in Jachymova Street in Prague's Jewish quarter. First, I went to the school there, then I worked there at the Jewish Museum and now that is where I go to the [Terezin] Initiative Organization 9. Whenever I go through that passageway I always wonder what ever happened to the little children whose feet used to pitter-patter around here.

I used to read a lot, and still do. I began reading Rodokapsy [cheap paperbacks] and when my sister saw this, she started to give me books from the European Literary Club, which I read at quite a young age. So I read novels from childhood, but only the ones by good authors, not romantic fiction or whodunits.

I was also a good swimmer; in tests I used to swim across a lake with a boat going alongside me. I also did ice-skating and went skiing several times. I went to Maccabi 10 from the age of four and then I really wanted to go to Sokol 11, because I liked those disgusting Sokol girls' outfits. I asked mum and she went to the Vinohrady Sokol Hall, sometime in 1938 or 1939, to sign me on.

However, the woman in charge said she was sorry but they didn't accept Jews. Instead I went a few times to the Workers' P.T. Unit [Physical Training], which was a kind of social democratic organization. One time we were doing an exercise known as the 'Candle', and my insteps were stretched when one girl turned to me and said, 'You've got Jewish feet.' After that I stopped going there. Unfortunately I never learnt to ride a bike. I didn't have a bike, besides it wasn't very safe on the roads, with all that traffic where we lived.

When we were still living with grandma, we observed Pesach; I used to say the mah nishtanah, or rather I would sit on my dad's lap and he would prompt me. We had a Yahrzeit at home. This was a kind of calendar next to which we lit candles on the anniversary of the death of someone in the family.

We also had the Haggadah, but I didn't read it as it was in Hebrew on one page and the same text in German on the other. We went to the synagogue, but only on high holidays. When we lived in Vinohrady we went to the synagogue on Sazavska Street, which was later bombed.

On Yom Kippur we didn't go to school and I was really glad because I actually had double holidays. I can remember Simchat Torah, when children were given sweets and the Torah was kissed. Mum used to say, 'Just pretend, with your fingers like this, don't kiss it - you don't know who touched it before you.' We also celebrated Chanukkah.

When mum took my sister to dancing lessons and dad was on one of his trips, I used to sleep at the caretaker's place so I wouldn't be at home on my own. His daughter, Marta, was a friend of mine. Marta was Christian. In the evening she would kneel beside her bed and pray, but she wasn't really all that religious; she just did it in front of me.

I also wanted to show that I prayed; I knew that Jews didn't kneel, so I just stood and muttered something. On St. Nicholas' Day my dad came home with some oranges, apples and nuts. We celebrated Christmas, but we never had a Christmas tree. At Christmas we ate fried carp and potato salad. I also gave mum a present on Mother's Day.

We observed Jewish and Christian holidays, just like we did Czech ones traditionally. I don't think that my parents were believers. They didn't bring me up in a religious way. I came to religion only during the war when I was in the Jewish school.

First of all, I was living with my parents, sister and grandma in the center of Prague, in an apartment with two rooms and a kitchen. It was a pretty terrible place with a communal gallery - it was dark and had bed bugs. There was no running hot water and no bathroom in the apartment.

There was a bathroom and a laundry room on the ground floor, where we would sometimes go to have a bath, but that would involve getting wrapped up and going through the yard, upstairs again and across the gallery. So the way we did it, on Fridays, before Sabbath, a zinc bath was taken out and we took turns to get washed - I got in first, then my sister, then our mum. There was a large tiled stove and a stove water-tank, and the water was heated up in pots back then.

In 1938 we moved to a nice area in Vinohrady, on Krkonosska Street, where my dad's two sisters were living at the time. This apartment was of a better standard, light-filled and healthy. There was a bathroom there but no heating, of course, just a big boiler. Mum bought black furniture, which shone from the polish. In the room there was a sideboard, couch, table and chairs.

We had running water and a bathroom with a bath and washbasin. But we had to light up the boiler whenever we wanted to take a bath. We lived on the third floor and we had to carry coal up from the cellar. Gas was used to heat the water in the washbasin, though. We had an old two-ring gas cooker.

The stove was used for cooking only in the winter, when we used coal for heating. The bedroom was unheated, though. We only heated the kitchen, which is where we spent most of the time. Otherwise we used gas for cooking which was quite modern at the time. The rent was 3,000 crowns, which was the same as our rent in the center of town.

The apartment was in an apartment building next to Riegr Park. We were in close contact with dad's family because his sisters lived near us. This apartment also had two rooms and a kitchen. At first, I shared a room with my sister and my parents had the bedroom. Later on, when my sister got married in 1941, I moved into the bedroom with my parents. We didn't have anything of particular value at home, no artistic objects. Dad just had his stamp collection, which our neighbor didn't return to me after the war.

When we were still living in our first apartment, mum would often keep a goose in the cellar for its fat. She used to bake 'dough cones' on the stovetop, which she then fed to the goose. It was always quite an event with the goose. At night mum went to feed it and check it was okay, because if the goose had suffocated, she would have had to throw it away.

The goose was kept in a small box. These days the animal rights people would come out against such a thing, because the goose was completely square-shaped by the time it was taken out of the box. It was then killed in the kosher way, but this wasn't done in front of me.

I can remember being at the cinema before the war when a film about Janosik 12 was on. In the film, Janosik says 'Since you've baked me, you might as well eat me', and then they stuck him on a hook, at which point dad covered my eyes with his hat so I wouldn't see it. Likewise, they wouldn't have killed the goose in front of me.

Anyway, the goose was then skinned and we had delicious crackling. On the inside of the sideboard drawers mum wrote when the goose was weighed, how heavy it was, how much fat it had on it, and how much the liver weighed.

As it was so fat, the goose had a big liver. We stuck almonds in it and roasted it in its fat. It was delicious. And then we made several meals out of it. The giblets were prepared in a thick sauce, which dad really liked. He couldn't pronounce the letter 'r' properly, so it was funny when he said he wanted 'thwee wings'. The goose legs were put in a cholent stew and the breasts were prepared as beilik with potato dumplings. The beilik was seasoned with garlic and salt. On Pesach, mum used to make something really good. It was from matzot and was baked like a cake, kind of smooth, stuffed with dried plums and, when it was ready, wine was poured over it. It was stuffed with nuts and was very sweet.

Our standard of living corresponded to that of the lower middle class. I never felt in need of anything, but what we had was no luxury. When my parents were doing well, we had a maid, and when they weren't so well off, we didn't have one. It kind of varied. A cleaner came round to our house when there was a lot of washing to do. I remember that we had a servant.

I also remember that bailiffs from the tax office came round to our place. When you owed taxes in those days, they'd come and put stickers on things and if you didn't pay your taxes on time, they'd come and take away your things. That didn't happen to us, though. Most members of our family were middle class. Only Uncle Arnost had a car. We were something like the 'poor relatives'.

It was my mum's dream to go to the sea. Every year we made plans to go, but in the end we never did. We always went to Brandys nad Orlici in East Bohemia, where it was very beautiful. Some of our relatives and friends also went there. I've got happy memories of it, but mum never did get to see the sea. We used to spend the entire summer holidays in Brandys.

Dad would come to stay with us at the weekends. We had a rented room there. We used to go by train and sent our things as registered luggage. They would wrap up a large wicker basket, as well as dishes, because mum did the cooking. We lived on the square, but it wasn't far from the river. The square was full of little stores.

They already knew us there and when I had some money I would go to buy toffees. It was nice to walk past the baker's shop because there was always the delicious smell of bread. Others who went there included Mr. Stransky, the Flussers and, later on, the Barnais, with whose daughter, Margit, I went to school and remained friends after the war. We were a kind of big summer community over there.

As there were a lot of us in the family, we didn't usually meet up together. We went to the Stranskys and the Flussers a lot. My parents had Jewish friends. I didn't just have Jewish friends back then; when we lived on Na Porici Street I had a friendship with Marta, who wasn't a Jew. We went to school together. There were a lot of Jewish families living in Vinohrady, which is where we moved to when I was in the first year at school.

The main thing was that two aunts with their families were living near us, so I made friends with their children. To this day, I've kept the friends I had in those days - like Mrs. Havrankova, who is now on the social commission of the Jewish community in Prague, or Mrs. Timplova. When I was little I spent my free time with my parents, later on, with my friends.

We used to play in the Jewish cemetery on Ondrickova Street in Prague in Zizkov or in the Old Town Square. There were no funerals any more and we weren't allowed to go anywhere else as Jews. We would romp about on the graves, but we didn't think anything of it, as we were only little.

Also mothers with small babies were going there for a walk. Above all, we weren't allowed to go anywhere else. So we would play at the Hagibor 13 grounds. Hagibor was the only sports ground where Jews were permitted, so that's where we did most of our sports.

At the time of the Munich Pact in 1938, I remember that dad was somewhere in Moravia, I was sleeping with mum in his bed and she was crying. She was worried about how dad would get here now. I can also remember that my sister was on duty at the air-raid defense in May 1938 during the first mobilization. People were supposed to go around with gas masks, and all she had was this case with plums in it.

During the war

I was brought up in such a way that I was supposed to greet everyone I met. I used to say 'salutations' to my mum's friends. In September 1941, mum sewed a yellow star on my jacket and said to me: 'You needn't be ashamed of it, it isn't your fault, but you're not to greet anyone any more, as it might make them feel awkward or even threatened.' I remember going out with my friend, Bohumila, who didn't wear the star to begin with, as she was of mixed race.

We were walking together - me with the star on, her without - when we met some woman who said to my friend: 'You should be ashamed of yourself, going around with a Jewess.' When she got home she made a scene and said she wanted to wear the star, too.

Another time, I was going to her place to ask if she could come out. I went down a hill and saw three boys standing there. They spat at me and then spat on my new leather gloves, which I had been given at my sister's wedding. Normally, I would have got into a fight, but I didn't do anything. I just walked on.

It also happened that two of my fellow-pupils kept bullying me on my way home from school. My mum went to see our teacher, Mrs. Stefkova, to complain. She probably didn't like us, because otherwise she would have dealt with the two girls herself. But she went to tell their parents.

The father of one of the girls, who was a bookbinder, gave his child a smack and that was the end of that, but the other father thought he was a cut above. He came round to our place and rang the bell. My sister opened the door on the chain and he put his foot in the door and said we were Jewish swine and that Hitler would come and show us.

That was after the Munich Pact, but still before the occupation [see Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia] 14. When Mrs. Stefkova died and I went with the class to her funeral, I felt a kind of satisfaction, as if to say: 'You see, you're in a coffin, not me!' Otherwise I didn't come across any overt anti-Semitism. Our neighbors were quite helpful to us, for they let us hide things at their place, even though, for the most part, they didn't give them back to me after the war.

In 1940 or 1941, dad was no longer allowed to work as a commercial traveler. His boss was no longer Mr. Korwig but a Mr. Simsa, who wasn't a Jew. Mr. Simsa behaved very decently and even gave dad some money, although he was no longer working for him. Jews weren't allowed to travel or to be employed by an Aryan-owned firm.

Jewish firms were closed down. After that, dad got a job painting lampshades, and I helped him with it. They were garish items for export to Germany, but at least he got the odd crown for them. I made up my own designs and drew catkins. You got more money for your own designs. We used acetone paints, which smelt awful. Mum didn't make me do the dishes any more. Instead, she told me to go out for some fresh air.

Adults suffered a great deal in this situation. We had a map of Europe on our kitchen wall, and my uncles used to meet up, since they weren't allowed to work any more, and would engage in political debates on the whereabouts of Hitler and such like. I know that it gave them great pleasure when the Soviet Union was attacked, because they said: 'Now Stalin will show them.' But we children didn't take too much notice of it.

In October 1941, my sister married the Jewish man Frantisek Kowanitz in Vinohrady Town Hall. It was a civil wedding, and, for the occasion, I got some leather gloves and silk stockings. They got a red dinner service from Aunt Elza, which I still have to this day. From another aunt, my sister got a gas oven, as well as an embroidered lace tablecloth with twelve covers, which was - and still is - very expensive.

Frantisek was born in 1916; he was a distant relative. He worked as a chief clerk and was in the coal business. By the time I met him he was no longer allowed to do his job. We all lived together. I didn't like him at first, because they talked a lot and were all very jovial while I had to do the dishes.

I was about 13 and I kept a diary in which I wrote that I didn't like him because I had to be in the kitchen all the time. My sister probably read it, because he started coming into the kitchen after that and said things like 'You're my sister- in-law' and 'Dear sister-in-law', so I liked him a lot then.

Frantisek was really good-looking and clever. He was a fine person. But we didn't know each other too well. My sister and me didn't understand each other too well either, on account of the big age difference between us. By the time we had started to see eye-to-eye, we were in Terezin.

They obviously got married quickly because deportations were already taking place at that time and they wanted to go together. Immediately after the wedding, Frantisek was sent to a work camp [forced labor camp] in Lipa and then to Terezin. My sister went to Terezin in December 1941.

I remember the period after the assassination of Reichsprotektor Heydrich [see Heydrichiade] 15, because we were playing in the cemetery when suddenly my mum came running in. She took me by the hand and dragged me home, absolutely terrified, because they were expecting a pogrom. The police came to our house in the night.

All three of us were standing together in our pajamas while they searched the apartment to see if anyone was hiding there. Our lives were pretty restricted after that. [see Anti- Jewish laws in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia] 16.

We weren't allowed to go skating, for instance. They took people's dogs, cats and canaries away from them, which must have been terrible for the children, but we didn't have any pets. I somehow thought it was natural that other children could go skating while I couldn't. Or that we were allowed only two hours to do our shopping each day.

The grocer from next door, however, occasionally left us things he wasn't supposed to. All this didn't frustrate me; I was just bothered that friends kept disappearing. Later on, we just kept company with other Jews. Because of all the inequality and lack of freedom, I was actually quite looking forward to going to Terezin, for I saw it as a kind of scout outing.

Once in Terezin we were kind of relieved that we were among our own kind and that everyone wore the star. We were equal among equals. No one had to worry about being thrown off a tram, whether moving or not, or about the Hitlerjugend 17.

Our deportation to Terezin

In September 1942 my parents and I were summoned to board a deportation train to Terezin, but for some reason the train departed and we were left standing at the assembly point. Several dozen people stayed behind and, to this day, I still don't really know why. Anyway, along came another train and we were given new numbers.

In the end we spent six weeks at that assembly point at the Trade Fair Palace in Prague. The Jewish community gave us supplies and we spent the time just lolling around. Today, a hotel is located there, but there's also a memorial plaque. In those days there were low, wooden pavilions from some trade fair there.

We went on transport Ca to Terezin; that was in October 1942. Two or three days later, the train went straight to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. But because my sister and brother-in-law had already been in Terezin for some time and knew the ropes, they hid us, so we managed to escape it.

I later said to myself that if we had gone on that first transport to Auschwitz, my parents would have perished two years earlier than they did; they wouldn't have known they were going to the gas chamber, so this would have spared them all kinds of suffering.

But because we survived it and were reclaimed from another two transports, once because I was ill, the other time because dad had a job at the disinfesting station, it wasn't until May 1944 that we went to the family camp at Auschwitz, where, for a number of weeks, we lived next to the gas chambers and the crematory chimneys, with all the stench.

My first job in Terezin was in the box-making workshop, where they colored those disgustingly garish bookmarks. I would have liked to do that but I didn't get to do it - what I did was stick cellophane wrappers on powder boxes. I then became seriously ill. It began with an infection of the middle ear and then I got a high fever, although I didn't know why, and then I got jaundice. By the time I had got a bit better, I got phlegmon in the neck, and then I got jaundice again.

I was let out of hospital in February 1943. I then went on a course for dentist's assistants and worked as an auxiliary assistant at the dentist's. Later on, my parents wanted me to get more fresh air, so they arranged for me to work in the garden. My brother-in-law was in the disciplinary service, but I don't know what my sister did.

At first, my sister lived apart from her husband, but they later built a kind of closet out of wood-wool slabs in the attic of a house, and there they lived, which was a big advantage. Those who went on the first transports to Terezin had certain privileges.

They [my sister and brother-in-law] lived with their daughter, Jana Ivana, who was born in Terezin in June 1943. We called her Honzulka. Dad worked at the disinfesting station, mum worked in the 'Warme Kueche', which was a warming-up kitchen. Each barrack had a room with a stove where they reheated things people had cooked for themselves earlier; heating was only allowed in the winter. We ate what we were given.

At first we had something from home to improve the food or else we would receive a package from a relative. At first, I lived with mum, but the barrack had to be evacuated later on for the Dutch transports [in 1943]. I was then sent to the youth house.

Life in the youth house was the best what you could have in Terezin. We learned and read a lot, poems by Wolker, Villon, Halas, Seifert and Nezval. [Editor's note: Wolker, Jiri (1900-1921): Czech proletarian poet. Villon, François, real name F. de Montcorbier or des Loges (1429 (1432) - 1463 (1467)): French lyrical poet.

Halas, Frantisek (1901-1949): Czech proletarian poet. Seifert, Jaroslav (1901-1986): Czech poet and Nobel prize holder (1984). Nezval, Vitezslav (1900-1958): Czech poet, dramatist and translator.] We were equal; everyone wore yellow stars. We were visiting lectures, concerts and theatre performances.

From Auschwitz to Christianstadt

In May 1944 I was placed with my parents to be transported again. We were put along with fifty people in one cattle-truck with two buckets of water and some bread. I don't remember how long the way to Auschwitz was. In Auschwitz most of us didn't work because we were in the family camp. We saw smoke from the crematorium and knew what it meant. Mum's hearing wasn't very good, which protected her quite a bit from the nerve-racking situations that the others went through.

She didn't hear the screams and wails, the barking of dogs, the cries and groans of the people around us. The toil began only in the other camps. A selection was carried out in June 1944 and I was separated from my parents, who stayed behind. I was sent to the women's camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. They took us to the sauna. I had a picture of my mum, dad and sister on me.

I cut out their heads with manicure scissors and wrapped them in cellophane and hid them under my hair- clip. We were searched to see if we were hiding anything. I kept shifting the photos. I had them in my mouth when I was examined by a Slovak woman, who said: 'What's in your mouth, you goose?' 'Photos,' I replied. 'Who of?' 'Mum.' 'Go on then.' So I smuggled them through. I was there about a fortnight and it was sheer hell. There were endless roll calls. For entire days we gazed across the ramp at our old family camp. One morning the camp was empty.

In July they sent us to Christianstadt [now Krzystkowice in western Poland]; this belonged to Gross Rosen. There were several workplaces in Christianstadt and I was allotted to the forest commando. We went to a forest where we knocked down trees and pulled out the stumps. When we left it, there were roads there. They didn't have an asphalt covering - that wasn't finished - but they were graveled. After that, we worked in a munitions factory and in a sandpit, where we loaded sand onto trucks. That was terrible drudgery.

In February 1945 our camp received transports from eastern areas that had been liquidated. When I saw the state those girls were in, I persuaded a friend to run away with me. Another girl joined us, so we managed to escape from the death march the third day of marching while we stopped on a road surrounded by woods.

On the way we claimed to be from the Sudetenland and that we were escaping from a Czech camp. But in three days we were informed on by a farmer and they came for us because I was having hallucinations, as I had a high fever, probably dysentery, and, in my delirium, I was speaking Czech. Well, in short, they caught us and took us to the Niesky camp, which was a camp for Aryan men only. We were there for about three days and were then taken to labor camp Gorlitz.

The last day of the war we felt something in the air. The camp was in a big mess, everything was over but in fact wasn't because the fascists were still there. At a roll call we had there at the end of World War II, the Lagerfuhrer [camp commander] offered to take us to the Americans. They wanted to go to the Americans themselves so they would get better treatment. He horrified us by telling us everything that the Russians would do to us. We were afraid to stay in the camp, because it was said that the Germans would place mines in it and set it on fire, so we left with them. There were twelve of us, with horse and cart to carry their provisions, and we escaped with them. The cart was full of margarine, marmalade and bread. We met the Red Army only on our way to Prague.

The Germans escaped to the Americans. They went west; we went east. We lost our way and then there were only four of us, with one cart. In one town we met some SS men from our camp who recognized our men and forced them to change clothes with them - our civilian clothes for their German uniforms.

That was a very critical moment, because we were still in Germany and they knew who we were and that we were on the run. We were saved by the presence of mind of a fellow-prisoner who said we had lice and maybe even typhus.

People in Germany helped us on the way; we spoke German with them. I can remember when the armistice was signed. All of a sudden, there were signal rockets going off everywhere, it was as light as day. One of the girls was an Austrian; the other two were German Jews.

We slept in a pub: me and the Austrian in a room downstairs, pretending to be German refugees and the two men in the attic. At about four in the morning, the door was kicked open by a Russian soldier who pointed his sub-machine gun at us. Instead of saying who we were or showing our tattooed numbers, we went to embrace and kiss him, and we made such a racket that the two men upstairs came down to find out what was going on.

The soldier was going to shoot them; well it was all pretty drastic and it was only by chance that he didn't do us in. He thought we were Germans. He then took us to his commander's office where they gave us the necessary bumf to say we were from a concentration camp, so we could then get to Prague.

I returned to Prague on 11th May, but I knew my parents weren't alive. My sister's friend and my cousin were on one of the last transports to go through Christianstadt, and her friend told me that my sister had gone with her little girl on the last transport from Terezin in October 1944 straight to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Her husband died in 1945, somewhere on the death march. He had phlegmon in the leg.

Post-war

After the war I went straight to my uncle Ota's wife's place, but she soon threw me out. I then went to my aunt Pesa's place, but things didn't work out there either. In the meantime, I lived with two girls who invited boys home and went with the American soldiers to Pilsen.

I applied to stay at the Jewish orphanage, but it was full, so I had to wait for a place to become vacant. My brother-in-law's son bought me some new shoes and got me a job with a pediatrician, Doctor Kubena - I worked there part-time for a thousand crowns a month. I had to hold the children while they were being inoculated and to look up card indexes, but I only did this during the holidays. I then went to a school of graphic arts.

I lived at the Jewish orphanage in Belgicka Street, before they moved us on to the Jewish women's home in Lublanska Street. I was living there even when I was married. Because of personal reasons I don't want to talk about my husband.

I got married at the beginning of 1949. In March 1949 they were closing down the brothels, one of which became a university hall of residence for married students. We got a tiny little room there. All we could fit in was two beds, a few chairs and a small table. There was an inbuilt sink and cupboard.

When I left Lublanska Street and started to live with my husband, we were pretty badly off financially, because they took away my grant of 1,200 crowns, seeing that I was married and my husband was earning. But he wasn't earning anything at the time, and when he was, it was very little. I had an orphan's allowance, at first 427 crowns, then 600 crowns, which was a pittance.

We were poor, but it was a start, just as it was for other young people. But what made it worse was that girls normally bring something with them to the marriage from their family, whereas I didn't even have any shoes. After the war I returned to our pre-war apartment but somebody was living there and the lady who opened to me banged the door.

We had some of our property hidden away at our aunts' and friends' places. One aunt gave me all the photos she had kept. My sister had got a gas oven as a wedding present from another aunt. I stayed with that aunt and would often stare at the oven, absent-mindedly.

She said, 'what are you staring at the oven for, it's not Gertruda's, I bought it for myself.' In reply, I asked her what good would a gas oven do me when I didn't have anything, except perhaps for sticking my head in it. Some of the neighbors returned things, but most of them didn't.

After the war I graduated from the secondary school of graphic arts with pretty good results. But I don't have any great talent or any compulsion to do art. I just like to make things with my hands, but it doesn't exactly have to be art with a capital A. I'm good with my hands. I forgot a lot of my English.

After the war I went to a language school, but I stopped, as I didn't have the money for it. I also studied at university - the School of Politics at the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. It was the only university I could go to, as I didn't have a high school education, as I had been to a secondary technical school. I had a go at studying history externally, but I had two children, neither of whom was completely healthy to start with, and then I got to thinking that I was too old to do a normal course of study, and besides there wasn't the money for it.

The main thing was that it was completely new stuff for me, as I had never learnt about Ancient Rome and Greece, so I decided to drop it. I then went to the School of Politics, where I got a First. They taught mainly economy and the history of philosophy and the history of the Czechoslovak Communist Party 18.

I joined the [Communist] Party, but first of all I was in the Czechoslovak Youth Association 19. On the one hand, all my friends had joined the party, on the other, the Russians had liberated us and I thought that it was the only force that could prevent what had happened ever being repeated. And they wanted me to join. No one else wanted me. No one would miss me if I didn't return to the orphanage in the evening. In the Youth League, I was in a committee; it was a fine group and they arranged their meetings according to when I could make it.

For example, we were supposed to have a meeting on Friday. And I said, 'I can't on Friday, no way, that's the only time we get a decent meal at the orphanage. If I come to the meeting, then I miss out on the only decent meal, the Sabbath dinner.' So they rescheduled it. And being in the League was only a small step from being in the Communist Party.

Anyway I believed in it. Uncle Leo said to me, "Don't go there, your dad was a Social Democrat.' But I thought that it was basically the same thing, except the communists were a bit more revolutionary and more for young people.

I had my first doubts during the Slansky Trials 20. After that, I no longer believed in it, but I still wanted to believe. I was mystified as to why, all of a sudden, a person's Jewish origin had to be stated. I hadn't seen socialism as an anti-Semitic system, nor had I come across any extreme manifestations of anti-Semitism after the war. I was ejected from the Party in 1969.

My children

I have two children, a daughter and a son. My daughter, Alena, was born in 1950, my son, Pavel, in 1954. When I had Alena in 1950, that completely took up all my time and energy. My first child was the first one I had ever held in my arms and had had to look after. When my daughter got German measles, I was told that while she had a temperature she shouldn't lie down too much, as there was a risk of pneumonia.

So I paced up and down the apartment, nursing my child and shouting out loud, 'She's going to die on me, they've all died on me.' I've never vomited, but both my children used to throw up quite often. Once, when my daughter was still very young, she threw up in her swaddling clothes.

I got really scared, so I took hold of her and brought her to the pediatrician's, where there was a waiting room full of people - I had such a desperate look in my face that all the women let me go first. The doctor said, 'Now then, what's the matter?', and I said, 'Doctor, she's vomited.' He looked at me and said, understandingly, 'Don't worry, that often happens.'

Both of my children have been to university; Alena is a microbiologist and managed a laboratory, Pavel is chemical engineer and runs a research and development laboratory for a large company of millers and bakers. They both have their own families.

My daughter lives with her husband in the Czech Republic. My son married a French woman and lives in France. I go to see them nearly every year. They didn't have a religious upbringing, as I hadn't had one either, but they always knew that I was Jewish and they knew about what had happened to me.

They have an awareness of the tradition and a tremendous solidarity. I once heard my son talking to his sister about the 'halakhah', and he said, 'You're lucky, your children will be Jewish, but not mine.' They have been to visit Auschwitz and Terezin. I have three grandchildren, Anna, Marie and Pavel, aged 20, 17 and 14.

Before I had children, I worked as an artist at the Head Office for the Mechanization of Agriculture. I then took maternity leave. Later on, I ran the photo archive of the Institute for the History of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. From 1969, I worked at the Jewish Museum where, along with Mrs. Frankova, I put together the Holocaust documentation center.

In 1974, the then director Erich Klima sacked me for political reasons. The museum was state-owned and everything depended on the director. While Mr. Benda was in charge, we were a bit restricted, of course, but it was okay. And then Klima became director.

He banned the use of certain words. Whenever an exhibition was being prepared or something was being written, such as an inventory, we were not allowed to write 'Transports to the East', for instance, because it was from the east that freedom came.

In those days, the archive was basically not in operation; we sorted everything and turned it into the Terezin and Persecution Documentation collections, which are still in use to this day. People came there for photos and documents. I can remember once that a rabbi came from America to select photos and documents.

In those days we bent the rules a bit, because instead of charging for these services, we asked them to send us some books. That rabbi was an anti-Communist and was very active; he asked us why we had gone to the deportation trains like sheep and why we hadn't hidden somewhere.

I was responsible for his care at the time because I was the only one whose English was so-so. I told him, 'And where would you hide for six years?' He replied, 'Well, the streets are so small here.' He then also asked why we hadn't gone to Israel, upon which I asked him, 'And why didn't you go there?'. He said, 'Well, I support Israel financially.' Anyway, we then sent him what he had selected, and he took his revenge on the Communist regime by not sending us the books he had promised us. So we didn't get to read them.

After they had given me the sack, my daughter found me a job through an ad, which I did until 1982. That was as an economic organizer at the Central Bohemian Head Office for Communications, which meant that I paid out the wages and traveling expenses, and such like.

When I went to collect the money I was always accompanied by a security guard. He carried a gun and I was supposed to carry the bag with the money in it. But the bag was chained to the hand, so it couldn't be put down, and there was usually an amount of 300,000 to 380,000 crowns to carry.

The bag was really heavy because there were also coins in it, so my escort carried it for me. One day, however, there was a security check and they found out that he was carrying the money and the gun, which was just not possible. I said, 'I can't carry it as you can't put it down.

Anyone can see that.' They told me that I should carry the gun then. And I was given all these rules as to when I could and could not use it, so I thought to myself that this was all a bit too much. I told them, 'Surely you don't think I should risk my life for some money.' So I decided I would retire as soon as possible, which I did in 1982. I could have retired earlier as I have a certificate under Article 255 21.

I don't want to talk more about my life in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

I then did the books at the Jiri Wolker Theatre and, later on, I looked after my grandchild, since my daughter was unable to find work for a long time. And then, starting in 1991 I began to document the testimonies of Holocaust victims at the Jewish Museum with my colleague Anna Lorencova. I went to see people who had survived and recorded their testimonies on a cassette, which I then archived at the museum.

Whenever I made friends with someone, it never mattered whether that person was a Jew. But it is a fact that if I found out he was a Jew, then it brought me closer to that person in a different way. In the 1950s we began to live in a house with a garden, which was fine for the children. We also went to visit my in-laws, who lived in Mnichovice, not far from Prague.

I didn't go the synagogue. I used to bake Easter cake at Easter and I celebrate Christmas with my daughter and granddaughter. We have carp [for Christmas dinner] and give each other presents. We also celebrate our birthdays together. I don't celebrate Jewish holidays; I only light the candle in honor of my sister and parents.

Before November 1989 I distributed Samizdat publications 22, for which I also wrote, but mostly we listened to Radio Free Europe 23. I was enthusiastic about the revolution [see Velvet Revolution] 24. I went on demonstrations even beforehand, and was once showered by a water cannon. We weren't at the demonstration on 17th November though, because we were moving house on 1st December. I was packing and making preparations, so it was a bit of a hectic time. After the revolution, my personal life changed in that I got divorced and remained single. Also, I had very bleak prospects as to how I would manage to pay the rent on my low pension. Things later improved thanks to various compensation funds and humanitarian contributions. After the divorce I started to work again, collecting the testimonies of Holocaust survivors for the Jewish Museum.

I've been to Israel once - for three weeks in 1991 on an invitation from some friends of mine. I have friends there with whom I broke off correspondence during the Communist regime because things were really starting to hot up over here; I didn't know what to write because I wasn't allowed to say the truth. But we have since renewed the contact and now send emails to each other.

I have a friend there who had been in Terezin but I only met her after the war in the women's home where we became friends. I also have an old school friend over there who was also in Terezin and who I see whenever she comes over.

My best friend from the concentration camp immigrated to America in 1968, but she has already died. I thought about emigrating, although not to Israel, but in the end I decided not to go. We also asked our children to think about it but they couldn't make up their minds.

I am an active member of the Terezin Initiative of which I have become third deputy chair. After the revolution I also worked at the Institute for Contemporary History where I contributed to the publication of three works, one of which was on eminent people in Terezin. I also took part in the preparations for a new exhibition on the Terezin ghetto and for a new exhibition to complement the Czech exhibition in Auschwitz. At the moment, I'm preparing for publication the Terezin 'Tagesbefehle' [Daily Orders]. [Editor's note: They were published in fall 2003.] I feel I owe a debt of gratitude to those who didn't survive and that I'm paying this off by doing something in this field.

Glossary:

1 Terezin/Theresienstadt: A ghetto in the Czech Republic, run by the SS. Jews were transferred from there to various extermination camps. It was used to camouflage the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis, who presented Theresienstadt as a 'model Jewish settlement'.

Czech gendarmes served as ghetto guards, and with their help the Jews were able to maintain contact with the outside world. Although education was prohibited, regular classes were held, clandestinely. Thanks to the large number of artists, writers, and scholars in the ghetto, there was an intensive program of cultural activities.

At the end of 1943, when word spread of what was happening in the Nazi camps, the Germans decided to allow an International Red Cross investigation committee to visit Theresienstadt.

In preparation, more prisoners were deported to Auschwitz, in order to reduce congestion in the ghetto. Dummy stores, a cafe, a bank, kindergartens, a school, and flower gardens were put up to deceive the committee.

2 White Guards: A counter-revolutionary gang led by General Denikin, famous for their brigandry and anti-Semitic acts all over Russia; legends were told of their cruelty. Few survived their pogroms.

3 KuK (Kaiserlich und Koeniglich) army: The name 'Imperial and Royal' was used for the army of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, as well as for other state institutions of the Monarchy originated from the dual political system. Following the Compromise of 1867, which established the Dual Monarchy, Austrian emperor and Hungarian King Franz Joseph was the head of the state and also commander-in-chief of the army. Hence the name 'Imperial and Royal'.

4 Masaryk, Tomas Garrigue (1850-1937): Czechoslovak political leader and philosopher and chief founder of the First Czechoslovak Republic. He founded the Czech People's Party in 1900, which strove for Czech independence within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, for the protection of minorities and the unity of Czechs and Slovaks.

After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1918, Masaryk became the first president of Czechoslovakia. He was reelected in 1920, 1927, and 1934.

Among the first acts of his government was an extensive land reform. He steered a moderate course on such sensitive issues as the status of minorities, especially the Slovaks and Germans, and the relations between the church and the state. Masaryk resigned in 1935 and Edvard Benes, his former foreign minister, succeeded him.

5 Hilsner Trial: In 1899 the Jew Leopold Hilsner was accused of ritual murder. During the first trial proceedings the media provoked an anti- Jewish hysteria among the general public and in legislative bodies, as a result of which Hilsner was sentenced to death, despite the lack of any direct evidence.

Both his ex officio counsel and President T. G. Masaryk tried to demythologize superstitions about the blood libel. In 1901 Emperor Franz Josef I changed the sentence to life imprisonment but he did not allow a retrial probably out of fear of pogroms. In 1918 Hilsner was granted pardon by Emperor Charles.

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

7 Munich Pact: Signed by Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and France in 1938, it allowed Germany to immediately occupy the Sudetenland (the border region of Czechoslovakia inhabited by a German minority). The representatives of the Czechoslovak government were not invited to the Munich conference.

Hungary and Poland were also allowed to seize territories: Hungary occupied southern and eastern Slovakia and a large part of Subcarpathia, which had been under Hungarian rule before World War I, and Poland occupied Teschen (Tesin or Cieszyn), a part of Silesia, which had been an object of dispute between Poland and Czechoslovakia, each of which claimed it on ethnic grounds.

Under the Munich Pact, the Czechoslovak Republic lost extensive economic and strategically important territories in the border regions (about one third of its total area).

8 Exclusion of Jews from schools in the Protectorate: The Ministry of Education of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia sent round a ministerial decree in 1940, which stated that from school year 1940/41 Jewish pupils were not allowed to visit Czech public and private schools and those who were already in school should be excluded.

After 1942 Jews were not allowed to visit Jewish schools or courses organised by the Jewish communities either.

9 Terezin Initiative Foundation (Nadace Terezinska iniciativa): Founded in 1993 by the International Association of Former Prisoners of the Terezin/Theresienstadt Ghetto, it is a special institute devoted to the scientific research on the history of Terezin and of the 'Final Solution' of the Jewish question in the Czech lands. At the end of 1998 it was renamed to Terezin Initiative Institute (Institut Terezinske iniciativy).

10 Maccabi World Union: International Jewish sports organization whose origins go back to the end of the 19th century. A growing number of young Eastern European Jews involved in Zionism felt that one essential prerequisite of the establishment of a national home in Palestine was the improvement of the physical condition and training of ghetto youth.

In order to achieve this, gymnastics clubs were founded in many Eastern and Central European countries, which later came to be called Maccabi.

The movement soon spread to more countries in Europe and to Palestine. The World Maccabi Union was formed in 1921. In less than two decades its membership was estimated at 200,000 with branches located in most countries of Europe and in Palestine, Australia, South America, South Africa, etc.

11 Sokol: One of the best-known Czech sports organizations.

It was founded in 1862 as the first physical educational organization in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

Besides regular training of all age groups, units organized sports competitions, colorful gymnastics rallies, cultural events including drama, literature and music, excursions and youth camps.

Although its main goal had always been the promotion of national health and sports, Sokol also played a key role in the national resistance to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Nazi occupation and the communist regime.

Sokol flourished between the two World Wars; its membership grew to over a million. Important statesmen, including the first two presidents of interwar Czechoslovakia, Tomas Masaryk and Edvard Benes, were members of Sokol.

Sokol was banned three times: during World War I, during the Nazi occupation and finally by the communists after 1948, but branches of the organization continued to exist abroad. Sokol was restored in 1990.

12 Janosik, Juraj (1688-1713): Slovak folk hero. He was a serf in the Fatra mountains in Upper Hungary (today Slovakia) and became an outcast. According to legend he robbed rich noblemen and townsmen and gave the haul to the poor.

Janosik participated in the Rakoczy uprising against the Habsburgs (1703-11). He joined a unit of irregulars and after the suppression of the revolt they became mountain robbers. He was caught by Lipto county authorities and executed in Liptoszentmiklos (today Liptovsky Mikulas). Janosik is the hero of many Slovak folk tales and legends and also celebrated in folk songs.

13 Hagibor: Prague camp, located on Schwerinova Street. Most of the people interned here were Jews from outside Prague living in mixed marriages. The internees who were fit to work were employed in the 'mica works' of the firm Glimmer-Spalterei, G.M.b.H. On 30th January 1945, it was decided to deport the entire mica works to Terezin.

The number of Jews interned at Hagibor subsequently dropped from an average of 1,400 to a mere 100-150. In total, 3,000 people passed through the camp. Hagibor was allegedly closed down on 5th May 1945, and the remaining internees returned to their homes.

14 Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia: Bohemia and Moravia were occupied by the Germans and transformed into a German Protectorate in March 1939, after Slovakia declared its independence. The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was placed under the supervision of the Reich protector, Konstantin von Neurath.

The Gestapo assumed police authority. Jews were dismissed from civil service and placed in an extralegal position. In the fall of 1941, the Reich adopted a more radical policy in the Protectorate. The Gestapo became very active in arrests and executions.

The deportation of Jews to concentration camps was organized, and Terezin/Theresienstadt was turned into a ghetto for Jewish families. During the existence of the Protectorate the Jewish population of Bohemia and Moravia was virtually annihilated. After World War II the pre-1938 boundaries were restored, and most of the German-speaking population was expelled.

15 Heydrichiade: Period of harsh reprisals against the Czech resistance movement and against the Czech nation under the German occupation (1939- 45). It started in September 1941 with the appointment of R. Heydrich as Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, who declared martial law and executed the representatives of the local resistance.

The Heydrichiade came to its peak after Heydrich's assassination in May 1942. After his death, martial law was introduced until early July 1942, in the framework of which Czech patriots were executed and deported to concentration camps, and the towns of Lidice and Lezaky were annihilated. Sometimes the term Heydrichiade is used to refer to the period of martial law after Heydrich's assassination.

16 Anti-Jewish laws in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia: After the Germans occupied Bohemia and Moravia, anti-Jewish legislation was gradually introduced. Jews were not allowed to enter public places, such as parks, theatres, cinemas, libraries, swimming pools, etc.

They were excluded from all kinds of professional associations and could not be civil servants. They were not allowed to attend German or Czech schools, and later private lessons were forbidden, too. They were not allowed to leave their houses after 8pm.

Their shopping hours were limited to 3 to 5pm. They were only allowed to travel in special sections of public transportation. They had their telephones and radios confiscated. They were not allowed to change their place of residence without permission. In 1941 they were ordered to wear the yellow badge.

17 Hitlerjugend: The youth organization of the German Nazi Party (NSDAP). In 1936 all other German youth organizations were abolished and the Hitlerjugend was the only legal state youth organization. From 1939 all young Germans between 10 and 18 were obliged to join the Hitlerjugend, which organized after-school activities and political education.

Boys over 14 were also given pre-military training and girls over 14 were trained for motherhood and domestic duties. After reaching the age of 18, young people either joined the army or went to work.

18 Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC): Founded in 1921 following a split from the Social Democratic Party, it was banned under the Nazi occupation. It was only after Soviet Russia entered World War II that the Party developed resistance activity in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; because of this, it gained a certain degree of popularity with the general public after 1945.

After the communist coup in 1948, the Party had sole power in Czechoslovakia for over 40 years.

The 1950s were marked by party purges and a war against the 'enemy within'. A rift in the Party led to a relaxing of control during the Prague Spring starting in 1967, which came to an end with the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet and allied troops in 1968 and was followed by a period of normalization. The communist rule came to an end after the Velvet Revolution of November 1989.

19 Czechoslovak Youth Association (CSM): Founded in 1949, it was a mass youth organization in the Czechoslovak Republic, led by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. It was dissolved in 1968 but reestablished in April 1969 by the Communist Party as the Socialist Youth Association and was only dissolved in 1989.

20 Slansky Trial: Communist show trial named after its most prominent victim, Rudolf Slansky. It was the most spectacular among show trials against communists with a wartime connection with the West, veterans of the Spanish Civil War, Jews, and Slovak 'bourgeois nationalists'.

In November 1952 Slansky and 13 other prominent communist personalities, 11 of whom were Jewish, including Slansky, were brought to trial. The trial was given great publicity; they were accused of being Trotskyst, Titoist, Zionist, bourgeois, nationalist traitors, and in the service of American imperialism. Slansky was executed, and many others were sentenced to death or to forced labor in prison camps.

21 Certificate under Article 255/1946 Coll.: Certificate awarded to certain people involved in the national struggle for liberation during World War II. It was issued by the Ministry of Defense and entailed certain advantages, such as early retirement.

22 Samizdat literature in Czechoslovakia: Samizdat literature: The secret publication and distribution of government-banned literature in the former Soviet block. Typically, it was typewritten on thin paper (to facilitate the production of as many carbon copies as possible) and circulated by hand, initially to a group of trusted friends, who then made further typewritten copies and distributed them clandestinely.

Material circulated in this way included fiction, poetry, memoirs, historical works, political treatises, petitions, religious tracts, and journals.

The penalty for those accused of being involved in samizdat activities varied according to the political climate, from harassment to detention or severe terms of imprisonment.

In Czechoslovakia, there was a boom in Samizdat literature after 1948 and, in particular, after 1968, with the establishment of a number of Samizdat editions supervised by writers, literary critics and publicists: Petlice (editor L. Vaculik), Expedice (editor J. Lopatka), as well as, among others, Ceska expedice (Czech Expedition), Popelnice (Garbage Can) and Prazska imaginace (Prague Imagination).

23 Radio Free Europe: Radio station launched in 1949 at the instigation of the US government with headquarters in West Germany. The radio broadcast uncensored news and features, produced by Central and Eastern European émigrés, from Munich to countries of the Soviet block.

The radio station was jammed behind the Iron Curtain, team members were constantly harassed and several people were killed in terrorist attacks by the KGB. Radio Free Europe played a role in supporting dissident groups, inner resistance and will of freedom in the Eastern and Central European communist countries and thus it contributed to the downfall of the totalitarian regimes of the Soviet block. The headquarters of the radio have been in Prague since 1994.

24 Velvet Revolution: Also known as November Events, this term is used for the period between 17th November and 29th December 1989, which resulted in the downfall of the Czechoslovak communist regime. The Velvet Revolution started with student demonstrations, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the student demonstration against the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Brutal police intervention stirred up public unrest, mass demonstrations took place in Prague, Bratislava and other towns, and a general strike began on 27th November. The Civic Forum demanded the resignation of the communist government.

Due to the general strike Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec was finally forced to hold talks with the Civic Forum and agreed to form a new coalition government. On 29th December democratic elections were held, and Vaclav Havel was elected President of Czechoslovakia.

Cadik Danon

CADIK DANON
Belgrade
Serbia
Interviewer: Ida Labudovic

My name is Cadik Danon and my nickname is Braca. I was born in 1923 in Sarajevo, where I finished elementary school. In 1934, my family moved to Belgrade. I went to the First Male Gymnasium and an engineering middle school. In 1941, when the war began, we fled to an uncle's place in Tuzla, Bosnia. I have many early memories - some of my parents' stories and others that I personally experienced.

My family background
Childhood memories
During the war
Post-war

My family background

My grandfather Avram Danon - I do not know when he was born - lived in Bjeljina with his wife, Sara. They met at a party in Bjeljina, and were married soon after. They loved each other very much and the fruit of that love was 13 children - eight sons and five daughters. My grandfather had a cepenak - a small Turkish space - in the market in the center of the town. This shop was organized like a typical Turkish shop: during the winter there was a mangala, a wood stove, burning in the center; customers could pass by and immediately see everything in the store. Grandfather was an exceptionally hard-working man, and I can imagine how much he had to work to support 15 people. The children grew up in a certain degree of poverty. My father told me how he never had his own clothing or new shoes, only hand-me-downs from his older brother. He would have to roll up the sleeves; they were never shortened by a tailor. As he grew, he would unroll the sleeves until he outgrew the shirt and passed it down to his younger brother.

When my father, Isidor, was 13, he reached his bar mitzvah, the age, according to Judaism, from which a young man begins to fight for his own survival. My father told me that his bar mitzvah was a big and festive celebration; the chief rabbi from Bjeljina came, and my father received many presents. They made a special point to accent the bar mitzvah because it gave strength to the young boys, who were, in fact, still children, to keep on a serious life path. After the bar mitzvah, my grandfather told my father, in short, "Now that you are an adult, it is time that you start to work and earn money." My grandfather said he would give him some start-up capital. This consisted of some 20 molds for making soaps, which were cooked and then cut with a knife. He went to the market, took a box, covered it with newspaper and began selling. By evening, he had sold all the soap. When he counted the money, he realized he had made twice as much as his father said they were worth. The next day he went to his father's shop, paid for more soap, and little by little he became a relatively rich man. He was incredibly hard-working, industrious, smart, sweet and honest; everyone he came into contact with wanted to talk with him and do business with him. By the time he was 15, he had saved a certain amount. He hired a carpenter to build a stand in the marketplace, and he sold his goods from the stand, protected from rain and sun. He also went to a tailor, who made him a suit to improve his appearance. He looked like a businessman, and he always advanced.

There were many poor Jewish women who knew how to bake, so he hired them and began to sell homemade cakes at the market. At the time, Bjeljina had a tense border with Serbia, so the garrison had been strengthened with a big military presence. The main customers for those cakes were soldiers and students.

In time, he went to Tuzla to begin a business. He worked with manufactured goods, and the work went well. One day he went to Gracanica, near Tuzla, to get goods for his shop. Walking down the street, he noticed two girls passing by. He took note of one in particular. She was extraordinarily pretty, with lovely eyes, beautiful hair, a nice figure. He followed the girls. But the problem was how to learn who they were. He went a few steps ahead of them, stopped at a store and took another good look at them. At that moment an old man came out of the store and told him they were the daughters of Cadik Danon, a merchant from Gracanica. He decided to go to synagogue to meet them. It was Friday night, and he met Cadik Danon who invited him to dinner. My parents met, liked one another, and within a very short time they married. Isidor began his new life with his beloved wife, Dona.

It was fortunate for my grandmother that she first had daughters who could help her take care of the younger children, primarily sons. The problem was marrying off all these girls. At the time, there was no chance to marry without a dowry. They were lucky that both my grandfather and grandmother were nice-looking and all their children were nice-looking; pretty girls are married off more quickly.

Grandfather and Grandmother were both Sephardim. They spoke Ladino with the children and the children responded in Ladino. Religious customs were regularly observed. Every Shabbat was celebrated with two candles, and all the holidays were celebrated first in temple, then at home. All of this occurred not long after the Turks left Bosnia, which means during the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia, so my grandfather, like all Jewish men, wore a fez. At the time, even members of other religions wore fezzes and they knew who was of which faith based on the color of the fez: Turks wore a deep red fez, Jews wore a dark brown fez; this is how they distinguished one another. My grandfather continued to hand down all Jewish customs and all the feelings that a Jew should have, and this was the same with my father, who wanted to raise us in a Jewish spirit and strictly observed the rules that were customary among Sephardi Jews. The Sephardi Jews were religious, but they were in no sense Orthodox. They were not too religious like the Jews in Poland, Ukraine.

The Jews socialized together. This helped ensure that marriages were, in general, Jewish. A Jewish man was obliged to marry a Jewish woman and vice versa. If the opposite happened, it was considered a great misfortune and an embarrassment to the family. This also was true for the other religions. When I was small, my two uncles Hajim and Gedalja were unmarried. Hajim married my mother's cousin Batseva and Gedalja married my mother's cousin Dona, who lived in Istanbul.

I never went to my grandmother and grandfather's; they died before I was old enough to visit them. When Grandmother Sara died, the grave was constructed according to Jewish law. The coffin was made from unrefined wood; she was washed and dressed in
a white sheet. The rabbi put a lump of dirt under her head and she was buried. When the family came home, according to Jewish law, they were all obliged to sit on mattresses on the floor for seven days. Family members brought them food and all 13 children sat there for these seven days. Grandfather literally stopped eating and lost his will to live. After a
month he died, as well. Again a funeral was held, Kaddish was recited and the children were left without parents. Fortunately, they were all grown up; the daughters were already married. Life went on in the same way with the older children helping the younger ones.

My father was the second-eldest son. Majer, the eldest, contracted tuberculosis and died, so that my father became the "pater familias," playing the role of head of the family. I remember one occasion when his eldest sister and the youngest brother, both of whom lived in Bjeljina, quarreled. One day a letter came from his eldest sister in which she asked my father to intervene as head of the family in her dispute with Gedalja. My father understood that this was not something serious. He invited them to Belgrade, where we lived. They came and, in short, he told them: Kiss and make up.

My mother's parents were also in love with one another and they had nine children, eight daughters and one son. They lived in Gracanica. They were also traditional, but not Orthodox. They celebrated all holidays at home. On his deathbed, my grandfather asked my father, his son-in-law, to take care of his family. My father was an exceptionally good and generous man and he promised to maintain the family, and he did help as much as was possible. The hardest thing was to marry off eight girls, each of whom needed a dowry and a husband. My father played the biggest role in marrying off all these girls. The family got along well, they all loved each other; it was like one soul and one body.

Childhood memories

I remember, I was still quite young and we were still living in Sarajevo, celebrating one Pesach, the holiday that recalls the Jews' salvation from slavery in Egypt. All the traditions connected to that holiday relate to fleeing from slavery and the Jews' 40-year stay in the Sinai desert. I remember my father put a piece of matzah in a big cloth napkin and he put it on my back, as a symbol of how the Jews quickly baked their bread so that they could get on the road to the Red Sea and Sinai during the night.

While living in Sarajevo, until 1934, we were members of the Hashomer Hatzair Zionist society, known as Ken. The organization's goal was to once again create Eretz Israel, based on socialist principles, and we prepared ourselves to go to Palestine, which was part of the British Empire. There we intended to work on kibbutzim. When we moved to Belgrade in 1934 we enrolled in the local Hashomer Hatzair. We socialized mainly with Jews. There were many friends; unfortunately all are dead and I will not mention them because it would make me cry.

During the war, my generation suffered the most. I was 18 when the war began. In Belgrade we lived very well; we socialized mainly with family. My father's family was mostly in Belgrade and my mother's family, in Sarajevo. Our house was a meeting place for the whole family for holidays and different parties. We would get together, sing Sephardi poems; I remember the sad Sephardi ballad "Adio kerida non kjero la vida."

One day my father received a letter from his younger brother in Sarajevo, saying that his business had failed. He had a coffee-roasting enterprise, but he was not skilled and capable enough, so that enterprise went bankrupt. My father invited all his brothers and sisters to come to Belgrade at the same time, a week when there was no work. They gathered in our big dining room and my father said: "We have gathered here to see what we are going to do with our Mihael. You all know that he is not so hard-working and not so capable, but he is our brother. We helped him two previous times and you know that Jewish tradition says that one must help three times. This means we are still obliged to help him." Everyone agreed, and my father wrote how much he thought each brother and sister should give. First he read his own name and the biggest sum, then he read the rest of the names and what he thought they should give. Everyone agreed, Father found a shop at the Jovanov market, where he and three other brothers had shops, gave him merchandise and made the shop functional. Mihael came from Sarajevo with his wife and daughter, and they lived a nice life until 1941, when the pogroms began.

My father was an exceptionally good man and he wanted to help people, especially Jews. One day in the synagogue, a Jew from Dorcol told him about a poor woman who had a young man she wanted to marry, but she did not have the financial means to get married. My father told the man to invite the young girl to his shop. That day, there were only a few customers in the shop. I had come to help my father. A pretty, dark-haired girl came in, she had beautiful big eyes and pretty, curly hair. Father called over one of the apprentices and began to cut material for the dowry. I remember that he first took materials for blankets, then sheets and pillows - two big bundles of textiles. The young girl began to cry because she was embarrassed. I brought her a chair. When everything was prepared, my father had the delivery boy put them on a cart. I watched her go down the street, happy, thinking that soon she would marry and her greatest wishes would be fulfilled. What is interesting is that my father never told anyone. I remember sitting with my mother after the war, and telling her the story from the beginning to the end.

When we arrived in Belgrade we moved into an apartment on Jovanov Street, in Mr. Alkalaj's house. We had a beautiful three-room apartment with floor-by-floor heating. My father had a shop on Visnjicev Street in the Jovanov market. This was considered the Jewish market because all the shops were owned by Jews. There were four other brothers and one sister in the same market. We lived very well without problems. With respect to the country itself, Jews had full rights. I did not experience any anti-Semitism personally, nor did my family. This is because the Serbs were always inclined to be friendly to Jews.

In Sarajevo I went to the first grade of elementary school at Maria's Palace, and afterward in the second grade they enrolled me in the Kolo Srpskih Sestara School, an elementary school where there were better conditions. I had a wonderful teacher, Lala Susnic, who thought of us as if she were our mother. We loved her, listened to her and we learned a lot from her. During all of my schooling in Sarajevo, I went to Hashomer Hatzair, where we socialized, sang and danced. We wore gray shirts like on kibbutz, and we prepared ourselves for our eventual departure for the kibbutz. In Belgrade, the atmosphere was much warmer than in Sarajevo because Dorcol, the neighborhood where I lived, was Jewish. It was full of Jews who knew each other, socialized and helped one another.

I enrolled in a secondary school for engineering, which was, in general, a school for children from modest backgrounds and poor financial situations. When they finished this secondary technical school, which lasted four years, they had a skill and were able to support themselves. I enrolled in the architectural division; one of my sisters enrolled in architecture and the other in medicine.

During the war

In 1939, World War II began. The Jews were nervous because they knew that Hitler had the worst intentions for the Jews. However, there was hope because the English and French were big powers, and it was hoped that they would resist Hitler. However, in 1940, Hitler carried out a surprise attack via Belgium on the French, who capitulated two weeks later. Everyone was upset, but optimism was greater than pessimism. There was hope that we would survive, that we would defend ourselves and somehow avoid the worse-case scenario. However, on March 27, 1941, the Tripartite Pact, which Yugoslavia had signed, was dissolved, and on April 6 the Germans began a surprise bombing campaign in Belgrade. We were on Jovanov Street, in Dorcol. The Germans bombed that Jewish neighborhood especially hard. We fled to a village near Belgrade. When the bombing was over, we returned home, took the necessary things and naively headed toward Thessaloniki on foot. However, we did not even manage to reach Mladenovac, 50 kilometers south of Belgrade, before Yugoslavia capitulated, and the army disintegrated. I saw with my own eyes how the army fell apart, gave over the weapons and was captured. When we arrived in Belgrade the Germans were already there and immediately began a census of the Jews in the Pozarna command. They made lists, and everyone had to wear a yellow band and go to work cleaning the city, which was destroyed by the German bombing. It was clear what was going to happen so we decided to go to our uncle's home in Tuzla, thinking it would be better there because it was part of the Independent State of Croatia. My older sister, Ina, remained in Serbia with her husband.

In Tuzla, the first few months were relatively calm. Then they started to make us register as well. They took us into forced labor in German garrisons, to a distant village where there was a sawmill, and we loaded planks and the like. When the partisan movement began, the repression started in earnest. Every day we read announcements about which Serbian partisan villages had been burned down and who had been killed. At the end of 1941, my younger sister, Sida, and I participated in the uprising, and we received permission from the anti-fascist organization to join the partisans. We made this request much earlier but were denied because our house was a shelter for messengers traveling from Sarajevo to Zagreb. Before leaving, we went to our parents and simply said we were joining the partisans. We asked a relative who had escaped from Sarajevo to Mostar to send someone with documents to take our parents to Mostar. We left into the pitch-dark night. I remember there was a curfew until 7 a.m., and my sister and I left at 6 a.m. The streets were empty except for the mounds of snow that squeaked under our feet. A three-man Ustashe patrol passed us. I hugged my sister so they would think that we were lovers, and not be suspicious. We reached an illegal apartment in Krek and waited there for four days. However, our messenger never arrived. On the fourth day, a comrade came to tell us that we could not go to the partisans, but would not say why. We returned home and only later learned the reason: On Majevica, a mountain above Tuzla where the partisan movement had a presence, Chetniks attacked the partisan headquarters. There were many dead, including the messenger who was supposed to come for us. They slaughtered him. We were in Tuzla a few more days. One day, as I was finishing lunch, two Ustashe came. They had knives on their bayonets. They took me to the prison; there were already a lot of Jews there, including my father. This was the first round, and they only took Jewish adult males. We were all sentenced to Jasenovac. There was no trial; we only received the sentence stating that we had been condemned to Jasenovac. 130 of us were taken to the camp. Of these 130, I am the only one who survived that dreadful Golgotha known as Jasenovac.

Jasenovac was the biggest camp in the Independent State of Croatia, a quisling state. It was said that almost all of Croatia was strewn with these camps. Jasenovac devoured about 700,000 people: 25,000 Jews, some Gypsies and 650,000 Serbs. They were all innocent people who were taken there solely based on their origins. They say that it was one of the cruelest camps because the killing was done manually. The Ustashe killed people in the most bestial manner. They left the people without food so that they were weak, to ensure that resistance was impossible. They killed with knives, hammers and wooden axes, like the ones used to chop wood in the forest. People fell from hunger and exhaustion. The worst was when the Ustashe would grab someone in front of all of us, put his hand behind his back and slaughter him. I saw with my own eyes how one Ustashe, after slaughtering someone, licked the knife on both sides and said: "Oh how sweet Jewish blood is."

One day the Ustashe took 20 of us young and strong men to a big meadow near Jasenovac and ordered us to dig a pit. It was clear that this was a grave. By its size we could tell that it was going to be a massive killing. When the grave was dug, they ordered us to move 10 meters away. They brought between 200 and 250 Jewish and Serbian children - exhausted, hungry with ripped and dirty clothing - and one by one brought them toward the pit. One Ustashe used a hammer to hit each child on the back of the head and threw him in the grave. I expected they would kill us as well, but we were fortunate. Watching all of this, I wept like a small child. Standing next to me was a Jewish man who was older than me, about 30 years old. He was obviously religious, and he turned his head toward the heavens and said: "God, if you exist send lightning from the clear sky and strike these criminals." The Ustashe continued to kill the children. You could hear the screaming voices of children who were to be hit, the dull fall of children into the pit. The man next to me again turned his back to this cruel picture, made the same plea loudly. He fell to his knees and wept like a small child: "God was silent and the criminals did their work."

It was clear to me that there was no salvation in the camp; no one was getting out of this hell alive. The only way to survive was to escape and join the partisans. One morning when we were lined up in front of the barracks, an Ustashe came looking for people who had done construction work in the past. The day before, I asked the head of that construction group to take me into the group since I had finished a secondary technical school. This is how I got out of the camp. We went about 100 meters, where the Ustashe had their barracks. We were supposed to build several rooms for officers in those barracks. I was cutting planks of wood on the barracks' stairs when I realized that someone was holding the plank. I saw a young man in Bosnian village clothing holding the plank. When I thanked him, he said he could see I was having trouble and wanted to help. He asked me what I was doing there; I told him I was a prisoner and he innocently asked me what I had done. I told him I was a Jew. He said, "Of course you are not imprisoned because of that." It confused him. When it came time to get food at the kettle, he sat next to me, ate half of his portion of beans and then offered me some. I devoured those beans. Then he reached into his bag and gave me a piece of bread that his mother had prepared for him. He had volunteered for service in the Ustashe. I asked him why and in a Bosnian dialect he told me: "A town crier came to the village, a drummer who brings news, and told us that those who voluntarily enlist in the Ustashe will serve for only one year, will receive a salary and their family will receive pensions. Those who do not go voluntarily will be forced to be home guardsmen, they will have to serve two years, they will not receive a salary and their families will not receive pensions. I concluded that it was wiser for me to volunteer."

The next day I came to the same work place. All the young men were dressed in Ustashe uniforms with wide belts. They had had a political lesson in which it was stated that Ante Pavelic was the father of all Croats, the Independent State of Croatia was the mother of all Croats, and no one other than Croats had the right to live there, the rest needed to be killed. In the afternoon, I expected that young man would again offer me food. But he looked at me in an unfriendly manner and threw in the trash the food he did not eat. Ten days later, in March, there was a rain storm. The water was so strong that it broke the levee that was protecting the camp. They woke us at midnight, gave us shovels, hammers, spades and took us to the levee. We worked all night shoveling dirt, but the water advanced so aggressively that it was all washed away. When dawn came, I was so tired from filling up the hole, I stood for a minute to rest. Suddenly I felt a strong strike on my back. I barely could hold myself but leaned against the hammer I was holding. When I looked up to see who had hit me, I saw the young man who had given me half of his beans on his first day with the Ustashe. When he hit me I turned toward the Ustashe officer standing under the levee; he nodded to the young man to continue. A boy was standing next to me with a shovel, and he was constantly pouring earth on the stream of water. This Ustashe, whose name was Muhamed, hit him on the head with a club. He fell to the ground. It was obvious that his skull had been broken. He fell in such a way that his body stopped the flow of water from the levee. Then the officer jumped up the levee and told him he could continue to hit people. He killed another five or six people who they put on top of the water flow, and that is how they stopped the water. We were ordered to pour earth over the bodies and to stamp it down with mallets. That is how the water was subdued.

Because of the flood, I was transferred from Jasenovac, with my father and other prisoners, to Stara Gradiska. The conditions for escape were even worse; Stara Gradiska was a fortress that the Austro-Hungarians built on the border with Turkey. Fortunately, one day I overheard that the Ustashe were going to select people for agricultural work. I cleaned myself up: I wiped off the mud, brushed off my clothes, shaved and brushed my hair. In the afternoon, there was the selection. Every line-up was dangerous because one never knew if they were selecting for killing. When I saw they were choosing young and strong men, I understood that this was not a trick; it was really for agricultural work. They choose about 20 of us. We were transported by train to an agricultural estate that formerly belonged to the Orthodox Church in Fericanci. Once again I was lucky. The Ustashe needed guards for the cattle they had stolen from the Serbian villagers; I was chosen to look after the cows. While we guarded the cows, the Ustashe guarded us. Since that summer was quite dry, there was no grass and they took us north to Obradovac, another Serbian village where the Church owned land. There we made connections with the villagers and planned our escape. The villagers brought us food, and were ready to help us in any manner.

The original plan was to attack the Ustashe, to kill and to save ourselves. There were 30 of us and 20 Ustashe. The man who cooked for the Ustashe had access to the anteroom where there were rifles, bombs and weapons. We thought that Dragan, the cook, could steal some bombs, and we would sneak up on the Ustashe while they slept, throw bombs at them, steal more weapons and kill them. However, they caught Dragan writing illegally to his parents, took him to Fericanci and slaughtered him. Another possibility arose while I was watching the cattle. The 10 milk cows grazed in the meadow. The Ustashe would come to check on me from time to time; there were always two of them guarding the prisoners while we watched the cattle. One afternoon as the cattle cooled off in the shade, a villager cutting oak nearby started eating, turned toward me and began whistling. This was a sign that he wanted to give me something to eat. I went over, and he asked me if I wanted to eat, cut me a piece of bacon and bread. I devoured the food. Then he asked me how it was with the Ustashe. To be safe, I said it was good for me. He told me he knew the Ustashe well. With that, he unbuttoned his shirt and showed me a still-unhealed knife wound on his chest, where they cut him. I asked him how he survived and he told me that he did not admit to anything and they let him go. He told me that his was a village of the national liberation council and that it could be arranged that the partisans attack our camp and liberate us during the night, and we would attack them from the inside. We waited months for the partisans to come, but they did not.

These two plans were created so that the Ustashe would be destroyed and the prisoners saved. After our first plan, partisans from the area appeared and the Ustashe brought another 10 men, so that we were 30 and they were 30. The partisans were not going to come, and we made an alternative plan. We decided to use the 10 minutes we had for getting the cattle from the camp to the pen to flee, if the Ustashe were not with us. When we seven returned from herding, the Ustashe left us and returned to the camp. We continued the 100 meters to the pen, and saw that we were alone. We jumped through the wires. We had to run across a meadow that was more than 1½ kilometers long, and we were constantly waiting for the machine guns to start firing on us. Once we reached the forest, it was easier. The villagers had left us seven clubs - which we needed more for the psychological help. The next morning we had already found the partisans and were divided into units. Of the seven of us, three died in battle; four lived to see liberation.

The seven of us escaped from camp on September 12, 1942. We were six Jews and one Croat, a veterinarian and member of the Party. He was arrested because he was a party activist at the veterinarian faculty. His name was Zorislav Golub. I advanced quickly in the partisans. We were all well received without a trace of anti-Semitism; they were happy and satisfied to have such qualified and capable people. All of us who had escaped from the camp distinguished ourselves with great bravery and courage and fought selflessly against fascism. We were all decorated and received promotions. After only three months, I became a company commissar. I was wounded in February 1943 and was hospitalized. I was operated on without any pain medicine in the worst and most meager conditions. Later, since I was an invalid, I was transferred to the command area. In 1944, I became a commissar of the Vocin airport where the English mission was stationed and where English planes came to give support to the partisans. In 1945, I returned to my brigade, the XII Slavonska, and became the head of the brigade's propaganda department. I came to Baljburg with the brigade on May 15, 1945, two weeks after the German capitulation. In Vocin, we surrounded a group of a 100,000 Ustashe who surrendered thanks to the English who were there with tanks.

Post-war

In May 1945, I came to Belgrade for medical treatment and to see if any of my family had survived. I found my brother-in-law's sister, who called my sister Ina and her husband. That evening, we saw one another again for the first time after four torturous years. They did not end up in camps; they were in the partisans and were decorated for their work. After a few days my younger sister, who was in the Dalmatian division, came to Belgrade, and a few days later my mother, who was in Bari, arrived. Our father was killed in the most bestial manner in Stara Gradiska.

After the war, we all began to work. My younger sister finished her studies; my older sister worked in administration; and I enrolled in the gymnasium, to compensate for the time I had lost, and I worked at Jugopetrol at the same time. In two years, I finished four years of gymnasium, graduated and enrolled in the architectural faculty in Prague. The period of the Informbiro arrived, when Tito broke off relations with Stalin; I returned from Prague and continued my studies in Belgrade. I graduated and began to work as an architect. I retired as the director of the planning firm Jugoprojekt, a large consortium planning firm.

I have had contact with the Jewish community since the first day after the war and uninterrupted contact with our people. I go to events and participate as much as I can. In 1999, I received an award from the Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia for my work. I wrote a book entitled "The Danon Family Tree Stump, a Memory of Jasenovac," in which I described the suffering to which the people of Yugoslavia were exposed, specifically the Jews. I received the first prize and used the prize money to print the book, which was published in 2000. The book is being translated to English, and I hope an English version will make its way around the world. I believe that this truth should be heard by all people, all nations, all countries because it is something that must not be allowed to happen again. There were such terrible things that the human mind cannot comprehend how terrible they were, or how it was possible to survive. From my family, which was a large family - my father's parents had 13 children who each had their own spouses, children, daughter-in-laws, son-in-laws, grandchildren and my mother's side - 45 people were killed. This includes the youngest, Avram, who was 2 at the time of his death, and the oldest, my father's sister Rifka, who was 60. This stuns me, but at the same time, it gives me strength to write. It is my wish that this book will be read by as many people as possible so that people will be careful to intervene in time against enemies and misfortune. One should never stop fighting, and one needs to take preventive measures so that evil does not happen, and if it already happens then only active fighting can save people and humanity.

In the fall of 1949, at the university, I first met Olga Mogin. It was love at first sight. We dated for 1½ years; however, one of her colleagues made an intrigue with her mother and we split up. I had two unsuccessful marriages, as did Olga. By chance, Jasenovac helped me return to my first love. In 1995, I was divorced and Olga was a widow. Olga was at her friend's weekend house. After lunch, she laid down on a chaise lounge on the terrace. The television was on. She had almost fallen asleep when she heard a familiar voice. I was in the midst of my first television interview about Jasenovac and the Holocaust. She had a good cry while listening to me. Afterward she called me on the phone, and we soon married.

Sophia Stelmakher

Sophia Stelmakher
Chernovtsy
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Date of interview: February 2002

Sophia Stelmakher and her husband live in an apartment that they bought recently in a new neighborhood of Chernovtsy. Her son and his family live in their own apartment. Sophia and her son have a very warm relationship. I came to Sophia's house two mornings in a row and both times I saw her son visiting her on his way to work. Sophia had a leg fracture and hadn't left her home in half a year. She is a very friendly and sociable woman who looks younger than her years. Sophia and her husband spent three horrible years in the Jewish ghetto in Rybnitsa when they were children. They lived in one and the same building. When Sophia was telling me about this period of her life she couldn't hold back her tears, but she was willing to tell me the details since her memories are fresh and don't leave her. Sophia is a very kind and responsive woman and has a very warm relationship with her beloved husband and many other people. She has many friends and her house is always open for people. Sophia blankly refuses to be photographed saying that she doesn't look that good and wouldn't like to be looked at by so many people. There are no photos of her after 1963 in her family album. She wants her dear ones to remember her young and attractive.

My family backgrownd

My family backgrownd

My mother's parents lived in the small town of Rybnitsa that was in Odessa region before the Great Patriotic War 1 and after the war it became a part of Romania. [Editor's note: before 1917 - Russia, 1917-1922 - Russian Federation, 1922-1991 USSR, now Ukraine.] My maternal grandfather, Isaac Bekker was born in the 1860s. I don't know exactly where he was born, but it was a small town in Odessa province [Russia]. My grandfather came from a Jewish family with many children. I didn't know anyone from his family. He studied at cheder. His father was a poor craftsman who could hardly provide for a big family. My grandfather's family couldn't afford to pay for his education. When he turned ten he became an apprentice to a Jewish shoemaker. Apprentices spent two years working for free receiving meals and training. After the training was over an apprentice could go on working for his master and would be paid for his work. My grandfather became friends with the son of the owner of the shop where he was apprenticed. He went to grammar school. My grandfather took his textbooks and studied. This student of grammar school began to help my grandfather. My grandfather did so well that he passed exams for four years of grammar school and later for eight years of grammar school. It took him five years. He continued working for his master saving money. When he got enough money to pay for one year at university my grandfather went to Odessa in 1880. At that time there was a five-percent admission restriction [five percent quota] 2 for Jews in all universities. My grandfather passed the admission exams. He was an excellent student and after the first year of studies the dean solicited that my grandfather had his fees waived. My grandfather was allowed to get training at the Odessa clinic of veterinary medicine. Upon graduation he was offered a veterinary job in Rybnitsa. There was no veterinary clinic and my grandfather received his patients at home. My grandfather was the only member of the family to get a higher education.

My maternal grandmother, Sarah Bekker, nee Mirochnik, was two or three years younger than my grandfather. She was born into a family of doctors in Odessa. Her family was wealthy and intellectual. Their wealth was based on their practice. My grandmother told me that all her father's brothers were doctors. My grandmother finished grammar school and entered Pedagogical Institute in Odessa. It wasn't usual for women in those days. I guess she met my grandfather when she was a student. I don't know any details. My grandmother told me that when she got married her husband, my grandfather, bought a small house in Rybnitsa; that took place about 1895. My grandmother waited until he earned enough money to buy one. Nobody helped them. I think they had a religious wedding but I don't know it for sure.

Rybnitsa was a small town surrounded by orchards and vineyards. I guess the Jewish population constituted about one third of the population in Rybnitsa. Jews resided mainly in the center of the town along with Moldavian and Russian doctors, teachers and lawyers. Russian and Moldavian farmers lived on the outskirts of the town. Jews were involved in crafts: they were shoemakers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths and tailors. There were also Jewish doctors and lawyers. There was a synagogue in Rybnitsa before 1917. The Soviet powers struggled against religion, and the synagogue and Christian church were destroyed in the process. One of the religious Jews arranged a house of prayer in his house and men came to pray there. This religious Jew's grandson learned to play the shofar and one could hear the sound of it at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This was at the time when the Soviet regime struggled against religion 3. Fortunately, nobody reported this prayer house to the authorities, otherwise the owner of the house and its attendees might have been punished severely.

I remember my mother's parents' house: it was a stone building with its narrow façade facing the central street. It was typical of the town. The biggest room was my father's office. There was a small side room where he stored his instruments and medications. There were two other rooms and a kitchen with a backdoor. There was a small shed and a toilet in a small yard. They had plain furniture: a table, chairs and beds. There was a big Russian stove in the kitchen that served for heating and cooking. There was a well in the yard.

My grandmother had tuberculosis when she was young and later she suffered relapses of this disease. My grandparents had more than ten children. I don't remember how many exactly. The children were born weak and died in infancy. Only three survived: my mother's older brother, Grigory, born in 1898, my mother Evgenia born in 1902, and my mother's younger sister Polina, born in 1908. Their Jewish names were Gersh, Genia and Perl, respectively. My grandmother was a housewife and looked after the children. She was a very smart and intelligent woman.

My grandfather was very religious. He went to the prayer house mentioned earlier, on Saturdays and Jewish holidays. He also prayed at home in the morning and in the evening with his tallit on and a prayer book. We, children, knew that we were not supposed to distract grandfather when he was praying. I still have my grandfather's tallit as a keepsake. My grandmother wasn't religious at all, but she celebrated holidays. I don't know whether she followed the kashrut.

My grandmother had a big wooden box with dishes and utensils for Pesach. My grandfather and grandmother had no bread during all eight days of Pesach. They only had matzah. Matzah was baked by a group of women living in the same neighborhood. They traveled from one house to another to make matzah for the whole family. My grandmother made gefilte fish, chicken, baked honey cakes, strudels with jam, raisins and nuts. My grandfather couldn't close his office for holidays since cattle couldn't wait that long. For this reason my grandfather even had to work on Saturday sometimes, but he never did any work on the first two days and the last day of Pesach. My grandparents fasted at Yom Kippur, as my grandfather used to say 'from the star to the star'. They also celebrated Purim and my grandmother made delicious hamantashen. At Chanukkah our grandparents gave us Chanukkah gelt. My grandmother and grandfather spoke Yiddish to one another and Russian to their grandchildren.

My grandfather was a slim man of average height. He wore black jackets of thin wool and dark shirts. He had a well-groomed gray beard and moustache and thick gray hair. My grandfather wore a yarmulka at home and a big cap when going out. As far as I remember he only wore a hat when he went to the synagogue. My grandmother wore fashionable clothes. She never wore traditional Jewish outfits: long dark skirts and dark blouses. I can't remember what she wore in winter, but in summer she wore nice skirts and light blouses with embroidery and lace. She didn't wear a wig. At the time I remember her she had bright gray hair curling round her face and gathered in a knot on the back of her head. She never wore shawls - only a kerchief sometimes at home when she was cooking. In winter my grandmother wore a nice fur hat and she had nice summer hats decorated with artificial flowers. When going out during the summer, she took her light parasol with lace on the edge. My grandmother was short and wore high-heeled shoes even when she was old.

My grandfather was a very kind man. He loved his granddaughters dearly and we loved him. He always had some sugar candy or little toys in his pocket for us. My grandmother was more reserved. I'm sure she loved us much, but she didn't show it. She was a very reserved and cold person and often looked arrogant. She didn't play with us or tell us fairy tales - it was our grandfather that did that. My mother took after my grandmother and was also cold and austere.

My mother told me that there were Jewish pogroms 4 in Rybnitsa before and after the [Russian] Revolution of 1917 5. Rybnitsa was near Odessa where there were the 'black uniform units' [Black Hundred] 6 that often initiated pogroms. When the black units started a pogrom in Odessa the local black units became active and got together to initiate a pogrom in Rybnitsa. They killed men and raped and beat women. They robbed and destroyed Jewish houses. Christians used to hide Jews in their cellars and houses during pogroms. My grandfather and Grigory were hiding in their Ukrainian neighbor's house, and my grandmother and her daughters found shelter in another house. Christians used to hang an icon on the front door and pogrom makers went past such houses. In their majority those taking part in the pogrom were local tramps and drunkards. Also, some farmers were among them, but since my grandfather took care of their cattle they didn't touch his office. I guess they realized that it was in their own interests to have a vet available in the village. There were victims in almost every pogrom. There was a Jewish cemetery in Rybnitsa and there were inscriptions on many gravestones 'Killed during a pogrom'. The Germans destroyed this cemetery during the war.

My grandfather made good money, but my grandparents were not wealthy people. They spent money to buy food and clothes and the remaining amounts were spent on providing education for the children and buying books. My grandfather bought books on medicine and veterinary matters and my grandmother bought fiction in Russian and French. They also bought some books in Yiddish. All children received religious education at home. They had a Jewish teacher to teach them to read and write Yiddish and Hebrew, and they studied the Torah and the Talmud. My mother could read and write in Hebrew. Children also studied music. I remember my mother's violin. Inside there was the inscription 'Stradivarius', but of course, it wasn't an original instrument. My mother kept this violin until the war and often played it.

There were many books in Yiddish and Russian at her home. All three children studied in a grammar school in Odessa when they were nine or ten years old. It was a private school. There were separate schools for boys and girls. Rybnitsa was 150 kilometers from Odessa and during their studies the children lived in the boarding school, which had classrooms, a canteen and bedrooms for few pupils. The children could go home at weekends. Jewish children had no classes on Saturday. I don't know whether Jewish students had to forego their religious rules, kosher food for example, and traditions at school. My mother had two close friends, Jewish and Russian, from grammar school. She said that she was a very short girl. She did well at grammar school and finished every year with honors. My mother told me that when she came home on vacation after she finished the 1st grade my grandmother told her to walk along the street holding her diploma of honor so that everybody might see how smart her girl was.

Of three children, only my mother's brother managed to finish grammar school before the Revolution of 1917 and enter the Medical Institute of Kharkov University. My mother finished seven years of grammar school. After the Revolution the grammar school was closed and my mother returned to Rybnitsa. The next year my mother went back to Odessa where she entered the Faculty of Philology of Odessa University. Her younger sister, Polina, entered the Faculty of Mathematics in Odessa University after finishing school.

My mother's older brother Grigory got married upon graduation from the Medical Faculty of Kharkov University and got a job assignment to Gomel in Belarus. His wife, Raissa, a Jew, also studied at Kharkov University - two years junior. When Grigory got a job assignment in Gomel, Raissa quit the University and followed Grigory. She had completed three years of medical education and worked as a nurse. Grigory and Raissa weren't religious. They had three sons. During the Great Patriotic War Grigory was a military doctor at the front. After the war he and his wife visited us in Rybnitsa. This was our first meeting after many long years of separation. In the last years of his life Grigory had lung problems. Doctors advised him to get a change of climate. He and his wife moved to the town of Reni in the south of Moldova. His children didn't move with him. He died there in the 1960s. His wife and children moved to Israel in the 1970s.

My mother didn't tell me much about her years at university. I know that she rented a bed from a Jewish woman who had a daughter. She also had meals with them. Her father sent her money to pay the rent and pay for meals. Since my mother needed more money to buy textbooks, notebooks, etc. she gave private lessons. She graduated from university with honors. She had a job offer in Odessa, but she decided to return to Rybnitsa. She got a job as teacher of Ukrainian and Russian languages and literature in a lower secondary school in Rybnitsa. At the beginning my mother stayed in a school dormitory, where she shared a room with two other teachers. Later she received a room at the school. I spent my childhood in this big room and I remember it well. It was on the first floor at the rear of the two-storied school building. The room faced the school garden and the trees shadowed the room. There was my mother's bed and my bed and a wardrobe in the room. My mother's younger sister Polina came to stay with my mother upon graduation from the Faculty of Mathematics of Odessa University. Polina had lung problems, like her mother. She had tuberculosis with hemorrhages. She was weak and sickly and my mother always took care of her. My mother tended to her and fed her when Polina was ill. Polina lived 82 years thanks to my mother. Polina was smart and pretty. She settled down with us in our room and began to work as a teacher of mathematics at school. Polina wasn't married either.

Growing up

I was born on 29th December 1935. I was named Sophia and given the Jewish name Sarah. My cousin, Polina's daughter, was born in the summer of 1936; I didn't know her father. She was given the same name, Sophia. I don't know why we were named after our grandmother who was alive - it was against the Jewish tradition. I never knew my father. When I was a child I never gave it a thought why my last name was Bekker, the last name of my grandfather. When I was a child my mother told me that my father was working in the Far North and after the war she said that he had perished. I wasn't surprised, since there were many fatherless children after the war. Only when I had a son at the end of the 1950s my mother told me the truth about my father, though she never disclosed his name. She was probably afraid that I would want to find him and didn't want it to happen.

My father graduated from the Faculty of History of Odessa University and came to work at the school in Rybnitsa where my mother was working. My mother told me that my father was a tall handsome man. He was a member of the Communist Party and was soon promoted to director of the school. I believe they liked each other and began to live together without marrying officially. My mother had no idea about housekeeping and didn't wish to learn. When my mother was a child she lived with her parents and my grandmother did all the housekeeping. Later at boarding school she was provided with everything she needed and when at university she had everything done by her landlady. When my mother began to work at school she had meals at the school canteen. She thought housework was a sheer waste of time that she could spend reading or playing her violin.

When I was born there was a lot more work to do. At the beginning my father changed my diapers, washed me and got up to tend to me at night if I cried. It was perhaps my mother's helplessness about routine work about the house that made my father leave when I was six months old. Before the war my mother received money from him, but then he stopped sending her money. He may have perished during the war, but I will never know for sure. My mother didn't communicate with him. That's why I don't know anything about my father's family or background. After my father left my mother was appointed director of school, although she wasn't in the Party.

Polina and her daughter always lived with us. They had their beds in the opposite corner of the room. There was a desk by the window and a kitchen table near the door with a Primus stove on it where my mother did her cooking. We were always pressed for money and my mother cooked simple and inexpensive food: soup, cereal, boiled or fried potatoes. It wasn't really Jewish food. We rarely had meat. There were shelves with dishes and utensils over the table. There were bookcases by the walls. My grandmother gave my mother her collection of books and my mother spent all her money buying books. She usually bought fiction, Russian and foreign classic and books by Soviet writers and poets. We cherished our books.

My mother had an austere style in clothing. She wore dark dresses with white lace collars that reminded you of a school uniform or dark suit. In warm weather my mother wore dark skirts and white blouses. She cut her hair short and never had it waved. She thought a teacher wasn't supposed to dress up or do her hair in a fancy manner.

Neither my mother nor her sister and brother were religious people, but my mother always identified herself as Jew. She could speak Yiddish and Hebrew and knew the Torah. My mother never prayed or celebrated Jewish holidays. The only exception was Pesach. In all eight days of Pesach we didn't have any bread at home - only matzah.

Before I turned one year old my grandmother and Polina took care of me. My mother only came to feed me at intervals. At one I went to a nursery school. I can remember back as far as when I was three. I was in kindergarten. I was a sociable girl and had many friends. I don't know whether there were Jewish children at kindergarten. There were children of other teachers. We were raised to be patriotic. We learned poems about Lenin and Stalin and sang songs. I remember a song 'Thank you, our dear country, for our happy childhood!' My mother picked me up from kindergarten in the evening and put me to bed at home.

During the war

I was five and a half when the war began. On Saturday 21st June 1941 we went to bed and I was thinking about the weekend that I was going to spend with my mother. She promised to take me for a walk on Sunday morning. We woke up to the sound of an explosion. I began to cry, but my mother calmed me down and I went back to sleep. In the morning there were rumors in Rybnitsa that the war had begun. My mother got a phone call from the department of public education of Rybnitsa - they told her that although official evacuation had not been announced she had better leave Rybnitsa since she was the only Jew at the school. My mother got a horse-drawn cart, packed promptly, put Polina, Sophia and me on the cart and we went to pick up grandmother and grandfather. They refused to go with us. They were reluctant to leave their home and they didn't believe that something bad might happen. We got on our way, but when we reached the village of Krutye about 20-30 kilometers from Rybnitsa we saw German soldiers. My mother turned the cart back to Rybnitsa. In a few days the Germans occupied Rybnitsa. During first few days the Germans were just looting the houses. They took away my mother's violin and almost all the books even though they were all Russian.

One day all Jews in Rybnitsa were ordered to get together in the central square. People were told to take few things with them, but mainly money and valuables. My mother, Polina, Sophia, my grandfather, my grandmother and I went there, too. We were all lined up and set on the way somewhere convoyed by German and Romanian police. My grandfather was walking with my mother and I heard him whisper to her 'Run away - save the children'. When we stopped for a night I heard my mother and Polina arguing in whispers. My aunt was trying to convince my mother to escape while my mother said that we had to share everybody else's destiny. My aunt told her that it was impossible for all to escape and that Russian families back in our town would be able to give shelter to one Jewish family, but not to all Jews.

When it got dark the four of us began to move towards the woods. I believe God was our guardian since nobody noticed us. My mother carried me or sometimes I walked by myself and we got to Rybnitsa before dawn. My mother knocked on the door of an acquaintance of hers, asking her to give us shelter. This was Zhenia Ryzhkovskaya. She and her sister hid us in their houses and supported us later. I shall always be grateful to these people. We stayed with them for several days. We were hiding in their cellar since there were police raids almost every day. One day Zhenia told my mother that a part of the town was fenced with barbed wire and the Germans were taking people from other locations to that area. Later Zhenia went there to find out what it was. She returned and told us that it was a Jewish ghetto. My mother decided that we should go to the ghetto since we couldn't put Zhenia's life at risk. The Germans threatened to shoot anybody that was helping Jews.

The four of us went to the ghetto. We entered the ghetto through a gate with a Romanian guard. Nobody asked us where we were from or why we had come to the ghetto. They probably hadn't registered inmates of the ghetto as yet. We began to look for a place to live. All houses were full, and we settled down with a Jewish family from the town of Roshkany. That family consisted of three members: Avrum Stelmakher, his wife Beilia and their eight-year-old son Shmil. Avrum was a cooper and his wife was a housewife. Shmil had finished the 1st grade at school. They had two small rooms, one of which they gave to us. They only spoke Yiddish and Romanian. We starved and froze. Later Avrum fixed a stove and we could cook on it when we had something to cook. Adults were taken to work every day. If somebody got too weak to work he was shot. In this ghetto Jews were often killed, especially men. Several times doctors from hospital came to select boys to take their blood for transfusion later to wounded soldiers. We often had to hide Shmil in the wardrobe and let him out at night. Many inmates were dying every day. There were epidemics of enteric and spotted fever and no medicines whatsoever. Inmates starved or froze to death. Polina was ill almost all the time.

Inmates of the ghetto were sent to work. The Jewish administration made daily lists of inmates that were to go to work. My mother went to work one day for herself and another day for Polina. We had few clothes to exchange for food and they didn't't last long. Russians, Ukrainians and Moldavians in Rybnitsa were helping us. If it hadn't been for them we would have starved to death. Zhenia and Polina Ryzhkovskaya brought us food. There were others that helped us - only I don't remember their names: my mother's colleagues and parents of her pupils. They were at risk bringing food to the barbed fence of the ghetto, but their children also crawled under the wire to bring food and warm clothing to where we lived. Many people in the ghetto were saved thanks to these kind people.

I remember that inmates of the ghetto were taken to a construction site for a park. When construction was finished Germans put a portrait of Hitler at the entrance. Since the Jewish administration of the ghetto knew that my mother was a teacher they suggested that I should make a speech in German or Romanian at the opening ceremony. I didn't speak German or Romanian. My mother made notes with the text that I had to learn by heart. I was different from other members of the family. I mean I wasn't that quick and smart and I remember my mother crying - she was afraid that I wouldn't be able to remember the words and that we might be killed for that. We studied day and night. I remember the day of the ceremony. High-ranking German and Romanian officers attended the opening ceremony of the park. I was taken to the stand, but I couldn't say one word from fear. A gendarme pulled me off the stand and beat me so hard that I was more dead than alive. I remember this well.

There were many children in the ghetto that studied at schools before the war, but began to forget even the alphabet in the ghetto. My mother installed benches in the yard of our house and began to gather children to teach them. My mother thought it was her duty to teach children in the ghetto. She went to work in the morning and after work she conducted classes for children. She had to do it in secret since if the authorities had found out about it they would have had her shot. They shot inmates of the ghetto for even smaller infractions. They studied mathematics, languages and history and my cousin and I patrolled the area around the house. If we saw a gendarme we began to sing and the children scattered. We didn't study, we were on lookout. I didn't even know my ABC. In the evening my mother taught me to count and do mathematics, but it was too dark to learn to write or read. We had no lighting.

In March 1944 the Soviet troops came close to Rybnitsa. There were rumors in the ghetto that the Germans were going to shoot all inmates in the ghetto before retreating. Zhenia Ryzhkovskaya came to take us to her home from the ghetto. We escaped from the ghetto at night and came to her house. There were battles for several days before the Soviet troops entered Rybnitsa. The people of the ghetto survived. We were overwhelmed with happiness. Inmates of the ghetto and other people hugged and kissed Soviet soldiers. We returned home. Many houses were ruined, but not the school building. We settled down in our room.

After the war

I went to the 1st grade and my cousin went to the 2nd grade at school. She was smarter than I was and she had no problems with studies. My mother and Polina worked at school. My mother was a teacher of the Russian and Ukrainian languages and the director of the school and Polina was a teacher of mathematics. I wasn't very successful with my studies and my mother was very unhappy about it. She wanted her daughter to be an exemplary pupil, of course. The only top grade, 'five', that I had at school was in history. I was very fond of history. I was a sociable girl and had many friends. I sang in a choir and attended dancing classes. I became a Young Octobrist 7 and then - a pioneer at school. I became a Komsomol 8 member later than others due to unsatisfactory grades in some subjects. I was very upset about it. I enjoyed being involved in public activities. There were quite a few Jewish pupils in our class. Some people from the ghetto stayed in Rybnitsa, some people came back from evacuation. We didn't face any anti- Semitism. There were no grounds for it in our town, where the population had been helping and supporting inmates of the ghetto during the war.

In 1946 my mother's older brother Grigory and his wife came to see us. We had lost track of him during the war. Everybody was happy to see them. The adults couldn't stop talking and were happy to have survived this horror and found each other. Afterwards we kept in touch with him until he died.

In 1947 my mother married Peter Segul, a Jewish man whom she had met a long while before. He also came from Rybnitsa. He was born in 1900. His father was a shoemaker who had several children. Peter was good at music. After the war he finished a conservatory somewhere and returned to Rybnitsa. Peter got a job as a music teacher at the school where my mother was working. He got married and had two daughters. Peter went to the front at the beginning of the war. His wife and daughters perished at the very beginning of the war. He heard that his family perished after he returned from the front. Peter was a very nice and kind person and I liked him a lot. He taught me music; he became a real father to me.

In 1948 a former pupil of my mother's that she met incidentally in the street, told her about what happened to my grandmother and grandfather. This girl was also in that group of Jews from which we had escaped. The Germans took this group to Dubossary in Moldavia. Germans ordered old and sick people to dig twelve graves and when they were done, the Germans shot them. Many Jews were still alive when the Germans filled the graves. The girl saw Germans burying my grandmother and grandfather alive after they pushed them down the pit. She said that the soil stirred over the graves for quite some time after this happened. My mother returned home in a shock. Grigory and his wife were visiting us at that time. The three of them and Polina left for Dubossary to find the graves. When they returned my mother announced that we were moving to Dubossary. My mother had already made arrangements regarding a job for her and her husband at a local school. My mother wanted to live close to her parents' graves. Our family, Polina and Sophia moved to Dubossary. We rented an apartment until we received an apartment from the school. This was a standard two-bedroom apartment in a recently built house. My mother and Peter were schoolteachers and this apartment building was built for schoolteachers. We lived like most Soviet families at that time. Life was miserable. We didn't have enough food. Teachers got very low salaries. To buy food we had to stand in long lines, but we didn't lose hope that life would improve in due time

My mother took care of all twelve graves. She planted flowers and cut grass on the graves every spring. There was an obelisk installed at the place of this mass shooting of Jews. It was funded by local authorities and individuals that wanted to make a contribution. They are common graves with the lists of victims on the gravestone. Every year on 9th May, Victory Day 9, people from all over the world go there to honor the memory of innocent victims of fascism.

I have no recollection of the events of 1948, the campaign against cosmopolitans 10. I was too small to understand. I remember Stalin's death in 1953. I was ill and had to stay in bed. I had fever and felt miserable. My mother had had her radio on since the morning. She had already heard the news of his death and was crying bitterly. In the afternoon there was to be a mourning meeting at the stadium and my mother was supposed to make a speech. When I saw my mother leaving I asked her to stay; I was afraid to be alone. My mother yelled at me, 'I'd rather you'd died than he!' Even after the 20th Congress of the Party [Twentieth Party Congress] 11 my mother believed that Stalin was innocent and that his subordinates were evil while he was unawares of millions of innocent victims, executed and worked to death in camps. I was confused; I always took my mother's opinion for granted, but there was something wrong in this case. Stalin should have known about what was happening. But if he was a criminal, how could people believe him implicitly and call him their father? I believed what Khrushchev 12 said at the Congress, but I developed a strong aversion to politics and ideology afterwards.

In 1954 I finished the 10th grade in Dubossary. My cousin and I went to Kishinev. I passed the entrance exams for the Medical Institute and Sophia took the entrance exams for the Polytechnic Institute. Sophia had a better knowledge of subjects than I did, but she got a 'satisfactory' grade in compositions. 'Satisfactory' wasn't good enough to enter the institute. When my mother heard about it she said it was unbelievable. She came to Kishinev and managed to convince the management of the Polytechnic Institute to show her the composition. There were no grammar mistakes, but there were a few extra commas. My mother said that the color of ink was different, but it didn't help. Sophia had to return home. She entered the Polytechnic Institute in Kishinev next year.

When I was in the 10th grade at school I met a young Jewish man that was on military service in Dubossary. He was a driver for an officer. His name was Alexandr and he was two years older than I was. His parents lived in Chernovtsy. We began to see each other. He visited me in Kishinev when I became a student at the Medical Institute. His term of service was nearing its end and he proposed to me. He said that he and his parents were common people and that I didn't need higher education either. I didn't really enjoy studying and I decided to leave the institute. I took him to Dubossary to introduce him to my mother. When I told my mother that I didn't want to continue my studies my mother said that I had to finish a medical school and get a profession before getting married. I entered a medical school in Dubossary. Alexandr went to his parents in Chernovtsy and waited for two years until I finished medical school.

In 1956 I received my diploma and went to Chernovtsy. My mother also came to Chernovtsy to discuss the wedding arrangements with Alexandr's parents. When Alexandr's mother opened the door she began to hug and kiss my mother all of a sudden. They both cried and laughed speaking Yiddish. We didn't understand what it was all about. My mother told me that this was Beilia Stelmakher and this was the family that shared their dwelling with us in the ghetto for three years. Alexandr turned out to be that boy named Shmil that had been hiding in the wardrobe. Of course, I didn't recognize him. We were children then and many things had changed since then. Our mothers remembered each other. This was miraculous, but it was true. We met twelve years after liberation.

We got married. We didn't have a traditional Jewish wedding since only my husband's parents were religious, while the rest of us were far from Jewish traditions. We had a civil ceremony in a registry office and our mothers arranged a festive dinner for us. Just the immediate family was at this dinner. After the wedding my mother left and I stayed with my husband's family. They had a small two-storied house. I wasn't used to the traditional Jewish way of life. My mother-in-law only cooked traditional Jewish kosher food, which I wasn't used to. There was little choice of food products at that time, but she was one of these housewives that could make the nicest dinner out of nothing. My mother never learned to cook and I was used to plain food. I could have a glass of milk and a slice of bread for dinner and see nothing unusual in it. I didn't understand how one could spend so much time cooking. Gradually I got used to their way of life and began to learn to be a housewife in the same traditional ways. My in-laws only spoke Yiddish at home. I didn't understand a word and decided to learn Yiddish. I did learn it.

Before World War II the Jews constituted over 60% of the population of Chernovtsy. During the war many Jews perished in the ghetto in Chernovtsy or in Transnistria 13. There were fewer Jews left after the war. After the war the border with Romania was open for some time and many Jews left the USSR to go to Romania, Israel or other countries. Many people that lived during the Soviet regime for a year before the war could never accept it and kept leaving. However, there was still a Jewish population: one could hear Yiddish in the streets and the synagogue was open. There was a rabbi. The local population treated Jews nicely. There were community arrangements for matzah and other needs during holidays.

My husband's parents were religious people. They celebrated Sabbath and all Jewish holidays. On Saturday my father-in-law went to the synagogue alone and on holidays his wife joined him. This was a legal working synagogue till the 1970s. They always made matzah at Pesach. My mother-in-law made traditional Jewish food at Pesach. Even in the first years of our life together when there was a lack of everything she managed to get fish and chicken for Pesach. She made gefilte fish, chicken broth with matzah and strudels. On the first evening of Pesach my father-in-law conducted the seder according to Jewish rules. My husband and I always participated in it. Alexandr's parents always fasted at Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. My husband and I weren't religious, but we respected his parents' belief. We tried to do no work at home at Sabbath to please our parents and took part in celebrating Jewish holidays.

My husband was a driver and I got a job as a midwife in a maternity hospital. I had a good relationship with my colleagues. I never faced any anti-Semitism. Of course, I cannot say that there wasn't any anti-Semitism, but I witnessed no instances of it. I worked in the hospital for 22 years and the attitude towards me was always good. I retired quite a while ago, but my former colleagues often visit me and come to see me on holidays.

Our son was born in 1957. We named him Igor so the first letter of his name begins with the same letter as my grandfather's name: Isaac Bekker. He was circumcised. I had a short maternity leave and came back to work when my son was three months old. My mother-in-law took care of the baby. My work was quite near where we lived and she took him to my workplace for me to feed him. My mother-in-law began to feel ill because she had lived three years in the ghetto, but she raised our son nevertheless. Igor was a nice boy. He wasn't particularly good at his studies, but I hadn't been either. His teachers and classmates treated him well. After finishing school he entered the College of Refrigeration Units. After finishing college our son married one of his classmates, a Jewish girl. In 1980 their daughter Diana was born. Regretfully, my son's marriage didn't last. His ex-wife and his daughter live in Germany now. After perestroika 14 my son and his friend opened a company involved in the manufacture of plastic bags. That's what he does now. He got married again. His wife is Jewish. They didn't have a traditional Jewish wedding. She is a dentist. They don't have children yet.

When Jews began to leave for Israel in the 1970s my husband and I thought about trying our luck. When my mother heard about it she said that this is the country where I was born, where we went through good things and bad things and this was where our dearly departed were buried. She was categorically against my departure and after thinking about it I agreed with her. My cousin Sophia and her daughter and Grigory's sons left for Israel. Many of my husband's relatives left. We visited them several times. Of course, Israel is such a gorgeously beautiful country! It's like a blooming oasis. I admire those courageous and hardworking people that built this country on bare stones. The people I love live in this country.

I also traveled to Canada and USA at the end of 1990 at the invitation of our friends and my husband's distant relatives. Well, home is best - they have a different life in those countries. I do not fit in there. When I went to Rybnitsa recently (where I was last before we moved to Dubossary in 1948) I felt so much at home. I felt like this was the most beautiful place in the world. Of course, it was difficult to recognize Rybnitsa - so much has changed. It's a nice little town with beautiful new houses and a cozy hotel. It is true - of all places I've been, Rybnitsa is the most beautiful town. One can go on a visit to another country, but one has always come back to the country where one has spent one's life. I can't understand people who survived through the horrors of the Great Patriotic War that move to Germany. I understand that a few generations of Germans have changed, but I can't forget the horrors that I went through. When I hear the word 'German' I recall a German soldier that after another mass shooting of Jews in the ghetto threw a three-year-old child alive into a pit with dead bodies and began to backfill it with soil.

We've always had Jewish and non-Jewish friends and I never paid much attention to their nationality. We didn't celebrate Soviet or Jewish holidays, but we liked to get together with friends and have a good time. We discussed books that we read and shared our joys and sorrows. Our friends used to visit us for a cup of tea. We sang our favorite songs and danced.

The beginning of Perestroika in the 1980s didn't raise any emotions in me. I didn't care after the disappointment I had felt after mother's words about Stalin's death. I cared about my family, work and friends and that was it. However, there were visible changes. One could get books that had been forbidden and the Iron Curtain 15 that separated our country from the rest of the world fell down. We got an opportunity to go abroad and invite friends from abroad who hadn't been allowed into the USSR. I liked the changes in our life during Perestroika.

My husband's father Avrum Stelmakher died in 1988. We buried him according to the Jewish traditions in the Jewish section of a new town cemetery since the old Jewish cemetery was closed. His wife sat shivah after him. In the same year my stepfather Peter Segul died in Dubossary. His grave is near where my grandfather and my grandmother were buried in one of twelve graves of Jews shot by fascists. There wasn't an open cemetery near these graves, but my mother could do it. Teachers and pupils of the school where my mother worked look after those graves. After my stepfather died my mother joined my husband and me. She was 86 and she couldn't live alone. My mother- in-law died in 1990. She was buried according to the Jewish tradition. Her grave is near her husband's. My mother died in 1993. My mother was an atheist and we buried her in the common way.

Jewish life has been restored to Chernovtsy in the past ten years. There are Jewish newspapers, TV and radio programs. This all makes so much difference for those of us who lived our lives in the Soviet regime. My husband and I are atheists. We don't know any prayers or Jewish traditions, but we are so happy that Jews can feel like Jews rather than just Ukrainian people. There are many Jewish communities and the Jewish culture is being restored. In 1999 Hesed was established. My husband still goes to work - our pension is too low to make ends meet. I liked Hesed and attended clubs, lectures and meetings there. I met many people that became my friends. I don't go there any more, regretfully. Since I broke my leg I haven't left home. My new friends haven't forgotten me. They often come to see me and I always look forward to seeing them. Our life has improved.

Glossary

1 Great Patriotic War

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

2 Five percent quota

In tsarist Russia the number of Jews in higher educational institutions could not exceed 5% of the total number of students.

3 . Struggle against religion

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

4 Pogroms in Ukraine

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

5 Russian Revolution of 1917

6 Black Hundred

The Black Hundred was an extreme right wing party which emerged at the turn of the twentieth century in Russia. This group of radicals increased in popularity before the beginning of the Russian Revolution when tsarism was in decline. They found support mainly among the aristocrats and members other lower-middle class. The Black Hundred were the perpetrators of many Jewish pogroms in Russian cities such as Odessa, Kiev, Yekaterinoslav and Bialystok. Although they were nowhere near a major party in Russia, they did make a major impact on the Jews of Russia, who were constantly being oppressed by their campaigns.

7 Young Octobrist

In Russian Oktyabrenok, or 'pre-pioneer', designates Soviet children of seven years or over preparing for entry into the pioneer organization.

8 Komsomol

Communist youth political organization created in 1918. The task of the Komsomol was to spread of the ideas of communism and involve the worker and peasant youth in building the Soviet Union. The Komsomol also aimed at giving a communist upbringing by involving the worker youth in the political struggle, supplemented by theoretical education. The Komsomol was more popular than the Communist Party because with its aim of education people could accept uninitiated young proletarians, whereas party members had to have at least a minimal political qualification.

9 Victory Day in Russia (9th May)

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

10 Campaign against 'cosmopolitans'

11 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956

Khrushchev publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted the veil of secrecy concerning what was happening in the USSR during Stalin's leadership.

12 Khrushchev, Nikita (1894-1971)

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

13 Transnistria

Area situated between the Bug and Dniester rivers and the Black Sea. The term is derived from the Romanian name for the Dniester (Nistru) and was coined after the occupation of the area by German and Romanian troops in World War II. After its occupation Transnistria became a place for deported Romanian Jews. Systematic deportations began in September 1941. In the course of the next two months, all surviving Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina and a small part of the Jewish population of Old Romania were dispatched across the Dniester. This first wave of deportations reached almost 120,000 by mid-November 1941 when it was halted by Ion Antonescu, the Romanian dictator, upon intervention of the Council of Romanian Jewish Communities. Deportations resumed at the beginning of the summer of 1942, affecting close to 5,000 Jews. A third series of deportations from Old Romania took place in July 1942, affecting Jews who had evaded forced labor decrees, as well as their families, communist sympathizers and Bessarabian Jews who had been in Old Romania and Transylvania during the Soviet occupation. The most feared Transnistrian camps were Vapniarka, Ribnita, Berezovka, Tulcin and Iampol. Most of the Jews deported to camps in Transnistria died between 1941-1943 because of horrible living conditions, diseases and lack of food.

14 Perestroika (Russian for restructuring)

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

15 Iron Curtain

A term popularized by Sir Winston Churchill in a speech in 1946. He used it to designate the Soviet Union's consolidation of its grip over Eastern Europe. The phrase denoted the separation of East and West during the Cold War, which placed the totalitarian states of the Soviet bloc behind an 'Iron Curtain'. The fall of the Iron Curtain corresponds to the period of perestroika in the former Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, and the democratization of Eastern Europe beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Elka Roizman

Elka Roizman
Chernovtsy
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Date of interview: November 2002

Elka Roizman and her husband live in a small private house in a quiet neighborhood. When I came to see her she was in pain suffering from osteochondrosis, but Elka didn't cancel our interview. She speaks Russian with a slight Romanian accent. She recalled more and more details in the course of our interview and was surprised that her memory brought back so many details. When she talked so enthusiastically about her past her face was glowing and her voice sounded very young. and different. Elka is an interesting person. She reads a lot and is deeply interested in what is going on in the world.

My father Shloime Braiman's parents came from the town of Yedintsy, which belonged to Russia before 1918. After 1918 Bessarabia 1 became part of Romania. I don't remember my father's parents. My grandfather, David Braiman, died in the 1910s and my grandmother, Elka Braiman, died in 1919, long before I was born. They had seven sons: my father and his older brothers. Their family was religious, like all Jewish families at that time. My grandparents observed Jewish traditions, prayed every day, went to the synagogue on Saturdays and holidays, observed Sabbath, celebrated Jewish holidays and followed the kashrut.

The majority of the population of Yedintsy, about 5,000 people, was Jewish. There were also Russian, Moldavian and Romanian inhabitants. Jews in smaller towns were mostly craftsmen. In Yedintsy many Jews were shoemakers, tailors, barbers and tinsmiths, etc. There were also Jewish doctors, lawyers and teachers. And there were tradesmen: vendors and owners of bigger stores. There were two synagogues, a Jewish elementary school and cheder. Jewish families lived in the center of town. Land was rather expensive in the center of town and they bought plots of land just big enough for a house and a minimal number of yard facilities. Russians and Moldavians lived on the outskirts of the town and had enough land to grow fruit and vegetables. Every Monday farmers from surrounding villages came to sell their products at the market, and the rest of the week the local population from the outskirts of town sold their products at the market. Dairy products and fruit were delivered to people's homes. There were no pogroms in Yedintsy Throughout the history of Moldavia there was onland no conflicts between the different nationalities in the local population.

I don't know anything about my grandparents' house because after they died their children left their parents' home to get jobs and support themselves. My father's oldest brother, Zeidl Braiman, was 9-10 years older than my father. He must have been born around 1882. Zeidl lived in Zheredevka village, about 5 kilometers from where we lived. His wife's name was Miriam. They had no children. Miriam's sister, I believe her name was Rokhl, lived in the same village. Uncle Zeidl and Miriam's sister owned a water mill. Besides, my uncle had a dairy farm. He kept cows and calves. He had employees on his farm.

My father's second brother, Fivish Braiman, and another brother, whose name (I don't know,) moved to America in the 1910s.

The next brother, Ishye Braiman, was born around 1886. He lived in the town of Beltsy. He was a very handsome man with refined features and a full beard. He had a son and a beautiful daughter. His daughter studied at grammar school in Beltsy, and his son worked with Ishye. They had a farming and trading business. After grammar school Ishye's daughter married a rich merchant's son. This merchant sold grain abroad. They had a traditional Jewish wedding. The bride and bridegroom were standing in a big chuppah in the middle of a huge hall. The rabbi said a prayer, and they exchanged rings. Then they sipped wine from a crystal wine glass. They wrapped the glass into an embroidered napkin and threw it onto the floor. Then the wedding party began. This took place in 1935, and I was there, but I was only 4 years old then.

During the Great Patriotic War 2 my father's older brothers, Zeidl and Ishye, and their families perished in a ghetto in Transnistria 3.

The next brother, Idl Braiman, was born around 1887. He lived in Yedintsy. His wife's name was Esther. They grew wheat. They had two daughters, Tzeitl and Pesl. During World War II Idl and his family were in the ghetto in Bershad. Idl's wife Esther died of a disease, cold and starvation. Idl returned home with his daughters. Tzeitl made clothes and sold them at the market. She fell ill with tuberculosis after the harsh living conditions in the ghetto and died a few years later. Uncle Idl had a job as a guard. Pesl went to school. She heard about the rabbi of Chernovtsy who helped orphaned children to move to Israel. Pesl talked to him, and he helped her to obtain all the necessary documents for emigration. She moved to Israel in 1946. Her mother's older brothers, who lived in Brazil, found her there. They were rich and had no children. Pesl moved to Brazil where she got married and had two daughters. She corresponded with us and sent us parcels with fabrics and clothes. In 1954 Pesl came to Yedintsy and took her father to Brazil. Uncle Idl died there in the 1970s. After his death Pesl, her husband and their children moved to Israel. She still lives there.

My father's other brother, Yosl Braiman, was born in 1889. He lived in Yedintsy. Yosl married a rich girl. Her name was Manya. Her dowry included fields and cattle. She had finished grammar school. Yosl and Manya had two sons. One son was a little older than me, and their second son was born in the ghetto in Bershad. The whole family survived in the ghetto. After the war their older son graduated from the Academy of Agriculture and held high official positions. The younger son was an engineer. Uncle Yosl died in 1976. His wife and two sons moved to Israel. His wife died there in 1988. The older son died recently, and the younger one lives in Israel with his family.

My father was the youngest child in the family. He was born in 1891. I know very little about his childhood. He didn't like to talk about it. He preferred to talk to me about his work. My father and his brothers were managers of landlords' estates. My father did his job very well. He made sure that everything was in order and that there was no theft or loss of harvests. There were Russian and Moldavian landlords but no Jewish ones. Jewish men worked as managers for them, as a rule.

My father and his brothers studied at cheder. Neither my father nor my uncles were deeply religious, but they observed traditions. Every morning and evening my father put on his tallit and tefillin and prayed. He could read and write in Yiddish and knew all prayers in Hebrew.

My grandmother on my mother's side, Dina Kotliar,) was born in Karpachi village in the 1870s. Before 1918 Karpachi belonged to Russia, and afterwards it became part of Romania.

Karpachi was a big village with about 500 houses. The majority of its population was Russian and Moldavian. There were 15-20 Jewish families in the village. Almost all Jews were farmers. They had gardens and orchards and kept livestock. Besides, Jews owned stores where they sold food and other essential goods. Garments and shoes were sold in nearby towns. There was no anti-Semitism in the village. People were good neighbors and respected each other's culture and religion. There was no synagogue in Karpachi, so Jews went to the synagogue in a neighboring village. When Moldavia became part of Romania, the Romanian authorities allowed Jews to build a synagogue in the village. My grandfather and grandmother were honored to lay the first stone for this new building. There was also a traveling shochet. He worked for several villages. He notified people in advance when he was going to come.

My grandmother had two older brothers I knew: Mones and Ksil. My grandmother and her brothers were very close. My grandmother told me a lot about her childhood and her life. She got engaged when she was 9 years old. Karpachi was close to Lvov, which was called Lemberg at that time. [Editor's note: Lemberg belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy at that time.] There were big fairs in Lemberg and people from all the surrounding villages went to these fairs. The fairs lasted for a month. People made deals of all kinds at the fairs. My grandmother's parents were very religious. They met another religious family at a fair. This family had a 10-year-old son and my grandmother's parents had their 9-year-old daughter. They reached an agreement that their children would get married when they came of age and that before that time they would be mekhutonimk [Yiddish for 'in-laws'].

When they returned from the fair, they told my grandmother that she was a fiancée. She didn't quite understand the meaning of it, but she liked the idea. When she turned 16 she got married. My grandparents had a wedding with a chuppah according to Jewish traditions, and her husband stayed to live in my grandmother parents' house. A year later they had a baby girl that died in infancy. Later it turned out that my grandmother's husband was ill with tuberculosis. The rabbi conducted a divorce ceremony. Divorces were rare at that time. There had to be a valid excuse to break off a marriage. My grandmother's reasoning was convincing: They couldn't have children due to her husband's disease.

Later matchmakers introduced her to my grandfather, Itzhak Kotliar, who also came from Karpachi. He was born in the 1860s. He was a widower by the time he met my grandmother. My grandmother was 20 and my grandfather was about 30 when they met. He was a melamed at cheder. They had a traditional Jewish wedding, and my grandmother moved to his house. He had two children from his first marriage. My grandmother raised them as her own sons. One of them moved to America when he was in his teens. Shmil, the younger one, stayed in Karpachi. He had a big house with a store that he owned.

My grandfather was a tall gray-haired man with a white beard. He wore trousers with suspenders over a shirt and a dark jacket. On Jewish holidays he wore an expensive, new black jacket. He always wore a yarmulka. He enjoyed dancing Jewish folk dances. He was an honorable attendant of the synagogue and a respected man in the village. My grandfather prayed every morning and evening and read religious books every night after work.

My grandmother was a beautiful slender woman. She didn't wear a wig. On weekdays she wore a kerchief, and on when she went to the synagogue on Saturdays and Jewish holidays she wore a beautiful shawl. My grandmother didn't wear traditional Jewish clothes such as (dark skirts and blouses). She wore fashionable skirts and light blouses. She made her clothes herself.

My grandparents had six daughters. My mother, Leya Braiman [nee Kotliar], the oldest one, was born in 1902. In 1940 the Romanian area around Karpachi became part of the USSR. When the Soviet authorities issued her Soviet passport her name was written into it as Lisa. The newly established authorities even tried to give them Christian names. My mother never got used to her new name and was called Leya her whole life. My mother's sister Rivke was born in 1903, Frodl in 1904 and Surah in 1906. Rukhl was born in 1911 and the youngest one, Khone, in 1914.

When her daughters were still small my grandmother worked for a landlord. His estate was across the Prut river on the other side of the village. He had a big mansion and kept livestock. My grandmother stayed in his mansion for a month or two in a row and made clothes for his family. Her daughters were with her. My grandfather was a teacher at cheder and took care of the house. He managed with the housework just fine and also did the cooking. They had a room for themselves. Other employees looked after my grandmother's daughters when they were playing in the yard while she was busy with her work. My grandmother told me that the landlord was a very decent and educated man. He had meals with his employees at a long table, joked and talked with them. My grandmother only ate kosher food, and the landlord ordered his cook to make special food for her. My grandmother sewed for the landlord for a long time. I remember that my grandmother took a pile of bed sheets once and we went to the landlady together. She was very happy to see my grandmother. They hugged and kissed, and when we left she gave us sweets and other treats.

My grandparents' house was very different from other houses. The entrance door opened into a big room. This must have been a hallway, but my grandmother had a stove installed there. She had her sewing machine there, and in summer the family lived in this room. The door from this room led into a smaller room. It was warmer and in winter we usually lived there. This room again led into the kitchen. There was another stove there with a stove bench where the children used to sleep. My grandmother also baked bread in the stove twice a week. From the kitchen one could get into the bedroom.

My grandmother taught her daughters how to sew. They were of big help to her. She did the cutting and her daughters sewed things together. She received orders at home. My grandmother had a big table with heaps of pieces of fabric on it. I remember her working at this table. They made dresses, skirts and blouses for peasants. They were paid with food for their work. Peasants had a wedding season in the fall, and my grandmother and her daughters had a lot of work making new dresses for the brides and bridegrooms and for their guests and parents. My grandmother and her daughters even worked at night to get more work done and make more money. They had a glass of water to wet their eyes to stay awake. My grandmother and my mother worked on the sewing machines, and the others sewed on buttons and finished the clothes so they were ready by morning. My mother said that she worked so hard for such long hours that it became difficult for her to stretch her back.

All my mother's sisters were very smart. They were educated at home. My grandfather taught his daughters Hebrew and religion, the alphabet, the basis of mathematics, literature and history - everything that he was teaching at cheder. Two younger daughters, (Rukhl and Khone,) studied at grammar school before the war, but they were external students. I remember that they went to take exams somewhere in Romania one winter day wearing their heavy winter coats. That was in the 1930s.

1914 was a very difficult year. People didn't have enough food. My mother told me that my grandmother fed the family with mamaliga, a popular meal in Moldavia. When mamaliga got cold it could be cut into pieces. My grandmother gave each girl a piece of mamaliga. The girls went to the kitchen garden and ate their mamaliga with spring onions that they nipped off onion plants. Later my grandmother kept two cows and chickens and had a big orchard.

All the daughters, except for the youngest one, got married and had children. Only Aunt Riva had a love marriage. There was a quarry not far from my grandparents' house where her future husband, a Jew, worked as an accountant. Riva was a very pretty and vivid girl, and he fell in love with her. The other sisters met their husbands through matchmakers. There weren't enough young men in the village, but matchmakers were looking for partners in other places. My mother's youngest sister, Khone, was single. She was introduced to a teacher from Beltsy at the beginning of 1941, but the war destroyed their plans of getting married.

My mother's sister Surah died in 1938. She was tall and beautiful like her mother. She died after an abortion. Abortions were illegal, but there were people who agreed to conduct them. They often ended tragically due to unsanitary conditions. Surah had two children.

During the Great Patriotic War my mother's sisters Frodl and Khone died in a ghetto. Only my mother and her sisters Riva and Rukhl survived the war. They lived in Chernovtsy after the war and made their living by sewing.

My parents also met each other through matchmakers. They had a traditional Jewish wedding in Karpachi. After the wedding they moved to Yedintsy where my father came from. They didn't have a house and had to rent an apartment.

In was born in Yedintsy in 1931 and named Elka after my grandmother on my father's side. My brother was born in 1934. He was named Ersh-Ber when he was born, but after the Soviet power was established he was called Boris. My father was working for a landlord. Soon after my brother was born my parents decided that it would be easier for them to make their living in a village. They could grow vegetables and keep livestock. They moved to Karpachi. In the beginning my parents rented a house from a Moldavian woman. The landlady lived in a small hut next to the house that we rented from her. She was a very kind woman. Her children had their own families and lived separately. When my parents were at work the landlady took care of my brother and me. We were very fond of her and called her 'vuina anika' [Moldavian for 'darling mother'].

My parents worked at the sugar factory in Repichany village, across the river from where we lived. This factory operated during the sugar treatment season, from the beginning of fall to spring. The rest of the year my parents stayed at home and took care of us, children. My mother did the housework and made clothes for us. In 1936 my mother bought a house in the village. There was a plot of land next to it. It was a small house, and my parents bought construction materials to build a new house on this plot of land. After my mother bought this house she quit her job to be a housewife. She had a big kitchen garden and grew flowers. She also kept chickens, geese and ducks. She sold poultry to poultry dealers.

At some point my mother fell ill and was told to drink goat milk. She bought two goats. She had enough milk for the family and sold the remaining milk to the neighbors. My father also took on other jobs when there was no work at the sugar factory. He was a grain dealer. He bought grain from local farmers and sold it to wholesalers. Moldavian farmers kept sheep. My father purchased sheepskins from them in spring to sell them to leather dealers.

My mother also sewed at home. She bought a sewing machine after she got married and made very beautiful clothes for her clients. My mother was a beautiful woman and liked beautiful clothes. She liked to buy new clothes for the money that she made. I always wanted to learn how to sew, but my mother refused to teach me. She said that I wouldn't have time for myself if I learned how to sew.

My mother could also weave Moldavian carpets and spin wool. In winter a painter from town painted hanks of yarn in different colors. There were looms in almost every house. We also had one. On winter evenings women used to make carpets. We had homemade carpets on the floors, on the sofa and on the walls.

There was an assistant doctor in the village, but there was no doctor, hospital or pharmacy. It's hard to imagine now how we managed back then. When my mother had a stomachache our neighbor brought her herbs and an ointment. My mother also had appendicitis and was taken to the Jewish hospital in Yedintsy. There was a Jewish and a Moldavian hospital in Yedintsy. People were charged for surgeries, but post-surgery treatment was free.

My mother and her sisters had many non-Jewish friends. We had a Moldavian neighbor, who had many daughters and a son. He arranged two wedding parties for his son because his fiancée was a Moldavian woman. One party was for all their Moldavian relatives and friends and took place in the afternoon, and the other party was for the Jewish guests and took place in the evening. They had so many Jewish friends! He had to arrange a separate party for his Jewish guests, because he had to have kosher food made for them. My father went to the shochet to have chickens slaughtered for the wedding. The kosher food for the wedding was cooked at our home.

We all spoke Yiddish at home. When my parents wanted to discuss something and didn't want us to understand them they switched to Hebrew. My brother and I knew Yiddish, Moldavian and Romanian. We had books at home. Most of them were religious books: the Torah and prayer books. We also had fiction in Yiddish and a few Romanian books.

When I turned five I went to cheder in our village. The cheder was housed in the synagogue. There were tables and benches and an aron kodesh. It was a one-storied synagogue. There was a section for men on the right side and one for women on the left. My brother also studied at cheder. On Fridays and Saturdays Jews came to the synagogue to pray, and on the remaining days of the week children studied there at cheder. We learned prayers and verses, but I can't remember any of them now.

My parents were religious people and raised us religiously. We always observed Sabbath. My mother cooked meals for two days on Friday. She also baked challah. In the evening the family got together for a prayer. My mother said a prayer over the candles, then she lit them, and afterwards we had dinner. Nobody worked on Saturdays. My father and I visited my father's brother Zeidl and his wife Miriam on Saturdays. They didn't have any children and were very happy to see us. We went to see them on foot, stayed with them the whole day and returned home afterwards.

We celebrated all Jewish holidays at home. Before Pesach my parents went to the nearest town to buy matzah. It was sold in big 10-kilo flax bags. Matzah was kept on the stove at home to keep it dry. My mother also had special tableware for Pesach, which was kept in the attic. It was taken from the attic to be used during the holiday, and our everyday utensils were taken to the attic instead. My mother also used her everyday kitchen utensils if she didn't have enough special ones, but she made them kosher before she used them. We ate matzah and mamaliga but no bread. There was a woman in the village who made and sold matzah flour. My mother cooked gefilte fish, boiled chicken, and made hacklings from goose fat and stewed geese. She made honey cakes, strudels, cookies and pancakes from matzah flour. She also made puddings from potatoes and matzah and eggs. My father always conducted the seder ceremony on Pesach. He had a prayer book in Hebrew and my mother had one in Yiddish. [Editor's note: The interviewee probably meant a Haggadah.] My grandmother Dina, my mother's sisters, my father's brother Zeidl and his wife, our Jewish and non-Jewish neighbors visited us, or we visited them, to celebrate.

I've had a critical mind since my childhood. I could never just take things the way they were. I always needed an explanation. Pesach was celebrated in April when it was still cold. Every person had to drink four glasses of red wine, and one glass was put on the table and nobody was supposed to drink from it. My mother opened the door singing, 'Borech habaa, borech habaa'. I studied Hebrew at cheder and knew that it meant, 'Welcome, welcome. Once I asked my mother to close the door because I got cold. I asked her whom she was waiting for anyways, and she explained that it was Elijah, the Prophet and that the spare glass of wine was meant for him. I didn't ask my mother any more questions that time, but the following year, when she opened the door and sang 'Borech habaa' and my father said a prayer, I looked very closely at that spare glass. Nobody came in to drink from it! When my mother closed the door I declared that she was probably telling me a lie. She told me that Elijah, the Prophet wasn't a man but a spirit and that he had wings and was invisible. He didn't have time to sit down at the table. He flew in to give his blessings and flew out again. It was a plausible explanation, and I believed it.

On Purim my mother made hamantashen. She also made poppy seed cookies that were boiled in honey and honey cookies with raisins and nuts. The tradition on Purim was to take treats [shelakhmones] to neighbors. Some poor person was hired to take them to other people. He got paid for doing this and also received treats for his family. A tray, covered with a white napkin, was filled with pieces of honey cakes, poppy seed cookies, hamantashen, walnuts, apples, oranges and a handful of raisins. Another napkin was put on top of it. My mother used to send this tray to my grandparents first because they were the senior members of the family, and to other relatives, friends and neighbors afterwards. They sent their treats to us in return. On Shavuot we only used to eat dairy products after we returned from the synagogue. My mother made cottage cheese puddings, macaroni soup with milk, cheesecakes and dumplings with cottage cheese.

My brother and I enjoyed visiting my grandmother, who lived close to us. All her grandchildren enjoyed playing in her big yard. My grandmother always had delicious food for her grandchildren. She was always busy doing something, even when she grew very old.

I got very fond of reading at an early age. My parents wanted me to get a good education. Education was expensive, and I remember one evening when my parents discussed how much money they would be able to save. One year at grammar school cost 10,000 or 20,000 lei - I can't remember exactly. They decided that they couldn't afford it, and sent me to a Romanian secondary school in the village. Education there was free. The director of this school was my father's friend and he admitted me one year before I reached the standard school age. I was a very industrious pupil. I never forgot how eager my parents were to give me an education. I appreciated the opportunity to go to a school free of charge. My brother went to cheder at that time. He was too young to go to school.

My father leased a field in 1939, and my brother and I helped him to work on it. We sow seeds and weeded the field. There was a poor Ukrainian family that didn't live very far from the field. When my brother and I were alone in the field they kept shouting, 'Zhydeniata are pups and zhydovka is a bitch!'. [Editor's note: This was a common arhyme in Ukrainian.] There were no anti-Semitic demonstrations in the village at that time, and we were very disturbed about this. We were afraid to go to the field alone. When we were with our parents those children didn't dare to say or do anything of this kind.

In 1936 fascist organizations appeared in Romania. The two biggest ones were the Iron Guard 4 movement and the Cuzists 5. They openly propagated anti-Semitism and threatened that they would put an end to Jews when they came to power.

German troops arrived in Romania in 1939. The USSR demanded Moldavia and Bessarabia threatening to start a war otherwise. In June 1940 our area became Soviet territory. All richer people were immediately arrested and imprisoned or sent into exile to Siberia. Our Moldavian neighbor was very rich. His younger daughter was the same age as I, and we were friends. He was arrested and tortured to death at the interrogations. We weren't rich and therefore didn't have any problems with the Soviet authorities.

Our school became a Russian school. We had a young Russian teacher who didn't know any Romanian. She tried to talk with us, but we couldn't understand what she was trying to say. A year passed and then the war began.

Since our territory had become part of the Soviet Union, a frontier military unit was deployed in outr village. Once we were woken up by the roar of explosions, and on 22nd June 1941 I saw a wounded soldier with his head in bandages. The commanding officer of the unit ordered us to leave the village. We went to the neighboring village, where the majority of the population was Jewish. One of the richer Jews accommodated as many people as he could fit into his house, including us. Soon battles on the border began. We went to Yedintsy, where my father's brothers Idl and Yosl lived. My father's older brother Zeidl also went there from Beltsy. We settled down in Yedintsy. My mother thought that we would be staying in Beltsy for some time and hired a young Jewish teacher to teach me school subjects. She was afraid that I wouldn't be able to catch up with the other children at school once we returned home.

After two weeks the Soviet army began to retreat, and German and Romanian units arrived in town. The German units moved on and left an area of about 400 kilometers east of the Bug River under Romanian supervision. Pogroms began in Yedintsy. Romanians began to shoot at young Jews in the streets. I remember how my teacher came to us and asked us to hide him because he had been shot at. A gendarme came after him, took him out and shot him. Many men were shot on that day. In the afternoon the Jewish population was chased out of their houses. We were taken to the seminary building. Children, old people and women were kept there until late in the evening. Then they announced that those who wished to go home could do so. The people who left were shot when they were on their way home. On the following day they told all men to step aside. My brother begged them to leave our father alone. My little brother stood in front of them telling them to shoot him instead of his father. He was crying in despair. My father was left alone.

On the following day we got on our way. There were about 1,000 people on this march and many more joined from the towns and villages that we passed. My father's brothers Yosl and Idl, my mother's parents and her sisters were with us. We were staying in fields overnight. We were whipped and didn't get any water. Older people fell down in exhaustion and gendarmes shot them. My grandparents perished on the way, but I don't know where exactly. We were dirty and had lice. We came past a river but weren't allowed to go down to the riverbank to drink some water. Local gendarmes shot people if they tried to get close to the water. I wanted to go down to have some water, but my father slapped me and said, 'If you do that I will kill you myself rather than let these fascists kill you'.

We reached a Moldavian town about 40 kilometers from Yedintsy. They fenced an area in a field on the outskirts of town with barbed wire. We lived there for two months. Adults worked on the road construction site. My mother was there, too. Local villagers brought some food to exchange it for clothes or valuables. We were starving. I have no idea how we survived. My mother got some flour in exchange for a few clothes. She boiled a little bit of flour and this was our food. After two months we got on our way across the Dnestr River to Ataki and from there further on to Mohilev- Podolsk in Vinnitsa region. The town was ruined, the houses were destroyed and the streets were covered with broken glass. When we were allowed to take a rest in the field we scattered around looking for something eatable. It was September and there were remains of corn and cabbage in the fields. We ate them raw. People also found beans in the field and boiled them over a fire. Once, when we were about to get on our way again, we discovered that my brother was missing. My father went back to the field and found him fast asleep with a piece of cabbage in his hand.

We came to Transnistria where we were distributed to various ghettos. We were to go to the ghetto in Ternovka village, close to Bershad, in November 1941. There were huts with no windows there - they used to serve as sheds for the dairy farm. There were haystacks near the farm, and we closed window openings with hay and also slept on hay. Lice were eating us alive and our bodies were horribly sore. Later we found an abandoned sauna building and settled down there with another family. We slept on ground floors. My mother told me later that out of 500 families that were in this ghetto in the beginning only about 50 survived.

My father fell ill with pneumonia. There was no hospital in Ternovka, but the Romanian soldiers refused to take him to hospital. My brother and I were allowed to accompany my father, but no further than Bershad. My brother and I went to the nearest village to get a horse and a cart to take our father to hospital. We got one from some old people, put our father on it and walked behind the cart all the 18 kilometers to the hospital in Bershad. Nobody stopped us on the way. My father's brothers Yosl and Idl were in the ghetto in Bershad. Yosl's wife was pregnant before the war began. Her younger son was born in Bershad. He was very weak, but fortunately he survived. My father was admitted to the hospital. My brother and I stayed with Uncle Idl. My father's brothers Yosl and Idl were in the ghetto in Bershad. Yosl's wife was pregnant before the war began. Her younger son was born in Bershad. He was very weak, but fortunately he survived.

Our father got better somehow. During the winter a local woman hired us. My mother and I went to her home to knit sweaters, socks and stockings for her and her children. One evening our employer told us not to be afraid if we saw strangers in her house late at night. Her husband was a partisan. The partisans lived in the forest and came to the village late at night. Our employer cooked for them and they came at night to pick up the food. They spoke Russian, so we couldn't understand them. I remember that the woman's husband's name was Todoska. The partisans had a meal and left early in the morning. Once partisans attacked the ghetto and killed one Romanian guard and two policemen. After that a German unit came to the village to fight against the partisans. They captured people in the streets. Inmates of the ghetto were among the captives. They were shot in the vicinity of the village. Once the Germans noticed some people in a haystack and rolled over it with a tank. When the bodies were brought to the ghetto it was impossible to look at them. The fascists did terrible things.

Ternovka was a Ukrainian village. I don't know whether there were any Jews there before the war, but there was no synagogue in the village. We didn't observe any Jewish traditions or celebrate holidays in the ghetto. Only a few older Jews got together for a prayer, but there were no younger Jews among them. At that time God forgot about us, and we forgot about God.

In March 1944 we were liberated by the Soviet army. I remember the first Soviet tank entering the village. The Romanians had left a day before. We were so happy and couldn't stop crying and kissing the Soviet soldiers that got out of the tank. I remember a young soldier who gave my brother and me a piece of bread. We went back home, but what we saw in the village when we returned was even more horrific than what we had faced in the ghetto.

An acquaintance of ours told us that there was a Cuzist organization in our village. Members of this organization were our acquaintances, and they had their knives ready to slaughter Jews when the Germans arrived in the village. There was a knife for each Jew and there was a label on each knife with the name of the future victim. Two Jews, Gedale, (hewho lived on the outskirts,) and Sabina who lived in the center of the village, left the village first but returned later. The villagers took them to the Prut river and put them into a boat. Villagers were standing on both banks of the river and whenever the boat approached a bank they were throwing stones until the boat turned over and the man and woman drowned. They begged for help, but nobody came to their rescue. None of those who had been their neighbors, went to church and considered themselves decent parishioners came to help. They forgot one of the ten commandments: 'Do not kill' ['Though Shalt Not Kill']. It was all their own doing because they weren't forced by the Germans or Romanians to do this. Since that time I've had a critical attitude towards religion and people who make a show out of their beliefs. I can firmly state that there was anti-Semitism before and after the war, and it will never vanish. One can never know what's on the mind of a person calling himself your friend.

Our house had been completely plundered. There were no construction materials, doors, windows or even roof sheets left. When my mother entered the house she saw her prayer book on the floor covered with bricks and broken glass. I still have this book. There were no clothes or any of our other belongings left. My mother saw our possessions in our neighbors' houses, but only one family returned our things. My mother was told that her friend Olga was the first among the robbers when the German and Romanian units came to the village. Apparently she said that she would chop my mother like a cabbage if she saw her. I still don't understand why. My mother used to sew for her for free, and they looked after each other's children when one of them needed to go out. Of course, I'm not saying that all people plundered houses or threw stones onto that couple in the boat.

My parents didn't want to stay in the village and live side by side with people who would smile at you but sharpen their knives behind your back. We decided to move to Yedintsy where my father's brothers, who had returned from the ghetto, lived.

Almost the entire Jewish population of Yedintsy had perished, and there were many vacant houses. We found a small house in the center. There was a kitchen close to the house where my mother grew vegetables. My father got a job as a sheepskin supplier with a supply company. My mother earned some money by sewing. Some time after the war we began to celebrate Sabbath and Jewish holidays and went to the synagogue on holidays.

I started to go to school again in 1944. Children who had finished three classes before the war went to the 6th grade. I was too old to go to the 4th or 5th grade. I had taught my brother to read and write in Yiddish and Moldavian in the ghetto and he could go to the 3rd grade after the war. We went to a Russian secondary school even though we didn't know Russian. There was a Russian and a Moldavian school in Yedintsy. Most of the Jewish children went to the Russian school because Russian was the state language. My classmates were children of militaries from the frontier military unit based in Yedintsy. We didn't know one single Russian letter or word, and our teachers didn't know Moldavian. We didn't understand most of what they told us, but we tried hard and slowly learned Russian. It took me about a year to improve my Russian.

I finished 8 years of this school. I wanted to continue my education. My mother's sister Riva lived in Chernovtsy where I could go to a higher secondary school. Riva became an invalid in the ghetto due to the hard living conditions. She earned her living by sewing at home for a garment shop. My aunt was very poor. Her family lived in a one-bedroom apartment with a very small kitchen in the attic of a building. Riva had four children. Two of them moved to Israel in 1946 and the two others, a son and a daughter, stayed with her. When I came to live with them her son was in the army.

Aunt Rukhl lived nearby. She also sewed for a living. Jews constituted more than half of the population of Chernovtsy before the war, and there were many Jews left after the war. The Jewish community was strong. There was a synagogue, and my aunts and I went there on Saturdays and holidays. Aunt Riva couldn't afford to observe Sabbath at home because she had to earn money to support her family, but she celebrated Jewish holidays. She always tried to make traditional Jewish food even though she was very poor. She always had matzah for Pesach. She cooked chicken and gefilte fish even if that meant that we had to eat bread and have tea without sugar on weekdays. We fasted at before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. My friends and acquaintances attended the synagogue regardless of their age.

In 1948 life began to change in Chernovtsy. The Jewish school and Jewish theater were closed and Jewish (writers, actors, musicians, diplomats and scientists) were persecuted. They were declared to be cosmopolitans 6. They were fired and sent into exile and many of them were physically tortured. It was hidden fascism of the Soviet regime, but we only realized that much later.

I got a job as a receptionist at a polyclinic and studied in the evening. I was the youngest student at this evening school; the oldest one was 55. It was a special two-year higher secondary school for people who worked but wished to complete their secondary education and get a certificate. Many of the students were ex-soldiers, and there were also teachers who had been demobilized from the front.

Aunt Riva taught me how to sew and was glad to get an assistant. It had always been my dream to learn how to sew, and I was happy to get a chance to make my dream come true. It turned out to be a very handy skill. I took advantage of it to make clothes for my daughter and myself when it wasn't possible to buy things in stores. I spent my summer vacations with my parents in Yedintsy.

There were quite a few Jewish doctors at the polyclinic and the hospital. Most of them were lecturers from the Medical College in Chernovtsy. I wanted to enter this college after finishing 9 classes at school, but a doctor I knew advised me to complete my higher secondary education and go to the Medical Institute [University].

It was difficult for a Jew to enter a higher educational institution. When I finished school I went to Beltsy in Moldavia. I entered the Faculty of Biology at the Pedagogical Institute. There were eight Jewish students out of a total of 75 students at this faculty. Most of the students and teachers treated us very well and made no segregation. You see, people are different regardless of their nationality: There are thieves, scoundrels, blockheads or genius representatives... Anyway, I had the highest grades at the institute and graduated from it with a red diploma. [Diploma with distinction in former communist countries.]

I was a student when the Doctors' Plot 7 began. (6). I was at the library once when a Moldavian student came and told me that he heard on the radio that Jewish doctors wanted to poison Stalin and other members of the government. I thought I would faint. I couldn't believe it, but there were people that actually believed this malicious calumny. Only Stalin's death in March 1953 put an end to the Doctors' Plot. When the news about his death was announced on the radio all of us burst into tears. I lived in a hostel at the time. All the students were in the hallway listening to the radio and crying. We all cried - Moldavians and Jews. We weren't aware of the actual state of things. Only the Twentieth Party Congress 8 _revealed the truth, but I still learn new terrible details about the period of Stalinist rule from people that went through many ordeals.

When I was in my final year at the Pedagogical Institute I met my future husband, Olter Roizman. He was born in the Moldavian village of Brichany in 1930. His family was very poor. His father, Shymon Roizman, was a shoemaker and his mother, Molka Roizman, was a housewife raising four children. Olter's two younger sisters perished in the ghetto in Transnistria, and his father perished at the front. His mother and older sister survived in the ghetto, but his mother was exhausted after the ghetto and died in 1946. His sister lived in Storozhynets. After his service in the army Olter came to Storozhynets to look for a job. He had a lower secondary education and failed to find work. He decided to go to Chernovtsy where he had acquaintances. They were my aunt's neighbors and gave him accommodation. Before my departure for Beltsy I had a picture of my aunt, her daughter and me taken and left this picture with my aunt. Olter mentioned to our neighbor that he would marry a nice girl if he met one. This neighbor saw a picture of me and asked my aunt if she could introduce her to Olter. He visited my aunt and saw my picture. Later I received a letter from my aunt's daughter saying that a young man wanted to meet me.

I visited them on New Year's Eve in 1953 and Olter and I met for the first time. We had been talking for a while when the neighbor's daughter came in to invite us to her engagement party. This neighbor lived on the first floor. We had lemonade and cookies and stayed there until morning. We had a lot of fun. Olter's acquaintances, who knew me fairly well, told him that we weren't a good match and that he needed to find a more common girl, but Olter was determined to marry me. He proposed to me. Of course, I wanted my husband to be an educated man, but Olter was reliable, and I understood that he would be able to provide for me.

We got married in 1954. We had a wedding party at my parents' home in Yedintsy. There were 60 guests at the party. We had a chuppah and there was a rabbi from the synagogue. He conducted the wedding ritual, and then we sipped wine from a wine glass. Afterwards we broke the glass according to the tradition. Of course, the authorities didn't approve of worship, but Yedintsy was a small town, far from Chernovtsy where we lived and worked. Old traditions and rules were still in force in the town and the authorities were loyal in that regard. It wouldn't have been possible to have such a wedding arranged in Chernovtsy - we would have been reprimanded or even fired.

Upon my graduation in 1954 I got a job assignment in a Moldavian village. [The interviewee is referring to a mandatory job assignment.] 9 I knew Moldavian and Romanian. I got married in the middle of my academic year and I returned to work after the wedding. The director of the school wanted me to stay until the end of the academic year. Olter stayed in Chernovtsy. I joined him after the academic year was over. Olter got a job at a plant. He was an apprentice and later became a worker. We didn't have a place to live and settled down in my aunt's kitchen. I couldn't find work. Besides I had health problems. I had miscarriages and the doctors told me that this was due to the years that I spent in the ghetto. My first baby was stillborn. And then, in 1959, I finally had a baby girl. I named her Dina after my beloved grandmother. I had to stay at home to look after the baby.

In 1957 my husband received a plot of land in the center of town. It was in the same street where my aunt lived. We bought construction material and built a small house. It took us about two years, but the house was completed before our daughter was born.

My husband and I observed Jewish traditions, but my husband had to work on Saturdays because it was an ordinary working day. However, we celebrated all other Jewish holidays. We followed all fasting requirements and went to the synagogue on Jewish holidays. I cooked traditional Jewish food. We had matzah, gefilte fish and chicken on Pesach. Matzah was baked in private houses in Chernovtsy: Jews whispered the addresses of these houses to one another and secretly brought flour to these houses at night to pick up matzah the next day. If the authorities had found out the addresses of these houses they would have closed them and arrested their owners, but Jews kept this knowledge to themselves and nobody revealed it to the authorities. My aunt taught me how to bake. My colleagues respected my traditions. Only official authorities were fighting against religion; common people always showed understanding. We weren't used to Soviet holidays, but we joined small celebrations at work.

My husband and I visited my parents in Yedintsy every year. They liked Olter and became his family. My father retired in 1962, and my parents agreed to move in with us. My mother looked after our daughter, and I began to consider getting a job. I found a temporary job at a kindergarten and worked there until I retired. Our son Michael was born in 1966. My husband named him after his grandfather.

My brother Boris finished 8 years of school in Yedintsy and entered a college for mechanics in Bronziany. After finishing college he became chief mechanic at the vehicle yard in Yedintsy. A year later he went to serve in the army. When he returned his school friend and distant relative invited him to a wedding where he met the bride's best friend, a Jewish girl called Hanusia. She was finishing her studies at the Chernovtsy Pharmaceutical Institute at the time. They began to see each other and got married shortly afterwards. My brother moved to Chernovtsy and began to work as a chief mechanic at the Central Post Office Vehicle Yard. He worked there until he retired. Hanusia was a pharmacist in a drugstore. My brother and his wife observe Jewish traditions and celebrate Jewish holidays. They have two daughters who live in Chernovtsy. One of them is an accountant at Hesed; the other one is a businesswoman. The older daughter's son studied at school in Israel and now he's in the army there.

I never faced any anti-Semitism at work. I'm not saying that there wasn't any, but everything depends on people. I worked among intelligent people and they understood that there are no bad nations just bad people. I was judged by my actions rather than my nationality. Apart from me there was only one other Jewish woman at work, but I had very warm relationships with all of my colleagues.

We spoke Russian and Yiddish at home. My parents always preferred Yiddish and Moldavian to Russian. My children have known Yiddish since their childhood. When they grew up we began to study Hebrew with them. My daughter entered the Chernovtsy Medical School and became a midwife in a polyclinic in Chernovtsy after she finished her studies. She married her fellow student, Semyon Gofman, in 1978. They had a traditional Jewish wedding. We arranged a wedding party in a restaurant and a chuppah at home. A rabbi from the synagogue conducted the wedding ceremony. There were only our closest relatives and the rabbi at the celebration at our home. The rabbi conducted the ceremony under the chuppah, said a prayer, then the bride and bridegroom sipped wine and broke the glass. After that they had a civil ceremony at the registry office and a party at the restaurant. My granddaughter, Elizabeth, was born in 1982. When Elizabeth was 7 my daughter moved to Israel with her. It took her some time and effort to find a job there, but gradually things improved. My granddaughter served her term in the army and now she is a first year student at university. My daughter and son-in-law work. My daughter is a nurse at a maternity home.

My son finished the Chernovtsy Road Transport College and got a job in Chernovtsy. He is a valued employee. Michael married a Ukrainian girl. I wanted him to marry a Jewish girl, though. I was afraid that my son might face anti-Semitism in his own family. Thank God, this didn't happen. They love each other dearly and have two wonderful children, and that's the most important thing for me. My older grandson, Roman, was born in 1988 and my granddaughter Anna was born in 1995. My son and his family live in Chernovtsy. My son doesn't observe any Jewish traditions, but it's his life and his family and he should know what's best for him.

My father died in 1982 and my mother in 1983. They were both buried according to Jewish traditions in the Jewish cemetery in Chernovtsy. Every year on Rosh Hashanah my husband and I go to the cemetery. My husband recites the Kaddish, and I hope that some time our son will pray for us.

My husband and I visited Israel in 1990. My husband's brothers and our daughter and her family live there. I admired the country. I felt at home, but moving there was never an issue for us. We couldn't leave our parents, and they were too old to move.

My husband and I are pensioners now. We have a lot of free time. I can spend more time reading. I read a lot about the history of the Jewish people. It's a tragic history. Although there has been no anti-Semitism on the state level after the USSR fell apart I have a feeling that it's still there. It's true that Jews can openly go to the synagogue, have communities, watch Jewish programs on TV and listen to Jewish radio. However, there are newspapers in Ukraine that openly blame Jews for all the problems in Ukraine saying that Jews have embezzled the country. And the writers of these articles are respectable people. Intelligent and educated people should know that there are different people regardless of nationality or belief. I believe these authors try to gain popularity - at least in certain circles of society. They choose a Jewish subject hoping to have followers that are not used to think about things themselves. That's the wrong path. There was a slogan in Russia once which stated, 'Beat the kikes to rescue Russia'. They exterminated or chased away all Jews, but it didn't help Russia. I think, these people are all like Hitler. Hitler also took this path. The authorities either can't or don't want to put an end to it. I'm afraid for my grandchildren and for the future of the world. The world will be on the edge of collapse until people learn to respect each other.

When Jewish organizations, such as Hesed, were established in Chernovtsy they took their place in the life of our family. My husband and I receive food packages. We have such a miserable pension, so that's a great support. I attend a number of clubs at Hesed. My son and I attend a course of Hebrew. Every week I attend a club for older people. I made new friends at Hesed. I go to the club for 'Students of the Torah' and attend the literature club on Wednesday. My husband and I often spend Sabbath and holidays with our friends at Hesed. Our friends often come to see us, we listen to music and have tea. We also discuss world news and books.

Glossary

1 Bessarabia

Historical area between the Prut and Dnestr rivers, in the southern part of Odessa region. Today it is part of Moldavia. Bessarabia was part of Russia until the Revolution of 1917. In 1918 it declared itself an independent republic, and later it united with Romania. The Treaty of Paris (1920) recognized the union but the Soviet Union never accepted this. In 1940 Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR. The two provinces had almost 4 million inhabitants, mostly Romanians. Although Romania reoccupied part of the territory during World War II the Romanian peace treaty of 1947 confirmed their belonging to the Soviet Union.

2 Great Patriotic War

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

3 Transnistria

Area between the Dnestr and Bug Rivers and the Black Sea. The word Transnistria derived from the Romanian name of the Dnestr River - Nistru. The territory was controlled by Gheorghe Alexianu, governor appointed by Ion Antonescu. Several labor camps were established on this territory, onto which Romanian Jews were deported from Bessarabia and Bukovina in 1941-1942. The most feared camps were Vapniarka, Ribnita, Berezovka, Tulcin and Iampol. Most of the Jews died between 1941-1943 because of horrible living conditions, diseases, and lack of food.

4 Iron Guard

Extreme right wing political organization in Romania between 1930-1941, led by C. Z. Codreanu. The Iron Guard propagated nationalist, Christian-mystical and anti-Semitic views. It was banned for its terrorist activities (e.g. the murder of Romanian prime minister I. Gh. Duca) in 1933. In 1935 it was re-established as a party named 'Everything for the Fatherland', but it was banned again in 1938. It was part of the government in the first period of the Antonescu regime, but it was then banned and dissolved as a result of the unsuccessful coup d'état of January 1941. Its leaders escaped abroad to the Third Reich.

5 Cuzist

Member of the Romanian fascist organization named after Alexandru C. Cuza, one of the most fervent fascist leaders in Romania, who was known for his ruthless chauvinism and anti-Semitism. In 1919 Cuza founded the LANC, which became the National Christian Party in 1935 with an anti-Semitic program.

6 Campaign against 'cosmopolitans'

The campaign against 'cosmopolitans', i.e. Jews, was initiated in articles in the central organs of the Communist Party in 1949. The campaign was directed primarily at the Jewish intelligentsia and it was the first public attack on Soviet Jews as Jews. 'Cosmopolitans' writers were accused of hating the Russian people, of supporting Zionism, etc. Many Yiddish writers as well as the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in November 1948 on charges that they maintained ties with Zionism and with American 'imperialism'. They were executed secretly in 1952. The antisemitic Doctors' Plot was launched in January 1953. A wave of anti-Semitism spread through the USSR. Jews were removed from their positions, and rumors of an imminent mass deportation of Jews to the eastern part of the USSR began to spread. Stalin's death in March 1953 put an end to the campaign against 'cosmopolitans'. 7 Doctors' Plot: The Doctors' Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin's reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

8 Twentieth Party Congress

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

9 Mandatory job assignment in the USSR

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

Danuta Mniewska

Danuta Mniewska
Warsaw
Poland
Interviewer: Maria Koral
Date of interview: March/April 2006

Mrs. Danuta Mniewska lives in Warsaw in a new apartment building. Despite the broken leg she had suffered several months earlier, she gave me the impression of a very vigorous person. She emphasized, she never liked to sit idly. During our meetings, she told me her life story in a colorful and moving way, particularly the wartime events. Mrs. Mniewska appeared to be a cheerful person, always ready to altruistically help other people, and she is a committed member of the Jewish war-veteran associations and social and cultural clubs. She remarked on several occasions that she has never made her Jewish descent a secret.

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

My family history

I know nothing about my great-grandparents. My paternal grandparents lived in Grabow, in Leczyca County [some 50 km north-west of Lodz]. My grandfather's name was Josef - not Josek, but Josef - Mniewski. Grandmother's name was Frajda, nee Tajfel. She was born in Wloclawek [some 100 km north of Lodz] and came from a wealthy and educated family. Several of her relatives completed university studies - there was a dental surgeon, an architect - so that was a 'better' family. As for my grandparents - they certainly weren't white-collar workers. I don't know what they did, it was all a secret.

My father was born in Grabow in 1900. His name was Beniamin, and his parents called him Benjumo, the Jewish way. I know from family accounts that his two elder sisters, both in their teens, I suppose, died of influenza. To save my father, his parents went with him to the rabbi. The rabbi told them to dress him in white, and that was how he had to be dressed until the age of three. His parents obeyed that very scrupulously. I don't know those sisters' names, no one spoke about that. Death was generally something that you didn't discuss with children.

My father had his parents twisted around his little finger - the two daughters had died, and he was the youngest one, so he did what he wanted, he was like sacred. My grandparents wanted him to become a rabbi, but that of course was out of the question - he rebelled awfully. Didn't want to wear those robes, dressed the civilian way. But he certainly had a bar mitzvah. He studied at home with private tutors. I don't think he ever tried to pass the high school finals, he didn't need it - he didn't even think about higher studies because he married early.

It was in Grabow my father met his future wife, my mother. I have no idea what their wedding was like. His parents were strongly opposed to the marriage, but my father was terribly in love with my mother. She was a poor girl and my grandmother didn't want her beloved son to marry a girl without dowry - she wanted a princess for him. And the ladies disliked each other, disliked each other terribly.

My mother was born in Lodz in 1901. Her name was Ewa Ryza. Her parents were Grandfather Israel and Grandmother Mala; I don't remember her maiden name. I think they came from Lodz, though I'm not sure. It was a beautiful story, their marriage, I learned about it years later and I was moved. My grandmother was an orphan and when she was just ten years old, and my grandfather was eleven or twelve, they got engaged. Afterwards, when they were about to marry, people started telling my grandfather, 'Come on, drop it, you don't have to. You promised, but you don't have to. She's a poor girl, she has nothing.' And he said, 'What?! Not only is she an orphan but I'm to do such harm to her, humiliate her by abandoning her this way?' And he married her.

My grandparents had six kids: three daughters - the eldest one was Cela, then Ewa, and the third one was Bela, and three sons - Maks, Josef, and the youngest one, Szoel, or Szolek. All, I think, were born in Lodz. During World War I, my mother moved with her parents and relatives to Grabow, because it was a small town and life in Lodz was rather hard. And they spent the war there. I don't know what my grandparents did in Grabow.

That was where my parents met each other and got married; I think it was in 1922. My sister Helena was born in 1923, and I was born in 1925. My name was Gusta, or Guta. But when I was still a child my parents started calling me Danka [diminutive for Danuta] and it stuck. When I was two years old, my parents moved from Grabow to Lodz. They had a contact there, because, as I understand it, my mother's parents and their children had already gone back to Lodz. My mother no longer wanted to live in Grabow after they had all left.

My father's parents stayed in Grabow. They were recluses, didn't keep in touch with anyone, or no one wanted to keep in touch with them. They were completely alone - an old man and an old lady. Grandfather had nothing to do with those Jews from Grabow. Why were they so reclusive...? I don't know how they earned their living, I was a small child, I didn't pry, didn't ask - I wasn't interested in that at all. I know my father helped them a lot.

In Lodz we lived in a Polish neighborhood, because there were more Poles than Jews. Not in one of those ghettos there, like Baluty [a poor, predominantly working-class neighborhood inhabited before the war mainly by Jews], but near Hallera Square, on 1 Maja Street. People used to say 'pasa Szulca' before the [first world] war so I suppose it was 'Pasaz Szulca' [pasaz - here: street]. It wasn't downtown - it was somewhere between downtown and the suburbs. We lived in apartment #71, in a three-story tenement house, quite a decent one. The landlord was a Jew named Zdanowski. The barracks of the 28th Kaniowski Rifle Regiment were right next door, so many officers lived in the area. And many Germans. It was a very beautiful street - lined up with wonderful chestnut trees.

My parents had two rooms with a kitchen on the first floor. There was electricity, coal-fired tiled stoves, a toilet. A servant who lived with us slept in the kitchen. She was Polish, her name was Regina Kus, a young girl; she may have been eighteen or nineteen. She came from the countryside and stayed with us for a couple of years.

My parents were both very handsome. My father had a somewhat Semitic look, he wore glasses and had a crooked nose. He was a very intelligent and wise man, but he had no specific profession. In those days, Jews took up whatever occupation they could. I know there was a period when my father had a halva factory in partnership with one Mr. Liberman. I remember both: the name and the guy - a small, plump individual. I visited the factory once - I don't remember where it was - a large factory room. I guess they operated for some two years, but then went bust. Mr. Liberman went to Argentina and my father was left with the debts to pay.

Then my father worked as manager at several large houses in Lodz. My father was a great guy, a wonderful man. He was a very active Zionist, a member of the Hatechija party [Editor's note: no information on a party of that name could be found]. That was for grown-ups, and the youth organization was called Hanoar Hatzioni 1. I know it was a conservative party - not the revisionists, not Jabotinsky 2, but the center-right. I don't know when it was founded, who was the leader. My father went to party meetings but I don't know where they were held. I never met any of his fellow party members. He subscribed to the periodical Haynt 3, which was in Yiddish. He spoke Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew and fluently German; he was familiar with German literature.

My mother was lovely. Lively, cheerful, liked by everyone, very vigorous, and she liked to work. She ran a colonial store, a grocery. It was a single room, on the first floor, in the same house on 1 Maja Street where we lived. The servant, Regina, helped her.

My mother loved to party, she went to dance with her friends to the Tabarin. It was a dancehall at Narutowicza Street, in fact, it was still there for many years after the war. My mother had a wonderful voice, so much so that when some guy once heard her at some charity ball, he approached her and said he would pay for her education, that he would take her to Vienna so that she could study at the conservatory there. But she was a married woman and my father said no. She wasted such a wonderful, strong voice - a soprano. She sang Polish and Ruthenian songs at home, I don't remember precisely what. She had very many virtues, but as far as the intellectual ones go, she had none - to read a book, or even an article in a newspaper...

My mother obviously went to a Polish school as a girl, because she could read and write Polish. We spoke Polish at home. But when talking to my grandparents, my parents switched to Yiddish. My maternal grandparents called her Chawcia [Polish diminutive for Chave]. They spoke poor Polish, understood everything, but speaking was a problem. Those were people who had attended the cheder, received Talmudic education. I understood Yiddish but I spoke Polish to them. I remember this funny episode with my grandfather: I may have been eight or nine years old. My grandmother sneezed, and my grandfather kept waiting. Then he uttered, 'When Grandmother sneeze, Granddaughter do nothing?'

When my grandparents came from Grabow, they moved into an apartment at Zeromskiego Street. Then they moved to 1 Maja Street because an apartment at #73, next door to us, had been vacated - a very modest one, just a room with a kitchen. My grandfather had a house finishing business, had employees, craftsmen, and they finished newly-built houses - wall painting, windows, that sort of thing. Grandfather didn't look like a Jew at all - had a gray beard, blue eyes. In fact, all the relatives from the maternal side, as I remember them, were very handsome, not Semitic-looking at all. Fair-haired, blue-eyed.

Grandfather wore a Jewish-style peaked cap, and at home, I think, he wore a yarmulka. He had a tallit and went to the synagogue, of course. My grandmother was small, petite, very delicate. My grandfather did everything - carried her wigs to the hairdresser, cooked fish in aspic every Friday. If there was a high holiday, we went to my grandparents'. Above all, for Easter [Pesach] - I remember the seders, the solemn dinners. Then the sad holidays - the trumpets [Rosh Hashanah]. From time to time we went to them for the Saturday chulent. I remember the Feast of the Booths [Sukkot]. I liked it very much, I wanted to eat in that booth because it was so nice, so much greenery. The booth stood in the yard, against the wall.

I don't remember any special holiday dishes. Of course, my grandparents kept a kosher kitchen. I know that when they visited us, they never touched anything - they didn't trust my mother with respect to kosher food. Because my grandparents lived very close to us, the official version was that we separated dairy from meat, but in fact no one paid attention to that in our house.

For the holidays [Pesach] there was matzah, not because it was ritual food, simply because it was a delicacy. Handmade, round and thick. There were many Jewish bakeries in Lodz at every corner. And there was a rabbi who made sure the right kind of flour was used and there were no pieces of bread anywhere.

For the high holidays, like Judgment Day [Yom Kippur] or New Year [Rosh Hashanah], my parents went to the synagogue to pray for the dead. My father did so very reluctantly, he was an atheist, but he did it for my mother. And my mother did it for her parents. A mezuzah hung on the doorpost, Grandfather wouldn't have otherwise entered such an apartment. My mother loved her parents - God forbid offending them in any way! She lit the candles on Friday night. I remember she always embraced those candles, then covered her eyes with her hands and sighed. And when she sighed, I would cry.

We didn't celebrate any other holidays at home; there was no need, because we always went to my grandparents'. The other grandparents, the paternal ones, who stayed back in Grabow, I didn't know well. There was some contact between my father and the Tajfels, his maternal-side relatives. I remember that once his cousin from Wloclawek visited us who was very keen to get married. I remember that girl because it was a sensation for us - to arrange a marriage for her. But I don't think anything came out of it - she didn't find a husband.

Growing up

For a year or a year and half I went to a kindergarten at Gdanska Street. I may have been four. The place was co-ed. Two ladies ran it, in Polish. I was the lead actress, as various shows were staged - a prince came, the princess died, etc. - and I was always the top of the bill. I also remember going with my mother to see Little Red Riding Hood; that was a major experience. It was at the Scala on Srodmiejska Street [presently Wieckowskiego], where the Nowy Theater was after the war. They staged shows for kids to make some money. And the girl ran away from the wolf, ran around the whole house, and the wolf behind her - there was screaming, there was crying, I huddled up against my mother, screaming as well.

My father was a stay-at-home, a very calm man. He sat at home with us girls. The children didn't bother him at all. My sister and I quarreled all the time. She didn't want to play with me, I didn't want to play with her. I remember periods when my father read me stories from the 'Ogniwo', which was a magazine, partly in Hebrew, partly in Polish. It featured beautiful, deeply moving stories for children. My sister wasn't interested. I'd sit on my father's lap and he'd read those stories to me and I'd listen, holding my breath. If there was something sad, I'd cry, and he'd stroke me on the head - he loved it when I cried because it meant I was a sensitive, good child.

Later, when I was able to read myself, I had a couple of beloved books - The Paul Street Boys [by Ferenc Molnar (1878-1952), Hungarian writer], all those Rodziewiczowna novels [Maria Rodziewiczowna (1863-1944) Polish author of highly popular romances and novels of manners].

At the age of six I went to elementary school, at Zeromskiego Street. After a couple of days they moved me to second grade because I could already read and write well. I hadn't studied before, but I could. And that ultimately proved my misfortune, that destroyed me, that ease - because I didn't feel like studying at all. I went there for two years, I think. When I was to go to fourth grade, my parents moved me to the school where my sister went - at the corner of Zielona and Zakatna Street, which was later renamed to Pogonowskiego [in 1936]. Zielona was a rather long street, running from the Hallera Square, I think, to Piotrkowska [Lodz's main street]. On the way it crossed Zeromskiego, where my grandparents lived, and there was the so- called green market there - an open-air market, and then those streets across: Gdanska, Wolczanska, Kosciuszki.

There were some 40 of us in the class, only girls, only Jews. It was a Polish-language school, the only difference being that we didn't go to school on Saturdays but instead on Sundays. I remember we started every day by singing 'When the Lights of Dawn Arise' [religious song with words by poet Franciszek Karpinski, (1741-1825)]. That's how it was, we knew it, I don't know whence, but we had in our blood. Let alone the fact when Marshal Pilsudski 4 died in 1935, there was massive national mourning - we all wore the black ribbons.

My sister and I went to a ballet school. Actually, ballet school is too serious a word; the place had no official qualifications. It was called the School of Dance and Arts. The classes took place in a rented room somewhere, I don't remember where. I was eight or nine years old at the time. My sister was good at it and I wasn't. From time to time a show was staged for the girls to demonstrate what they had learned, the parents were happy that they had such talented children -everything was alright.

I went to gymnasium automatically - upon completing six grades, when I was 13. It was the Eugenia Jaszunska School at 18 Poludniowa Street [presently Rewolucji 1905 Roku Street], on the other side of Piotrkowska, not far from where we lived. The classes started at 8am and ended at 2pm, there was no school on Saturdays. The students - only Jews, thirty-something girls in the class. The building was a tenement house, a three-story one, I think, which had been converted to a school. That was the kind of school that the average man could afford.

The headmistress I remember as a very old lady. The deputy headmaster and math teacher was called Cyrusz. Mr. Jackel taught German - a great teacher. There was also Hebrew and religion, unnecessarily, because we tormented the teacher so hard I actually pitied him. His name was Hurwicz. He had to earn his living and here no one wanted to even think about Hebrew and religion, we teased him terribly. It was complete mockery, really.

I really didn't like to study. I had to be given private lessons. My sister was the same. We were in the same class because I skipped one grade in elementary school. Our father always complained, 'We're paying so much for your education and you don't want to study.' It was thirty zlotys a month. When you had two children to pay for, it was a very substantial expense.

You also had to pay for the private lessons, of course. The coach taught us everything, she was our distant maternal-side cousin, Regina Milichtajch. A very talented and diligent girl, she completed the renowned Ab Gymnasium at Zielona Street [Jozef Lajb Ab (1863-1941): educator; founder, owner and headmaster of the Girls' School of Commerce, converted 1918 into an arts- oriented Girls' Gymnasium, named after him from 1931, and awarded official gymnasium status in 1938]. Jewish kids went there, but all the classes, of course, were in Polish. Regina was a great student, and her parents were poor. So it meant a lot to her to be able to earn the extra few zlotys.

I always liked to do what I felt like doing. I was deeply involved with theater. Performances were staged at school, and there was also a cinema fans' circle. I was in charge of that and I remember I went to the Capitol movie theater at the corner of Zawadzka Street [presently Prochnika] and Zachodnia, to ask the manager to give us a discount. It made sense for him to admit some kids and he gave us a free ticket for each ten so we all went to that cinema, to all screenings. We loved those actors, after all: Tyrone Power [(1913-1958), American actor], Greta Garbo [(1905-1990), Swedish-born American actress].

When I was still in elementary school, eight to nine years old, I joined the Gordonia 5, simply a home-inherited tradition. I wasn't there long, a year and half, but I remember everything very vividly. My sister joined too. It was a scouting organization. On Zeromskiego, in a tenement house, there was that big room. Attendance was usually quite high - some thirty kids, boys and girls. We sang Hebrew songs, recited poems, danced the hora 6. There was talk about Palestine.

The elders, who ran the whole thing, may have been some 20 years old. They organized summer camps, rented barns from peasants near Lodz, and we slept on hay, on straw. It was a beautiful period. I remember the stalking game - there was a flagpole and you kept guard. And when it was my turn to keep guard with another boy, I started crying, I got terribly frightened bad people were coming because I heard that heavy breathing. In fact, we both shivered and held hands. We eventually raised an alarm and then it turned out it was just cows. We were so frightened, we didn't know all that. It was wonderful.

In the summer we went to visit my grandparents in Grabow, always by bus - there was no other possibility. There was a privately-owned coach company, or a few, and they operated buses that departed from Lutomierska Street in Lodz. The route was Ozorkow - Leczyca - Grabow [towns 20, 35 and 50 km north-west of Lodz]. It wasn't far but you rode for some two hours. In Grabow, the bus arrived at the market square, opposite my grandparents' balcony. Grandfather always stood there and waited for his little darlings.

I didn't like to go there, somehow I wasn't attracted to them, I didn't have anything to talk about with them. They loved my sister very much, the first grandchild, I was in the background. I remember Grandmother, I see her in my mind's eye. An old woman, like all ladies - when I was a girl, I saw her as old even when she was just 40. She wore a wig, kept kosher. Grandfather wore a Jewish-style cap, but I don't know where and how he prayed.

They had a nice apartment, a room with a kitchen, on the second floor. And there was a balcony, the only one in the whole market square, in Grabow's sole storied house. There was no running water; I guess the shabesgoyim brought it from outside. I remember the stairs, sprinkled with yellow sand so that it was clean. And on the first floor a grocery, a general store in fact: this and that... The owner's name was Mrs. Stankiewiczowa. Once or twice a week there was a fair in the market place, many peasants came. So it was a kind of half-town, half-village, the true shtetl, very many Jews lived there, chiefly tanners. I know there was a Jewish cemetery. I remember that if there was a funeral, we weren't allowed to go there; we weren't allowed to watch - only from afar. All those small towns looked the same, I was always extremely fond of them.

I remember one summer, in 1935 or 1936, I spent with my mother in Busko Zdroj [health resort some 160 km south-east of Lodz]. I went there with my mother only, as her chaperone, so that she always had someone to accompany her. We lived in a boarding house. One night I woke up and my mother wasn't there. I burst into tears - where is Mama, where is Mama?! My mother, it turned out, had gone to a dance but told the woman next door to come to me if I woke up. I remember that because it was a terrible experience.

Two or three years before the war my mother launched a boarding house of her own near Glowno [town 30 km north-east of Lodz]. It was a summer-resort area, dachas 7, boarding houses, in villages like Nowy Ciechocinek, Stara Ciechocinka, Nowe Zakopane, Nowa Ciechorajka, but how the place was called where my mother had the boarding house, I don't remember. It was a single- story house, or a villa, with a dozen or so rooms. During the season my mother lived there, I think. She had employees, because you had to cook, you had to clean, you had to serve the food. Young married couples were the typical clientele. I didn't tell Poles from Jews at the time, but I guess it was for Jews. The business was in operation until the war, in fact, it only started picking up steam.

What was happening in Poland in the 1930s 8 hurt us terribly. I remember in Lodz, in the house where we lived, also on the first floor, there lived a young married couple - very nice people. His name was Saul Jerozolimski. He had a wife and a little baby girl. I liked them very much, and they liked me too, so it was a mutual affinity. And they emigrated to Palestine. It may have been 1935. I don't know what happened to them. They exchanged letters with someone from our house, perhaps with my parents too, and once they wrote it was being hard for them. My parents never thought about going to Palestine, they had no money for that. You had to have some foothold there - a job, a house. I don't think they would have gone to a kibbutz - my father would have agreed, but my mother would certainly have not.

My mother's brother Maks and her eldest sister Cela lived abroad. It was a romantic story with Uncle Maks, I learned about it only later. He had a fiancée and they even bought the rings, all that stuff. But in the meantime he fell in love with his cousin, Pola Milichtajch, who was related to Regina Milichtajch, my private teacher. In fact, I don't think the cousin loved him, but he loved her very much. And they made an agreement - he kidnapped her and they went to Germany, it was back in the 1920s. Their three daughters - Bella, Ruth, and Hanna - were born there.

Bella was two years older than me, and Ruth and Hanna were a tiny bit younger. They came to Poland, to Lodz, from time to time because they had families here. It was always a feast, there were gifts, each child got something. I spoke Polish to my auntie and uncle, they spoke Polish well. And with the girls I spoke German because, as a gymnasium student, I had already developed a basic knowledge of it.

They lived in München-Gladbach [presently Mönchengladbach]. They owned a very elegant fur store - a corner building adjacent to three streets, so it was a really large store. Besides that, they also owned a textile factory. And because Uncle was mad about girls, which was actually public knowledge in the family, one of his employees in the factory accused him of flirting with her. And in 1935, I think it was, he got a year and half for 'Rasseschänden' [German for: defilement of the race], was one of the first prisoners of Dachau 9. After a year they made him an offer: if he agrees to leave Germany immediately, they'll cancel the final six months of the sentence. He accepted that gladly, got released, and came to Poland, to his family.

His wife, Aunt Pola - Paula in Germany - stayed back to run the business: the fur store, the factories. Uncle spent several months in Poland, then left for Italy, for Milan. There he started settling down, his two daughters came to him. And Aunt wound up all her businesses to cash in. The mayor of München-Gladbach helped her to leave. In 1938, my aunt and her eldest daughter were expelled to Zbaszyn 10. My father went to pick them up and together they returned to Lodz. Aunt Pola was a vigorous, very wise person - in August 1939 she secured a passport with an entry visa to some South American country with the right of transit through Italy. And there she met her husband and her daughters.

Back when they were still in Germany, my mother's and Uncle Maks's youngest sister, Bela, stayed with them for a couple of years. I think she studied there, worked, I don't know exactly. I remember when she came back from Germany - smelling of the West - all elegant, beautiful. In Lodz she got married. His name was Feliks, I don't remember the last name. They lived in Lodz on Sienkiewicza Street. I know they had a store selling citrus fruit, that kind of thing, but it didn't do well. It wasn't a successful marriage. My grandparents virtually couldn't bear the sight of him because of his inability to provide for her. The family hated him, and he virtually prohibited Aunt from seeing us. Perhaps they loved each other in their own way... They had a lovely daughter, Hania, much younger than myself.

My mother's second brother, Josef, also lived in Lodz. I don't remember where, I don't know what he did for a living. He had a wife named Lonia and two children - a boy named Mietek and a girl, whose name I can't recall. They were more or less my age, a difference of a year or two at most. Our aunts and uncles spoke Polish to us and their children, though of course they knew Yiddish, and to my grandparents they spoke Yiddish. I also remember that all of my mother's brothers played violin.

My mother's eldest sister, Cela Grajman, emigrated with her family in the early 1930s to Palestine. Her four kids had been born in Poland: Rachel, Szmuel, Bracha - my age - and the youngest one, Salomon; they called him Salek. Uncle went first. Later, when Aunt joined him with the kids, it was very hard for them, as they had nothing to live on. Their kids, in their teens, joined the Haganah 11.

Around 1937 my grandparents with their youngest son, Szolek, joined them in Palestine. It was very hard for them there - Grandfather suffered from anemia. Szolek dreamed of staying and begged his parents, cried like a child, for them to let him stay, that he would settle down somehow. Grandfather didn't want to agree - Szolek was supposed to take over the management of his business in Lodz. And so my grandparents returned with their son in 1938, returned to Poland...

I didn't experience any anti-Semitism before the war. But you heard things. I remember when the pogroms took place, in Przytyk 12, there was talk about that, people were scared. Then, when the boycott of ritual meat 13 came, I was already a teenager, I may have been twelve years old, so I understood certain things.

I also remember my grandfather telling me a story - he had that house décor business - about the daughter of the owner of one of those big houses who one day came home - they had a beautiful apartment - and, following one of those anti-Semitic affairs, started throwing out, breaking all those crystal vases, shouting she didn't need all that, she didn't want to be a second-rate citizen. She was roughly my age and I was greatly impressed - such courage, and she was right, after all, why consent to such a life when you can arrange things quite differently.

In 1938, when all Poles marched towards Zaolzie [in October 1938 Poland annexed Zaolzie, an area in northern Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Poles], and there was a huge demonstration, it all started, of course, with the beating of Jews. So I was close to all that. And later, we didn't even want to think about that...

During the war

My father was heavily involved in the Zionist organization, so when the Germans marched in [German troops occupied Lodz on 9th September 1939] and started arresting people - Jews in the first place - my parents decided to go to Czestochowa [large town 100 km south-west of Lodz], to their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Szymkiewicz. Those were friends back from Lodz, they used to live on the same street as us. A mixed marriage, him a Jew, her a Pole. He was a violin player at the Lodz Philharmonic, she was from Czestochowa. And so in December 1939 my parents closed down the store, locked up the apartment. Everyone was fleeing from Lodz, because Lodz was very dangerous.

I remember, when we stood in a queue for bread, for butter, the first one to be taken from the queue was myself, my sister was the last one, and my mother they didn't touch at all - she had great looks. My sister is also a blonde, I was dark. [Editor's note: the harassment by German soldiers of people with Semitic looks was an early form of persecution even before ghettos were created]. And so we left, for three or four months, we thought, because after three months the war was supposed to end and we would return to Lodz, return home. So my parents took only the bare necessities, just to manage somehow. We left with my grandparents, on the same wagon.

Mr. and Mrs. Szymkiewicz rented an apartment for us, a studio, in a working- class neighborhood called Rakow, in the suburbs of Czestochowa, near a steel plant. I don't remember the street name. We lived together with my grandparents. That was just to wait out - there was no electricity, only carbide light, water in the yard. My parents were selling out the things we had taken with us. In fact, everyone lived off petty trade. There was no work, unless you were a young man and joined the Jewish police 14. Well, doctors, craftsmen - tailors, shoemakers - they had work.

A Polish woman lived next door to us, was a very good neighbor. When she bought pork fat, she also bought for us - me and my sister - and made lard, so that we could eat, because butter was expensive, meat was expensive. And that small pot of lard always stood in her kitchen - we'd take a slice of bread and go to Mrs. Nowak. We liked that very much. My grandparents probably guessed we ate pork, but didn't want to show they knew. They surely ate only kosher, that wasn't difficult, because they ate little, and only simple foods.

We weren't allowed to go to school. But there was a lady, Ms. Skapska, who had been displaced from Poznan, and she taught me and my sister English. I loved her because she was a great teacher. She was able to keep your attention, and I was making such great progress - my orthography was excellent, my pronunciation was excellent. She was enchanted with me, I was enchanted with her. But one day she came to us and said, 'Listen, I'm scared. I need the money, of course. So please, don't be angry with me, but I'm scared.' And that was the end... Then came some other teacher - but it wasn't the same, I no longer felt like learning English.

I had very many friends there, Poles, of course, because there were virtually no Jews 15. We were all roughly the same age. We went to the church for service, that was where young people met. And so I knew all the ceremonies - how to cross yourself, how to pray, how to sing. As far as religion was concerned, I was able to go to the Aryan side right away.

And life was getting tougher. Aunt Bela came with her husband and daughter to join her sister and parents. They didn't live in Czestochowa but in the vicinity, the place was called Gidle, I think [a small town 30 km north- east of Czestochowa]. Her husband had a job - I don't know whether it was a German company - in any case, he operated a special tractor of some sort. They really lived from hand to mouth there. Then we lost touch with them.

My parents corresponded with my mother's elder brother, Josef. As soon as the Germans moved in, he left Lodz with his wife and kids and went to Tomaszow Mazowiecki [40 km south-east of Lodz, 100 km north-east of Czestochowa], where his wife's family lived. My parents and Uncle Josef wrote letters to each other, because Jews weren't banned from using the postal service.

One day we had to sell a fur coat. Uncle wrote to us from Tomaszow that he would find a buyer there but first he needed the fur coat. There was no one to take it there, we all wore the badges 13 by then, there was a death penalty for Jews for riding on the bus or train. I was almost 15 years old and I said, 'I'll go, I'm not afraid. I'll take off the badge, borrow a school ID from a friend of mine and I'll go to Tomaszow. I'm sure I'll do well.' My parents debated for a long time. Finally they packed the coat into a suitcase and on a Sunday morning I went by train from Czestochowa to Piotrkow [75 km north-east of Czestochowa] where I changed to a bus. I felt very grown-up, that they had decided to rely on me at all, that I would carry out such an important transaction, and that as a Jew - so it's part adventure, part being of help to my parents.

So I'm in Piotrkow, having to wait for a longer while for the bus to Tomaszow. And at some point there sits next to me a boy several years older than myself - very nice, very handsome. It's nice, and he says, 'Have you already been to mass today?' And he offers - there's a church nearby, he lives opposite it - to take my suitcase and we'll go to mass. I wasn't afraid to go into a church because I knew perfectly well how to behave. I gave that suitcase to him and started thinking to myself: 'He is able to tell from my eyes, everyone knows Jewish girls have dark and sad eyes. Or perhaps he is a thief? I can't return home without that coat, if I don't have it, I'll have to commit suicide. So not only will my parents lose the coat, they'll also lose their child...'.

I'm standing in the church, praying to God - no matter which one - and my only prayer is 'God, let all this end happily.' After mass the boy comes along with me to carry that suitcase. He says, 'Give me your name and some address so that I know who you are, so we can keep in touch somehow.' So I gave him the name and address of the friend from whom I had borrowed the ID. I returned home all proud, didn't say a word to my parents about that encounter. And a couple of days later that friend comes to me and says, 'What have you been up to again? Do you know I've received a love letter?!' It was from that boy... Those were the small tragedies of small kids - I was 14 and a half and thinking about suicide...

In 1941 all Jews from those suburbs around Czestochowa were ordered to move to the ghetto. We took up residence at Dreszera Street, near Joselewicza. It was a large house with annexes. We were allotted two kitchens by the Judenrat 17. In one annex were my parents; in the other were Grandfather, Grandmother, me and my sister. It was living in terrible, cramped conditions, living in constant fear.

I told my parents I'd go to the hospital to apprentice as a nurse. The provisional hospital was in a two-story building on Przemyslowa, and it was the only hospital in the ghetto. I know from other people's accounts that before the war the Jewish hospital was in a completely different place, in Zawodzie, I guess - a large, wealthy, very good hospital financed by the Jewish Community [today's L. Rydygier Hospital at Mirowska Street in the Zawodzie neighborhood, built in 1908]. But during the war I knew only the one at Przemyslowa. And indeed - I went there, gave people injections, washed the patients. Then I worked in the operating room, pouring the rubbing alcohol, tying up the aprons.

It sometimes happened, if someone was very rich and they had to operate him, that they brought professors from Cracow. I remember professor Zubrzycki [January Zubrzycki (1885-1969): obstetrician, gynecologist], professor Glatzel [Jan Glatzel (1888-1954): surgeon, author of new operating methods, propagator of modern surgery teaching], I think also Achmatowicz [Leon Achmatowicz (1894-?)], a great surgeon, an ethnic Ukrainian, and a sworn Jew-hater. The ghetto hadn't yet been closed. The full-time doctors were, of course, all Jews.

When I remember that hospital, it's really hard to believe that in such conditions it was so clean, so tidy. One of the directors was Doctor Jerzy Dobrzynski. They kept us on a short leash, we knew what to do, we learned a lot. Then came my sister, our parents had told her to find something to do. I, two years younger than her, was always the first to learn something. But the real reason why I worked there was a doctor, Mr. Rozenowicz, whom I was mad about - we were all infatuated with him. In any case, I remember working at that hospital as something that gave me a lot.

I remember that there, in the ghetto, my grandparents still celebrated the Jewish holidays, the religious Jews kept us together. One time Grandfather asked Uncle Maks, with whom my parents were in contact by mail, to send that sort of lemon from Milan - it was called the etrog [for Sukkot]. And indeed, it arrived. To this day I remember the address to which my parents wrote to Uncle in Milan: Via Frati Bronzetti 1, Milano.

It was 1942, May, June. One day my father received a letter from his parents in Grabow. I see him turn completely white in the face and I hear, 'How is this possible? Have they gone mad?' And my father starts crying, it was the first time in my life when I saw him crying. It turned out that they had written a farewell letter: 'By the time you'll be reading this, we'll be gone. The trucks are already waiting outside. We'll all be gassed.' A group of Jews came to us then. The elders were horrified, the youth laughed, didn't believe it. But that letter was the first sign that something horrible was taking place, because until then there was talk, there were fears, but nothing specific had so far happened.

Then came to us my parents' friends, came on their own with an offer to give shelter to me, my sister and my mother - but not to my father because he had Semitic looks. And my father said, 'You won't go anywhere. We're young, we're healthy' - they were barely above 40. 'If they take us to a camp, we'll work. We're staying together'. And he didn't let us go.

Then came the 'Bekanntmachungen', announcements, that the residents of this or that street were to line up on the street on this or that day at this or that hour, take food provisions with them. Someone came to us and said, 'Something incredible is happening. There are fifty cars, 100 people in each. At some point the Polish railway personnel get off, the Germans get in. Some hours later the train returns completely empty, clean. What happened to those people - five thousand people...' Panic starts - some believe, others don't. Someone fled from a transport, came and said, 'Save yourself...' People were going mad - started building shelters for themselves, underground bunkers. Sodom and Gomorrah.

When the rumors started we were going to a camp - no one yet knew it was a death camp - people started preparing bags of biscuits for the way. You bought bread, on the black market, I guess, sliced it and dried it. And then you kept it in a kind of pillowcase, to ensure ventilation. But people probably never got to eat that bread because they took it for the bleak hour, to the camp, where they were immediately killed.

It's the first day of the deportations, 22nd September 1942, and our street has been named. It's terribly hot, and my mother is pacing the room in a warm coat - up and down, from the door to the window, like a lioness - and trembling. My father still had some money, some gold rubles, so he gave two to my sister and two to me, sewed them into the sleeve of my jacket. And he said, 'Remember not to touch it. You can touch it only if you need to buy bread or to save your life. And go to the hospital, you'll be safer there'. And I flew out of the apartment. Quite like in those Chagall 18 paintings - simply flew... How can you bid somebody goodbye if you know you won't see them again... We already knew for sure at that point that it was death coming.

And suddenly I'm at the hospital. There's this doctor, Rozenowicz, 19 years older than myself, whom I was infatuated with, like a young girl. He came from a very good family on the distaff side, the Markowicz family. He studied medicine in Italy, after which, in 1938, I guess, he passed the Polish exams in Poznan, so he was a rightful gynecologist. And he tells me, 'Danusia, doctors can save their family members. I want to marry you. The rabbi lives on this and this street'. He couldn't go with me because he had just undergone an ulcer surgery, so he gave me his ID or passport and a declaration saying: 'I, Bronislaw Rozenowicz, want to take Miss so-and-so to be my wedded wife'. And so I went.

I didn't even know how to address the rabbi. I'm telling him, 'Listen, sir, I want to get married, he can save my life as a doctor. I'm begging you, this has no legal significance whatsoever'. No, he cannot do it. I'm starting to cry, and he says, 'Well, okay, but let your mother come to me'. I say: 'How can my mother come to you? I don't know whether she's still there...' And at that point I remembered about the coins sewed up in my sleeve. He took them and issued the document. And that was when my friendship with God ended, something died in me.

I returned to the hospital. I was already calm; I was a doctor's wife. There were many people there, above all doctors with their families. And my sister. The whole thing didn't last longer than two weeks because the liquidation of the Czestochowa ghetto went very swiftly. [Editor's note: the operation of removing Jews from the so-called large ghetto lasted from 22nd September to 6th October 1942].

The last day was such a horror one can never forget it. There were some 80 patients in the hospital - adults and kids, infants too, because there was a maternity ward there, it was the only hospital in the ghetto. I remember the terrible yelling, 'Raus! Raus!' [German for 'Get out!'] - The way they did it. Three trucks came. The doctors from outside the hospital got aboard with their families and they left. Shortly afterwards they returned - the Jewish cemetery was nearby, they were killing them there. Then another dispatch - the patients able to walk, the personnel helped them come down. Those were taken to the cemetery too. Then the bed-ridden ones, who had to be taken down to the courtyard. There the Germans told the doctors to give them a shot of morphine. Several young doctors refused. They were immediately executed, and when the rest saw they had no choice, they started giving them those injections.

Not all patients fell asleep quickly - they lay there, breathing, still alive. And the Germans told the staff to strangle them with towels - wrap a towel or blanket around their neck and pull at both ends. Then, whether they were still alive or not, you had to throw them onto the truck. There were three or four newborns - warm, just taken away from their mothers. And up they landed on that pile of corpses, like a bag of potatoes... The last transport also went to the cemetery. And that left us, the staff - 20, 30 people - doctors, nurses, orderlies. We were taken to the 'Umschlagplatz' [German: transit point, originally the place in Warsaw from which Jews were transported by train from the ghetto to the death camps, here used as a category] where the selection took place. My husband, I and my sister were young and healthy, and we went to the right side, to life...

The labor camp in the small ghetto [several streets in the north-eastern part of the liquidated ghetto] had already been set up. It was the oldest Jewish quarter in the city, ramshackle houses; I don't know how people lived there before the war. A tiny camp - an enclave - surrounded by barbed wire. There were Jewish and Polish policemen, several Germans, the Ukrainians of course too. We secured a room in the loft of a two-story wooden shack and we were all three there.

At first the work was to clean the deserted neighborhood - you had to tidy things up, people needed for lodgings. Besides, the better things were being sent to Germany, so we segregated them, cleaned the apartments. That was a good job, we worked inside, and it had already gotten cold - it was mid-October. There was running water in those apartments, you could wash yourself, cold water, of course, no one dreamed of hot water anymore - but it was still a luxury. Besides, if you needed to change your underwear, you simply picked something from the things that had been left and changed.

You could also find something to eat - some biscuits, a bit of flour, some groats. Upon returning from work we received a plate of soup, even with pieces of horseflesh, and a bit of bread - there was a kitchen in the camp. In fact, food wasn't a problem there. I remember, for instance, when Jews, in collusion with the German guards and the policemen, brought a calf into the camp - dressed it in a coat, took it under the arms and brought it in. You could also smuggle in food for money or if you knew the right people.

There were supposed to be 4,000 people there, but there were more. Children and old people sat hidden in various hideouts, all those tiny shelters. In the same house where we lived, locked up in a room, my husband's aunt and uncle, Roman and Gienia [Genowefa] Markowicz, were hiding. Their two sons worked in the camp - Lucek [Lucjan] and Bolek [Boleslaw] with his wife Bronka [Bronislawa]. Their niece, Mirka [Miroslawa] Markowicz, was also with us in the camp.

Uncle Roman Markowicz was a very wise man. Before the war, he owned a textile factory in Bielsko [130 km south of Czestochowa] - very rich people. One day, at the camp, he told me that I had to change my job and join the column of those going to work on the Aryan side, so that I was in touch with the Poles. The point was to secure false papers for us 19. There were groups of people at the camp that worked at the Hasag 20, the Rakow [steel plant], the Czestochowianka or the Peltzery [pre-war textile factories, working for the German military industry during the war]. And so I joined one such group, of some 15 people, who worked at a large square at the outskirts of Czestochowa where the rubbish from all over the city was being brought.

Our job was to separate rags, glass, paper from that rubbish - it's called recycling these days. The company running that was called Ravo. We weren't guarded by Germans but by Ukrainians, Latvians, and the 'saulis' [Lithuanian for 'riflemen', a paramilitary organization that collaborated with the Nazis during the war]. The work was very tough, and it was already severe winter, but the square was where all the trade took place. The Aryans came to us - some produced false documents, others brought food, still others bought dollars from the Jews. And indeed, I secured those false IDs - I still had one of those gold coins my father had given me.

Uncle's various employees also came there - it was the only place because they weren't allowed to enter the camp. Uncle put great trust in his manager, Mr. Pastuszko - he was his 'banker.' And rightly, because he was a very decent man. Another one, Domzal, a young Home Army 21 soldier, took money from the 'banker' guy and brought to us. Uncle started thinking about setting up some hideout on the Aryan side; that eventually we'd have to escape from that camp. He asked a worker from his factory, Mrs. Siminska, to find someone who for money would prepare a hideout - a shelter.

The one who agreed to do it was called Klimczak. His wife was opposed to it, was afraid - they had a five-year-old daughter. A little house was bought in his name on the outskirts of the city, a neighborhood called Piaski, beyond the Jewish cemetery. He was to organize everything there, build a room for eight people. The house was now his property, and after the war he was also to receive a two-story house in Czestochowa and two building lots.

At the end of November the shelter wasn't yet ready, we were still in the camp. And one night I return from work to the so-called home and there everyone's crying, wailing. There was a raid; they were looking for people hiding away. Uncle and Aunt hid somehow, but Bronka, their daughter-in-law, and her mother were gone. Someone told us that two dead women lay by the fence. It was a frosty night, the moon shone, you could see everything. Bronka's husband and his brother crawled up to the wire. And indeed, they lay there. They buried them. They return home and it turns out the IDs are gone. No one knows what happened to them, whether the Germans took them or the Jewish police, the Polish police... Or perhaps Bronka and her mother took them before they ran away? So Bolek and Lucek return to the fence, dig them up, but find nothing.

Within a couple of hours we had to organize an escape from the camp. That wasn't a problem - you simply joined a column going outside. There were no Germans there, only Polish and Jewish police. Aunt, I and Uncle and Aunt's niece, Mirka, went to Klimczak's apartment. There was only one room there, the door was always open, no one bolted doors in those working-class apartments - if the neighbor wanted to enter, she simply entered. And we were hidden in a 'done' bed. During the day we had to lie flat under the eiderdown, you weren't allowed to move. During the night we went out. And the men and my sister went to the house that had been bought, pretending to be the foreman's helpers. That may have lasted some two weeks.

Then Uncle and Aunt hid with Domzal's father, and we set up in the shelter. The place had been prepared quite decently, three young people made the design. Both cousins completed technical studies before the war, Bolek in Belgium, Lucek - I don't know where. The house had some 90 square meters of floor space, a kitchen, two rooms. One of the rooms had been shortened, and the missing space was the shelter - a tiny room, 6 square meters. A three- level bunk bed, three people per level. You latched the door from the inside, and outside was turpentine, shoe polish, various kinds of chemicals so that when the dogs came, they wouldn't be able to nose out people. And a tiny narrow corridor where you had to squeeze through sideways.

In the daytime we sat in a room with a view of the road, far from the window, and kept guard, so that if someone went through the gate, we'd raise an alarm and - down to the hole. In the night Klimczak slept there with his wife. We stole power from a nearby pole, had electric heating. We also had a radio - Domzal's father had brought it, even though listening to radio was punishable by death. Klimczak's father, a simple old peasant, but of great decency and goodness - a wonderful man - brought us food.

I remember Uncle tried at the time to make sure we had as many such hideouts as possible, where you could flee in the case of an emergency. He paid someone to prepare another such cache, I don't remember in which part of the city. One day he said we needed to go there to check whether anything had in fact been prepared. He sent me. And I remember there were heads in every window watching me - watching the hunted Jewish animal. Everyone knew the Jews were preparing something but they were decent enough not to inform on us. I found the people who had taken money from us - of course they hadn't prepared anything. I returned to the shelter safely, I don't think anyone followed me.

One day Uncle and Aunt come to us and say: 'The old guy Domzal said someone had ferreted out there were Jews in his house, and he's afraid to keep us any longer'. And they stayed with us. A couple of days later we see someone enter through the gate - and so we all right into the hole, fast. A guy comes in a black leather coat, high-top boots. And he says: 'We know you're here, eight people' - and lists everyone's name and surname. He takes Uncle by the hand, 'What a beautiful skin, so delicate, it'll be good for gloves'. And he says it has to cost, the money will go to the underground. And so all the money he had Uncle had to withdraw from that guy Pastuszko. And we had to wait - either it'll work or it won't. We no longer had any means of escaping.

The man that came to blackmail us was called Zygmunt China 22. He was a high-ranking Home Army officer - the head of the Czestochowa area executive. We eventually became such friends with him that when we had no money, he'd bring us gold 20-dollar coins, if someone was sick, he'd help. Even his wife came to visit us on holidays, the Catholic ones. My husband and cousins started preparing materials for underground newsletters. They sat all day in front of the radio, listening to all the stations - they had studied abroad so they knew several languages. China did the rest.

I remember one day came a wagon with slaughtered pigs and rams. Zygmunt's people had carried out a raid on some Volksdeutscher farmer 23. And we had to dress all that meat. Officially, it went to the boys in the forest. But those that brought the stuff were robbers and the best stuff went to the AK leadership, leaving only bones for the partisans. So it was such a house - not only Jews, a radio, but also the meat...

Everyone argued with everyone else in the shelter - when you're under one roof, there's no way to avoid it. We didn't matter at all - neither me, nor my sister or Mirka - because we were young. But all the others argued constantly. It was horrible - we were afraid someone would get angry, go outside, and say, 'There are Jews here.' And that'd be the end.

One night Lucek had an appendix attack and screamed with pain. They gave him - there was a doctor, after all -something. He calmed down, fell asleep somehow. And two hours later there's banging on the door: 'Aufmachen! Aufmachen!' [German: 'open the door']. Shouting, terrible shouting, the landlord had to let them in. We trembled. We were afraid they would hear the rustle of the straw on which we lay, we trembled so hard out of fear. I needed to pee - because of the nerves and because it was the night... My husband and I slept on the third bunk, Bolek and Lucek below us, and Uncle and Aunt were at the bottom. So I'm on that top bunk and I think; 'Well, what do I care, I simply have to pee'. So they, on the second story, put their hands under the trickle so that the Germans wouldn't hear it... Bolek had already prepared his poison so that, when they entered, he'd manage to swallow it.

They searched for us for two hours. And didn't find us... They even searched for us in the well outside, in the garden. They took our landlord. We waited for a whole day, locked up in the shelter, afraid to even move. In the night, we went out to see whether the house had been sealed. Klimczak's father came and said his son had been taken, but that they had already contacted Zygmunt China. And Zygmunt arranged for the young Klimczak to be released. He bought him out, the AK had access to corrupt German officials. I don't know precisely what, where, and how. Perhaps my uncle knew, but the others didn't, we weren't let in on those things.

We lived there for a full two years - from December 1942 to January 1945. Towards the end of 1944, when the Germans were already fleeing, they seized part of the house and put four pilots there - they lived behind the wall. We behaved as if we didn't exist - silence, lock and bar. When they went out, Klimczak would knock on our door and tell us we could go out. Someone sat in front of the window at all times, so there was always time to go into the hole. That lasted for a month. Such miracles happened too.

A month before liberation Zygmunt China came to us. He told us the AK had passed a death sentence on us, that they wanted to liquidate us - so that after the war no one would know that they blackmailed us and took all our money. 'They'll throw in a couple of grenades to get rid of you. Because the Germans have issued an arrest warrant for me, I told them I'd hide with you: "If you waste them, you'll waste me. But I want you to know that I'm going to join them."' That's what he told us, but whether it was the truth, I don't know. And indeed he came to hide with us.

In mid-January [16th January 1945] the Russians marched in and he immediately went out of hiding. We were afraid the Germans could still come back. And on the same day the NKVD 24 arrested him. I think it was his wife who contacted us and told us about that. I was a young girl, unaware of things; I only knew he had been arrested. He spent two years in a camp in Siberia. He returned seriously ill, lived in Zabrze [60 km south-west of Czestochowa], founded some small business, I think. And soon afterwards he died. And with Domzal, the young AK member, we remained on the best possible terms. No one said anything about Zygmunt's blackmail offer even though we knew it was Domzal's doing, that it was him who had told Zygmunt about us.

After the war

After a couple of days we went out. We met a Russian officer - he had a very Semitic face - and we told him we were Jews and had been in hiding here. He told us: 'Flee from here, flee west as soon as you can'. When we went out, first of all we had nothing to put on ourselves. I had boots taken off dead German soldiers - odd ones. Rozenowicz had a paper suit. First we went to the Jewish Committee 25. And there they issued us a document - like they did to others - that we had been in a camp in Czestochowa, the Hasag. They gave us some clothes, allotted some lodgings, gave some food - we almost became human beings again. My sister, Helena, was with me all the time.

We went to Rakow, where we used to live with our parents - to see whether someone had shown up. And Mrs. Szymkiewiczowa told us: 'At the end of 1943, I received a letter from your father. He was no longer in the camp; he was hiding away in a haystack. He gave me the address and asked me to come to him. So I went to Kosow near Treblinka 26. I met with him'. My father cried terribly, promised her they'd be together - she had lost her husband - and asked her to find me and my sister. But we were already in the shelter...

He had been selected in Treblinka as young and healthy and worked with the segregation of things, looking for jewelry, for gold. The Germans kept replacing them - these ones went to the gas, new ones came in their place. So they were preparing to escape [in August 1943]. Szymkiewiczowa said that when she saw him, he had a lot of jewelry and money on him. He wanted to be able to buy himself out if there was any trouble. So I guess someone tracked him down and murdered him. What else could it have been...? My sister and I didn't go to Kosow. That would have been just opening old wounds...

We went to Lodz. There was the Jewish Committee, registering all the survivors. We went to 1 Maja Street where we had lived before the war. And when we sat on the stairs, we suddenly started crying so hard that we no longer wanted to go inside - we ran away. Those were such unspeakable tragedies...

Our family from Czestochowa was sent with a transport to Treblinka. Grandfather reportedly led Grandmother by the hand when they marched to the 'Umschlagplatz. 'Slowly, slowly,' he was saying - on top of everything else she had just suffered an attack of palsy. And so he led her up to the train... My grandparents and my mother went to the gas right away. Aunt Bela, her husband and their daughter also died in Treblinka. It's a pity that girl, Hania, wasn't saved. She may have been five or six then. She didn't have Jewish looks at all. But how could she have been saved...? Uncle Josef, his wife and kids - no one survived. Szolek, my grandparents' youngest son, was in the Lodz ghetto 27. He had already been married to a girl that bore him a child in the ghetto. Of course they died. My husband's father, a dentist, and his mentally retarded younger sister also died in Treblinka.

The only other survivors were Aunt Cela in Israel and Uncle Maks in Italy, with their families. Uncle Maks, his wife and their daughters were in Milan. And for a long time no one bothered them there. In 1943, I guess, a priest came to them and said: 'Get dressed, we'll take you across the Alps to Switzerland'. So they locked up the apartment. And they found themselves in Switzerland, in an internment camp. Then, when the war ended, they got on a train, came to Milan, pulled the keys out of their pocket, opened the door, and they were in their apartment - untouched. My parents also locked away their Lodz apartment in 1939, but they never returned there...

My sister and I got in touch with Uncle Maks, and he wrote us that even before leaving Milan he had received a letter from our father in Kosow. So it was true that he had managed to escape from Treblinka, because there were now two people, Mrs. Szymkiewiczowa and Uncle Maks, who had been in touch with him. As far as my father's family is concerned, someone from the Tajfels from Wloclawek survived - but I didn't know them at all, those were perfect strangers to me.

We parted with my husband's uncle and aunt, the Markowicz's, as they immediately fled to the West. They were terribly afraid of the Bolsheviks 28, because they were the so-called bourgeois. I think they went to England, all five, Mirka included. After the war Bolek and Lucek found it hard to start normal lives. Uncle and Aunt had one more son, Tadeusz, who had completed medicine studies in Italy. He spent the war there; I think he was in the army, though I don't know which one and when. He died shortly after the war. All of them died very quickly. And Klimczak got the house and the building lots - everything that had been agreed. That was financed by Uncle together with Rozenowicz, because the house was owned in half by my husband, so he contributed too. And that's it.

My husband also had a house in Czestochowa that he inherited after his parents, on Druga Aleja [part of Czestochowa's most elegant street, Aleja Najswietszej Marii Panny]. There we lived in three rooms with my sister. My sister and I got very close when we realized that our whole family was dead. We started working right away at a gynecological hospital on Swietej Barbary Street near Jasna Gora 29.

However, I wanted to study. I enrolled for a high-school course for adults, I was already twenty-something, and passed the high school finals. 'Passed' is perhaps saying too much, it was all phony - I cribbed all math from the guy sitting next to me. I wanted to study medicine, that was the easiest thing to do - I worked in a hospital, had some foundations for that. But then I quickly changed my mind and in 1949 decided to take an admittance exam to the Theatre School in Lodz [State Institute of Theatre Arts, reactivated in Lodz in 1945, from 1946 as the State Theater Academy in Warsaw with a provisional seat in Lodz].

We had distant cousins in Lodz, Regina and Karola Milichtajch. Regina was our private tutor before the war. Both survived in the Lodz ghetto and at the last moment were sent to forced labor in Germany. Until the end of the war they worked at some German farm. Then they returned to Poland to see if anyone had survived. And it was then we got in touch.

I arrived in Lodz virtually naked and barefoot, utterly penniless, because Rozenowicz said he was opposed to the whole idea of me studying. I didn't even have money for the streetcar fare. For a short time I stayed with those cousins. Karola, the younger one, studied at a nursing college, and the older one, Regina, had the pre-war high school diploma, so she was a white-collar worker, because the pre-war diploma was a big thing. She worked at an official labor union organization.

I borrowed a little bit of money from them to get me through the initial period and became self-dependent very quickly. I didn't know that if I had gone to the Jewish Committee, they would have helped me - I'd have been assigned a place in the dorm, received an allowance. But even if I had known about it, I would have refused - I wanted to be like everybody else. Only everyone knew I was a Jew - the word spreads, so I saw no point in hiding my ethnic descent.

I applied. It was a competition-type exam, as is usual in art schools. I remember the anxiety; I had prepared several pieces for the exam. And reportedly I performed very well. The question of looks was also important - I was a pretty girl. How this helps in life... Out of several hundred candidates only 20 were admitted, chiefly girls.

The president was Leon Schiller [(1887-1954): outstanding director working for theatres in Warsaw, Lwow and Lodz]. The classes took place in very good conditions - in the beautiful Poznanski mansion [built 1904, owned by the heirs of Israel Kalmanowicz Poznanski, Lodz's largest industrialist at the time and one of the wealthiest in Europe]. We had classes on the first floor, and on the second one was the Musical Academy, where it in fact remains to this day. That was at the corner of Gdanska and 1 Maja, the street where I had lived with my parents before the war. When I was to pass in front of our house, I always made sure not to get too close - I only stretched my neck to see whether it was still there: here the two windows, here my mother's store...

A distant relative of those cousins of mine had a tiny room on 11 Listopada Street [Obroncow Stalingradu after the war, presently Legionow]. She was emigrating to Argentina. I moved in there. She gave me a bag filled with feathers for the pillow, because I had nothing, and now I had a room and an iron bed, and the couple that owned the whole apartment were very nice. But one day some guy was allotted the room where I slept. They came to me: 'You have to leave!' So I lay down on my bed and said: 'I'm not going anywhere!' And they took me with that bed out to the hall! On the next day I went to the housing office and started crying there. And as I was pretty, they gave me three addresses in no time.

I studied and worked. There was a gynecologist whom I knew from the period when I had been with my husband. He made procedures and he offered me the job of his assistant. I applied anesthesia, made intravenous injections, reportedly with great skill. Then I went to a knitting cooperative and got a job - I brought home huge bags of unfinished gloves and sewed up the fingers. I was officially registered as a knitter, had a labor union ID. I sat until two, three in the morning, but it was still good, I felt so happy.

I also gave people injections. Once a dentist I knew called me and said he had a penicillin patient for me - those days you administered penicillin every three hours, so if I had a patient, I had to move in with them. And I was allotted a very nice room on Gdanska with a Jewish family, the Feldons. Those were very wealthy people, they quickly made big money after the war. They had four grown-up sons and one of them fell ill. I moved in with them and they were greatly impressed: such a young, pretty girl and working so hard. They offered to pay me a scholarship so that I wouldn't have to work so hard. They very much wanted to ensnare me, but that was the gilded youth of Lodz, I wasn't interested in that.

Many people were eager to help me, but I was doing great myself. And at the end of my freshman year at the academy I was given a role - a Film School team visited us and they hired me for a movie they were making. It was a group of young filmmakers who were shooting a production with the assistance of their professors. They came to the Theater School in search of nice girls. And they chose me. The movie was a terrible bore, called 'The Two Brigades', really nothing to talk about [a 1950 production shot by the students of the directing faculty of the State Film Art College under the artistic leadership of Eugeniusz Cekalski]. Well, but what did I care - I had something to do, I could earn some money, and the very fact that from among all those girls they had chosen me meant a lot in itself. So I no longer had money problems.

In my third year of studies I met Kazimierz Dejmek [(1924-2002): director, actor, co-founder and director general of the Nowy Theater in Lodz, one of Poland's leading stages in the 1950s; minister of culture and art (1993- 1996)], he was the school's president [1952-55]. I fell in love with him. He was married, but I didn't destroy the marriage, God forbid - he had already left her.

He was born in 1924 in Kowel [presently Ukraine, some 60 km from the Polish border]. His mother was a housewife and his father worked in the prison administration. He had a younger brother named Heniek. Kazik was in the second grade of gymnasium when the war broke out. After the war, he passed the actor's exams extramurally with Schiller in Lodz. And then he was appointed president of the School. He had top-level connections in the party 30, and the party had immense confidence in him. And such a young boy was appointed an academy president. He held the office for a very short time - he didn't like the job, never wanted it, they forced him, had no one else.

I was deeply infatuated with Dejmek. And one day I received a letter from my husband saying he saw what was going on and was asking me to come back so that we could start all over. Before that, he insisted we get married by license, but I didn't want to because I knew it wouldn't work anyway. I was his wife only in religious terms and we had in fact divorced each other by mail because the paper from the rabbi had no legal force.

After two years Rozenowicz sent me a suitcase with my things and on top of that lay that document. I thought: 'I can't tear it to pieces like a piece of litter because my conscience won't allow me - so many things we went through together, so much of everything... If I could, I'd burn it in the fire'. I put it aside with a bunch of photos I had. My husband spent the rest of his life in Czestochowa. He died in the early 1990s. He was a very good doctor. When I sometimes meet Jews from there and they find out I was Rozenowicz's wife, they exclaim, 'Rozenowicz?! Why, he is the legend of Czestochowa!'

My sister settled in Czestochowa. Shortly after the war, in 1946, I guess, she went to Wroclaw [city in Lower Silesia, from 1945 within Polish borders, 140 km west of Czestochowa] and enrolled in a cosmetics school. There she completed an occupational course. When I left for Lodz in 1949, she was living in Czestochowa with Rozenowicz, her brother-in-law. When I said I wasn't going back, she moved out. She had a boyfriend, his name was Janek Tenenbaum. He came from Czestochowa, never completed any school, never had the opportunity.

Janek fled east in 1939 31. He found himself in Siberia, he may have been 18 then. He experienced terrible things - cold, hunger, dirt, diseases. His mother had died before, and during the war he also lost his father and his younger sister Lilka who was deeply involved politically - she was a communist and died there, I think, in the east. That left only him and his other sister, Sonia, who before the war went to Paris and studied dentistry there. She married a Polish Jew, a graduate of the technical university there, I think.

After returning from the Soviet Union, Janek worked at the Czestochowa steel plant, had a job in the supply department. My sister married him, they had two children - Bronek was born in 1951 or 1952, and Lilka a year or two later. My sister and brother-in-law applied for emigration and in 1954 or 1955 left for Israel. They lived in Ramat Gan. My brother-in-law's sister, Sonia, helped them a lot. She had no children of her own, an unsuccessful marriage, so they were virtually all she had. It was thanks to her they bought an apartment, then they swapped it for a larger one. Hadn't it been for her, it would have been very hard for them, they'd have had nothing to live on. Then my brother-in-law got a bank job, and my sister worked as a beautician - one room in the apartment had been turned into her office.

In 1953 my son Piotrus [diminutive for Piotr] was born. I worked at the Nowy Theater in Lodz. Those days, a theater actor had to be versatile; you had to sing, dance, play in contemporary dramas and classical tragedies. Life was hard for me there because my second husband was the director general there and he had a policy of anti-nepotism. For instance, when the director said he wanted to give me a role, my husband would first offer that role to all the other girls. And only when the director said: 'I don't want anyone except Mniewska', he'd agree. He destroyed my professional career. But, well - you can't have everything.

In 1960 my husband was appointed director general of the Narodowy Theater so we moved from Lodz to Warsaw. There I didn't do anything, just drew my wages. In 1968 I played in the Dziady, played is too big a word - I stood and sang 32. It was virtually no role at all, but I took part in all the rehearsals, all the shows. And on stage I stood right besides Holoubek when he recited the Great Improvisation - that took well over 10 minutes [Gustaw Holoubek, born 1923, outstanding Polish theater and film actor and director]. And he was so brilliant and so wonderful that there was no show where I wouldn't start crying. Tears are trickling down my face and I can't even wipe them away because I'm an Angel, I can't move.

So that's one thing I had - great experiences. But the show didn't run long - the authorities ordered it off the bill. My husband was fired from the job, expelled from the party. And all of us - people connected to him - left too, of course. I came to the Ateneum [theater in Warsaw] but that was also only to draw the wages and sometimes fill in for someone else. I had a very hard life in theater - humiliating.

And then again a new period began in our life. My husband got a job - Satanowski [Robert Satanowski, 1918-1997], the conductor, was doing something in Norway and he had very good connections there, so he secured a directing contract for my husband in Oslo, Norway. My husband spent a month there, after which he got a job in Yugoslavia. Piotrus and I also then applied for passports because all our previous applications had been turned down. I moved the heaven and earth for Piotrek [diminutive for Piotr] to be allowed to take his high school finals extramurally before out departure - so that he could immediately go into university once we left. I hired private teachers. He passed the exams, it was 1970. We left in 1971.

We lived in Belgrade. My husband worked, had a full-time contract at a theater, then moved to Novi Sad. The only point was to have the money to pay the rent because wages there were like in Poland. It was winter, oil heating, very primitive conditions. A horrible period, feeling like a complete stranger. My husband then got a job in Germany so he left. And I sat there alone with Piotrek and our dog. The dog had a hard life too because the Serbs don't like dogs, find them disgusting. I remember the period like the occupation era, really horrible.

Piotrek started studying physics even in Belgrade, but later changed his mind. He went to work in Paris where my brother-in-law's sister, Sonia, lived with her husband - my son didn't move in with them but they helped him. Then he went to Italy and worked there, he also spent some time in Vienna. What did that give him? It's given him the fluent knowledge of French, Serbo-Croatian, a good knowledge of Italian.

He returned to Poland in 1973 or 1974. And the two of them, he and my husband, decided he would do the Theater School in Lodz [created in 1959 by merging the State Acting College and the State Filmmaking College, since the 1970s under its present name of the Leon Schiller State Film, TV and Theatre College]. It was a tragedy for me, I know the profession... But it turned out it wasn't so bad after all - he really is a very intelligent boy. He played the lead role in the 'Hospital of the Transfiguration' based on Lem's novel 33 and won a debuting artist award in Brussels [in a 1978 Edward Zebrowski film]. He played quite a lot in movies, I didn't see him in theater, I didn't want to - I was afraid to.

Upon returning to Poland I was really fed up with all that - that wandering around the world, not having my own place. I said, 'I'll buy myself some land, settle in the countryside,' I hit upon the idea of setting up a fruit orchard. It was 1975, I think. I wrote to Pieniazek [Szczepan Pieniazek, born 1913, biologist, pomologist, nestor of Polish orcharding]. He wrote back immediately. I went to meet him at the Institute [The Institute of Pomiculture and Floriculture in Skierniewice, 40 km north-east of Lodz]. He told me what and how and where, and took me to the orchard. I bought 10 hectares of land in the Kutno province and started with the basics, with planting. I worked like a horse, people helped me greatly. I also had a permanent contract with a theater in Lodz. It's not far from Lodz to Kutno, 50, 60 kilometers. I had a compact Fiat, I'd drive to the rehearsals, the shows, and drive back.

I had had the orchard for three or four years when there came such a bumper crop I couldn't manage it - such large apples! I signed a contract with a cooperative but then they told me, 'We have so many apples ourselves we can't take your crop.' And then Piotrek came to visit me - his marriage was falling apart. He met boys in the village who agreed to help us. He went three times a week to a market in Gdansk [sea port, 230 km north of Kutno], to a middleman, bringing back incredible amounts of money. He started building a cold store, buying machinery - he really got down to it with great vigor. I handed everything over to him as a younger farmer. We built - I had already started - a large, nice house. The farm was such that excursions from abroad came to view it.

Piotrek met Ewa, his second wife. They settled in the countryside. My marriage crumbled, we got a divorce. After the boom had passed - business became slow - I went to Elblag [city 260 km north of Lodz], to play in a theater there, because I was just one year short of retirement age and I no longer wanted to be in Dejmek's theater.

When the very good period had ended, Piotrek started thinking about getting rid of the farm. His film friends visited him often in the countryside and he felt the attraction again, started missing his chosen profession. He moved to Warsaw, found a job at the public TV, worked as a producer. And slowly he moved up the ladder. Today he still works for the public TV; he has been one of the directors of the TVP1 channel for two years now. His wife is a Theater School graduate, who works at the TVP too. Currently she is the second director of the 'Sensations of the 20th Century' series [semi- feature historical documentary].

My grandchildren are a very nice trio. The eldest, Pawel, owns a business - something to do with car racing. Cars, races, that's his passion. But what exactly it is about, I don't know. He's a nice boy, has a great wife. Kasia [Katarzyna], my second grandchild, is 20, and studies sociology. She passed the entry exams splendidly - at first try, with such a high score she is on a full-time course at Warsaw University. She's a very bright girl, with an open head, a great memory, smart, but very introvert. Marysia [Maria], the youngest, is 18 and has no idea what she wants to be. She's a pretty girl, with a lot of charm.

They were raised the same way as Piotrek was. As children they knew their grandmother was a Jewess, that their father was a half-Jew. They regarded it as normal, were even fascinated at first, now it's passed. Piotrek, when he was a kid, didn't want to talk about it all. And he knew everything because he always listened. When I watched a film about those things, he sat besides me and just stroked me...

I visited Israel for the first time in 1960, I think. Aunt Cela, my mother's sister, was still alive, though she had been paralyzed. I also visited the farm of Rachel, her eldest daughter. Her husband was a German Jew, a graduate of philosophy in Germany. I don't know when he left there, but after the war he received compensation and with that money they were able to buy a piece of land in Israel. Part of the farm was a 'pardes' [Hebrew: orchard] - oranges, and they also had large henhouses.

They had kids, three boys: Nir, Icyk, I don't remember the name of the third one. And they all worked. Those boys later left the countryside, all have tertiary education - technical. They live in Israel, and by now have surely become grandfathers. Rachel, their mother, is 90. Her brother, Szmuel, is dead.

The other cousin, Salomon, I don't know at all. He lives in Australia and has made some very big money there - owns some factories. And the fourth of the siblings, Bracha, is in Israel. She lives in Ramat-Aviv. She was a radiologist, never married, is more closely in touch with the family than anyone else, and knows about everything. She always calls me on the high holidays. We speak German, she doesn't know Polish.

After 1956 34 she and Szmuel visited Poland as tourists. They wanted to see the cities they had heard so much about in their childhood - all four, after all, were born in Poland. The cousins in Israel are great patriots, but they feel cheated. They were there during the toughest period, sacrificed their early years for the country, donated their blood to it, and then came Jews with big money, who bought themselves beautiful apartments and simply mocked those fantastic young people. And the latter had to work for their living; no one gave them anything, so there was also envy. And now my cousins believe they have lost their lives and that this is not how they thought it would be.

My sister still lives in Ramat Gan. Her husband is dead; he died sometime in the 1970s, I think. Their children live in Haifa. They are well educated, especially Bronek, who's an IT engineer. He is a talented man; he has worked for Rafael [major Israeli defense company] since the beginning of his career. He holds a very significant position there. He got married as a young boy. In fact, they have recently gotten divorced. He has two grown-up kids, a girl and a boy.

Last year he came to Poland with them to show them where he was born, where the whole family lived. We spent a couple of nice days together. His sister, Lilka, married a diamond cutter who had been born and raised in a kibbutz. They have three children. Lilka was a Tanach teacher at elementary school. Both Lilka and Bronek speak only broken Polish but they understand it.

My sister speaks Polish, of course, but she also speaks fluent Hebrew, after living there for so many years. When she was leaving for Israel, I asked her to take my photos and my marriage certificate from my first marriage. When, many years later, I came to visit her, I wanted to put all that stuff in order. I open the box and right on the top lies the certificate. I say, 'I'm begging you, tear it into pieces. I have no conscience to do it...' Cousin Bracha was with us then, and she says, 'You want to destroy it? Have you lost your mind?!' And she called the Yad Vashem 35 and says there's a document from 22nd September 1942 - the first day of the action in Czestochowa. And the document has found itself in the Yad Vashem, this is the most beautiful ending I could have imagined.

I went to Israel regularly. I have a few friends there, people who left Poland, whom I knew from before the war, the occupation era, or after the war. I 've been to Eilat, on the Red Sea, more than twenty times; I also have a girl friend there, much younger than myself, whom I met in Israel. I also have a friend from Gordonia who lives in Petach Tikva - Abrasza Inspektor. He spent the war in the Soviet Union. Upon returning he affiliated himself in Lodz with people who were preparing for swift emigration to Palestine; he was a teacher in a Tarbut school 36. And he left very early, it was 1950 or 1951. He also worked as a teacher in Israel, in a vocational school, I think.

After 1968 37 my Lodz cousins, Karola and Regina Milichtajch, emigrated to Denmark, to Copenhagen. Regina was a [PZPR] party member and was heavily involved in all those left-wing stories, a valued employee of the Labor Unions. They didn't want to go, only their sons, who were past high school, had already begun their studies. In Copenhagen, Karola worked in a hospital, and Regina at the National Library. Both are alive but they are old, especially Regina, who is over 90 and very ailing. The father of her son, Oles, wasn't a Jew. Oles himself married a girl from a mixed marriage. They converted to Judaism, had a religious wedding, she bathed in the mikveh... They are a happy couple. They bought themselves a part of a detached house in Komorow [a residential suburb of Warsaw] and want to return to Poland after they retire.

I never encountered any anti-Semitism directed against me after the war. I never went around with a placard saying I was a Jew, but everyone knew; it was no secret. I currently hold the position of treasurer with the veterans [The Association of War Veterans and Persons Wronged by the Third Reich], but I want to leave them and move to the TSKZ library 38. Its manager has died, she was 95, active until the last moment. Someone has to carry out the stocktaking, I'll gladly do it, for free, of course, I need no remuneration. I simply want to be doing something. After all, we are the last Jews here.

When trips to Germany were being organized, I accidentally joined one of those, in 2001. I went there a total of three times to meet young people, and I loved it. After so many years I had the cheek to conduct those meetings in German - and I did great. I had such good contact with those young people, saw they were interested, and I felt satisfaction that I was doing something good. I told them about my wartime experiences. About the liquidation of the hospital. As an interruption, I told them the story about how I went to Tomaszow with the fur coat. And the first thing I said was about the rabbi so that they didn't think I was partial, that I saw evil only with others and not with my own. You must say the truth - a son of a bitch, period! What can I think about people like that?

I feel a very strong bond with Jewry. Those are two different things - religion and being part of a nation. I'll put it like Tuwim 39: [I feel Jewish] not because of the blood of my veins but because of the blood that has been shed. This is a completely different story, this is an incredible bond, that you lost everyone only because they happened to be Jews. And betray them?! How can you conceal your descent, deny, disown your family, relatives...? It has always been in me and will always be, and I'll never abandon it. But still - despite the tragedy that I experienced - I wouldn't give away a single hour of my life. Not a single hour.

Glossary:

1 Hanoar Hatzioni

(Heb.: Zionist Youth), a youth scouting organization founded in 1931 by a break-away from the Hanoar Haivri organization Akiba. It aligned itself with the centre-right current of Zionism, and its program placed great importance on educating young people in accordance with the principles and values of the Judaic tradition.

2 Jabotinsky, Vladimir (1880-1940)

Founder and leader of the Revisionist Zionist movement; soldier, orator and a prolific author writing in Hebrew, Russian, and English. During World War I he established and served as an officer in the Jewish Legion, which fought in the British army for the liberation of the Land of Israel from Turkish rule. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Keren Hayesod, the financial arm of the World Zionist Organization, founded in London in 1920, and was later elected to the Zionist Executive. He resigned in 1923 in protest over Chaim Weizmann's pro-British policy and founded the Revisionist Zionist movement and the Betar youth movement two years later. Jabotinsky also founded the ETZEL (National Military Organization) during the 1936-39 Arab rebellion in Palestine.

3 Haynt

Literally 'Today', it was one of the most popular Yiddish dailies published in Poland. It came out in Warsaw from 1908-1939, and had a Zionist orientation addressing a mass of readers. In the 1930s it attained a print run of 45,000 copies.

4 Pilsudski, Jozef (1867-1935)

Polish activist in the independence cause, politician, statesman, marshal. With regard to the cause of Polish independence he represented the pro-Austrian current, which believed that the Polish state would be reconstructed with the assistance of Austria- Hungary. When Poland regained its independence in January 1919, he was elected Head of State by the Legislative Sejm. In March 1920 he was nominated marshal, and until December 1922 he held the positions of Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army. After the murder of the president, Gabriel Narutowicz, he resigned from all his posts and withdrew from politics. He returned in 1926 in a political coup. He refused the presidency offered to him, and in the new government held the posts of war minister and general inspector of the armed forces. He was prime minister twice, from 1926-1928 and in 1930. He worked to create a system of national security by concluding bilateral non-aggression pacts with the USSR (1932) and Germany (1934). He sought opportunities to conclude firm alliances with France and Britain. In 1932, owing to his deteriorating health, Pilsudski resigned from his functions. He was buried in the Crypt of Honor in the Wawel Cathedral of the Royal Castle in Cracow.

5 Gordonia

Pioneering Zionist youth movement founded in Galicia at the end of 1923. It became a world movement, which meticulously maintained its unique character as a Jewish, Zionist, and Erez Israel-oriented movement.

6 Hora

The best-known folk dance of pioneers in Eretz Israel. The dance is chiefly derived from the Romanian hora. Hora is a closed circle dance. Israeli dance is an amalgam of the many cultures and peoples which settled in Palestine, and then Israel. The original sources were Eastern European styles, Arabic and Yemenite.

7 Country house, consisting of small huts and little plots of lands

The Soviet authorities came to the decision to allow this activity to the Soviet people to support themselves. The majority of urban citizens grow vegetables and fruit in their small gardens to make preserves for winter.

8 Anti-Semitism in Poland in the 1930s

From 1935-39 the activities of Polish anti-Semitic propaganda intensified. The Sejm introduced barriers to ritual slaughter, restrictions of Jews' access to education and certain professions. Nationalistic factions postulated the removal of Jews from political, social and cultural life, and agitated for economic boycotts to persuade all the country's Jews to emigrate. Nationalist activists took up posts outside Jewish shops and stalls, attempting to prevent Poles from patronizing them. Such campaigns were often combined with damage and looting of shops and beatings, sometimes with fatal consequences. From June 1935 until 1937 there were over a dozen pogroms, the most publicized of which was the pogrom in Przytyk in 1936. The Catholic Church also contributed to the rise of anti-Semitism.

9 Dachau

The first Nazi concentration camp, created in March 1933 in Dachau near Munich. Until the outbreak of the war, prisoners were mostly social democrats and German communists along with clergy and Jews: a total of ca. 5000 people. The guidelines of the camp were prepared by Theodor Eicke and prescribed cruel treatment of the prisoners: hunger, beatings, exhausting labor. This was treated as a model for other concentration camps. Dachau also had a training center for concentration camp staff. In 1939 Dachau became a place of terror and extermination, mostly for the social elites of the defeated countries. Some 250,000 inmates from 27 countries passed through Dachau, and 148,000 of them died there. Their labor was exploited for the arms industry and in quarries. The commanders of the camp during the war were: Alexander Piorkowski, Martin Weiss and Eduard Weiter. The camp was liberated on 29th April 1945 by the American army.

10 Zbaszyn Camp

From October 1938 until the spring of 1939 there was a camp in Zbaszyn for Polish Jews resettled from the Third Reich. The German government, anticipating the act passed by the Polish Sejm (Parliament) depriving people who had been out of the country for more than 5 years of their citizenship, deported over 20,000 Polish Jews, some 6,000 of whom were sent to Zbaszyn. As the Polish border police did not want to let them into Poland, these people were trapped in the strip of no-man's land, without shelter, water or food. After a few days they were resettled to a temporary camp on the Polish side, where they spent several months. Jewish communities in Poland organized aid for the victims; families took in relatives, and Joint also provided assistance.

11 Haganah (Heb

: Defense): Jewish armed organization formed in 1920 in Palestine and grew rapidly during the Arab uprisings (1936-39). Haganah also organized illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine. In 1941 illegal stormtroops were created, which after World War II fought against the army and the British Police in Palestine. In 1948-1949 Haganah soldiers were trained in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

12 Pogrom in Przytyk

The most notorious pre-war pogrom of Jews in Poland. It took place in Przytyk, a small town near Radom, during the spring fair on 9th March 1936. Because tensions in the town had already run high for some time due to a brutal boycott of Jewish shops carried out by the Polish nationalists, Jews organized a 20-strong, armed self-defense squad for the duration of the fair. On 9th March, following an incident with a nationalist urging the boycott of Jews, peasants attending the fair started demolishing the Jewish stalls. The self-defense squad intervened, shots were fired. A Pole, Stanislaw Wiesniak, was fatally wounded. That further aggravated the situation, with the peasants forcing their way into Jewish homes and stores, demolishing them, breaking windows; 20 people were heavily beaten up and two - Mr. and Mrs. Josek and Chaja Minkowski - were killed. Order was only introduced by police forces brought in from nearby Radom. Several weeks later a trial was held: the Jew accused of fatally shooting the Polish peasant was sentenced to eight years in jail, two others to five and six years, the Poles accused of murdering the Minkowskis were acquitted. The Przytyk pogrom sparked strong protests in Poland and abroad, becoming the symbol of Polish anti-Semitism of the 1930s.

13 Campaign against ritual slaughter

In pre-war Poland the issue of ritual slaughter was at the heart of a deep conflict between the Jewish community and Polish nationalist groups, which in 1936-1938 attempted to outlaw or restrict the practice of ritual slaughtering in the Sejm, the Polish parliament, citing humanitarian grounds and competition for Catholic butchers.

14 Jewish police

Carrying out their will the German authorities appointed a Jewish police in the ghettos. Besides maintaining order in general in the territory of the ghetto the Jewish police was also responsible for guarding the ghetto gates. During liquidation campaigns most of them collaborated with the Nazis; in the Warsaw ghetto each policeman had to supply at least five people to the Umschlagplatz every day. The reason for joining the Jewish police, first of all, was based on the false promises of the Germans that policemen and their families would be saved. In the Warsaw ghetto the Jewish police was headed by Jakub Szerynski; during the 'Grossaktion' (the main liquidation campaign in the summer of 1942), the Jewish Fighting Organization issued a death warrant on him, and he was to be executed on 20th August 1942 by Izrael Kanal. The attack failed, Szerynski was only wounded, and in January 1943 he committed suicide.

15 Jews in Czestochowa during the war

according to the 1931 national census, 25,600 Jews lived in Czestochowa, out of a total population of 117,000. The Germans marched into the city on 3rd September 1939. On 1st October a 24-strong 'Judenrat' (Jewish Council) was created, with Leon Kopinski as chairman. A large number of Jews from Lodz, Plock, Cracow, as well as the nearby towns such as Krzepice, Przyrow, Olsztyn, Janow, or Mstow were resettled to Czestochowa. When the ghetto was created on 9th April 1941, it had a population of some 48,000. It was located in the north- eastern part of the city in an area bounded by the river Warta and the streets Mirowska, Garncarska, Mostowa, Senatorska, Rynek Warszawski and Jaskrowska. The majority of the Czestochowa ghetto's inhabitants died as a result of the first deportation action between 22nd September and 8th October 1942, when the Germans sent 40,000 people to the Treblinka death camp. Close to 1,000 Jews were employed at the so called "Pelcery" factory, run by the company Hasag Apparatenbau. For the remaining over 5,000 Jews the so-called 'small ghetto' was set up. Some 1,500 people stayed within its bounds illegally. During the deportation action, a Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) unit was created, led by Mordechai Zylberberg. From December 1942, the unit was in touch with the Warsaw ZOB. On 4th January 1943, the second liquidation action was started; in its course, a small group of fighters led by Mendl Fiszlewicz attacked the Germans. Some 4,000 Hasag employees were left in the city. In June 1943, the company launched three new plants: Rakow, Warta, and Czestochowianka. Among the workers there were also Jews from Lodz and from the Plaszow camp, chiefly from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. When, in July 1944, Hasag moved its Skarzysko-Kamienna plant to Czestochowa, there were 11,000 Jews in the city. On 15th January 1945, the plants were evacuated to Germany. Their personnel survived the war.

16 Armbands

From the beginning of the occupation, the German authorities issued all kinds of decrees discriminating against the civilian population, in particular the Jews. On 1st December 1939 the Germans ordered all Jews over the age of 12 to wear a distinguishing emblem. In Warsaw it was a white armband with a blue star of David, to be worn on the right sleeve of the outer garment. In some towns Jews were forced to sew yellow stars onto their clothes. Not wearing the armband was punishable - initially with a beating, later with a fine or imprisonment, and from 15th October 1941 with the death penalty (decree issued by Governor Hans Frank).

17 Judenrat

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

18 Chagall, Marc (1889-1985)

Russian-born French painter. Since Marc Chagall survived two world wars and the Revolution of 1917 he increasingly introduced social and religious elements into his art.

19 Aryan papers

Jews hiding during the war by adopting a false Aryan identity had to produce documents confirming their new personal data. Such documents were mainly the Kennkarte, that is identity card, and also birth certificate, proof of address, an employment card, and so on. Having a birth certificate and proof of address was enough to apply for a Kennkarte: therefore many people tried to obtain only a Christian birth certificate, for example from priests. Aryan papers were produced by underground organizations including Aid Organization for Jews 'Zegota', which used the services of a 'legalizing cell' of the AK; altogether it produced 50,000 false documents for its charges. The papers could also be obtained for a large sum of money on the black markets (mainly in town markets) from professional forgers and from employees of city halls. Sometimes Polish friends of Jews gave them their own documents.

20 Hasag (Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft Metalwarenfabrik)

German industrial group manufacturing metal products, including ammunition. Founded in Leipzig in 1863. Its rapid expansion dates back to 1932 when Paul Budin, member of the NSDAP and the SS, became chief executive. The company started then making munitions for the army. From 1934, the company found itself under special protection of the party and the state. During the war, Hasag's factories in Germany employed Polish forced laborers as well as concentration camp prisoners. Hasag operated six forced labor camps for Jews in occupied Poland. The first of those, initially meant for Poles, was set up in Skarzysko-Kamienna and employed over 10,000 personnel. After September 1942, Polish workers were replaced with Jewish ones. During that time, Hasag set up a camp in Kielce (the Granat plant) and the first of the Czestochowa camps (the Pelcery plant), with Jews from the local ghettos as workers. The next three Czestochowa camps - Warta, Rakow, and Czestochowianka - were set up in June 1943. The Hasag camps employed a total of 15,000 prisoners. In August 1944, the prisoners from the Kielce camp were sent to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The Skarzysko-Kamienna camp was moved to Czestochowa. In January 1945, the Czestochowa plants were evacuated to Germany. The 11,000 of their Jewish forced laborers survived the war.

21 Home Army (Armia Krajowa - AK)

Conspiratorial military organization, part of the Polish armed forces operating within Polish territory (within pre-1st September 1939 borders) during World War II. Created on 14th February 1942, subordinate to the Supreme Commander and the Polish Government in Exile. Its mission was to regain Poland's sovereignty through armed combat and inciting to a national uprising. In 1943 the AK had over 300,000 members. AK units organized diversion, sabotage, revenge and partisan campaigns. Its military intelligence was highly successful. On 19th January 1945 the AK was disbanded on the order of its commander, but some of its members continued their independence activities throughout 1945- 47. In 1944-45 tens of thousands of AK soldiers were exiled and interned in the USSR, in places such as Ryazan, Borovichi and Ostashkov. Soldiers of the AK continued to suffer repression in Poland until 1956; many were sentenced to death or long-term imprisonment on trumped-up charges. Right after the war, official propaganda accused the Home Army of murdering Jews who were hiding in the forests. There is no doubt that certain AK units as well as some individuals tied to AK were in fact guilty of such acts. The scale of this phenomenon is very difficult to determine, and has been the object of debates among historians.

22 China Zygmunt

code name Landrat, military police sergeant. From 1942 head of the Home Army's special sabotage-and-execution squad for the Czestochowa City district, responsible for executing sentenced passed by the AK's Special Military Court on informers, collaborators, and particularly cruel Germans. In the fall of 1943, as AK second lieutenant, transported to Warsaw a radio transceiver, assembled in Czestochowa, that during the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944 became known as the Blyskawica (Lightning).

23 Volksdeutscher in Poland

A person who was entered (usually voluntarily, more rarely compulsorily) on a list of people of ethnic German origin during the German occupation was called Volksdeutscher and had various privileges in the occupied territories.

24 NKVD

(Russ.: Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del), People's Committee of Internal Affairs, the supreme security authority in the USSR - the secret police. Founded by Lenin in 1917, it nevertheless played an insignificant role until 1934, when it took over the GPU (the State Political Administration), the political police. The NKVD had its own police and military formations, and also possessed the powers to pass sentence on political matters, and as such in practice had total control over society. Under Stalin's rule the NKVD was the key instrument used to terrorize the civilian population. The NKVD ran a network of labor camps for millions of prisoners, the Gulag. The heads of the NKVD were as follows: Genrikh Yagoda (to 1936), Nikolai Yezhov (to 1938) and Lavrenti Beria. During the war against Germany the political police, the KGB, was spun off from the NKVD. After the war it also operated on USSR-occupied territories, including in Poland, where it assisted the nascent communist authorities in suppressing opposition. In 1946 the NKVD was renamed the Ministry of the Interior.

25 Jewish Self-Help Committees

Spontaneous committees of Jewish self- help were established on territories liberated from German occupation, with the aim of providing material, medical and legal support to Jews who were revealing their identity. The committees established contact with the Department for Aid to Jewish Population [Referat do spraw Pomocy Ludnosci Zydowskiej], which was created in August 1944 by the PKWN (Polish Committee of National Liberation, the first communist government on Polish land) and they received resources via the PKWN. When the Central Committee of Polish Jews (CKZP) was established in 1944, the local committees subordinated themselves to the central one. New ones were created at the same time as local representation of the CKZP. In June 1946 there were 9 committees at regional level, 7 district ones and 50 at the local level. The committees organized orphanages, soup kitchens for the poor, schools, boarding houses, and shelters for the homeless. They registered persons who came to them, provided assistance in searches for family members, offered financial help, as well as help in finding employment. Their activity was mainly funded the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (Joint).

26 Treblinka

Village in Poland's Mazovia region, site of two camps. The first was a penal labor camp, established in 1941 and operating until 1944. The second, known as Treblinka II, functioned in the period 1942-43 and was a death camp. Prisoners in the former worked in Treblinka II. In the second camp a ramp and a mock-up of a railway station were built, which prevented the victims from realizing what awaited them until just in front of the entrance to the gas chamber. The camp covered an area of 13.5 hectares. It was bounded by a 3-m high barbed wire fence interwoven densely with pine branches to screen what was going on inside. The whole process of exterminating a transport from arrival in the camp to removal of the corpses from the gas chamber took around 2 hours. Several transports arrived daily. In the 13 months of the extermination camp's existence the Germans gassed some 750,000-800,000 Jews. Those taken to Treblinka included Warsaw Jews during the so-called 'Grossaktion' [great liquidation campaign] in the Warsaw ghetto in the summer of 1942. In addition to Polish Jews, Jews from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Yugoslavia and the USSR were also killed in Treblinka. In the spring of 1943 the Germans gradually began to liquidate the camp. On 2nd August 1943 an uprising broke out there with the aim of enabling some 200 people to escape. The majority died.

27 Lodz Ghetto

It was set up in February 1940 in the former Jewish quarter on the northern outskirts of the city. 164,000 Jews from Lodz were packed together in a 4 sq. km. area. In 1941 and 1942, 38,500 more Jews were deported to the ghetto. In November 1941, 5,000 Roma were also deported to the ghetto from Burgenland province, Austria. The Jewish self- government, led by Mordechai Rumkowsky, sought to make the ghetto as productive as possible and to put as many inmates to work as he could. But not even this could prevent overcrowding and hunger or improve the inhuman living conditions. As a result of epidemics, shortages of fuel and food and insufficient sanitary conditions, about 43,500 people (21% of all the residents of the ghetto) died of undernourishment, cold and illness. The others were transported to death camps; only a very small number of them survived.

28 Bolsheviks

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

29 Jasna Gora

Marian sanctuary and Pauline monastery in Czestochowa. In 1382 the church was given by Prince Wladyslaw Opolczyk to the Pauline monks he had had come from Hungary. A few years later the monks were entrusted with the keeping of the painting of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the object of a cult, believed to be the work of St. Luke the Evangelist. Soon afterwards the monastery became one of the most-visited centers of pilgrimage in Europe. The wars waged in the Polish-Czech borderland regions, in the proximity of the monastery, prompted King Sigismund II Vasa to fund the fortification of the Jasna Gora hill. The monastery became a fortified stronghold, which enabled it to repel the attack of the Swedes in 1655. The defense of Jasna Gora from the Swedes under the leadership of Abbot August Kordecki became the legend of the monastery. Today Jasna Gora is the leading Marian center in Poland and receives more than 3 million pilgrims a year.

30 Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR)

Communist party formed in Poland in December 1948 by the fusion of the PPR (Polish Workers' Party) and the PPS (Polish Socialist Party). Until 1989 it was the only party in the country; it held power, but was subordinate to the Soviet Union. After losing the elections in June 1989 it lost its monopoly. On 29th January 1990 the party was dissolved.

31 Flight eastwards, 1939

From the moment of the German attack on Poland on 1st September 1939, Poles began to flee from areas in immediate danger of invasion to the eastern territories, which gave the impression of being safer. When in the wake of the Soviet aggression (17th September) Poland was divided into Soviet and German-occupied zones, hundreds of thousands of refugees from central and western Poland found themselves in the Soviet zone, and more continued to arrive, often waiting weeks for permits to cross the border. The majority of those fleeing the German occupation were Jews. The status of the refugees was different to that of locals: they were treated as dubious elements. During the passport campaign (the issue of passports, i.e. ID, to the new USSR - formerly Polish - citizens) of spring 1940, refugees were issued with documents bearing the proviso that they were prohibited from settling within 100 km of the border. At the end of June 1940 the Soviet authorities launched a vast deportation campaign, during which 82,000 refugees were transported deep into the Soviet Union, mainly to the Novosibirsk and Archangelsk districts. 84% of those deported in that campaign were Jews, and 11% Poles. The deportees were subjected to harsh physical labor. Paradoxically, for the Jews, exile proved their salvation: a year later, when the Soviet Union's western border areas were occupied by the Germans, those Jews who had managed to stay put, perished in the Holocaust.

32 Students' Protest in March 1968

on 4th March 1968 the Minister of Education decided to expel from Warsaw University two students: Adam Michnik and Henryk Szlajfer. A few weeks earlier these students gave a French press correspondent an account of the militia breaking up a demonstration on 1st February. The demonstrators were youth protesting against a ban of the staging of the play Dziady (a strongly anti-Russian drama from the 19th century) in Teatr Narodowy (National Theater). On 8th March 1968 students organized a rally in the courtyard of Warsaw University. They passed a resolution demanding restoration of student rights to Michnik and Szlajfer, as well as annulling legal action against the arrested demonstrators from 1st February. During the rally units of militia and so-called workmen activists came into the courtyard and started beating the students with truncheons, breaking up the rally. The next day a demonstrating solidarity rally was conducted at the Warsaw University of Technology, and was also attacked by the militia. In the following days such rallies were organized in several large academic centers. About 1600 among the detained students were expelled from the universities, 350 arrested, many young men drafted into the army. Those professors from Warsaw University and other higher education facilities in Poland, who showed solidarity towards the students, were laid off work.

33 Lem, Stanislaw (1921-2006)

Writer and essayist, author of science fiction novels. Debuted in 1946 with the novel 'Man from Mars', some lyric poems, popular science articles, and short adventure and war stories. Following the publication of his contemporary novel 'Time Saved' (originally 'Hospital of the Transfiguration'), which was heavily censored, Lem devoted himself to science fiction. He was a pioneer in this genre, and his works quickly became classics. His science fiction novels also address the issue of the consequences of civilization and scientific progress ('Solaris', 'The Futurological Congress', 'Fiasco'); while some contain parodies of and grotesque twists on the sci-fi theme ('The Book of Robots'). Another group of works are collections of fictional reviews and introductions to non-existent books ('A Perfect Vacuum'). In his essays Lem describes the impact of technological progress on the evolution of human philosophy. His most famous essay is 'Summa Technologiae'. Lem's works have been translated into several languages, and have also been adapted for the screen.

34 Polish October 1956

the culmination of the political, social and economic transformations that brought about the collapse of the dictatorial regime after the death of Stalin (1953). From 1954 the political system in Poland gradually thawed (censorship was scaled down, for instance, and political prisoners were slowly released - in April and May 1956 some 35,000 people were let out of prison). But the economic situation was deteriorating and the social and political crisis mounting. On 28th June a strike and demonstration on the streets of Poznan escalated into an armed revolt, which was suppressed by police and army units. From 19th to 21st October 1956 a political breakthrough occurred, the 8th Plenum of the PZPR Central Committee met under social pressure (rallies in factories and universities), and there was the threat of intervention by Soviet troops. Gomulka was appointed First Secretary of the PZPR Central Committee, and won the support of many groups, including a rally numbering hundreds of thousands of people in Warsaw on 24th October. From 15th to 18th November the terms on which Soviet troops were stationed in Poland were agreed, a proportion of Poland's debt was annulled, the resettlement of Poles back from the USSR was resumed, and by the end of 1956 a large number of people found guilty in political trials were rehabilitated. There were changes at the top in the Polish Army: Marshal Rokossowski and the Soviet generals went back to the USSR, and changes also to the civilian authorities and the programs of political factions. In November 1956 permission was granted for the creation of workers' councils in state enterprises, and the management of the economy was improved somewhat. In subsequent months, however, the process of partial democratization was halted, and supporters of continuing change ('revisionists') were censured.

35 Yad Vashem

This museum, founded in 1953 in Jerusalem, honors both Holocaust martyrs and 'the Righteous Among the Nations', non-Jewish rescuers who have been recognized for their 'compassion, courage and morality.'

36 Tarbut

37 Gomulka Campaign

A campaign to sack Jews employed in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the army and the central administration. The trigger of this anti-Semitic campaign was the involvement of the Socialist Bloc countries on the Arab side in the Middle East conflict, in connection with which Moscow ordered purges in state institutions. On 19th June 1967, at a trade union congress, the then First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party [PZPR], Wladyslaw Gomulka, accused the Jews of lack of loyalty to the state and of publicly demonstrating their enthusiasm for Israel's victory in the Six-Day-War. This marked the start of purges among journalists and people of other creative professions. Poland also severed diplomatic relations with Israel. On 8th March 1968 there was a protest at Warsaw University. The Ministry of Internal Affairs responded by launching a press campaign and organizing mass demonstrations in factories and workplaces during which 'Zionists' and 'trouble-makers' were indicted and anti-Semitic and anti-intelligentsia slogans shouted. Following the events of March, purges were also staged in all state institutions, from factories to universities, on criteria of nationality and race. 'Family liability' was also introduced (e.g. with respect to people whose spouses were Jewish). Jews were forced to emigrate. From 1968-1971 15,000-30,000 people left Poland. They were stripped of their citizenship and right of return.

38 Social and Cultural Society of Polish Jews (TSKZ)

Founded in 1950 when the Central Committee of Polish Jews merged with the Jewish Society of Culture. From 1950-1991 it was the sole body representing Jews in Poland. Its statutory aim was to develop, preserve and propagate Jewish culture. During the socialist period this aim was subordinated to communist ideology. Post-1989 most young activists gravitated towards other Jewish organizations. However, the SCSPJ continues to organize a range of cultural events and has its own magazine - The Jewish Word. It is primarily an organization of older people, who, however, have been involved with it for years.

39 Tuwim, Julian (1894-1953)

Poet and translator; wrote in Polish. He was born in Lodz into an assimilated family from Lithuania. He studied law and philosophy at Warsaw University, and was a leading representative of the Skamander group of poets. His early work combined elements of Futurism and Expressionism (e.g. Czychanie na Boga [Lying in wait for God], 1918). In the 1920s his poetry took a turn towards lyricism (e.g. Slowa we krwi [Words in blood], 1926). In the 1930s under the influence of the rise in nationalistic tendencies in Poland his work took on the form of satire and political grotesque (Bal w operze [A ball at the opera], 1936). He also published works for children. A separate area of his writings are cabarets, libretti, sketches and monologues. He spent WWII in emigration and made public appearances in which he relayed information on the fate of the Polish population of Poland and the rest of Europe. In 1944 he published an extended poem, 'My Zydzi polscy' [We Polish Jews], which was a manifesto of his complicated Polish-Jewish identity. After the war he returned to Poland but wrote little. He was the chairman of the Society of Friends of the Hebrew University and the Committee for Polish-Israeli Friendship.

Vera Burdenko

Vera Burdenko and her sister Lilia Korolik

Vera Burdenko
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: April 2002

My family background
Growing up
During the war
Post-war
Glossary

My family background

My father Ierahmil Korolik was born into a very rich family in Kiev in 1898. His father Morduh Korolik was a merchant of Guild I 1. He was born in Kiev around 1865. My grandmother's maiden name was Golda Gorodetskaya. She was born in 1872. I don't know her place of birth. My grandfather and grandmother lived in the center of Kiev. They were not subject to the residential restrictions that had an impact on other Jewish people in tsarist Russia [see Jewish Pale of Settlement] 2. I don't know what kind of business my great-grandfather was involved in. I believe that he was in the same business that his son was, and his son must have inherited this business from him.

Grandfather Morduh had many houses that were on lease. I don't know exactly how many he had or their location but I remember my father and I passing some big houses and my father telling me that those had been my grandfather's before the [Russian] Revolution of 1917 3. They were one-storied, but they seemed huge to me, perhaps because I was small then. The family lived in one of those houses before the Revolution. I don't know how many rooms they had, but from what my father told me they lived quite a luxurious life. They had expensive furniture in their apartment, a grand piano, crystal chandeliers, velvet curtains and cozy sofas. This was a rich home of a respected man.

My grandfather was a very religious man: he observed all Jewish traditions and said his prayers. They followed the kashrut and celebrated Sabbath - my grandfather came home early on Friday and my grandmother lit the candles. They weren't even allowed to strike a match on Saturday, therefore the festive dinner was cooked and served by housemaids. However, they had housemaids anyway, and my grandmother didn't bother herself with the cooking or cleaning of the house. Of course, she handled and supervised the housekeeping. My grandmother gave all necessary products to the cook herself.

They led a luxurious way of life. My grandmother went to fashionable shops; she dressed beautifully and was quite unlike the Orthodox matrons in their shawls and wigs. She had fashionable hats and capes, jewelry and fur coats. She wasn't as religious as my grandfather Morduh. She didn't pray every day, but all Jewish traditions were to be observed in the house. She wanted to support her husband in his belief. My grandfather had all religious accessories at home: tallit, tefillin and the Talmud. After my grandfather died in the early 1930s my father kept his tallit in a drawer of his desk. We, children, had no idea what it was and asked my father permission to borrow it for one of our games. My father, however kind and nice, strictly forbade us to take it.

My grandfather Morduh made a significant contribution to the development of the Jewish community in Kiev. He provided money for the building of a synagogue, which is located in the area that belongs to the Transsignal Plant today. During the Soviet power it became another facility at the plant, but it was returned to the Jewish community in 2001. That's the synagogue that was built by my grandfather and I'm pleased to know that.

My grandfather and grandmother Korolik had two children: my father and his younger sister Esphir, born around 1902. I only have one picture of her when she was a child. Esphir was married to a famous obstetrician in Kiev. His last name was Medovar. They had no children. When the war began her husband was recruited to the army. Esphir went into evacuation. She had a heart attack on the train and died in August 1941.

My father finished school and led a very secular way of life. He was a fashionable young man. He wrote poems and was fond of theater and music and free from any responsibilities or obligations.

The Revolution put an end to this luxurious way of life in 1917. The Bolsheviks expropriated all real estate of the family, leaving them to live in a small house. They took away all valuables: silver, jewelry, gold and their savings. After the Revolution my grandparents lived in a two-storied wooden house on Kerosinnaya Street. We often visited them when I was a child. I remember a small garden near the house where we used to play. My grandparents lived on the second floor of the house and when we went upstairs we could already smell the delicious food that my grandmother was cooking for us. I remember little triangle pies with poppy seeds that my grandmother made for Purim. I didn't know the name of this holiday back then but I remember how delicious and joyful it was. At Chanukkah we, kids, always got some money and sweets, and there were always doughnuts and potato pancakes on the table. Well, my grandfather's house is associated with the smell of doughnuts to me. There was stuffed fish, chicken broth and stuffed chicken and many other delicacies on the table.

I don't know how my grandparents made their living after the Revolution. I believe my grandfather managed to save some valuables from being expropriated. They led a modest but fairly good life. After my grandfather died in 1932 my grandmother Golda lived with us for some time and then she moved to her cousin. I don't know whether my grandmother followed any traditions at the end of her life, but she wasn't fanatically religious anyway. I guess she went to the synagogue, although I'm not sure about it. But she probably observed the high holidays, such as Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. She died in 1946 in evacuation in the Middle East.

My mother Evgenia Welkomirskaya was born in 1888. She was born in Poland, but where exactly I don't know.

My grandfather's name was Wazlav Welkomirskiy. He was born around 1860. He may have been given a Jewish name when he was born, but they lived in Poland and he probably changed it. I have no information about his education. It must have been some technical or some kind of higher education because he worked at the railcar shops as a skilled worker and then as an engineer in Kiev. They moved to Kiev long before World War I, some time around 1900. I don't know why they moved. My grandfather received an award from the Russian government. It was a beautiful red ribbon and the words 'Hero of Labor' were written on it. He was awarded it in the first years after the Revolution. My grandmother's name was Welkomirskaya. I don't know her first and maiden name. I know very little about my grandparents on my mother's side. They died before I was born. I guess, they died in the early 1920s. The Welkomirskiy family wasn't religious. At least, I can't remember my mother ever telling me about any religious traditions in their family.

My mother was their only daughter. Her parents weren't rich but she received a good education. She finished a grammar school in Kiev, located on Fundukleyevskaya Street in the center of Kiev. Later this street was called Lenin Street and now it is Bogdan Khmelnitskiy Street. My mother became a private teacher in rich families when she was young and worked as a governess in the summertime when the rich left the city for their country houses. I have a picture of my mother at the time when she was working for one of those families. At the same time my mother studied in a private music school.

After finishing school she went to St. Petersburg Conservatory, passed all the exams and received a diploma of the Petersburg Conservatory signed by Ilia Glazunov [a famous Russian pianist and composer]. This diploma gave my mother the right to teach music. She returned to Kiev and began to give private music classes. She was invited to the house of my father - to teach him and his sister music. My father was much younger than his music teacher but he fell in love with her immediately. He kept silent for several years, although my mother understood that her student wasn't indifferent to her. When he told her of his love she got scared and left, refusing to teach him music any more.

My father told his parents that he couldn't live without Evgenia and asked their permission to marry her. Of course, they were against it. Firstly, my mother was ten years older than my father; an age difference which wasn't quite typical in Jewish families. Secondly, she came from a lower class of society. My father had a big argument with his parents. The result was that he took his razor, underwear and a book of poems and came to my mother. They were living together, which was against any moral principles of society. Their first baby was a boy. He didn't even reach the age of one. He died approximately in 1920. Later my parents had a civil ceremony and only after that they were allowed to visit their parents. My father could never forgive his parents that they didn't accept my mother. They did accept her later, but my husband couldn't forget that they were dead against their marriage.

My father had no education besides school, and my mother insisted that he entered a higher educational institute. He entered the extramural department of Kiev Engineering and Construction Institute. He worked as a foreman and then engineer on a construction site even before he finished his studies at this institute. My father always came home late and was very tired. I remember my mother telling us not to bother him because he had to do his homework. But my father always found some time to spend with us. He was very fond of his children. Upon graduation my father went to work at a plant and then at the Ministry of Construction. My mother was teaching music privately and that was what our family lived on.

Growing up

I was born in Kiev in 1925 and was the oldest of the children. My sister Lilia was born in 1929. She was born a weak and sickly girl. She got ill with tuberculosis when she was three years old. It was lung and kidney and osseous tuberculosis. She couldn't walk for a few years. She was confined to bed. I loved her a lot and spent lots of time with her. I read books to her when my mother went to her classes. Lilia learned to read when she was very young and was reading too much. Reading had an impact on her sight. In 1932 my mother had twins - Anna and Tamara, but we called them Asia and Tasia at home. My mother was 45 and she wanted no more children. But abortions weren't allowed at that time and my mother had no option. Our life was very poor and miserable then. I remember we kept potatoes under the grand piano - it was the only dry spot in the apartment. My mother made potato soup and some second course dish - this was our main food. Once Lilia and I took out a couple of potatoes and ate them raw while waiting for our mother.

I started school in 1933. It was an ordinary Russian secondary school. There were children of many nationalities, including Jewish children, who studied there. There was no issue of nationality then - we were all Soviet children and we were all equal. I was a poor pupil. I mostly got grade '3' - out of the '5' grade system. I took no interest in mathematics or physics and these subjects were very difficult. However, I read a lot and knew Russian literature well.

My biggest hobby was music. My mother taught music to me and Lilia. Lilia recovered and went to the same school where I studied. Our family was rather poor. I remember my mother giving us jam sandwiches for lunch at school. I was ashamed of these sandwiches. Many other children had sandwiches with fish, sausage or cheese. I tried to eat my sandwiches when nobody could see me. If there were children around, I would suffer from hunger and never take my 'poor' sandwiches out of my bag, so that nobody would see them. Lilia took such things easy and enjoyed eating everything that my mother gave us. She managed to exchange her sandwich for something more delicious. In exchange she solved problems in mathematics or wrote compositions for other children.

We lived in a big four-bedroom apartment on Tarasovskaya Street in the center of Kiev. This was the apartment of my mother's parents. Later the authorities gave two rooms to two young workers that came from provincial areas. I remember them well - the two young girls in red shawls. The apartment was furnished with pre-revolutionary furniture that belonged to my mother's parents. There were two instruments: my mother's piano, which she had had since her childhood, and the grand piano, a gift of Morduh, my father's father.

We had a big kitchen and my mother cooked on the Primus stove. We didn't have a bathroom and the family went to the sauna twice a week. We had a housemaid because my mother couldn't handle the housekeeping just by herself. The housemaid was a common Ukrainian woman. She came to Kiev in 1933, during the famine 4, and stayed with us. She slept on the sofa in the living room and my parents and the four of us, children, slept in our bedroom.

In summer we often went to the village where Glasha - this was our nanny's name - lived. My mother spent a lot of time with us: she taught us music and French. We had a rule: we had to speak French on certain days and the one who broke this rule had to learn a poem or a fable by heart and recite it. We went for walks in the Botanical Gardens not far from our house or to the railway station. At that time it was a usual thing to go for a walk to the railway station.

My father was working a lot. He was a real Soviet man. He became a member of the Communist Party in the early 1930s. He believed in the five-year plan 5 and in socialism and communism and he used to convince us even in the most difficult years that those were temporary difficulties in our country and that everything would be fine some day. My parents' friends often came to our home. We celebrated 1st May and October Revolution Day 6. Everybody enjoyed these holidays, we danced and sang Soviet songs.

We spoke Russian at home. We didn't celebrated any traditional Jewish holidays. We only heard Yiddish when we visited our grandparents. They always celebrated Jewish holidays and my father used to take us to his parents especially for the holidays. I cannot say exactly what kind of holidays they celebrated, nobody told us anything about them, about their history. They must have been afraid that we might mention it at school and cause problems, of course, because in the 1930s religion was already persecuted by the authorities [see struggle against religion] 7. We started getting this information about the past only recently, in the 1990s. I believe the celebrations were at Chanukkah, Purim, Rosh Hashanah, and we, kids, always got money and sweets. My mother hardly ever visited my paternal grandparents. She always remembered that she had been rejected by her husband's parents. We had many books at home. My grandfather gave his collection of books to my father and my father added new books to it. There were books by Russian and Jewish writers and international classics, all in Russian. My parents led an ordinary life of the Soviet intelligentsia.

During the war

Everything went fine until unjustified arrests and repression began in the late 1930s [during the so-called Great Terror] 8. We, children, didn't quite understand what was happening. We saw that our parents were upset and depressed. My father often came home from work looking pale and lost. My parents went to the room and closed the door behind them. They used to talk for a long time. Later we got to know that one of my father's closest friends had been executed. My father was called to the NKVD 9. They forbade him to help his friend's family. But he did support them. And he did it openly. It was difficult because my father's salary was very small. And the money that my mother made was a modest support of our family budget. Often we had nothing left before the next pay day. This support that my father decided to provide was dangerous and also hard from a material point of view. But my father thought it was a question of honor and he openly visited his friend's wife and helped her as much as he could.

These people were our neighbors. Once we, children, started teasing the children of this man that was executed. We didn't quite understand what we were doing. My father hit me for the first time in my life. He said I was the oldest and was supposed to understand how mean it was on our part. We never did it again. Every day my father was saying goodbye to my mother before going to work, because he didn't know whether or not he would be back. It was especially frightening at nighttime. They used to arrest people at night. However, providence must have protected my father. My mother's cousin was arrested. He was an actor. His stage name was Kardiani and that was the only name that I knew him by. He probably said something politically incorrect and was arrested right on the stage. Nobody ever saw him again. In the middle of the 1950s his children received documents confirming his rehabilitation 10 and his death certificate. He died in one of Stalin's camps [see Gulag] 11.

The war was a complete surprise for us. I remember 22nd June 1941, the first day of the [Great Patriotic] War 12. We were wondering what a war was like and what was ahead of us. My father was sure that the war would be over within a few weeks and that Kiev wouldn't be left by our army and that there was nothing to worry about. Nobody in our family ever spoke about Hitler exterminating the Jewish population. I think my parents forgot that they were Jews. In the middle of July Jews from Western Ukraine appeared in the Botanical Gardens: children, old people and women. They lived in the open air, tents or on the ground. They presented a horrible sight. They were telling people the truth about the extermination of Jewish people by Germans. Then the Minister of Construction, my father's boss, called my father. He told him to get ready and leave with the family.

We went to the railway station on a horse-drawn cart. Asia and Tasia were enjoying themselves. They found everything interesting. But Lilia and I seemed to begin to understand that a war was no game and that we were to go through a hard time. Still, the reality turned out to be much more frightening than any of our childish concerns. We were going by train. We were in lack of food and water. My father got off the train when it stopped to look for some food. We were giving away anything we could in exchange for food.

At first we lived in the village of Korzovo, Kuibyshev region. It was a distant village and we lived in a house that had been deserted by its former tenants. My father went to work on a collective farm 13. My mother and I planted some vegetables in the garden. Although it was already summer we hoped that we would be able to do some harvesting. The collective farm gave my father a piglet to breed and slaughter afterwards. This piglet lived with us in the house. We called him Vaska. We gave him food and played with him. He was like a dog to us. He was very smart and nice. When the time came to slaughter him we all cried so hard that the adults had to take him to the neighbor's yard to slaughter. We cried for a long time remembering our Vaska. We refused to eat the meat and sausage and our parents had to sell these products or exchange them for other food products. I have horrible memories of the evacuation. It was destitution and starvation all along. This was life full of search for food and hard work.

Later, in 1943, my father was called to join the labor front and he left for Kuibyshev. We joined him some time later. We lived in a big house in Kuibyshev. My father worked at a military plant. My mother was constantly doing different work to earn a little. She gave music lessons or did the washing and cleaning for richer families. I finished school. My younger sisters also studied. But Lilia fell ill with osseous tuberculosis. She was confined to bed again. While staying in bed she learned to sew and made clothes for me and my little sisters. She was very good at it. She could make a nice dress or skirt from a little piece of fabric. She could even make beautiful hats. After the war we wore what Lilia was making us for a long time. Lilia had to stay in bed for almost two years, until the time when we had to return to Kiev.

Post-war

We returned to Kiev immediately after the war was over. It took my father some time to obtain a request from his workplace and permits for the members of his family. It was necessary to have the relevant documents and permits to be able to go back home from evacuation [see residence permit] 14. When we returned to Kiev Kreschatik [the main street of Kiev] was in ruins. Many buildings in Kiev were ruined. Our apartment on Tarasovskaya Street was occupied. Our furniture and what was even more important - our piano and grand piano - were in this apartment. My mother couldn't work without her instruments. We had to get them back. My parents had to appeal in court for what was theirs. In a few years' time my father received an apartment in a new building on Tverskaya Street, where I live to this day. My sisters and me continued to study in school.

I entered Kiev Music School. After finishing it I entered the flute department at the Conservatory. Lilia studied at the conducting/choir department of Kiev Music School. She met Igor Ivaschenko, a nice, young Ukrainian man, and married him in 1949. All of us lived in this three-bedroom apartment on Tverskaya Street: my parents, Lilia, her husband and their daughter Irina, born in 1951, Asia, Tasia and I. My bed was in the bathroom for quite some time - our bathroom was a big room - and we used to look at things with a sense of humor. We always had guests at home. My younger sisters' friends used to visit them right after their classes were over, conservatory students used to come by and we all enjoyed ourselves and felt comfortable, although our living conditions were always rather difficult. Later Tasia entered Kishinyov Conservatory. It became more and more difficult for a Jew to enter higher educational institutions or find a job.

I need to say that my family didn't face any problems associated with the anti-Semitism of the late 1940s - early 1950s. I remember my father having some problems at work but things must have come to a quite satisfactory solution. The persecution of Jewish lecturers began at the Conservatory. Many of them were dismissed and many had to move to Siberia, to the North or to smaller towns because they couldn't find a job in Kiev. However, students weren't involved somehow and these processes went past us.

I faced anti-Semitism only when I was obtaining my [mandatory] job assignment 15. I had a request from Kiev Opera House sent to the Conservatory asking them to issue a job assignment to me at the Opera House. But of course, because of my nationality the Conservatory assigned me to go to Donetsk. There were quite a few Jews in the Conservatory, talented violinists or pianists and they were all sent to smaller towns; not one of them could stay in Kiev. I was a 4th-year student when I married Yavorskiy, a music expert. He was a Jew and he was many years older than I. We didn't last a year together. His attitude towards me was fatherly and he patronized me even after we got divorced in 1950. He was very well-known in the Kiev musical circles but even he couldn't help me to stay in Kiev.

I worked at Donetsk Opera House for three years. In 1953 Stalin died. There was a meeting in the concert hall and the actors went onstage to hold a speech, and they cried and each of them said that we had lost 'our father', etc. My friend and I were sitting in the audience. And all of a sudden we burst out laughing. It must have been either out of nervousness or because we just couldn't bear the hypocrisy of it all. The master of ceremony came to reprimand us. He threatened that they would ask us to leave the ceremony. So we had to calm down. We were afraid that they might dismiss or arrest us afterwards.

In Donetsk I met Lekov, the choreographer of Donetsk Opera House. He was a handsome man and women adored him. I fell head over heels in love with him. We lived together and I came to Kiev when I was pregnant. Lekov came with me and we settled down at my father's place. Lekov got employed by Kiev Opera House and was chief choreographer there for some time. He treated me nicely for a while. Then he got loose and fell for another woman. It was all so scandalous. My family just told him to get lost.

Lilia was very sympathetic and stayed with me all this time. A few weeks later I gave birth to my son. This was in 1955. I was single - Lekov and I never got married - and we gave Zhenia my father's last name; and the patronymic accordingly: Evgeniy Mikhailovich Korolik. My mother died in 1956. (Photo 7) Our apartment was empty by then. Igor Ivaschenko was offered a job with the Virskiy Folk Dance Group. Igor was a very talented pianist and conductor and he was very popular with employers. All kinds of groups tried to employ him. But Virskiy gave him a room and then, in a year's time a good two-bedroom apartment.

Asia and Tasia got married in due time. My father, my son and I stayed in the apartment on Tverskaya Street. My father didn't remarry for ten years after my mother's death. He loved my mother and couldn't forget her. Besides, he felt responsible for me and my son. I didn't have a job and I was dependent on my father and Lilia. I must say that Lilia lived very well at that time. Her husband Igor went abroad on tours and they were very well-off. And she always remembered that her sister needed help. She always bought or made things double - one was always for Vera, me.

In order to cheer up a little I took to visiting the amateur Russian Folk Orchestra. I met a horn player there, Valeriy Burdenko, a Jew, and he fell in love with me. Valeriy was 14 years younger than me and grew up in a traditional Jewish family. His father was deeply religious. His whole family was religious. His parents were fasting at Yom Kippur. They cooked traditional food and observed Sabbath, went to the synagogue regularly and followed the kashrut. Valeriy was used to the Jewish way of life, but he wasn't religious himself.

Valeriy was an only son and his parents sincerely wished for him to be happy. And happiness suggested that all Jewish rules should be remembered: in religious Jewish families a wife had to be younger than her husband, hold a lower social position and education. She couldn't have been married before, or have a child. If she didn't meet all these requirements neither the parents nor a rabbi would have allowed such marriage. Of course, his parents were dead against our marriage. I, too, thought and told him that the differences made it impossible for us to be together. But Valeriy didn't give up. He visited me and he played with my son. He was so caring that I gave in. I also recalled that my mother was ten years younger than my father but that they loved each other so much and lived a long life with this love.

I married Valeriy and never once regretted it. He adopted my son and gave him his name. My son is called Evgeniy Valerievich Burdenko now. Our son Sasha was born in 1964. ???? We were an ordinary Soviet family and celebrated communist holidays and birthdays, visited relatives and friends. There was nothing related to the Jewish way of life in our life then. Sasha finished an ordinary Russian secondary school. There were no other schools in the Soviet Union then. Simultaneously he learned to play the piano at the music school. He was very gifted when it came to music. He tried to enter Leningrad Conservatory; we didn't even try to submit documents to Kiev Conservatory knowing its anti- Semitic atmosphere. It turned out to be no easier in Leningrad. My son successfully passed all his exams in his category, but got a '3' in the history of the Party. Sasha went to the army and then entered Kiev Conservatory and finished it.

Sasha and his Jewish wife - she too is a musician - moved to Germany. He lives in the vicinity of Munich, he is a recognized musician, he published records and CDs and he has students, too. His son Yuliy was born in 1998. My older son Evgeniy lives in Kiev. He and Valeriy opened a car company. His wife Zhenia and he have two children: their son Kirill, born in 1986 and their daughter Daria, born in 1989. So, I'm a happy wife, mother and grandmother.

My father got married for a second time in 1966 after I got my life under control. He went to live with his wife Maria Lvovna, a Jew. They lived together for six years until his death in 1972.

My sister Lilia divorced Igor Ivaschenko when their daughter Irina was ten years old. Later Lilia married a musician ten years her junior, and her daughter Irina is eight years older than her husband. Therefore, it is our family tradition. However, all women in our family have been loved and cared for by their husbands. Lilia worked as a singer at Kiev Ukrainian Drama Theater for many years. In 1998 she died after terrible pain of cancer. Her daughter Irina lives in Kiev. She is a TV producer.

My younger sisters Asia and Tasia live in Israel. Tasia finished Kiev Radio Engineering College. She married Misha Markov, a Jew. They met at the plant where she used to work. They have two daughters: Maria, born in 1960 and Elena, born in 1964. They all moved to Israel in 1989. They left for the sake of Misha. He had a weak heart and needed a surgery that wasn't possible in our country. Although they were leaving at the time of perestroika 16, the departure was still a humiliating process when it came to resigning from work, obtaining all necessary documents and especially - at the moment of departure. The train was available five minutes before departure. Adults and children were crying and yelling, throwing their luggage through the windows. There was a disdainful behavior by the service personnel - this whole scene could only be compared with evacuation. But Asia's family went through it. Misha had a surgery in Israel. He worked many years before he retired. They got to love Israel; its religion and culture has become theirs. Misha became an active member of a party, but which party exactly I don't know, and takes part in the political and cultural life of Israel. They live in Ashdod.

Asia got educated at Kishinyov Conservatory and worked as a music teacher for some time. She married Alexei Reshetnichenko, a Ukrainian man. He was a sailor and worked as an engineer after his retirement. Asia and Alexei have a daughter, Tatiana, born in 1959. Tatiana was married to Miroslav Vishnevetskiy. They were friends since school. Miroslav was a very intelligent and energetic man, but he put all his energy into criminal business. As a result Miroslav disappeared - he was most likely murdered - and Tatiana and her two children had to escape from the country urgently. The criminals never left her alone: they demanded huge amounts of money and threatened to kill her and kidnap her children. And the only prompt way to escape was emigration to Israel. Asia, Tatiana and the children left for Israel in 1997. Alexei stayed in Kiev to arrange the sale of the apartment. But he died shortly afterwards - it must have been all the tension and nerves. Tasia waited for Miroslav several years, but then she married an Israelite when she understood that Miroslav wasn't among the living. Asia lives near Tatiana in Ashdod. She gives private lessons. She rings up her grandchildren.

So, it was destiny that the members of our assimilated family who didn't know Yiddish, Jewish religion, tradition or culture moved to Israel. . As for me, I returned to Jewish traditions some time before. My husband Valeriy grew up in a family that observed all Jewish traditions. At the beginning of our life together I tried to follow this way of life to please him. But in due time I understood that I was really drawn to my roots - the Jewish culture, language and traditions. We don't know Yiddish and don't know the holidays or traditions. We don't remember or don't have any idea about how to go about them. It's too late to start things now. We were raised as atheists and we still celebrate all Soviet holidays, although there is no USSR any more. But it's our life and we can't change anything about it.

I believe this is the way many Jews in this country lived their lives. But I'm interested and I'm trying to learn more about the Jewish culture. When my husband and I went to visit my sisters in Israel I felt that I stepped onto my motherland. I like Israel very much and if the children wanted to go there we would emigrate to this country. But Sasha is all right in Germany and Zhenia likes it in Ukraine. My husband and I try to be with our children: we live in Kiev and travel to Germany to visit Sasha. My husband and I went to the synagogue, founded by my grandfather Morduh, several times. I'm not a religious person but I was excited to enter this synagogue. It is wonderful that Jewish life has been restored in Ukraine and that we have Jewish newspapers, synagogues and cultural centers. I hope that our grandchildren will be closer to the Jewish way of life than we, children of the Soviet country.

Glossary

1 Guild I

In tsarist Russia merchants belonged to Guild I, II or III. Merchants of Guild I were allowed to trade with foreign merchants, while the others were allowed to trade only within Russia.

2 Jewish Pale of Settlement

Certain provinces in the Russian Empire were designated for permanent Jewish residence and the Jewish population was only allowed to live in these areas. The Pale was first established by a decree by Catherine II in 1791. The regulation was in force until the Russian Revolution of 1917, although the limits of the Pale were modified several times. The Pale stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and 94% of the total Jewish population of Russia, almost 5 million people, lived there. The overwhelming majority of the Jews lived in the towns and shtetls of the Pale. Certain privileged groups of Jews, such as certain merchants, university graduates and craftsmen working in certain branches, were granted to live outside the borders of the Pale of Settlement permanently.

3 Russian Revolution of 1917

4 Famine in Ukraine

In 1920 a deliberate famine was introduced in the Ukraine causing the death of millions of people. It was arranged in order to suppress those protesting peasants who did not want to join the collective farms. There was another dreadful deliberate famine in 1930-1934 in the Ukraine. The authorities took away the last food products from the peasants. People were dying in the streets, whole villages became deserted. The authorities arranged this specifically to suppress the rebellious peasants who did not want to accept Soviet power and join collective farms.

5 Five-year plan

five-year plans of social and industrial development in the USSR an element of directive centralized planning, introduced into economy in 1928. There were twelve five-year periods between 1929-90.

6 October Revolution Day

October 25 (according to the old calendar), 1917 went down in history as victory day for the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia. This day is the most significant date in the history of the USSR. Today the anniversary is celebrated as 'Day of Accord and Reconciliation' on November 7.

7 Struggle against religion

8 Great Terror (1934-1938)

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

9 NKVD

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

10 Rehabilitation in the Soviet Union

Many people who had been arrested, disappeared or killed during the Stalinist era were rehabilitated after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, where Khrushchev publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted the veil of secrecy from what had happened in the USSR during Stalin's leadership. It was only after the official rehabilitation that people learnt for the first time what had happened to their relatives as information on arrested people had not been disclosed before.

11 Gulag

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

12 Great Patriotic War

13 Collective farm (in Russian kolkhoz)

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

14 Residence permit

The Soviet authorities restricted freedom of travel within the USSR through the residence permit and kept everybody's whereabouts under control. Every individual in the USSR needed residential registration; this was a stamp in the passport giving the permanent address of the individual. It was impossible to find a job, or even to travel within the country, without such a stamp. In order to register at somebody else's apartment one had to be a close relative and if each resident of the apartment had at least 8 square meters to themselves.

15 Mandatory job assignment in the USSR

16 Perestroika (Russian for restructuring)

Gisya Rubinchik

It was not easy to talk to Gisya Rubinchik. She was constantly turning her eyes towards the door of her sick son's room. Thus it was sometimes embarrassing to ask her about details of various events. People like her can be called great martyrs - so many ordeals she had to withstand! A cultured, educated and noble-looking person, at her 83 years of age, she has preserved a tenacious memory, expressive speech, and most importantly, an unusual courage.

My family background

I was born in 1919 in the town of Shklov located on the Dnieper river. When I was young there was a magnificent park in this town, second after the one in Minsk in size and beauty. Shklov was a small, green, and very picturesque town. It's famous in Russian history. When it was still a village, Catherine II 1 declared it one of her favorites. Poles lived there, Belarus and a lot of Jews, too. They were generally craftsmen. Everyone lived in peace and friendship. The doors of our house were never locked.

My father's name was Evsei Lapis. Evsei is a Russian alteration of the Jewish name Ieshua. Later, when I received my passport, an illiterate employee of the passport bureau put down my patronymic absolutely wrong: Gamseyevna. My real name is Gisya Evseyevna, but she wrote it down the way she heard it: Gamseyevna. My father came from Shklov. When he was young, he worked with his father in a mill, which stood on the bank of a lake, above the Dnieper river.

My father had three brothers. The eldest was Moisei, and the younger ones were called Abram and Honya. They moved to Petrograd after 1917, when the Pale of Settlement 2 was abolished. He also had three sisters. Fanya was a real beauty. She lived with her husband in Smolensk, and then moved to Lvov. For the first 10 years of their marriage they had no children. Then a daughter, Zoya, was born, who now lives in Germany. My father's youngest sister, Liza, was an active communist. She married one of our relatives. I don't remember what kind of kinship that was, maybe one of her cousins. Then she divorced him, married a Russian guy and left with him for Murmansk, a seaport in the north of Russia. Her second husband, Smirnov Sergei Alexandrovich, was the secretary of the Murmansk regional committee of the Communist Party and supervised personnel allocation in all parts of the region.

The third sister, Haya, lived with us after the death of her husband. When her husband, Vladimir Shur, was still alive, their family lived in the neighboring settlement Kopys on the Dnieper river. Their older son was called Lev. Their second son, Zyama, fell from a swing and struck his head against a stone. I was still small, when he died. Their third child, Mishenka, was born in Shklov, where Aunt Haya moved to get help from her mother, my grandmother Sore-Riva Lapis [nee Shafkid]. Right then Haya's husband, Vladimir, committed suicide. As it became clear later, the reason for this act was nonsense, or better, his kindness. Someone had borrowed 90 rubles of community money from him and hadn't paid back the debt. Vladimir was supposed to report it. He felt such remorse, as if he had embezzled the money, and hung himself. It was such a horror, I remember, when it happened. Haya fell ill after this news, bleeding from her throat. The children and she had found shelter in our house, although it was already rather crowded, because other people lived in the second half.

Unfortunately, I don't remember when exactly my parents were born. My father was born around 1885. I don't know anything about his education. He served in the army from 1914 to 1918, participated in World War I, and then in the Civil War 3. He was a very strong person, strong-willed and brave. He didn't join any party and stayed away from politics. He was awarded a St. George Cross 4 for his service at the front. I remember, we had a photo that showed my mother and my father's sister sitting, and standing behind them were my father and his friend, a Russian, with St. George Crosses on their chests. It was a very rare award for Jews. Father returned from the war as an invalid: he lost a leg and one eye. He was treated in a hospital in Petrograd.

I don't know too much about my mother Maria Gershevna Lapis' family. Here's how I learnt about her difficult childhood. I remember that once I was very offended with my mother for something. I was sulky and angry, and suddenly my grandmother, Genya Orman, the wife of my grandfather Gersh Orman, came to me. My mother was crying in the bedroom: I hadn't been eating or talking for three days in a row. She said to me, 'Okay, let's go over to our place, since you don't listen to your mother and upset her so much!' Without thinking twice I put on my coat and went with her. This all happened in winter. We walked slowly, and she told me that when my mother was only 12 years old, her mother died. My mother was very gifted and wanted to study. She had an inclination to literature and even wrote compositions for her cousin, who was a student in grammar school. But she couldn't continue her education because from the age of 12 she had to do all the work around the house. She even had to step on a bench to light the oven. It was then that grandfather Gersh married the younger sister of his deceased wife: grandmother Genya, who was actually my mother's aunt. And I had thought to that very day that grandmother Genya was my real grandmother. Her story shocked me so much, that I rushed home to apologize to mother. I stood on my knees, promised never to misbehave, and she, certainly, forgave me. I cried all night long, and my parents couldn't understand why. I was very upset.

My father got married soon after he returned from the front. So my mother married an invalid. She was only one year younger than my father. Mother and him loved each other very much and had known each other from childhood, because they were cousins. That means that my grandmothers were sisters. Their father, Ilda Shafkhid, lived to 93, and, as they said, preserved a clear mind, a tenacious memory and all his teeth to his very last days.

Growing up

We lived with my father's parents. They were deeply religious people, strictly adhering to traditions. My grandfather's name was Yankel Lapis. I remember him praying and reading old books all the time. They were Jewish books, principally the Talmud. Grandmother didn't read books, she did all the housework. Grandfather had a tallit and tefillin, and, of course a kippah. He wasn't a rabbi, but read so much, knew so much about Jewish history, was such a wise and fair person, that 'Yankel Lapis from Shklov' was almost considered a saint by everyone in town! I can't remember any specific case, but people used to come and consult him.

When I studied at school, he even helped me to do my maths homework. He already had a poor vision then and therefore used to put a stool on a table, to be closer to the source of light. And, he read that way, too! He used to tell me stories from the Torah, but by now I have almost forgotten them all. Since I was a pupil in a Soviet school, where we didn't study any religious subjects, my grandfather couldn't study with me. Of course all Jewish traditions were strictly kept and respected in our house. Everything was done exactly in accordance with traditions. The oven wasn't lit on Saturdays - meals were prepared beforehand. And, certainly, all holidays were celebrated, including Pesach, and Sukkot. Grandfather made a sukkah out of fur-tree branches in the kitchen garden and lived there as long as it was necessary. I was a pupil then and remember this very well: He lived there for seven days, slept, ate and prayed there.

We attended the synagogue, too. There were two synagogues in Shklov. One of them was a big, two-storied synagogue. Women were praying separately from men, on the second floor. The other synagogue was one-storied. We went to the small one more often, because it was closer to our home. When I lived in Shklov with my parents, we visited the synagogue every week, and, of course, on major Jewish holidays.

On Fridays my mother used to put a clay pot with coffee and milk into the Russian furnace, and baked cinnamon buns. These buns, I think, were called plekhah. She also baked crackers: cut the dough, sprinkled the slices with sugar and dried them in the oven. Such a tasty thing that was! I took them to school to treat my friends. On Saturdays, after visiting the synagogue, grandfather Gersh usually came to see us. He worked as a forest warden and also lived in Shklov, but in another district.

Both Yiddish and Russian were spoken in the house, but adults mostly spoke Russian with the kids. I spoke some Yiddish with my grandfathers and grandmothers, and sometimes with my parents. I remember Yiddish a little bit; I could write in Yiddish, and I remember the names of the months.

All the housekeeping was done by my mother. She was skilful in everything she did, and besides, she was very quick. The family had a small kitchen garden. At one stage there was even a cow, but later all dairy products had to be purchased at the market. My mother carried heavy buckets and iron pots, and she brought water from three blocks away! She worked day and night. I don't know how she could handle it all. While we lived in the family, my brother and me helped her as much as we could.

Grandfather Yankel's home, where we lived, was a one-storied wooden house, but rather a large one. A part of the house was later taken away from him, when the so-called dispossession of the kulaks 5 began. We lived in terribly poor conditions. Father was an invalid and couldn't earn much. He worked in a company for the handicapped as a cutter of footwear. It was very difficult for him to walk. His artificial leg was of poor quality. He got wounds from wearing it. He was always sick because of these wounds. When I was small, I enjoyed it when father took me in his arms and told me episodes from his military life. Unfortunately, I can't remember any details of his stories any more.

Before my grandfather was deprived of one half of his house, my father's older brother, Uncle Moisei, lived with us. Once his wife, Aunt Brokha, took a large pot of boiling water out of the stove and put it on the big round table, around which I was playing with her daughter Nina. I wasn't even 4 years old, my cousin was even younger. We were running and romping along. And suddenly I missed my trajectory and hit the table, whereupon the pot with boiling water fell onto me. After that I had to spend one and a half years in bed, and had to learn how to walk anew. Probably, this event was the first in a chain of misfortunes that haunted me throughout my life.

Here's one more episode from my early childhood that I remember. It was the day when Lenin died in 1924. I was no more than 5 years old. My cousins Yasha and Boma came running to break the news to us. They were about 10 years old and loved to tease me. They said that Lenin had died. I dressed quickly to run into the street and see what was going on - I thought it had happened in our town. And the boys threw a fur coat over me. I was crying, because they didn't let me attend Lenin's funeral.

My parents, and everybody else, wore very simple clothes. They were no suits or any fashionable clothes. In winter they wore short fur coats, and women wore checkered woolen kerchiefs. Jewish women didn't wear wigs in Russia in the 1930s. Both men and women wore Russian countryside-style clothes: a vest, a shirt and a frock coat. Men didn't wear kippot, only peaked caps. Kippot were only put on in the synagogue. All in all, it was a peasant's outfit. But we [children] were treated and dressed in better clothes.

Our parents also wanted us to get an education, and we tried our best to study well. Up to the 4th grade I went to an elementary school. I even remember, what my first teacher's name was - Evgenia Ignatievna. Later I changed to another school, where I studied up to the 8th grade. And it was in a third school that I finally completed my secondary education, the 10th grade. All schools were Soviet schools. I studied German at school, but I didn't like it. It was an ordinary Soviet school with Komsomol 6 and pioneer organizations. I had very good teachers. My teacher of chemistry was Irina Antonovna. She was so graceful, swarthy and slim - I liked her very much. Therefore I took a great interest in chemistry. Later, in Leningrad, at a conference in the Institute of Experimental Medicine, where I worked after graduating from the Medical Institute, I met her again. She had quit teaching and was studying to be a pathophysiologist. We became colleagues.

My brother, Yuda, was born on 8th March 1921. He didn't go to cheder, because there were no more cheders after the Revolution of 1917. He studied in an ordinary Soviet school like me, with kids of various nationalities: Poles, Russians and Jews. I also had a sister, Sonya. She was born in 1930 and a small, thin, fair, and blue-eyed girl - that's the way I remembered her all my life. My mother had such a hard time with them! They were very often sick, their teeth grew slowly, and they even fainted sometimes.

Mother told us that they had once given shelter to refugees from Latvia. It was a woman and her three daughters who had fled from the Germans, when they seized Riga in 1917, and settled in Shklov. My mother taught them Russian. She didn't speak German. When they returned to Western Latvia they lived in the town of Tukum. After they left, they kept sending letters to each other for a long time. And they didn't forget to put a ribbon or a handkerchief into the envelopes. When one of the daughters got married, they even sent mother an invitation to the wedding party, with a golden stamping. But my mother couldn't really leave her home for such a trip. And when, at the beginning of 1930s, a terrible famine struck Belarus, they used to send us parcels with products: butter in blocks, as large as bricks, and even cereal. I remember how I inscribed their address in German on large envelopes with small mica windows.

Our neighbors were people like us, very simple people. I remember some old ladies coming and asking mother to write a letter in Russian. And she never declined. I had a friend, Raya Dankevich. Her father was Belarus, and her mother was Polish. They were probably against our friendship, but never showed it. Later, during the war, as I was told, they became betrayers and cooperated with the Nazis. But as kids, Raya and me often ran to visit each other through our adjacent kitchen gardens. Her brother, Senya, was my brother's classmate and even tried to court me - by putting a line in my copybook or giving me a note every now and then. We often frolicked in their house. Their mother, Sophia Alexandrovna, was a very strict woman, and even made her children kneel down and beat them with a rope for mistakes they had made. As to us - we weren't ever beaten by anybody of our family.

Nobody ever paid any attention to people's nationalities at school. We made friends, fell in love. My first love was called Vladimir. He was fair- haired, brown-eyed, from a Belarus family. He joined our class in the 10th grade and was a big troublemaker. I frequently fought with him. I was rowdy and always talked back to anyone. I remember a school party in the 10th grade. We were reciting poems. When somebody read verses, I always had tears in my eyes. After the party we had a discussion about who was reading what at the time. I said that I was reading a novel by Balzac, Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes [English title: A Harlot High and Low]. It turned out that Vladimir was reading the same book. And he called me by the name of one of the heroines - Esther. This is how our love affair began.

From my childhood on I was a romantic person, taking great interest in literature and poetry. And I still like to draw, mainly portraits. Even now, that I can hardly see any more, my hand reaches out for paper. I was fond of walking in the forest and always had my head in the clouds. My husband used to joke that he brought me down from the heavens onto the earth.

My brother loved to read, too, we had a lot of Russian books at home - purchased or borrowed from the library. We used to read even late at night. I wrote very good compositions. The director of our school always read my compositions out loud to the other children. I had beautiful handwriting, too.

I lived in Shklov until 1937. After leaving school I went to Smolensk to enter the Medical Institute. I went there with my friend Raya, though my mother advised me to pursue drawing. I studied for two and a half years in Smolensk. Then my parents decided that it was better for me to live closer to my brother, who was a student at the Leningrad Aircraft Institute by then. So in the winter of 1940 I found myself in Leningrad, and continued as a student of the 1st year at the Medical Institute.

It was in Leningrad that I saw my father for the last time. He came to visit my brother Yuda, me, and his brothers, Abram and Honya. It was the first vacation in my father's whole life. For the first time he had a rest from his work, from his household chores. Before he left, my father and I went on a ride in a tram. When the tram turned from Kuibyshev Street to the Revolution Square, I suddenly felt my heart stand still due to a bad presentiment. I felt as though I was seeing my father for the last time. I was almost choking from tears, something was squeezing my throat and chest. I could do nothing, and neither could I explain my condition to my father. That happened in the spring of 1941. There were only a few months left before the beginning of the Great Patriotic War 7.

During the war

When the war began, I lived in a student hostel in Leo Tolstoy Square, and my brother was staying in a hostel in Moskovsky Avenue. Soon we had to move to other places. The war turned our lives upside down. All students were ordered to take part in defense preparations. We [medical students] dug trenches near Kingisepp. When we were unloading heavy beams, one of them fell down on me, injuring my hip joint. Since that accident I have had trouble walking. When we returned from trench works, we were commissioned to night and day shifts in a hospital in the old center of Leningrad. In the meanwhile, lectures in the Medical Institute continued. A marine hospital was arranged in our hostel facilities. We had to move over to Petrovskaya Embankment. Later that building was hit by a German bomb, and we were left homeless.

In the beginning my brother took part in defense work in Moskovsky Avenue. The front line was very close to the hostel of the Aircraft Institute, and they built anti-tank obstacles. The hostel was in the zone of artillery bombardment, and my brother moved over to the flat of Uncle Abram, in the center of Leningrad. Uncle Abram was at the front, and his family in evacuation. The apartment was occupied by their relative, Aunt Rose, and her adopted son, Yasha. The first winter of the blockade 8, 1941-1942, was the most awful one. The temperature fell to 30 degrees Celsius below zero. People were starving. My brother was could not work any more. But Aunt Rose made the poor boys take out the slops and carry water to the third floor. They had to live one way or another! My brother was weaker than me, he had been suffered from a liver disease since his childhood. I supported him as much as I could.

After shifts in the hospital and lectures at the Institute, I used to walk a long way through the city in the nipping frost, and brought my relatives bread. When Aunt Rose died, and Yasha followed her shortly after, Yuda gave himself up to despair completely. Each time I came, he said, that I would be burying him on my next visit. I remember him lying there, unable to get up any more, wasting away in front of my eyes, and I tried to convince him, 'Come on, Yuda, brace yourself up, this nightmare will be over soon'. But on 14th March 1942 I found him dead. A few days before, on 8th March, he had turned 21. I buried him myself.

My sister Sonya, who had only turned 11 at the outbreak of war, remained in Shklov with our parents. At the beginning of the war I lost contact with them. I still have my mother's last letter from 27th June 1941. She wrote, 'Maybe we can survive this thunder-storm, as we did in 1918...'. She couldn't imagine what would happen to them, what vile atrocities the Germans would commit. They were all buried alive in Shklov, in the mound between the lake and the Dnieper River, in the very same place, where the mill once stood, where my father and grandfather worked. [This was the famed Shklov killings.] 9 For three days the ground was stirring on that spot, and groans of people were heard from under the ground. All my relatives were murdered there: my mother, father, both grandfathers, both grandmothers, my sister Sonya, Aunt Haya and her son Misha; and, thousands of other Jews. I didn't know about it back then. After the war I wrote many letters to official bodies in Minsk and many other places. I was searching for exact information, but it was in vain. I got no answer whatsoever. Later I learned everything about this tragedy from eyewitnesses.

After the war

I studied and worked throughout the war, from 21st July 1941 to 29th March 1944. But I had to interrupt my studies, because I was physically unable to attend lectures. I worked as a nurse in the hospital of the First Medical Institute then.

I received my diploma in 1946. After graduation I was directed to work in the House of Sanitary Education. When I came there, the managers were surprised. They didn't need practical doctors. So I was told to look for another job myself. I found one with the Institute of Experimental Medicine without any patronage and despite my nationality. There was no anti- Semitism yet. The only thing I was concerned about was my lack of experience. I remember walking down the corridor looking for the director's office. The director asked me what I was interested in. I said that I liked chemistry and knew how to draw. 'OK,' he remarked, 'we need someone who can work with the microscope and draw in the Histology Department.' But actually there was a vacancy only in the Department of General Comparative Morphology, headed by professor Nasonov. And my chief, Michael Abramovich Brown, was a wonderful man. Following the reorganization of the Institute I was transferred to the Department of General Pathology. I worked there for almost 30 years until my retirement. I had no time to defend my candidate's thesis due to family circumstances, but I passed the exams all right.

I have to say that my colleagues treated me well. I didn't feel any humiliation. Even in the most gruesome times, during the so-called Doctors' Plot 10. We, just like employees of other Soviet establishments, constantly had political training: we studied Marxism-Leninism, Stalin's works and historical materialism. We were permanently engaged in all sorts of political seminars and meetings. I was often appointed secretary at these meetings because of my nice handwriting. I remember how we condemned the 'poisoning doctors' in our Institute. And everyone believed it was true, including me. The paradox of the Soviet regime consisted in the fact that people were made to believe the most improbable things and even renounce their relatives. This is what one can call mass foolishness.

I'll tell about one particular case. My mother's elder brother, Lev, was married to a Russian woman, a physiatrician called Anna Sergeyevna Plotkina. They had two daughters, Inna and Rita. They lived in Volgograd. They lived very well, but when this case against doctors began, Uncle Lev's wife kicked him out. He came to Leningrad to stay with us and his older daughter. I was already married then and had an invalid son. Uncle Lev remained with us, until he settled in his own flat.

I got married in 1945. We had no wedding celebration at all. What kind of a wedding party would it have been anyway, in 1945, after everything that we had gone through?! I got acquainted with my husband, Pavel Abramovich Rubinchik, a Jew, at a friend's home. He came from Bryansk region, from the settlement of Zhukovka. He was an engineer, fought at the Leningrad front and was wounded. His wife was evacuated to Kuibyshev during the war, fell in love with another man there and left Pavel. After the war he worked as chief engineer at a Leningrad factory called Weaver.

My husband was 13 years older than me, he had two daughters from his first marriage, and he missed them a lot. His first wife wrote that she couldn't cope with the older daughter, and that he should take her into his new family. He persuaded me. I agreed and cried because of her behavior every other day. His daughter was very spiteful, disliked me and was jealous of her father.

We lived in a communal apartment 11, two rooms were occupied by my husband's relatives. Then we moved to another flat. Our son, Misha, was born in 1947. The delivery was terrible. My son was born disabled. From that moment my excruciating torment began. I corresponded with Academician Filatov 12 and addressed other prominent medical specialists, but my son remained completely helpless. He sees nothing, hears nothing and cannot speak. And he had a bulk of other diseases. How horrible it was in a shared flat with the ill child! How our neighbor scoffed at us! It was another, terrible blow to me when my husband died in 1968. I buried him in the Jewish cemetery.

I moved to another flat with my son after the death of my husband. Some people helped me. The flat was hard to obtain. So many doors I had to knock at: the district party committee, the city department of national healthcare, and so on. I had to go through many hardships.

I haven't left my home for as long as three years now, because of my illness. I'm almost blind. But when I think back of everything that I lived through, I consider myself a happy person. God saved my life, while all my folks were buried alive. Nothing remained of them, just a few photos survived by miracle.

I did not lead a religious life. We only had atheism and the Soviet political propaganda before the war, when I was a student, and even after the war. I was a scientific worker and thus didn't need to be a member of the Communist Party. Luckily, I didn't experience any anti-Semitism or political repressions. I don't really know what's going on elsewhere in the world, even in Israel, because I'm completely preoccupied with the health of my sick son and my own. I regularly get various kind of support from Hesed, and I appreciate it a lot.

Glossary:

1 Catherine the Great (1729-1796)

Empress of Russia. She rose to the throne after the murder of her husband Peter III and reigned for 34 year. Catherine read widely, especially Voltaire and Montesquieu, and informed herself of Russian conditions. She started to formulate a new enlightened code of law. Catherine reorganized (1775) the provincial administration to increase the central government's control over rural areas. This reform established a system of provinces, subdivided into districts, that endured until 1917. In 1785, Catherine issued a charter that made the gentry of each district and province a legal body with the right to petition the throne, freed nobles from taxation and state service and made their status hereditary, and gave them absolute control over their lands and peasants. Catherine increased Russian control over the Baltic provinces and Ukraine. She secured the largest portion in successive partitions of Poland among Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

2 Jewish Pale of Settlement

Certain provinces in the Russian Empire were designated for permanent Jewish residence and the Jewish population (apart from certain privileged families) was only allowed to live in these areas.

3 Civil War (1918-1920)

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

4 St

George Cross: Established in Russia in 1769 for distinguished military merits of officers and generals, and, from 1807, of soldiers and corporals. Until 1913 it was officially referred to as Distinction Military Order, from 1913 as St. George Cross. Servicemen awarded with St. George Crosses of all four degrees were called St. George Cavaliers.

5 Kulaks

In the Soviet Union the majority of wealthy peasants that refused to join collective farms and give their grain and property to Soviet power were called kulaks, declared enemies of the people and exterminated in the 1930s.

6 Komsomol

7 Great Patriotic War

8 Blockade of Leningrad

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

9 Shklov killings

From 12th July 1941 to 27th June 1944 the town of Shklov (Mogilev oblast, Belarus) was occupied by the Germans, who killed 7,504 people in Shklov alone. The 3,000 Jews of the town were shot by the Germans in September 1941.

10 Doctors' Plot

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

11 Communal apartments

The Soviet power wanted to improve housing conditions by requisitioning 'excess' living space of wealthy families after the revolution of 1917. Apartments were shared by several families with each family occupying one room and sharing the kitchen, toilet and bathroom with other tenants. Because of the chronic shortage of dwelling space in towns shared apartments continued to exist for decades. Despite state programs for the construction of more houses and the liquidation of shared apartments, which began in the 1960s, shared apartments still exist today.

12 Filatov, Vladimir Petrovich (1875-1956)

Outstanding ophthalmologist and scientist, head of the Eye Clinic at Odessa University. One of the most important achievements was the tube flap method of plastic surgery offered by Filatov since Word War I.

Rakhil Givand-Tikhaya

Rakhil Givand-Tikhaya with mother Rebecca Givand and aunt Tatiana Vodotiyevskaya.

Rakhil Givand-Tikhaya
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Vladimir Zaidenberg

My family background
Growing up
My school years
During the war
Post-war
My husband
My present-day life

My family background

My name is Givand Rakhil Grigoriyevna, and I was born on January 23,1928, in Kiev.

My parents, Gersh Shimonovich Givand and Rebecca Yakovlevna Givand, lived indowntown Kiev on Tarasovskaya Street, while my mother's mother, mygrandmother, Sonya Eidelman, lived in a private house on the left bank ofthe Dnieper River, in an area called Slobodka.

My great-grandmother, Genya Grubman, also lived in that house. Iremember her very well. She was very old, but was always glad to see me.She often told me stories about the histories, traditions and religions ofJewish folk. At home, my great-grandmother no longer worked around thehouse, but she was a very wise woman, and many people turned to her foradvice on how to deal with one or another of life's situations. Great-grandmother was very religious. I don't remember how religious holidayswere celebrated at her house, but I know for sure that all the Jewishtraditions were kept very strictly while she was still alive.

She had a special place in the synagogue. She read the Torah out loudand other women repeated the passages after her. She was one of the fewwomen there who could read and understand the Torah, so she read it for theother women who came together in the synagogue, and then explained it tothem.

My great-grandmother died in 1936. I remember her funeral very well,first of all, because it was the first funeral ceremony I had everattended, and secondly, because it was carried out according to Jewishtraditions. I remember entering the house on the day of the funeral andsaying "Hello" to everyone. An old Jewish man replied, "Child, you shouldnot say "hello" today - you have a dead body in your house". My great-grandmother was lying on the floor, on straw, with no coffin. The ceremonyincluded neither music nor flowers. Two candles were lit behind her headand prayers were read out loud by the men, while the women listened fromanother room. Great-grandmother was taken to the cemetery without a coffinand was buried wrapped in a cloth. I remember that the men said many, manyprayers that day, in a language I could not understand. I also rememberthat my grandmother and my mother tore their dresses. My mother explainedto me that this was done in accordance with Jewish law.

My grandmother, Sonya Eidelman (maiden name: Grubman), also lived inSlobodka. I never knew my grandfather, as I was born after he died.

I know about my grandfather from the stories told by my mother. Hisname was Yakov Eidelman. I believe he had no education, but by nature was avery gifted person. He worked with his hands and was involved in commerce.Before the Revolution, he was quite rich. He had lived in America, where hehad run his own business. People said he even owned his own houses there.He wanted his wife and children to join him there, but since his wife wasvery ill and doctors had forbidden her to cross the ocean on a steamship,he had to return to Russia.

In Slobodka the family owned a house and a shop. The shop traded infoodstuffs and necessities. My grandfather was very prosperous. The shopwas located in their house. Many residents of Slobodka, both Jews andUkrainians, bought products from his shop and treated my grandfather andhis family with great respect.

My grandfather was very religious. When he left America, he broughtback with him a lot of different talit, as well as other religious objectsfor the synagogue. My mother said that he would always wear a yarmulke anda hat. His day always started with prayer. In his house, they always keptSabbath and every Jewish holiday. Grandmother was also very religious, andthey both attended a synagogue in Slobodka. There were two synagogues inSlobodka at that time, but I remember only one of them, the big one. It wasdirectly across from the tram stop where we got off when we came from thetown. Every Saturday, my grandfather went to this synagogue.

Jewish pogroms began during the Civil War (1917-1922).It happened in 1918 or 1919. The army of General Denikin was in Kiev then,and its soldiers attacked and ruined Jewish homes, killing men, rapingwomen, and confiscating and destroying property. During the pogroms theJews would hide in their houses and basements, but my grandfather was acourageous man, who feared nothing and was convinced that nothing wouldtouch his family because the local Ukrainian population was very nice tohim. He hoped they would protect him. But as it happened, no one had timeto protect him for a soldier suddenly ran up to his house, stabbed himthree times and left. My grandfather lost a lot of blood and died rightthere, at the doorway of his house.

My grandparents had four daughters and a son. The eldest daughter andthe son died as babies from scarlet fever; I don't even know their names.Three daughters were left: Tatiana, who was born in 1902, my mother, whowas born in 1904, and Maria, who was born in 1913.

Before getting married all of them lived in grandfather's house inSlobodka. I remember that house very well. In the beginning of the 1930sthe house was remodeled. In the old house all the rooms were small, whilein the remodeled house they were united and made large. The house was madeof wood with an iron roof; there were two porches that faced the street andthe backyard. There were four large rooms and a kitchen. The toilet and thewell were outside. The house had good wooden furniture, for my grandparentswere not poor. There were also nice bronze candleholders and beautifulsilver dishes.

They had no garden in the yard, but auxiliary premises and a barnwith two cows. I remember these very well because every time we came tovisit I always had fresh milk to drink.

My grandmother had no servants; she had to work around the house onher own. That is why when grandfather died, my mother and her sisters hadto start helping around the house, milking the cows, and selling the milkin order to survive.This is all I know and remember about my relatives on my mother's side.

My father, Gersh Shimonovich Givand, was born in 1904 in the town ofVolodarka, outside Belaya Tserkov, in the area of Kiev. His parents, mygrandparents, Shimon and Anna Givand, were also killed in pogroms. Besidesthat, my father's elder sister Rukhlya was also killed. The pogroms wereterrible; entire Jewish families were murdered. I cannot tell you abouttheir deatsh in more detail because my father never told me much, sparingmy childish sensibility.

I know that following that pogrom three brothers remained: my fatherwas the eldest, then came Israel, born in 1908, and finally the youngest -Naum, born in 1912.

An interesting incident in the life of the middle brother, Israel,follows. During one of the pogroms, when Jews were being killed, a richneighbor, whose name I don't know, had hidden his money in Israel's shoe.Nobody knows what happened to that man, he may have been killed, too, buthis money remained in Israel's shoe. Once, when Israel saw that GeneralDenikin's soldiers wanted to throw his neighbor Lipa Novichenko into awell, Israel ran up to them and said, "I will give you money, if you'lljust let this man go". The soldiers took the money and let Lipa go, andLipa bowed down with gratitude before my father and his brothers for therest of his life; he also helped them a lot.

After they lost their parents, the brothers were put into anorphanage, but I don't remember much about that time. I know that Lipahelped them a lot, including with their education. Unfortunately, all threebrothers were killed in the Second World War.

My father finished forestry college around 1927, and then worked inan organization that dealt with the transportation of wood. He had a goodposition and our material life was pretty good.

My mother had no secondary education, because after the death of herfather she had to stop studying in order to help in the shop and around thehouse.

Growing up

I don't know how my parents met, but when they married they moved toNo. 16, Tarasovskaya Street. My father worked at a plant then and he wasgiven a room in a basement. That's where I was born. It was in the citycenter, and "kikes"1 were forbidden to live in that street. I canremember the sign that said that - it was fixed to one of our houses.Later, we moved to another flat on the same street, in house No. 8.

The room was in a communal flat, and was quite large. We had goodfurniture for that time, and many books, including books in Yiddish; italso had a piano, which I was learning to play. Apart from us, there werefive more neighbor families in the flat. We had a communal kitchen with atable, and a closet for each family. There were two toilets, but they werecommunal, so in the mornings we sometimes had to queue. We had a commonelectricity-meter, and every family paid according to the number of peoplein each. The relations between the neighbors were quite peaceful; I don'tmean that we were all friends, but we never quarreled.

In general, we had mostly Jewish families in our flat, but there wasalso one German.

I remember one old Jew, our neighbor, who lived alone. Everyone calledhim grandfather Nudelman. I loved him very much. He was very religious, andhe taught me Yiddish. He told me, "If you mom does not want to tell yousomething in Yiddish, come to me." So, I learned my first Yiddish wordsfrom him. My parents spoke Yiddish only when they did not want me tounderstand, so every time it happened, I ran to grandfather Nudelman and hetranslated for me what they had said.

At our house we did not celebrate any Jewish holidays because myfather was a member of the Communist Party and feared that someone at hisworkplace might learn that he celebrated Jewish holidays at home and reporthim to the authorities. My mother exchanged whispers with grandfatherNudelman and arranged religious celebrations on their own. On Pessach, shewould bring matzoh from grandmother, and the family would celebrate thisholiday with grandfather Nudelman. During the Second World War. GrandfatherNudelman was killed in Babi Yar (site of mass killings of Jews by Germansin Kiev).

But I remember very well how Jewish holidays were celebrated at mygrandmother's in Slobodka. On Pesach, all of her daughters with theirchildren would come together. On the eve of the Passover they would takeout all the bread, and wash and clean the entire flat. Then from the atticthey would take special kosher plates that were kept there in special boxesduring the whole year. They put matzoh, boiled potatoes, horse-radishes,boiled eggs, fish and everything else that was necessary on the table. Idon't remember who led the seder or how, but I remember how nice it wasafterwards. My grandmother had a gramophone on which she played Jewishrecords with songs on them, and we enjoyed ourselves. I don't remember theother holidays much. I remember that on Yom Kippur my mother always fasted,but I did not understand why. I also know that the husband of my mother'ssister Tatiana attended the synagogue regularly until it was closed a yearor two before the war [World War II]. Then he began to go to a house whereJewish men came together to pray.

My school years

In 1935 I started going to school, a Russian school. But there werechildren of different nationalities among the students: Russian, Ukrainian,and many Jewish. I was a very good student; I liked studying very much. Myfavorite subjects were humanities - literature and history. We also hadteachers of different nationalities, and the Jewish children at schoolnever sensed any anti-Semitism. For friends, I had children of differentnationalities, and we all were equal. I had music classes with a teacher athome, and our German neighbor taught me the German language. I don't knowhow she would have reacted to the war and to fascism because she diedbefore the war began, in 1938.

I was a young Pioneer and sang in the school band. I liked to wear thered Pioneer tie, and liked all the Pioneer demonstrations and ceremonies.But I never went to the Pioneer summer camps, I always spent summers withmy mother. We sang Soviet songs, both Russian and Ukrainian, and performedat amateur concerts. We even won prizes at school.

My father liked it very much. We always celebrated Soviet holidays athome - the Great October Revolution Day, and May Day, on May 1. My fatherliked big celebrations, so they invited a lot of guests, no matter whattheir nationality was. They had friends among the Russians and Ukrainianstoo. Relations between people of different nationalities were good backthen. Tables were full of delicious food, because my father liked whenpeople said, "Look, how Givand celebrates this holiday." He emphasizedcelebrations on Soviet rather than Jewish holidays, because repression andarrests started in those years, and he was frightened. My mother wasconcerned over the fact that she could not celebrate any Jewish holidays athome, and, as I mentioned before, she would bring matzoh from Slobodka andwould celebrate the Jewish holidays with grandfather Nudelman. I remembervery well how I was warned not to tell anyone that we had matzoh at ourhouse. By the way, not only Jews were afraid to celebrate their nationalholidays. I don't remember any Russian or Ukrainian children bringingEaster cakes on Easter. Their parents were also afraid that somebody mightlearn that they celebrated religious holidays. In those days the practiceof any religion was outside the law.

In 1937 repression and arrests started. I remember this very wellbecause we had a chair next to the door in our room, and a white bag wasalways lying on that chair. There was always fresh bread and some underwearin that bag - my mother was preparing for an arrest. Many Soviet workers,even common people, were arrested back then, including, some of ourfriends, but praise God, my father was spared.

In general, I had a happy childhood. I went to school, my family hadno financial need, and I was dearly loved by my parents, because I had nobrothers or sisters. My mother took me to resorts, for instance, toZheleznovodsk. In summer, my parents often rented dachas outside Kiev - inIrpen or Vorzel. My father received special tickets at work for rest inhealth centers and rest homes. So, in general, our life was good.

During the war

I knew nothing about Hitler or fascism. We were never told about it atschool. Perhaps the senior students knew something about fascism, but wewere too young to know. My parents probably knew about fascism and thethreat of war, and were concerned, but they spared me and did not tell meanything - until the war broke out, my childhood was marred by nothing.

On June 22, 1941, shells and bombs began to explode in the sky overKiev, and my mother would call me at the balcony and tell me, "Look,military exercises are underway". A little later, German bombs began toexplode.

One morning, there was a ring at the door, and my father was given acall-up paper from the military enlistment committee. He was an officer,who was in charge of political ideology in the army. But he was in thereserves, because the first time he had been called up was in 1939 duringthe Finnish War. Afterwards he was left in Kiev because peace was signedand he was too late to be sent to the front. This time, since he was anofficer in political ideology, he was taken to work on the mobilization ofpeople. People born in his year - 1904 - had not been not called up yet, sohe worked with the enlistment committee. But when he heard that both of hisyounger brothers were called up, he did not think it possible to stay inKiev and went to fight with them. None of them came back.

It so happened that we did not even have a chance to say goodbye to myfather. This is how it happened. As soon as the war broke out, my motherand I began to prepare for evacuation. My father told us that we would needto leave because Hitler would kill all the Jews - he already knew about it.Our mood was terrible. It was scary. I remember there were a lot ofrefugees from the western regions of Ukraine in Kiev, mostly Jews. Theywere settled in the Botanical Garden, not far from our house. It was awfulto look at them: old men, women and children, who had already seen theatrocities of the fascists. They lived on the bare ground, in tents. Mymother often went to see them, to give them some food and to talk to them.I remember she cried a lot. That is why there was no question in our familyabout whether we should evacuate or not. We knew about the fascists;certainly, we did not know what degree their persecutions would reach, buthad learned enough to be frightened badly.

The main question was how to evacuate from Kiev quickly with ourrelatives. Even though the government already knew about the atrocitiescommitted by the fascists against the Jews, no special Jewish evacuationwas organized.

The husband of my mother's elder sister Tatiana Ofman worked inDarnitsa at the train station. He arranged for us to be put on the trainand taken to evacuation. My uncle came to pick us up and put us on thetrain, and there we waited for several days. We did not take manybelongings with us because we thought we were only leaving for a week ortwo. We just took along some bed linen, my blanket, some clothes, and food- as much as a woman and a girl could carry. My mother kept looking out ofthe train windows to see if my father was coming. But my uncle told her,"Riva, don't wait for Grisha." He told us that my father had gone to thefront as a volunteer and purposely did not come to say goodbye to us. Hehad told my uncle, "If I come to say goodbye to Khila and Riva, I will notbe able to leave them. I will die with them." Neither of his brothers -Israel or Naum - came to say goodbye to us either. They all left, and theyall were killed.

We, however, went on to evacuation. With us we had mother's eldersister Tatiana Ofman with her children, Yelizaveta and Abram, along withmother's younger sister Maria Vodotiyevskaya with her children, Viktoriaand Yakov, and grandmother, mother's mother.

The families of my father's brothers, that is, the families of Israeland Naum stayed in Kiev - they were too late to move out. Both familieslived in one big flat, which occupied the whole floor of a house. Therewere 15 of them. One of the relatives worked in the People's Commissariatof the Interior, and she was promised a car to evacuate her family. Butwhen the car was provided, it was too late, Kiev was already encircled.They had to return and all of them were murdered at Babi Yar.

We traveled in heated railway cars and stopped first in Lozovaya.There was a terrible bombing raid there. For some time we lived in Lozovaya- my mother worked there on a collective farm and I helped her. But thisdid not last long. Soon, we were put on open railway platforms next to somemachine-guns and taken to Stalingrad and then to Perm. In the beginning welived at the Perm train station. Each of us had a corner in whch to keepour belongings. We received a piece of bread every day and some sort ofsoup. We washed in the toilet room at the station. During the day, ourmothers cleaned and washed floors at the station. It was very hard livingthere, but we could not leave because my cousin Yelizaveta fell sick withmeasles and was in Perm's hospital. We could not leave without her.

And there we were on that terrible day of September 29, 1941, when ourtroops surrendered Kiev. It was Yom Kippur, the Day of Judgment, and allthe adults, all the Jews who were at the train station fasted. I alsofasted for the first time in my life, and since that time I have beenkeeping this fast every year of my life. I still remember that day, whenall of us, roofless, fatherless, miserable Jews, were fasting and prayingfor our nation, for victory, for our fathers to come home alive, for ourMotherland. It was very had because on the eve of the fast we ate somesalty fish and we were very thirsty, but we could not drink, for it wasforbidden. All of us endured - we thought if we endured, everything wouldbe okay.

Then we wandered around the country. We stayed in Kokanda, where I gotill with meningitis and missed two years of school because of it. Livingthere was very hard - my mother worked at the collective farm to survive. Iremember being hungry all the time: we woke up and went to bed hungry. WhenI was ill, my mother sold everything we had in order to buy penicillin,otherwise I would have died. So, we were left with nothing - not even a bed-sheet or blanket. The only valuable my mother had was her wedding ring, andshe could not let it go. For a long time I walked on crutches because mylegs became infected and would not move.

At that time, the wife of Lipa Novichenko, who was rescued by Israel,found us. Lipa was no longer living, and his wife's second husband, GeorgyIvanovich Geshko, was the director of a film studio. He was Ukrainian, buthe helped us a lot. They took us to Tashkent and gave my mother work in thestudio's canteen; I went to school and our life became easier. I attended aregular secondary school, but there were many evacuated Jewish childrenthere. We stayed with a Russian family, renting a part of a room from them.Everyone treated us with compassion, and I don't remember being offended byanyone despite our Jewish origin. We had no news from my father or hisbrothers, but my mother and I lived with the hope that he was still alive.

During our evacuation in Tashkent, we learned about Babi Yar and thetragic fate of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the occupied territories,as well as the fate of Isare's and Naum's families.

As soon as Kiev was liberated we decided to go home, even though weknew there was nowhere to go. We knew this because Mr. Geshko went to Kievimmediately after its liberation on November 8, 1943, and from thereimmediately wrote us a letter. He had visited us there before the war, sohe went to see in what kind of condition our house was. It was gone. Therewas an ammunition warehouse next to it, and when the Germans wereretreating, they blew it up, so that every house around it was also burntdown.

We returned to Kiev together with the film studio. We traveled in goodrailway cars, but when we arrived, we had nowhere to stay.

We were given shelter by our neighbors, the Rymars, a Russian familywhich showed us a lot of compassion, and we stayed in their basement for along time. We had no possessions of our own: only one pair of shoes and 100rubles. A loaf of bread at the market cost 100 rubles. The Rymar familysaved us at that time. During the occupation they stayed in Kiev, and theytold us all the details about Babi Yar and related to us the horrors of theoccupation. Their life was not easy either, because some of their ancestorswere Jewish, and they also had to hide in Kiev.

In 1945 I received a letter concerning the death certificate of myfather, and later, another one concerning the deaths of his brothers Israeland Naum Givand. Because their families were dead, there was nobody else toreceive those letters. The brothers were killed somewhere outsideKremenchug during the first year of the war.

Post-war

In 1945 I attended a Russian school, but not the same one I hadattended earlier. In this school I learned all about anti-Semitism. Amongthe students, there were many Jewish children who had returned fromevacuation. The attitude of the non-Jewish children to us was horrible -the word "kike" could be heard on every step. Our teachers also secretlysupported the anti-Semites, offending us, and telling us that we had had agood time in Tashkent during the war - they said that to us, who lost ourfathers. They gave lower grades to the Jewish children, and constantlyfound fault with us. We had a girl in our class who managed to escape fromBabi Yar. I don't remember her name, I only know that somehow she hadcrawled out alive. She was teased, called a kike, and nobody had anycompassion for her - neither students, nor teachers. I still remember myafter-war school years with horror.

My mother continued to work at the film studio's canteen, and itsdirector continued to take care of us. We were given a room in a communalflat on Gorky Street, and we lived there for many years.

In 1948 I finished school and enrolled at the Light Industry Institute(the University). I had entry privileges at the university because myfather was killed in the war, and I passed all my exams with excellentmarks.

The beginning of the 1950s marks the start of an openly anti-Semiticcampaign know as the "Doctors' Case" and the fight against thecosmopolitans. When Staling died in 1953, I was part of the guard of honornear his portrait. We certainly did not link the government's policyagainst the Jews and all the repressions of the Soviet people with Stalin'sname. This policy of anti-Semitism certainly affected all of us Jewishstudents. Most of all, we felt it when graduates were sent to certainplaces of work after graduation. In those years, after graduation from auniversity, we could not work just anywhere, but had to work for threeyears at any place the university would send us.

I graduated from the university with honors, and according to therules I was supposed to be offered a good position, but I was one of thelast to be called up, and was offered a position in Siberia. This Irefused, because I could not leave my mother alone, so I did not sign thepaper. This process was repeated several times, until finally, I was sentto Kishenev, Moldavia. I worked in Kishenev for only a few months beforethe Control and Revision Department checked with my organization and toldthe director to "fire the kike." I was fired. But I was very happy toreturn to Kiev. I was not the only Jew who had such an experience. None ofthe other graduating Jews from our university were sent to a good place ofwork, either.

In Kiev I was once again reminded that I was a Jew. Having graduatedfrom a university, I still could not find a job. Only due to another Jew -the director of the "Nefteizmeritel" plant, was I hired to the Experimentaland Design Bureau, where I worked until my retirement on pension.

My mother was sick for many years, and I was very attached to her, soI had no time or opportunity to think about marriage. For many years Iremained single. My mother died in 1980. Finally, in 1986 I married.

My husband

My husband is the poet and writer Naum Meyerovich Shtilerman (Tikhiy).He was born on September 14, 1922, in the village of Emilchino, in theregion of Zhitomir.

His father, Meyer Shtilerman, was a druggist. They lived in thatUkrainian village. Naum's mother, Raisa Shtilerman, did not work outsidethe home; she was a housewife, and raised her children, her son Naum andtwo daughters, Dina and Buzya.

In 1937, Naum's father was arrested, charged with being a German spy,and was sent to penal servitude. He was imprisoned in the SolovetskyIslands. He was a very ill man, practically blind. There he contractedtuberculosis. He returned home only after Stalin's death, and soon died,too.

Naum and his sisters had attended a Ukrainian school, but were placedin a Jewish class. It was not a class in which Yiddish or Hebrew was thelanguage of tuition, but was simply a class into which all the Jewishchildren from the neighboring villages were collected. According to myhusband, relations between the Jews and Ukrainians in their village werewonderful. Even though Yiddish was spoken at home, my husband also spokefluent Ukrainian and considered the Ukrainian language to be his nativetongue.

My husband is grateful to the Ukrainian people because when it becametoo late for his mother, Raisa Shtilerman, to be evacuated, and she had toremain in the occupied territories with her daughters Dina and Buzya duringthe war, they found shelter with Ukrainian families in Korostyshev. Thepeople who rescued them were later awarded the title "Righteous Gentiles".Raisa Shtilerman died in 1990 in Israel, but her daughters Dina and Buzyaare still living there.

Naum entered the University before the war, at the age of 15. Hewanted to study in the Philology Department. He was a very gifted person.He passed all of his high school exams early and then aced his entranceexams. He was accepted even though his father was a member of a repressedminority. Perhaps he was accepted because he had gained entrance into theUkrainian Department, which was "out of fashion" in those days - everyonewanted to study only the Russian language and literature.

Back in the university, Naum began to compose poems in Ukrainian. Hebrought his first collection of poems to a famous Ukrainian poet, who wasalso Jewish, Leonid Pervomaisky (Ilya Gurevich (1908-1973), a famous andpopular Ukrainian Soviet writer. Pervomaisky is his pseudonym, which he hadto take so that his works could be published in the USSR. He was born intoa family of workers. His first publication appeared in 1924. He wrote inRussian and Ukrainian, poems and novels. He also translated from theGerman. During WWII he was a correspondent at the front.) He looked throughit and said, "Everything is fine except your last name. Shtilerman shouldnot be there. Translate it into Russian: "Shtil" means "quiet", so signyour name like this - Naum Tikhiy (Quiet)".

My husband could not print any of his poem collections before the war.After the war, he officially changed his last name, so that it is no longerhis pseudonym - otherwise, his poems would have never been printed.

During the war, Naum was in the army, but since his father had beenrepressed, he was not allowed to fight in the battle, and after the war hecould not join the Communist Party until his father was rehabilitated.

After the war Naum graduated from the Philology Department of theUniversity, and devoted his life to poetry. Twenty-five of his poeticcollections in Ukrainian have been printed. But all his life he felt anti-Semitism not on a common, but on an official, state level.

The first time he was not awarded the Shevchenko Prize was because hewas not a Communist Party member, and he was not accepted into the Partybecause of his father. In order to sweeten the situation, he was insteadawarded the Pavlo Tychyna Prize (another Ukrainian poet). In Tychyna'shouse, which is a museum, there is a portrait of my husband. He was alwaysaccepted there and his poems were read there. In general, people treatedhim kindly, understanding that he deserved much more than just Tychyna'sPrize. Several times his books were presented for the State Prize, butevery time another poet was found, who was more pleasing to theauthorities. In 1995 his other collection of poems was published and againhe was named for the Shevchenko Prize. But simultaneously, a book writtenby the wife of Drozd, the Secretary of the Writers' Union of Ukraine, wasalso named for the prize, and so she was the one who got it. But the nextyear, when the leadership of the State Prizes Committee changed, the poetYavorivsky, who was its chairman, sent a letter to the publishers, whocalled us and invited my husband to nominate his book for the State Prizeagain. The book was nominated on September 23, 1996. The response of theUkrainian poets was wonderful. The poet Nikolay Rudenko wrote on Naum'sbook, "Naum, this is what never dies". This happened on September 23, 1996.But on September 27, an article appeared in the "Literaturnaya Gazeta"newspaper claiming that Tikhiy is not a Ukrainian poet, but rather aUkrainian-speaking poet, because he is just a Jew who speaks Ukrrainian, sohe cannot be awarded such a prize. My husband was so shocked by thisarticle and took it so seriously that he died of a heart attack the nextday.

My husband was a very talented man of two cultures. He would establishdays when we were to speak only Yiddish with him so that he would learnthat language well. When we were in Israel, at the Wailing Wall, at Yad-Vashem, he was very impressed, and that is where he wrote his poem"Conception" about Jewish women's fates in ghettos. But Ukraine andUkrainian people were also very close and dear to him. He died too early,he was only 74. So, my happy family life was very short.

Among the members of our family, I am left alone. Mother's sistersMaria and Tatiana died in the early 80s; their children, my cousins, liveabroad, in Israel and America. The closest people to me now are myhusband's children from his first wife - his son Sergey and his daughter.Sergey is the director of a big newspaper in Kiev, and even though he isnot Jewish according to his passport (his mother, Naum's first wife, wasUkrainian), he still identifies himself with the Jews, attends events inthe Jewish community, and cooperates with leaders of Jewish organizationsin Ukraine. My husband's children are grateful to me for becoming a truewife and friend of their father, who made the last years of his lifesweeter. We have wonderful relations with them, even better than childrensometimes have with their own parents.

For my whole life I have honored the memory of my father, hisbrothers and all the Jews who died at the front or in Babi Yar. In 1945, Istarted going to Babi Yar on September 29, the anniversary of that terribleshooting of the Jews of Kiev. Since 1945, three Russian pilots have alsobeen coming to Babi Yar every year on September 29. At the end of the warthese pilots were kept in the Syretsky concentration camp for prisoners ofwar, and they were made to eliminate the traces of Babi Yar. Prior to theirretreating, the fascists wanted to eliminate all the traces, using theirprisoners of war, who uncovered and burned corpses. So, these pilots werecoming back for many years to honor the memory of innocent Jewish victims.Then only one came, then none.

In Babi Yar I met the famous writer Viktor Nekrasov, who also camethere every year. To this place he brought his last flowers, redcarnations, before he left the Soviet Union. He was exiled from the SovietUnion for his activities in defense of democracy, as this displeased theSoviet authorities. I was surprised that he did not even say "Hello" to me;he simply passed by me, put down his flowers, and left. He did not want todraw the attention of the Security Services officers to me, because theywere watching him closely.

On September 29, 1961, on the 20th anniversary of the shooting, manyyoung people came to Babi Yar not only from Kiev, but also from Moscow,Leningrad, and Tbilisi. Each of us carried a candle, and we placed a wreathin the form of a six-point star at the site. You can't imagine whathappened there! All the participants were arrested, right then and there,on the sacred place where the shooting took place, they were put intopolice cars and taken away. It was a great shame. Nevertheless, I continuedto go to that place every year. The Security Service told my employer thatI attend anti-Soviet rallies, and I was summoned to the personneldepartment and was asked intimidating questions. But each year, I continuedto go to Babi Yar, and all of my coworkers knew that.

A monument has been erected in Babi Yar, even two of them - a statemonument and a Jewish menorah; a monument to children was erected there in2001. The president, ambassadors, and high-profile activists in culturestage rallies and meetings there now, but very few of those who go therenowadays went there when it was forbidden.

I consider myself religious. Immediately after the war I began toattend synagogue again, first with my mother, and later with my husband. Myhusband and I contributed to the maintenance of the synagogue. Every timehe was paid royalties, we gave part of them to the synagogue. That is why Ieven had my own place in the synagogue, and where there were lines formatzoh, we got ours free of charge.

My present-day life

I read all the Jewish newspapers printed in Kiev, attend the Jewish"Khesed" and "Kinor" centers and the synagogue, when I can. Unfortunately,I don't know Hebrew. I have a Russian Bible, and when I come to thesynagogue, I read from it.

My husband and I traveled to Israel several times: he was invitedbecause he translated the poems of Israeli poets into Ukrainian. I sense myconnection with Israel and could probably move there if it were not for oldage and loneliness.

I celebrate all the Jewish holidays, Pesach, and especially YomKippur. I remember my first fast on September 29, 1941, very well - whenwe, evacuated Jews, were praying to God for the liberation of Kiev, ournation, and our country, and for our parents.

Jewish Ukrainians are now certainly more able to identify themselvesas Jews, without hiding or being ashamed of their nationality. But I thinkthat deep inside, anti-Semitism still exists in our Ukraine, only it ishiding for a time. And I would like the young Jews of Ukraine to return totheir roots, to know their language, their history and religion, and I praythat they will never have to go through the horrors our generation had toendure. Thank you, that's all.

Gavril Marcuson

Gavril Marcuson with Cornelia Paunescu in Geneva

Gavril Marcuson
Bucharest
Romania
Interviewer: Anca Ciuciu
Date of the interview: November 2004

Mr. Marcuson is a tall man aged 91. He’s a writer (he wrote ‘Potemkinistii in Romania’ [‘The Potemkinists in Romania’], ‘Rascoala taranilor din 1907’ [‘The Peasants’ Uprising of 1907’]) and a translator specialized in the French literature (he translated Chateaubriand, Louis Hemon, Honore de Balzac, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, Alfred de Musset). The passion to read more and to find out more is what keeps him alive. He reads extensively, from literary works to the newspapers which he buys every day, from a newsstand close to his home. He lives in the center of Bucharest, in an all-house area whose architecture and gardens are reminiscent of the interwar period. On reaching the second floor, one finds Mr. Marcuson surrounded by his books and his memories, in a very warm room. His wife, with whom he was and is still in love, died in 2000, but she looks back, always smiling, from the numerous photographs in every corner of the room.

Family background
Growing up
Bucharest
Going to school
During the War
After the War
Glossary:

Family background

I hardly knew my paternal grandparents, Aizic and Ernestina Marcussohn, from what my father told me about them. They lived and died in Iasi. I don’t know what my paternal grandfather did for a living, and I can barely recall my paternal grandmother. I met them in Iasi during World War I, when my family, like so many other people from Bucharest, sought refuge in Iasi, since the capital had been occupied by the German troops [between November 1916 and November 1918]. I remember how my grandfather once had me drink tuica [alcoholic beverage obtained by fermenting and distilling plums or other fruit], while my mother was away, and I got drunk and fell under the table. My mother came back, found me sleeping under the table and started a terrible fight with my grandfather because he had let me drink. I was so little that I had hit my head against the table. I was as tall as the table.

My father had two brothers and a sister; I never met any of then. They spent their entire life in Iasi. His brothers were called Heinrich and Lazar Marcussohn. Actually, I’m not sure he even had a sister. I just think he did.

My father was born in Iasi, in 1888. He studied in Vienna, at the Commerce High School. He was a very gentle man and I’m glad I resemble him – I inherited his phenotype, appearance and nature. He looked after us and loved us in a way that was more intelligent than my mother’s, because he was more intelligent and more cultivated. He never scolded me and beating was definitely out of the question. He was a literature enthusiast, he could read German, and he had a German library. He was a subscriber to ‘Der Kampf’ [‘The Fight’], a social democratic magazine published in Vienna. He was also a subscriber to the Romanian-speaking press and to the Jewish press. He read two newspapers every day: ‘Dimineata’ [‘The Morning’] [Ed. note: Romanian daily newspaper published in Bucharest between 1904 and 1938, with interruptions], and ‘Adevarul’ [‘The Truth’] [Ed. note: Romanian newspaper of democratic opinions. It was published in Iasi as a weekly between 1871 and 1872, and then in Bucharest, as a daily, between 1888 and 1951, with interruptions.], which came out in the afternoon. He would read ‘Dimineata’ in the morning and ‘Adevarul’ in the afternoon.

Here’s something that I remember. My father had bought me a lamb, a black lamb which I used to play with. One day, while my father and I were having a walk in the large courtyard, I noticed my lamb was missing. ‘Where’s the lamb, father?’ And my father, who, like I told you, was a gentle man, but sometimes lacked tact, told me ‘You want to know where the lamb is? Come with me and I’ll show you!’ And he took me to the back of the courtyard, where we found a wooden panel with a black skin nailed upon it. ‘There’s the lamb!’ he said. When I saw that, I understood what had happened, despite my being very young, and I started kicking and screaming. Yes, I had realized my father had slaughtered it. To make things worse, my father added – and I still remember his words, decades later – ‘Oh, enough with the screaming, my boy, you already ate some of it!’ On hearing I had ate a part of my friend, my screaming became even louder.

My father was an accountant and a tradesman. He wasn’t a religious man. He had his own business – he sold welding devices and carbide –, but didn’t actually owned a company. He worked with his brother-in-law, Filip Weisselberg, for a while, and, after he and my mother divorced [before World War II, in the 1930’s], he bought a house in another neighborhood and continued his welding devices business. My father died in Bucharest, in the 1960’s.

I believe my maternal grandfather, Isac Weisselberg, was born in 1855, in Targu Neamt, but I’m not sure. He lived in the places where his children were born: Husi, then Bucharest. He was a tradesman, a wine wholesaler. My maternal grandparents were deist, and they were religious people. My parents were deist too, but they weren’t religious. I remember that my maternal grandmother, Frederica Weisselberg, had black hair even in her old age – it hadn’t turned gray. She loved me and my brother, Octav, and she talked to us. She didn’t go out and she dressed modestly.

I grew up in the house of my maternal grandparents – this is where I spent my childhood. My earliest memories come from the time of World War I, when I was 3 or 4. I remember that our house was among the many places where the German army was quartered. I distinctly remember how the German soldiers came in with their helmets and all and they yelled ‘Ruhe, ruhe!’ And I asked my mother what ‘ruhe’ meant. My mother, who could speak a little German, told me it meant ‘silence’. They hit my grandfather in the head with the butt of the rifle. I didn’t witness this scene, but I remember seeing my grandfather right after – his head was bleeding and blood was flowing down his bald skull. Then, in the following days, a nurse came by every day to bandage up his wound. My father wasn’t home. I don’t know where he had gone, to Iasi maybe. Only my mother, a sister of hers, my grandfather and myself were home. We got along well with the German soldiers who had occupied our place. I remember them leaning against the wall with their helmets on and singing out loud. I remember those songs, they were German folk songs, naïve and childish. I learnt my first German words from them. The soldiers had nicknamed me ‘Zigeunerkind’, which meant Gypsy child, because I was small and dark. I remember when our army entered the city and my grandfather told me ‘Go to the gate and shout: long live the Romanian Army!’ And I did that every time they passed. I remember the Romanian troops marching downtown on Viilor Dr. My maternal grandparents were buried at the Filantropia [Jewish cemetery]. I don’t know when they died [some time after World War II].

My maternal grandfather had 16 children. Only 7 of them lived to be adults - three boys and four girls: Sabina, Filip, Rasela, Evelina (my mother), Victor, Neuman, and Lucia. I knew them pretty well, because they lived in Bucharest. Rasela was the only one who lived in Botosani, but I met her too.

The elder of the siblings, Sabina Michell [nee Weisselberg], lived in Bucharest. She was a housewife. Her husband’s name was Iosef Michell. They had a daughter who died when she was 16, Laureta [diminutive form for Laura]. FilipWeisselberg was a tradesman, a businessman, and his wife, Rebeca Weisselberg, was a pharmacist. They didn’t have children. Filip owned a company that sold ploughs and was called ‘Plugul’ [‘The Plough’]. He also sold welding devices, carbide, which was used for the autogenous welding, and so on and so forth. Rasela Goldschlager [nee Weisselberg] was a housewife and lived in Botosani. She didn’t have children. Victor Weisselberg was a lawyer, and his wife, Adela Weisselberg, was a typist with some company. They didn’t have children. Neuman Weisselberg was a chemical engineer at the Zurich University; his wife, Stephanie Weisselberg is still alive - she is to turn 100 this April [2005]. They have two sons, my cousins: Mircea Weisselberg and Isac Weisselberg. Both of them are engineers and live in Haifa. Their mother lives in Tel Aviv, in an old age home. The last of the girls is Lucia Isersohn [nee Weisselberg]. Her husband, Herman Isersohn, was a physician. They had a daughter whom they named Lauretta, after the one who had died in our family. Lauretta is now a physician in Canada.

My mother, Eveline Marcussohn [nee Weisselberg], was born in Husi, in 1892. Her education consisted of some years of high school. She wasn’t a religious person. She was a rather simple woman, and she spoke some French. My grandfather only sent the boys to college. One of them became a chemist, another one became a lawyer, and another one became an accountant; but the girls never got to college. Girls were despised. Men are the ones who lead. Even at the synagogue, women have to stay separated from the men. My mother was a housewife. She loved us as much as she could, looked after us, and fed us - we weren’t picky when it came to food. She was a gentle woman. She got upset once in a while, but didn’t beat us. Neither my brother nor I ever got beat by our parents.

My brother, Octav Marcussohn, is nine years younger than I am. He was born in 1922, in Bucharest. I used to teach him, kid with him, take him walking in the streets. I would tell him in Dealul Spirii, where we lived: ‘Octavica, today I’m going to take you to some streets where you’ve never been before! You’re going to love it!’ And I would take him and we would go down the streets leading to Antim Monastery. He loved it indeed. I would show him the houses, and, when we passed by a pretzel shop, I would buy him a pretzel, like the elder brother that I was. I remember Cazarmii St., which turned into a snow sleigh slope in winter; I used to play there.

We were close, although we didn’t think alike. I was a left-winger, while he was a right-winger, but we didn’t fight each other over this. He didn’t think like I did, he was anti-Soviet and a Zionist. He went to the Mathematics Faculty in Bucharest. He was a very good student. He and a fellow-student of his, Halanai, a Spanish [Sephardic] Jew, were the best in their graduation class. The Ministry of Education wanted to send him to Moscow for a PhD. This prospect scared him so much, that he fled to Israel, in the 1950’s. He is now a retiree in Tel Aviv. He didn’t work while in Romania. In Israel, he was a math school teacher. He has been a retiree for a long time now. He doesn’t have children and he was never married. He writes me extraordinary letters, but he never forgave me for supporting the left. Yet he loves me. I keep his letters, they are brilliant. He is so cultivated! Math is not the only thing he knows. The fact that I had a brother in Israel – I never kept it secret. The people I worked with were understanding enough.

Growing up

My name is Gavril Marcuson [the initial name, Marcussohn, was shortened to Marcuson in 1968]. I was born in Bucharest, on 28th October 1913, in the house of my maternal grandfather, an old house on Viilor Dr. Back then, the place was at the outskirts of the city. Today, it’s in a semi-central neighborhood, because the city developed so much.

We changed our house for a statelier one located on Uranus St., which had belonged to the richest man in the Dealul Spirii quarter, Nita Stere. It was a very nice house, with brick stoves and gas light. Inside there were large rooms with high ceilings. My maternal grandparents lived there with most of their grandchildren. Like I said, my maternal grandfather had no less than 16 children, of whom only 7 lived to be adults. Most of these seven sons and daughters lived with us, with my parents and me [in the same house], but they had their own apartments. My grandfather hired Italian bricklayers – most of the bricklayers in Bucharest were Italian at that time –, and they added an extra floor to the house; the following people moved there: the families of two brothers of my mother’s, Filip [Weisselberg] and Victor [Weisselberg], my mother’s sister, Sabina [Michell], and my parents and me. Filip, who was a businessman, lived upstairs with his wife, and he also had an apartment at the ground floor, where his offices were.

There were a lot of rooms. Mine had been obtained by dividing a larger room in half by building a wall across. This division was made so that my brother and I may have separate rooms. So a half of the former room was mine, and the other half was Octavica’s. We had one of the first telephones in Bucharest. It was non-automatic and the number had four digits. What’s funny is that I even remember that number: 3851. Whenever we wanted to reach someone, we would pick up the receiver and hit the cradle, and a lady operator would go ‘Hello?’ Then we would say ‘Please put me through this or that number’, and wait… It wasn’t automatic. We had gas lamps, and used wood and charcoal – brown coal or mineral coal – for heating. We had a large courtyard and a beautiful garden, with beds of strawberries and flowers, and a metal pavilion which had the year of its erection carved on it: 1886. This is the house where I grew up, playing courtyard games with my friends from the blind alley opposite the house.

My parents weren’t religious, but they weren’t atheist either. They were indifferent when it came to religion. My father observed some of the holidays and, for instance, didn’t eat meat and cheese. I observed that too and I had got used to it – even today, I find it difficult to eat cheese after I had eaten stake. On Passover, my father would buy matzah and we would eat it, but we would also sin by eating ordinary bread. We didn’t live a traditional life.

In my childhood, I went to the synagogue on special occasions, for the New Year [Rosh Hashanah], maybe for Purim, but I don’t remember going on Friday evening. We went to a synagogue on Antim St. This street was only a few hundred meters away from our house. [Ed. note: This was probably the Resit Daath synagogue at 13 Antim St., dating from 1897. It was demolished in 1987, in the process of urban systematization.] The synagogue was modest. It was located in a house, towards the Antim neighborhood. Not far away, there was a Jewish elementary school – I forgot how it was called.

Bucharest

Dealul Spirii, the neighborhood where I grew up, was typical for Bucharest. We were neighbors with the Dragos family. Their son became an undersecretary of state during the war [World War II]. Further away lived the family of a Frenchman, Legat, who was a photographer and owned a photo cabinet, the Legat Photo Cabinet. On the opposite side of the street lived an Italian bricklayer whose name was Perisotti. There was also a Romanian shoemaker, Vasile Anagnoste, a veteran social democratic militant; he was a very intelligent and cultivated man, and I enjoyed talking to him. He had a bordei [Ed. note: very modest house, usually made of clay; a shanty.] on the Uranus blind alley, which he referred to as ‘his quarters’. He worked at the Schull footwear factory. There was also a French driver who lived on that blind alley. His son was my schoolmate. His father used to beat him up for nothing with the car crank. Back then, automobiles weren’t automatic, so the driver had to insert a crank in front and rotate it until the engine started. Well, the men beat his son with the crank, and I still remember, more than 80 years later, how the boy once told me: ‘You’ve got such a great father!’ ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked him. ‘Because he never beats you and he buys you boots!’ He was impressed because my father didn’t beat me and I was never barefoot. Another schoolmate of mine lived on the blind alley too – his name was Marius Condrea. I remember all our other neighbors: the pretzel maker at the corner, the grocer at another corner. The grocer’s daughters were renowned ballerinas at the variety show theater. When I grew up, I would go from time to time to eat mici [grilled minced meat rolls] at the Florescu restaurant on 13 Septembrie Ave. I also remember the druggist lady on another corner and the male druggist who succeeded her.

People from Oltenia came to our courtyard. They were real Oltenians, from Gorj [County]. [Ed. note: These were people who had come to Bucharest from a distance of over 100 kilometers, and had settled at the outskirts, where they gardened and grew animals, thus supplying the city with food.]. Each of them carried two large baskets with fruit, vegetables, flowers, and big jars of yogurt which they poured with a spoon. We would buy all sorts of things – fruit, vegetables, eggs, cheese. Of course, there was also the marketplace. My mother went there with a lady cook who worked for us and looked after the house. However, they didn’t go to the marketplace too often, because it was the marketplace that came to us. Charcoal was carried using a yoke too. It was because of the charcoal that I got lost when I was 4 or 5. We lived near Viilor Dr. and I started to follow a charcoal tradesman. I thought it was interesting, the way they used to walk around with their yokes and cry ‘Get your charcoal!’ I had never heard anything like that, so I followed him until I got to another neighborhood, and my grandfather showed up and took my by the hand. The poor Oltenians were barefoot and lived in very poor conditions. Nowadays, there aren’t any barefoot people in Bucharest, but, back then, this was a common sight. Many walked barefoot in summer. This is why my neighbor’s son, whom I played with, was impressed to see me with boots on. He walked barefoot, and so did other friends of mine. We don’t have this anymore nowadays, and we owe it to the communist regime. Before the time of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej 1, it was common to see barefoot men and women. Wearing boots in summer was considered luxury. I remember there were people who walked barefoot while carrying their boots in their hands, so that the soles wouldn’t wear down. They must have gone to a place where they had to have footwear.

Back in those days, Bucharest was full of charm, poetry and picturesqueness. Streets and houses used gaslight. There were street lamps. When it got dark, a lamplighter passed by, opened the little window to get to the lamp, and used a lighter to light the gas. In the morning, the same man came back to extinguish the lamp. [Ed. note: Street gas lighting was replaced by electric lighting after World War I.]

In the 1920’s, public transportation used horse-powered streetcars. There were two horses pulling each car. When the vehicle reached the lower area at Izvor and had to climb the Arsenalului hill, there was a boy who harnessed two extra horses, so the conductor drove four horses to go up the hill. I had a streetcar card. The horse streetcar came down 13 Septembrie Ave., took Uranus St., passed by the Arsenal, got to Victoriei Ave. – where the Zlatari church lies today –, and then continued its way on Carol St. – which is called Franceza St. today –, on Serban Voda Ave., and got to the Bellu Cemetery. This was one of the lines [Ed. note: approximately 3 kilometers long, going from west to south]. The electric streetcar went from Cotroceni to Obor. [For a while, horse streetcars were operated concurrently with the first electric streetcar.] The inhabitants of Bucharest used to call it ‘Electricul’ [‘The Electric’], because it was the only electric streetcar in the city. Streetcars were small. There were also summer streetcars – they were open cars with benches. Streetcars had a collector, who sold the tickets, and a conductor. They were widely used, just like today’s streetcars are. But the city had far less inhabitants than it has today. When I was born, there were between 200,000 and 300,000 people. Today, there are two million. There were very few motorcars in Bucharest. Most of them were Fords and, when they rode, all the tin they were made of jingled. These were the cheapest cars. There were also some luxury cars – Buicks and Chevrolets. Gradually, the electric streetcars became widespread. Much later, after World War II, trolley-buses were introduced – I was already old by then.

We had our photo taken once in a while – it was a real event. Technology was very different from what it is today. A light was turned on, you were supposed to stay still, and they photographed you. There was a trendy photo cabinet called ‘Julietta’, located on the corner of Victoriei Ave. with the boulevard, on the spot where an apartment house lies today – one of those geometrical buildings, with nothing but right angles and lines. ‘Julietta’ was owned by a Jew. I can’t remember his name. A second photographer who was in vogue was Mandy, on Campineanu St. He was Jewish too. These two photographers called themselves suppliers of the Royal Court, and were allowed to photograph the members of the royal family. They turned photography into an art. I have some pictures that were taken at ‘Julietta’. Next to Mandy’s was a famous tailor’s shop owned by the Cohen brothers, suppliers of the Royal Court. They were Jews too, of course. After the war, they emigrated to Israel. It was a men’s tailoring shop. I don’t know if they also made women’s clothes, but I believe they didn’t. The Cohen brothers made you look like they wanted to – thinner, stouter; they were artists of their trade.

There were some extraordinary stores on Victoriei Ave. There was the ‘Giaburov’ carpet store, owned by some Armenians, and Dragomir Niculescu’s grocery, where ‘Romarta’ is today. The rich people of the time – Parliament members, bankers – would come and buy ladlefuls of caviar. They would tell the owner: ‘Dragomire, make it one kilo, two kilos!’ I remember the Otetelesanu terrace, where the Telephone Company Palace lies today. The writers used to come there. I went there too, and I heard Florica Florescu [Ed. note: lyric artist renowned at that time] sing. I went to the Gambrinus terrace. When going to the old National Theater, I would sit in the circle. I paid 10 lei for a seat. There were actors who claimed they only performed for the gallery, for it is the gallery alone that confirms a great actor. The National Theater had special acoustics, it was very pleasant and had a curtain that had been painted by Traian Cornescu; behind it was the velvet curtain. I remember the Lyric Theater – this is how the Opera was called back then. It was bombed by the Germans [during World War II], and was demolished. It was located in Valter Maracineanu Sq., next to Cismigiu [Park]. This is where I saw my first opera and ballet performances. I remember the Athenaeum fresco painted by Traian Petrescu, if I’m not mistaken. Extraordinary! The entire Romanian history around the Athenaeum’s hall.

People went for a walk on Victoriei Ave. every day, but especially on Sunday morning. The promenade place was between the Military Circle and the Royal Palace Sq., opposite the University Library. This is where people walked back and forth, and there were so many of them, that the sidewalk became too narrow and there were people who walked on the street. Victoriei Ave. was divided into three lanes: the left and right lanes were for motorcars riding to and from the Palace; the middle lane was for carriages. At the time, there were numerous carriages in Bucharest – perhaps there were more carriages than cars. One of the city prefects, Gavrila Marinescu, had the sidewalks bordered with chains, so people could no longer walk on the street [around the 1920’s]. No man would go out without wearing a hat – this was out of the question. I remember I once went out without my hat, and my mother came running after me with a hat in her hand, and told me: ‘How can you go out like this? People will think you’re crazy! Take the hat!’

On 10th May 2, I used to go to the military parade – I never missed one. The band would play, and then the various arms would defile: artillery, infantry, military engineers. In the end, the royal family would show up. When King Carol [I] 3 was buried, I was a year or two and I attended the funeral with my nanny. I remember King Ferdinand 4 and King Carol II 5, who was the most intelligent of the kings. I remember Prince Michael [King Michael I] 6. I didn’t love the members of the royal family, but their pictures were all over the press. All you had to do was open a newspaper and come across the pictures of the king and of the princes. I remember Prince Nicholas [Ed. note: (1903-1977), prince; son of King Ferdinand I and of Queen Maria, younger brother of King Carol II], who drove a speed car that was unusual for Bucharest.

Every year, the king inaugurated Mosilor Fair. This fair opened in May, on the Thursday of the Mosi [Ed. note: The fair began after the celebration of the Christian-Orthodox Easter and lasted a month.]. I would go there every year. There were people who made a living out of all sorts of lotteries and circus displays – the bearded woman, the fishtail woman, the strong man who could break chains and things like that. It was a rather common amusement. There was a restaurant that served millet beer and mici. I used to go to the fair with my parents. When I got older, I would go there on my own and stare at various sights. One could shoot at targets and win something if one had a hit. The prizes usually consisted of handcrafted objects – dolls and trifles like that.

Going to school

I used to go to the Golescu School, the School for Boys no.3. Back then, boys and girls went to separate schools – there were schools for boys and schools for girls, and high schools for boys and high schools for girls. Let me tell you a story from my first day of school [in 1919]. My mother dressed me up nicely, put the newly-bought schoolbag on my back, with the language textbook and the arithmetic textbook (we, the kids, all called it arithmetic) in it, and sent me to school. I had been to school on another occasion, long before that, when my grandfather had taken me to register me, but I had forgotten where the place was. [The school was close from home.] So I took Cazarmii St. to get to school, but I didn’t find it. Time was running out, because I had to be there at 8 a.m. I tried another street, and yet another, but the school was nowhere to be found. I was very shy and didn’t have the guts to stop a pedestrian and ask about the location of the Golescu Elementary School no.3. I just stood like a fool by the sidewalk and was about to cry because I didn’t know where the school was. As I was standing there, now knowing what to do, I saw a man approaching – he was a middle-aged gentleman elegantly dressed and I felt confident about him. It had seemed to me that all the other pedestrians were in a hurry, so I hadn’t dared stop them. So I went to him and timidly asked him whether he knew where the Golescu School was. ‘Come with me, I’ll show you’, he said. So he took me by his side and asked me, along the way, what my name was, what my parents did, what grade I was in. And so, he kept asking questions and I kept giving answers until the school appeared before me. Happy to have found it, I rushed to the gate, but the man stopped me and said ‘Let me go in first, because I’m older, and you’ll enter after me’ So he went through the school’s gate into a courtyard that was full of pupils who were playing. They all gather around me and ask me the same question: ‘Hey, are you Mr. Movila’s son?’ ‘No’, I said, ‘I’m not Mr. Movila’s son!’ A pedagogue soon showed up among us and he got us to our classroom and arranged us in the desks. And guess who enterer the classroom after that? The very gentleman whom I had met earlier. He was the master, Mr. Movila! Even more than 80 years later, it feels like yesterday. I remember him, with the class register under his arm. He came in, got to his desk and told us: ‘Children, I will now call out your names in order. When each of you hears his name, stand up and say «Here». Have you understood?’ We all went ‘Yes!’ So he began to read out our names, and every boy stood up and said ‘Here’; suddenly, I heard him say Marcuson Gavril. I stood up and said ‘Here! But, you know, my name is not Gavril!’ ‘What is it then’, he asked me. ‘My name is Gutu [diminutive form of Gavril], this is how they call me at home!’ To which the master replied: ‘They may call you Gutu at home, but, in the official records, your name is Gavril. And we shall call you Marcuson Gavril. Now sit down!’ And then he addressed the entire class: ‘Children, do you know what Marcuson did? He was supposed to get to school, but he was such an idiot that he missed it!’ There was a terrible laughter. They all laughed at me, and I didn’t know what to do. The master told them the story of me standing by the sidewalk, looking desperate because I couldn’t find the school. From that moment on, my classmates nicknamed me ‘Idiot of the class’. Even in 4th grade, they still referred to me as ‘the one who was such an idiot that he missed the school’.

Mr. Movila, the master, was a composer who was renowned at that time. A while ago, I heard some of his songs played on the radio. His name was Juarez Movila – he had a Spanish first name, a revolutionary’s name. He edited a magazine named ‘Curierul Artelor’ [‘The Arts’ Courier’], and the pupils’ parents – at least the well-to-do ones – had to buy subscriptions. Only 3 issues or so were published – we were subscribers too. How did the classes go? The master would enter the classroom, and we would stand up and remain standing. There was an icon on the wall. We would turn our faces to the icon and one of the boys would recite ‘Our Father’; then everybody crossed themselves and sat down, and the class would start. Seeing all my classmates cross themselves every day, I began to imitate them – you know how little kids are, they’re like monkeys –, without being aware of the meaning of this gesture. This went on until one day, when the master came to me while the prayer was being recited; he put his hand on my shoulder and he gently told me: ‘You will not cross yourself’ I didn’t understand that, because I was an ignorant when it came to those things. I hadn’t turned 6 yet, because my parents had sent me to school following the German system. I was the youngest in my class. So I didn’t know what my master meant and didn’t say anything. When I got home for lunch, my father used to ask me everyday: ‘So, did he examine you?’ If the answer was yes, two other questions would come: ‘Did you know the answers?’ and ‘What grade did you get?’ That day, he asked me, as usual, whether the master had examined me. ‘No, he hasn’t’, I replied, ‘but there’s something else: the master came to me during the prayer, put his hand on my shoulder and told me not to cross myself’. My father was so amazed, that he became speechless. After a while, he asked me: ‘Did he also say this to any of the other boys?’ And I said ‘No, only to me’. My father asked me this question because he knew there were two other Jewish boys in my class – but they must have been better trained than I was, so they didn’t cross themselves. My father didn’t add anything. After we ate, he took me aside and began to brief me – like they would later call it. He spoke to me about God and about religion; he told me there are several religions and that our family had a different religion than that of my classmates, that crossing ourselves was something we didn’t do and so on and so forth. That was the first time I heard someone speak about God and religion.

I went to middle school at the Mihai Viteazul High School and to secondary school at the Spiru Haret High School. My teacher of Romanian was Petre V. Hanes, a PhD in Letters, author of textbooks and numerous literary history books, and founder of the ‘Prietenii Istoriei Literare’ [‘Friends of Literary History’] Society, which edited the ‘Prietenii Istoriei Literare’ Magazine. He is the one who made an important discovery from the literary history’s perspective, revealing that the ‘Cantarea Romaniei’ [‘The Song of Romania’] poem hadn’t been written by Balcescu, like everyone thought, but by Alecu Russo. [Ed. note: ‘Cantarea Romaniei’, the best known work of poet and prose writer Alecu Russo, is a poem in prose written in French and published in 1850, translated by Nicolae Balcescu.] Another teacher of Romanian was Scarlat Struteanu, PhD in Romanian Philology, author of a well-known doctoral thesis about the humor of Caragiale 7. French was taught by Benedict Kanner, PhD in Letters from the Sorbonne. Another French teacher, Alexandru Claudian, later became a professor of ancient philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Iasi. German was taught by Bruno Colbert, PhD in Letters from Vienna, later a lecturer in German language and literature at the Faculty of Letters in Bucharest, and Stefan Motas Zeletin, PhD in Philosophy from the University of Erlangen, Germany, author of the then-famous work ‘Burghezia romana’ [‘The Romanian Bourgeoisie’] and later a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Iasi, just like Claudian. English was taught by Ioan Olimp Stefanovici-Svensk, PhD in Letters from London, former student of the famous English linguist Daniel Jones, who created the system of transliteration named Jones. Stefanovici-Svensk is the one who introduced the system of transliteration of the English language in Romania, and the first one who translated works by Eminescu 8 into English, in cooperation with the English poet Sylvia Pankhurst.

It is with particular pleasure that I remember Stefanovici, who didn’t only teach me English, but also phonetics. Thanks to this, I can speak any language better – not just English, I can speak Romanian better too. He educated my hearing. Stefanovici was a great teacher, but he is sadly forgotten today – who else remembers him? I remember my first class with him. He came in without saying a word, grabbed a piece of chalk and drew the quadrangle of English vocalism on the blackboard. When I later became an English phonetics professor myself, I showed my students the quadrangle that I had learnt in 5th grade. How could I forget Benedict Kanner, who taught me French and was the first one to slap me. I was in the 1st grade of high school, which corresponds to today’s 1st year of middle school, the 5th grade. He had me read from the textbook. It said there ‘Leve-toi!’ [‘Get up!’]. I read it as it was spelled and he slapped me. He had no idea that he was slapping a future colleague. How could I forget Colbert’s German classes, or the Romanian classes of Petre Hanes, who was so close to his pupils, or the philosophy classes of Ioanitescu, who had been a student of Maiorescu? [Titu Maiorescu (1840-1917): esthetician, literary critic and professor, co-founder of the ‘Junimea’ [‘Youth’] literary society in Iasi, where some of the most important Romanian writers of the time made their apprenticeship: M. Eminescu, I.L. Caragiale, I. Slavici etc. He elaborated the theory of ‘forms without essence’ which favored the use of local values over the import of Western literary patterns.] Ioanitescu would only teach logics by Maiorescu’s textbook, which had been unavailable for decades. In order to help me, my father wrote to a brother of his who lived in Iasi. My uncle found the textbook in some used books store and sent it to me. I was one of the few pupils in my class who had that textbook.

Even the teachers who taught arts and crafts were gifted people. There was sculptor Aristide Iliescu, and composer Ioan Croitoru, who taught music. Opera singer Grigore Magiari, who taught music too, brought a gramophone to class, played records and gave us musical education. The physical education teacher had studied in Sweden. The principal had sent him to Sweden to purchase apparatus for the gym that was built. This is how high schools were back then. History teacher Iuliu Moisil later became an Academy member and the founder of Romanian numismatics. This is the kind of teachers I had. Being a high school teacher was considered to be a great thing back then. When a high school teacher joined a party, the entire press announced that the honorable teacher X joined the Y party. Some of them were the heads of county party organizations, which was not an insignificant thing.

I made friends in high school, and I made friends in college. One of my friends from college was Mircea Stoe, who is dead now. He first became an attaché, then a legation secretary in London. When King Michael abdicated, he resigned. He settled in Sutton, a little town near London. When my wife had a convention in Paris, I went with her, crossed the Channel to England, and stayed at my friend’s until the convention was over. Mircea died of lung cancer, because of the tobacco. His wife still lives and we write to each other. A very good friend of mine, Alfred Reiner, a Jew, died at the earthquake [in 1977] with his entire family. Reiner was the manager of a printing house located close to Sfantul Gheorghe Sq. There was a time when I lived with him on Poenaru Bordea St., near the Court House – it was in the 1950’s, before I got married. I didn’t stay for long, but it was more than a year. At the earthquake, all those who lived in that apartment house died. The building had grown rather ramshackle [because it was old] and, when a truck passed by, you could feel the windows vibrate. Another apartment house was built on that spot. Another friend of mine was Idel Segal [a Jew], who was assassinated. He was an editor at the Scientific and Encyclopedic Publishing House and he carried around sacks full of manuscripts. Some thugs thought he was carrying something valuable. He wouldn’t let go, he was stubborn, and so they killed him in the street. This happened in the 1970’s. There was a very nice article about him published in ‘Romania libera’ [‘The Free Romania’] [Ed. note: Romanian information newspaper which was published during the communist period and continued to be published, in a renewed edition, after 1989]: ‘Death of a bookman’. I don’t have that issue anymore, I don’t know how I lost it, and I’m sorry about it. I had photocopies and gave them to everyone. They’re all dead! I haven’t seen my colleagues for years. The few who are still alive never leave their homes.

In the 1950’s, I had this initiative, that the graduating class of 1931 from the Spiru Haret High School meet al least once a month, so that we may keep in touch. I got the phone numbers of everyone, and I called them. It worked. In the years that followed, we would meet in the last Thursday of every month at the restaurant of the House of the University Staff. There were still many of us who came when we celebrated 50 years from our graduation. On that occasion, we met at the ‘Cina’ [restaurant] and we joined together several tables. That was a hell of a party. When we celebrated 60 years from our graduation, there were still some of us left. But when we had to celebrate 70 years, there was no one. You should know we were two classes with 40 pupils each, which gives a total of 80. Only 4 of them are still alive today, and 2 of them are Jewish. Back the, there were 3 Jews or so in one class, and another 3 in the other. All the former Jewish pupils lived long. Even those who are no longer among us, died in their eighties. The only remaining ones are a classmate of mine and me. And out of the 74 Romanians, only two are still alive. So you see, Jews live really long!

I had teachers of Hebrew and I studied it at home until the time of my bar mitzvah. This took place [approximately in 1926] in my parents’ home, in the presence of a Hebrew teacher that was well-known at the time – his name was Schreiber. He was also a poet and had written a volume of poems, ‘Randunelele Palestinei’ [‘The Swallows of Palestine’]. I remember that the ceremony was attended by some members of the family: my parents and my uncles – my mother’s brothers, but not all of them. I held a short, a very short speech in Hebrew, and then they gave me some presents. I later forgot Hebrew, since I didn’t have any books. I vaguely remember its words and letters today.

I was busy reading, exercising, biking – I was member of a biking club. There was a well-known, top quality printing house on Uranus St. It was called ‘Marvan’, and all its workers were biking enthusiasts. They had founded the ‘Marvan’ Biking Club, which I joined. Our rival was the ‘Prince Nicholas’ Biking Club. At the end of the week I used to go biking on Kiseleff Dr., where I would meet other bikers from ‘Marvan’ or from ‘Prince Nicholas’. We would bike together to Ploiesti, or in the direction of Oltenita or Giurgiu. We would cover several scores of kilometers on the highway in one day.

I usually stayed in Bucharest during my vacations as a child. I remember I once went to Sinaia, which I enjoyed a lot. My father once took me to the seaside [at the Black Sea] for a few days. Back then, Mamaia [one of today’s major Romanian seaside resorts] was a totally primitive place and the beach only had some wooden shacks. Another time I went to visit a sister of my mother’s who lived in Botosani, and I spent my entire vacation there. In Bucharest, I would go to the stadium of the National Academy of Physical Education, which wasn’t far from our home. I would run or jump, but, most of the time, I sat and looked at the athletes who were training. I had a very introverted temperament. My vacation was a sort of mixture of biking or athletic trials and very intense readings, which were rich for a boy my age. I was also interested in language issues, not just in literature. I could read French well – actually, very well, if I’m allowed to brag. I could read German and English. I could speak refined French, not just read it. I used to read mainly French literature, but I also read Romanian literature. These last years, I’ve been reading almost exclusively Romanian classic writers – from the chroniclers, the Vacaresti brothers, the pre-Eminescu poets and prose writers. I rarely open a French book. I have, of course, my favorites among the French poets too.

I used to go to silent movies. Movies were divided into acts – some had eight acts, some had nine, some had ten. The longest ones had 12 acts and there was a break after each act. If the projectionist was in a hurry, he would run two acts with no stop. The audience would protest, claiming it was tiresome; today they sit in front of the silver screen for two straight hours. There was a pianist who played while the movie was showing. I remember the actors of that time, especially the comic actors – Zigotto, the most popular comedian, an American Jew, Laurel and Hardy, and Harold Lloyd, the comedian with glasses. I remember Francesca Bettini, Douglas Fairbanks senior, because there was also a Douglas junior. I liked Douglas Fairbanks because he was an adventurer, he was sturdy, he was clever, and he could beat them all. I remember Fatty, who bore this name because he was obese. Whatever Fatty said appeared written on the screen. They were all very nice, these silent comedians. I remember the first talking movie, in 1930-something.

Before the war, in the 1930’s, I would go to the Hasefer Bookstore [Ed. note: It means ‘The Book’; today there is The Hasefer Publishing House.], where they sold books written by Jews or about Jews that couldn’t be found in the other bookstores. The place also hosted fine arts exhibitions. I spent pleasant moments in that bookstore. I seldom actually purchased something, because I didn’t have money, but I would go in and skim through the books – there was an intimate environment. I believe the manager’s name was Steinberg, he was a cultivated man. The bookstore was at the entrance of the Villacrosse Passage [Ed. note: in the historic center of the capital]. There is an apartment house on that spot now.

My father was a subscriber to all the Jewish periodicals, which he received by mail. I used to read all the Jewish newspapers, from the first page to the last. There was ‘Curierul Israelit’ [‘The Israelite Courier’] [Ed. note: ‘Weekly organ for the defense of the Jewish interests’ published in Bucharest in 1906-1916, 1920-1941, 1944-1945. It included editorials, debates, pieces of information, reports on foreign affairs and internal affairs, and advertisements.], a large paper, the best and most important, edited by Horia Carp. There was ‘Egalitatea’ [‘The Equality’] [Ed. note: Jewish magazine published between 1890 and 1940, interrupted during World War I and suppressed in 1940. It reflected: the fight for emancipation and cultural progress, the political fight for civil rights, the Zionist ideology. It also reported family events: balls, engagements, weddings, anniversaries and funerals.], edited by [Moses] Schwartzfeld. There was ‘Mantuirea’ [‘The Redemption’] [Ed. note: Jewish daily newspaper published in Bucharest between 1919 and 1922; a biweekly between 1944 and 1948. Zionist periodical promoting the Judaic culture, it included editorials, literary translations and commentaries on laws and decrees.] I remember a magazine called ‘Copilul evreu’ [‘The Jewish Child’] [Ed. note: Bimonthly youth magazine published in Bucharest between 1922 and 1940. It included biblical history, games, prose, letters in Yiddish and Ivrit.] As a child, I remember I read ‘Dimineata’ and ‘Adevarul’. The latter had a column that I particularly enjoyed – it was called ‘Frolics’. Schwartzfeld’s ‘Egalitatea’ had a column that I enjoyed a lot too – it was called ‘Ruffians in action’. I remember all the ‘Dimineata’ contributors of the time: Blumenfeld, Teodorescu-Braniste, Ion Teodorescu, Constantin Graur, D. Faur, Liviu P. Nasta, who wrote the foreign reports. I remember the caricaturists and drawers from ‘Adevarul’. Even today, I would take great pleasure in rereading the ‘Adevarul’ and ‘Dimineata’ of the 1920’s and 1930’s.

Only one classmate of mine [from the Spiru Haret High School], Vasilescu, became a Legionary 9. After we finished high school, I remember seeing him in the street, wearing the green shirt, and I didn’t dare approach him. You should know that the Legionaries not only didn’t talk to the Jews, but they didn’t even look at them. If, for instance, I was in the street, and I came across a classmate who was a Legionary, not only would he not return my greeting or stop, but he wouldn’t even look at me – he just looked the other way. They had been ordered not to look at us. This Vasilescu fellow may have joined the Legionaries, but he soon became very friendly with me. He had changed his convictions, realizing the absurdity and criminal nature of the Legion 10. He was just a naïve young man who had been fooled by a very skillful and clever demagogy. I never reminded him of those days and never reproached him for anything. So he was the only one who became a Legionary. Leaving him aside, there was never any discrimination in my high school. The teachers treated us, the Jewish boys, just like they treated all the others. There was a legionary teacher, the French teacher, Frolo. But he talked to the others about me and called me his favorite. He was an Italian-born Catholic. He was an Iron Guard 11 candidate in Roman County, where there was a Catholic population, but didn’t get elected. He was the only legionary teacher, but he was unbiased when it came to me; in fact, he was more than that – he loved me, because he could see I enjoyed French. I once even contradicted him, for it had seemed to me that he had made a mistake. His French classes were better than the ones at the University. While the literature courses at the University were held in Romanian, Frolo taught us literature in the most accurate French – so what I did with him was better than what I did in college. I graduated from the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in Bucharest in 1935.

I remember when the first victim of the Iron Guard was shot. Contrary to the common belief, the first victim of the Iron Guard was not prefect [Constantin] Manciu [Ed. note: police prefect in Iasi assassinated by the Legionaries on 25th October 1925, in front of the Iasi Court House], who was shot by Corneliu [Zelea] Codreanu 12. Manciu was actually the second victim. The first victim was the Jewish student David Falic. He was shot right on the steps of the Cernauti University by a Legionary named Nicolae Totu. Dr. Bratescu, our well-known historian of medicine, mentions Nicolae Totu in his latest book, but he misspells his name, calling him Tautu. So Totu shot student Falic on the steps of the university, I don’t know why. I don’t know what happened to Totu, but I believe he got away with it, because he became a magazine contributor – I used to come across his name. Can you imagine? To think you can shoot a man to death and get away with it! This is the kind of justice we had back in those days!

I remember what the political situation in Germany was before January 1933. I was already 20 and no longer a child when Hitler won the elections. The problem was that the social democrats didn’t get along with the Communists – they could have form the majority, had they created the workers’ joint front. Hitler’s demagogy prevailed; he promised guns instead of butter – that was his slogan. I knew a Jew who lived in Germany – his name was Abeles. He came to Bucharest and we talked. ‘What do you people think about Hitler?’ I asked him. ‘Hitler isn’t serious!’ he said. ‘He won’t be in power for long! As for his anti-Semitism, he shouldn’t be taken seriously. He’ll loosen up, he’ll sweeten the poison! We’re not afraid of Hitler!’ The man I talked to fooled himself, and so did the entire Jewish minority in Germany. They all thought like he did. They underestimated the danger, they didn’t realize how colossally dangerous the situation had become. And Hitler, a man of his word, kept all his promises and did everything that was humanly possible to create a Germany free of Jews. Some left to America, England, France, but most of them stayed. I knew what went on. When I had the money, I bought the German press that was sold in Bucharest, at the downtown newsstands. I read Hitler’s newspaper and the most obnoxious magazine ever printed since Gutenberg invented type. It was called ‘Der Strumer’ [‘He Who Stirs the Storm’] and it was edited by one of the Strasser brothers. The lower part contained a slogan that was present in every issue: ‘Jews are our misery.’ This was the most shameful magazine I have ever come across. I bought two or three issues, but it was unreadable. The Romanian Jews were actually quicker to sense the danger than the German Jews, because they had got used to it ‘thanks’ to the Iron Guard and Cuza’s League 13.

During the War

I remember the [Legionary] rebellion [of January 1941] 14 very well. I was walking in the streets with no fear and stared around. On Atena St., I looked from a distance, because we weren’t allowed to get any closer, how the synagogue [the Iesua Tova] on that street was burning. The Legionaries had set it on fire and let no one, not even the firemen, to get near and extinguish the fire. After the war, the synagogue was built anew, and made even more beautiful than the old one. The Tables of the Law were fixed on the façade, and it is today one of the most beautiful synagogues in Bucharest. I had the fortune of not living in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, like Vacaresti or Dudesti – I lived in Dealul Spirii, where nothing bad happened.

When the war came, the Germans kicked us out of our home [approximately in 1941], so we had to find shelter in another neighborhood. All of us moved in the Stefan cel Mare quarter, in an old house. Our place had been occupied by the Germans, who had set up an apprentice school there. We weren’t allowed to own radio sets. We had a large radio set which we handed over to the precinct police station. But I clandestinely kept a small galena receiver. That kind of devices were imported from Germany – they were small and cubic, and had a headset. In the evening, I would take out my radio and listen to Radio London, and then I would hide it, so that they wouldn’t catch me and send me to prison. I wouldn’t believe how intensely I followed the course of the war. I rejoiced like a kid for every town the Russians liberated in their march towards Berlin. I had my atlas before me and I kept track: ‘Here’, I would say to myself, ‘they conquered another town; they advanced for another hundred of kilometers’. I listened to all the news bulletins.

In 1941, when we entered the war against the USSR, the first thing that happened to me was that they kicked me out of the army and sent me to forced labor, to the shooting range. My father was too old to get sent to forced labor, and my brother was too young. I remember the first bombings caught me there. The Russians were bombing Bucharest, and we were working under military supervision and couldn’t take cover anywhere. We worked with our bare arms or with shovels to build the shooting range, and we got neither food, nor money. We worked like slaves – but the slaves in ancient times were fed at least. We worked from dawn till dusk. In winter, they would have us clear the snow in the streets. I remember I was once with a fellow-worker, a physician by trade, and we saw a German military approaching. He was a simple air force soldier and he began a conversation with me. I spoke German. He told me he was an antifascist, that he was a textile worker in his civilian life, and that he was from Augsburg. I talked to him, but I soon regretted it when I got home – I was scared. I realize now that the man had been honest, that he was a genuine German antifascist, and I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch with him.

Then we got sent to Moldavia, to Onesti, where we built fortifications. I worked by the concrete mixer day and night. It was hard work, because I was supposed to carry cement sacks weighing 50 kilos on my back, and I couldn’t even lift them from the ground. A sturdier fellow-worker used to help me – he put the sacks on my back, then I took them where I had to and emptied them. We were led by a military school cadet, a tyrant who cursed us and persecuted us severely. My father would send me money from home, and so I was able to buy things to eat. The Jews in Onesti sometimes called us for minyans, and invited us to table afterwards. They saw I didn’t have a plate, so they gave me one, and a spoon, and they gave me soup, they fed me. The Jews in Onesti were very nice to us, very humane. Onesti was a shtetl, a small town which had relatively many Jews. But they weren’t any different from the other inhabitants – they dressed in the contemporary fashion.

[Mr. Marcuson describes the war period and his involvement in the underground activity of the Communist Party in the article ‘Amintiri din ilegalitate’ [‘Memories from my underground days’], published in ‘Cadran’ [‘Dial’], the literary notebook of the ‘George Bacovia’ cenacle, Bucharest, August 1971, p.6-7.] « In 1942, I found myself drafted for ‘compulsory labor’ at the printing house of the Central Institute for Statistics in Bucharest. This was the perfect occasion to come across poet Stefan Popescu, who was the head of that printing house back then, a man I had first met one decade ago, while a student at the Faculty of Letters. This was also the perfect occasion for the two of us to use the cover of our official activity in order to broaden our underground work in the service of… the Romanian Communist Party. So, the printing house was turned into a nucleus of antifascist resistance. There, in a backroom, we planed our actions: multiplying in hundreds of copies (only using a typewriter at first) some propaganda brochures; some of them had a literary character and were sometimes spotted in other places than Bucharest. (A clerk from the Statistics Institute who returned from Galati presented us one of our own brochures, which he had found down there.); setting up a fund of literary and science books which we sent to the political inmates, by means of their families; monthly collecting – from a group of well-to-do supporters – relatively large amounts of money for the Red Aid 15. Comrade Stefan – my superior – had exempted me from any professional obligations, so I could focus exclusively on these actions; I used my spare time to translate Soviet prose writer M. Ilin’s book ‘The World Is Changing’, which spread in 10,000 typewritten copies bound in cloth – immediately after 23rd August 1944 16, the book was officially published by the newly-found ‘Forum’ publishing house, thanks to the support Lucretiu Patrascanu 17.

There was no way we could use that printing house to print some of our own things. The fact that one of the employees lived with his family in the very building of the company was an obstacle impossible to overcome. I used to look with envy at the automatic typesetters and the printing presses and thought how much faster and better our work could have been done if we had used those machines instead of my typewriter. In the spring of 1944, my comrade told me, in an enthusiastic but worried voice, that he the Party’s Central Committee had assigned him to design a plan to print brochures and leaflets that were to be distributed to the population and the army, and asked me whether I knew a place where he could print a brochure. Knowing what the situation was at the printing house, I had to think of another place. I soon remembered I had once met – about three years ago, in a forced labor camp – one of the co-owners of the ‘Taranul’ [‘Peasant’] printing house in Bucharest. His name was Alfred Rainer, and he was one of my major contributors; thanks to him, an important share of the printing house’s income was directed to the purse of the Red Aid. I paid him a visit and I told him directly what I wanted from him. Rainer gladly accepted: he agreed to put his workshops and paper to our disposal, so that we could print whatever we liked. All we needed was a typesetter and a ‘puitoare’ [Ed. note: operator who inserted the blank paper into the printing press]. We found them in typesetter Sigol and ‘puitoarea’ Stefania Barbulescu. This is how our printing plan began, in the workshop of the ‘Taranul’ printing house, located at the heart of our country’s capital, not far away from Sfantul Gheorghe Sq.

The first manuscript that Stefan Popescu entrusted me with had twenty pages and was entitled ‘The Red Army Is Coming’. The cover bore the mention ‘The Publishing House of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party’ (and I was informed that that was the first printed material to see the light of day with that mention on it in Romania), and it had to be multiplied in 2,000 of copies. At the second floor of the workshop, where the typesetting section was, I prepared a room where the typesetter was to work at night, when the place was deserted. We had get rid of the guard – he had been allowed to take a few days off. In the evening, Sigol entered the workshop, carefully camouflaged the window and, after making sure everything was all right, he began to work. Even today, I remember what he told me when I asked him if he enjoyed the text: ‘Every word is like a bullet!’

Typesetting was done manually, using small letters and crowded lines to save paper. It lasted three of four nights. Then we moved to the printing process. This was done in a Sunday, using a ‘flat’ machine in order to avoid making noise and being heard from the street – we didn’t use the motor, but we manually operated the wheel of the machine. We crammed the copies into a large suitcase which we placed in a previously designated location, from where Stefan was supposed to pick it up. We left the workshop one by one, making sure we weren’t followed, after burning the galley proofs, and removing all the traces of our action. We left the doors unlocked – Stefan was supposed to come in, collect the suitcase with brochures, lock the door, and place the key in the mailbox. In order to avoid the detection of the printing shop by the type that had been used, we asked Rainer to sacrifice the entire set of types: all the led blocks were put in a pouch which was thrown in the Dambovita River.

The following day, Stefan took care of the distribution, and hundreds of citizens found in their mailboxes the very first work published by the Publishing House of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party. ‘The Romanian Communist Party’, they could read, ‘feels it is its duty to enlighten the public opinion in this difficult time, when the nation is at a crossroads, placed between life and death… The Communist Party knows this is no easy thing. It is with difficulty that its word reaches you, for it has to sidestep the barbed wire of a terror regime and – what’s more dramatic –, struggle with an entire mentality of mistrust, suspicion, fear… But, no matter how many obstacles may lie in its way, the voice of the Communist Party shall be heard and understood, because it is the voice of the national self-preservation instinct.’ But it wasn’t until the liberation day [23rd August 1944] that I found out the name of the one who had written those inspired pages: Mihail Sebastian 18. That day, a new kind of duty awaited us, the ones at the printing house: we had to print, that very day, the first official issue of the ‘Romania Libera’ newspaper. »

I became a Party member before 1944, while the movement was underground, because this was the only party that wasn’t anti-Semitic. When the Communists came to power, I was glad, because we had got rid of Hitler. Our only choices were Hitler and Stalin – there was no third option, and this is why I believe that thinking in black-and-white was not only permissible, but also unavoidable. I saw in the Soviet Union not the Good, but an evil that was lesser than Hitler’s Germany. There are many things that we found out after 23rd August 1944, and some are still to be found out. Can’t you see that Holocaust is being denied? I won’t be surprised if some historian shows up one of these days and claims that World War II is an invention of the Jews! The way they’re saying that the Holocaust is our invention. How did 6 million Jews disappear? They simply evaporated? Most of the people don’t know that the Jews are the only people in the world with fewer members than before the war. They haven’t managed to compensate for the 6 million victims through population growth. How did the 3 million Polish Jews disappear? There are now in Poland fewer Jews than in Romania… This was the largest murder in history! Never have the peoples known at any other time in history such an industry of assassinations!

After the war, our house on Uranus St. was returned to us, and we moved back.

After the War

I nurtured Zionist feelings, was a fan of the Zionist idea, had read Herzl, but I never thought it could actually happen. I thought it was a utopia, for I knew there wasn’t one single islet or one single piece of land on this Planet that didn’t belong to someone. How could I have foreseen someone would give the Jews 20,000 square kilometers? How did I find out about the creation of the State of Israel? I was at the State Central Library, in the Periodicals hall. I was reading ‘L’Humanite’, the daily newspaper of the French communist party, the only French paper that was available in Romania [in 1948]. So I was reading it, and I suddenly came across the map of Israel. I was utterly amazed. I spent hours and hours looking at the map of the new Israel and I couldn’t believe my eyes; we finally had our own country. I felt as if a miracle had happened – something that I never thought it would be possible. Think about it: from 70 A.D. until 1948, Jews from all around the world yearned for, hankered after and dreamt at night of Jerusalem. When two Jews parted, they didn’t say ‘Good-bye’, they said ‘Next year in Jerusalem!’

My mother made aliyah in the 1960’s. My brother and other relatives were already living in Israel. She stayed in an old age home in Tel Aviv. I visited her there and, when I returned, I got the news of her death. She died after I had visited her. She was 89 when she passed away [in 1981].

I thought of going to Israel, but I couldn’t speak the language. I would have found it difficult to live there. Imagine someone living in Romania and not knowing Romanian – how hard would things be for that person? I couldn’t practice an intellectual profession there either. I couldn’t do what I did in Romania, where I worked as an editor for a publishing house. I thought of leaving for Paris in high school. Had I done it after I graduated, it would have been a mistake. In 1940, the Germans entered France – they would have caught me and gassed me. At least I’m alive now. I should have left after 23rd August 1944, and the fact that I didn’t was another mistake.

In 1949 or so, I went to Poland and [East] Germany. We were four Romanians sent [Ed. note: by the Romanian State, in an official exchange with Poland and East Germany] to spend our vacations. Poles and Germans came in our place, to spend their vacations in Romania. On that occasion, I traveled across Poland, from one end to the other, and I visited a lot of towns and villages; and this is what I did in East Germany too. Warsaw was all in ruins as far as the eye could see. One couldn’t tell where the streets used to be. They couldn’t find a single house that was standing in order to accommodate us. Do you know where we stayed? Warsaw is crossed by the Vistula River. There was a small ship lying at anchor – it was probably destined for short cruises. Well, we slept in the cabins of that ship. They couldn’t find a room in all Warsaw. And when I say ruins, I mean that there was hardly a wall standing here and there. Things looked the same in Berlin. We were accommodated in a suburban commune, 10-12 kilometers away from the city. It had a few houses intact, and we also got a car. I didn’t see one single man my age in Poland and Germany – I was in my thirties. There were only women, children and elderly people. There weren’t any men. Hitler made the Germans who were my age disappear more than he had done with the Jews. I lived in Poland for a month, but I never saw a man my age. I saw one in Germany, but he was legless – he had lost his legs on the front. Let me tell you about the women’s attitude towards us, the men. The eyes of the Polish and German women begged for a little attention. Their behavior was decorous though. Few of them were aggressive and put their arms around our neck. Most of them were happy if we looked at them and said something to them.

I only held a job after 23rd August 1944. Before that, I lived from tutoring in English and French. I didn’t tutor as much as I could have, because I wanted to have time to read and go for a walk. I used to think and I still think that man’s greatest fortune is what the Romans called ‘otium’, that is spare time intelligently used. After the war, I became a regular employee. I first worked for the Communist Party – they called us instructors, but I actually did documenting for the propaganda section. I was a reference professional. I worked there for a long time, from 1945 until the 1950’s, when they fired me because of a trial in my family [which made Mr. Marcuson’s personnel file look bad]. Then I worked at the ‘Univers’ Publishing House, still in the 1950’s. I also taught French at the Foreign Languages Institute, but only for a few years. The institute was dissolved, but I don’t remember when – in the 1950’s or 1960’s. I was a researcher at the Party History Institute. I had some books and articles published. I retired while I was working for the Scientific and Encyclopedic Publishing House, in 1973. Things were fine for me when I worked there.

My wife, Cornelia Paunescu, was the daughter of some veteran social democratic militants. I wanted to talk to her parents, to ask them about their memories of the old, pre-World War I social democratic movement, the way I’m telling you things from my past right now. Her parents were well-known people; both her mother and her father had their picture in Atanasiu’s ‘Istoria socialismului’ [‘History of Socialism’]. Her father, Paunescu-Paltin, was already dead. There’s a street in Bucharest named after him – a small, pretty street, in the neighborhood where we used to live. They almost gave this name to the very street we lived on, but, eventually, another street, parallel to ours, got to be called Paunescu-Paltin. Her mother was a militant of the socialist women’s group. I went to talk to her, and it was on that occasion that I met her daughter. She told me, in her turn, some of her memories of the social democratic movement. It was ‘love at first sight’. And we got married. We were both middle-aged by then, in our forties.

My wife, Cornelia Paunescu, was born in 1911, in Bucharest. She wasn’t Jewish. She had two sisters: the late Blanche Nicolau [nee Paunescu], and Agatha Paunescu, who’s still alive and is a retiree. They spent all their lives in Bucharest. We got married in Bucharest, in 1957. There was only an official ceremony at the 3rd District Town hall – neither her, nor I was religious. Both my family and hers agreed to this marriage. I wasn’t a child anymore, I was confident I could choose what was right for me, and it turned out I made the best choice. Cornelia went to the Medical School in Bucharest. She was a scientist and she lectured at over thirty international conventions. She was the only Romanian docent with a PhD in pediatric otolaryngology – that was her specialty. As a physician, she attended the Korean War [Ed. note: 25th June 1950-27th July 1953] against the Americans and was the personal physician of Kim Il Sung [Ed. note: (1912-1994), president of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from 1948]. There were doctors from all the other socialist countries there – East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, China. One day Kim Il Sung got sick and he asked who the best doctor was. So my wife treated him, and Kim Il Sung invited us to North Korea twice. Each time, we stayed there for a month, and we lived where Ceausescu 19 had been accommodated before us. North Korea is a very beautiful country. Pyongyang had been bombed by the Americans and the South-Koreans, so they had had to rebuild it and everything looked new. They made theaters, conference halls. All that was left of the old city was an entrance gate. We walked the streets of Pyongyang, with an interpreter with us, of course. We made the way from Bucharest to North Korea in the Transsiberian [special train]. We saw the entire Siberia, and all the cities North Korea and China. Siberia is huge and confines fabulous riches that are yet to be discovered. It’s splendid – from Moscow to the Chinese border, all you can see is birch trees. The first time we went, we took the Transsiberian to and from North Korea. [Ed. note: A one-way trip lasted for about eight days.] The second time, we took the Transsiberian to get there, but we took the plane from Beijing to get back. Today, China looks different from what it looked like when we went there, because they started building. We went many places [together]: England, East Germany, Italy, Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Turkey.

Cornelia never told a lie in her entire life. She was very gentle and kind and she only had one flaw: she trusted people too much. She didn’t know what evil meant. She fluently spoke French, English and Italian. She had a nice humanistic culture [Mr. Marcuson points in different directions of the room, to several bookshelves] – that’s her English and American library, that’s the French library, that’s the Latin library, that’s the Romanian library, and that over there is the German library. She used to go to the hospital or to the Medical School, to lecture, while I used to go to the publishing house or the institute. We both retired on the same day, in 1973. Daily life wasn’t great from a political point of view; economically speaking, we had our problems too – there was a lot of queuing to do and all sorts of shortages. Stores didn’t look like they do now: they were shabby, and the shop assistants weren’t trained; it wasn’t easy to shop for things. We spent our spare time reading, going for a walk, going to see performances. I didn’t keep any Jewish traditions. One morning [in 2000], we had had lunch in the kitchen, ‘closer to the production site’, like we used to say. She was breathing rather difficultly, but I didn’t get nervous. I took her by the hand and helped her sit in an armchair, so she could carry on reading her novel. She fell. I thought she had stumbled against the carpet. But she was dead. I never knew one could die so easily.

We now live in a country which guarantees the freedom of opinion, so I’m going to exercise this right. The Communists built the largest palace in Europe and second largest in the world. [Ed. note: The Palace of Parliament, or ‘The People’s House’, the second largest building in the world, after the Pentagon, was erected on Ceausescu’s order. It currently houses the Romanian Parliament, an international conference center, and numerous museums.] The current regime would be unable to build such a thing or to furnish a palace that is singular in Europe. It’s emblematic of Bucharest, just like the Eiffel Tower is emblematic of Paris, the Kremlin of Moscow, and the Coliseum of Rome. A huge number of things were built. They don’t build anymore nowadays, and they’re not capable of finishing what was started and is almost done. Had Ceausescu lived another year, we would now have a new National Library, and some hundreds of extra apartment houses, nice apartment houses, with balconies and carefully designed curves. I ride in the bus 104 for kilometers and kilometers, and I see what was built by Ceausescu’s regime; and I also see the cranes from the deserted construction site of the National Library-to-be. They want to turn it into something else – apparently, these people don’t need a library, they don’t need books. However, I am moderately optimistic. We are, undoubtedly, on the right track. Of course, we may stumble from time to time, but it is on the right way that we stumble. I’ll vote for the social democrats [PSD – The Social Democratic Party] in the presidential elections; and I’ll vote for the Menorah [the sign of the candidate of the Jewish Community] in the legislative elections!

I used to listen to the BBC and the Voice of America on a regular basis. After I retired, I even used to listen to the same show twice – the first time in the evening, and the second time in the morning, when it was rerun. I couldn’t refrain from listening – I was too curious, and I needed those radios like I needed air. I remember Noel Bernard and his wife; I used to know other names too, but I forgot them.

I welcomed the Revolution of 1989 20, because I had become fed up with Ceausescu. I was in Bucharest when it happened. I walked in the streets, but I wasn’t in that crowd whom Ceausescu addressed – I kept away from crowds. What happened was inevitable. We simply had to enter Europe. I later realized that this wouldn’t have been possible with Ceausescu in power. Being part of Europe is a matter of life and death for us – our peace and prosperity are at stake. I feel frustrated because we are still so far behind, and our integration may be put off. But I hoe we’ll make it [in 2007]. My life improved after 1989. I was able to read the foreign press and a series of authors that had been unavailable before, and I could travel abroad – which I did almost every year, to the East and to the West.

Before 1989 (I forgot the exact year), someone from the [Jewish] Community came to me and asked me if I wanted to be a member. I said yes on the spot, paid my first fee, and I can say I’m an old member of the community. One Sunday morning, while I was at a conference held at the cultural center on Popa Soare St., we were all given some applications to fill. This is how we became members of the Association of the Romanian Zionists, which was recreated after it had been banned for several decades. When the winter holidays came, I received a greeting card from the Zionists, who have their headquarters close from here, on Kogalniceanu Blvd., where the Sohnut located is too. Despite there’s so few of us left, the community has an active life. The ‘Realitatea evreiasca’ [‘Jewish Reality’] Magazine is very good. [Ed. note: The magazine of the Jewish minority in Romania was known as ‘Revista Cultului Mozaic’ [‘The Magazine of the Mosaic Cult’] between 1956 and 1995, and changed its name to ‘Realitatea evreiasca’ in 1995. It includes articles about the cultic and cultural life of the community and contains a page in English and one in Ivrit.] It has some extraordinary articles, especially those by Eveline Fonea, Iulia Deleanu, Luciana Friedmann. I regularly attend the community conference center on Popa Soare St. on Sunday. I sometimes eat at their canteen.

I was always interested in religion, although I wasn’t a religious person. One may deny the existence of God, but one cannot deny the existence of religion. I’m a reader of the Bible and of religious literature. I only go to the synagogue on special occasions. Unfortunately, religious services only began after sunset, when the first star appears – this is when the Sabbath starts. Well, when the first star appears, I’m always at my place, because I don’t like to walk the streets at night. I only attend the synagogue when I can do it during the day. I was there for Sukkot and for the high holidays, but only to the gatherings that took place in the morning or early in the afternoon. The synagogue is not a church. A church is usually only a place for believers. A synagogue can be also a place for non-believers. The synagogue is Beit Ha Knesset, the house of the assembly – this is where the Jews assemble. There used to be concerts before the war. There was a singer, Silvia Feller. There are electoral meetings and conferences held at the synagogue nowadays too. I now go to the Choral Temple. I only went to the synagogue on Atena St. a few times [Ed. note: the Iesua Tova Synagogue built in 1827, still functional. The street is currently called Tache Ionescu St.]. Most of the synagogues disappeared. I used to go to the Malbim Synagogue [Ed. note: built in 1864, demolished in 1985; on its spot lies today the construction site of the National Library, near Unirii Blvd.]; I liked it a lot. I would also go to the Great Synagogue [Ed. note: built in 1846; since 1991, it has been sheltering the Memorial Museum of the Jewish Martyrs in Romania.] on Vasile Adamache St. I still go there to see the Holocaust exhibition.

I never denied my identity. Against people’s advice, I never changed my name of got baptized. There’s no point in denying one’s identity. If a Jew denies being a Jew, there will always be someone who will remind him! I have come to the conviction that Jews represent not only a religion, but also an ethnic group. Leaving aside the Mosaic faith, there is also a Jewish ethnic group, just like there’s a Hungarian, or a German, or a Bulgarian ethnic group. A Jewish baby is a rich being from the very moment it’s conceived in its mother’s womb. Being a Jew is a lucky thing. Jews cannot be compared to anyone. Of course, any nation could claim it cannot be compared to any other, but the Jewish history is really unique. The Jewish history begins 14 centuries before Christ and it is extraordinary. Jews survived thanks to their rabbis and their religion – it’s religion that prevented them from becoming extinct. Hebrew is the only classic language that could be reborn. Attempts were made in Europe to revive Latin – the French founded the ‘Le latin vivant’ [‘Living Latin’] Society, published magazines, but failed. The Greeks tried to resurrect the old Attic language, but failed. The Greeks of today still speak Demotic, the colloquial Greek language. The only ancient language that managed to survive and is now spoken by millions of Jews from Israel is Hebrew. Any pupil in Israel can now read the Old Testament in original, in Hebrew. And this is something extraordinary!

Glossary:

1 Gheorghiu-Dej, Gheorghe (1901-1965)

Leader of the Romanian Communist Party between 1952 and 1965. Originally an electrician and railway worker, he was imprisoned in 1933 and became the underground leader of all imprisoned communists. He was prime minister between 1952 and 1955 and first secretary of the Communist Party between 1945 and 1953 and from 1955 until his death. In his later years, he led a policy that drifted away from the directives coming from Moscow, keeping the Stalinist system untouched by the Krushchevian reforms.

2 10th of May (Heroes’ Day)

national holiday in the Romanian Monarchy. It was to commemorate Romania’s independence from the Ottoman Empire, granted in 1878 by the Treaty of Berlin. As a result of a parliamentary decision, Carol I of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was proclaimed King of Romania on 10th May, 1881.

3 King Carol I

1839-1914, Ruler of Romania (1866-1881) and King of Romania (1881-1914). He signed with Austro-Hungary a political-military treaty (1883), to which adhered Germany and Italy, linking this way Romania to The Central Powers. Under his kingship the Independence War of Romania (1877) took place. He insisted on Romania joining World War I on Germany and Austro-Hungary’s side.

4 King Ferdinand I

1865-1927, King of Romania (1914-1927). He supported Romania’s engaging in World War I on the side of the Entante, against the Central Powers, thus putting the interest of the nation beyond his own German origin. The disintegration of empires in the aftermath of the war made it possible for several provinces to unite with Romania in 1918, after a democratic referendum: Bessarabia (in April), Bucovina (in November) and Transylvania (in December). On 15th October 1922, Ferdinand was crowned king of the Great Romania at the Reunification Cathedral in Alba Iulia, a symbol of the unification of all the Romanian provinces under the rule of a single monarch.

5 King Carol II (1893-1953)

King of Romania from 1930 to 1940. During his reign he tried to influence the course of Romanian political life, first through the manipulation of the rival Peasants’ Party, the National Liberal Party and anti-Semitic factions. In 1938 King Carol established a royal dictatorship. He suspended the Constitution of 1923 and introduced a new constitution that concentrated all legislative and executive powers in his hands, gave him total control over the judicial system and the press, and introduced a one-party system. A contest between the king and the fascist Iron Guard ensued, with assassinations and massacres on both sides. Under Soviet and Hungarian pressure, Carol had to surrender parts of Romania to foreign rule in 1940 (Bessarabia and Northern Bucovina to the USSR, the Cadrilater to Bulgaria and Northern Transylvania to Hungary). He was abdicated in favor of his son, Michael, and he fled abroad. He died in Portugal.

6 King Michael (b

1921): Son of King Carol II, King of Romania from 1927-1930 under regency and from 1940-1947. When Carol II abdicated in 1940 Michael became king again but he only had a formal role in state affairs during Antonescu’s dictatorial regime, which he overthrew in 1944. Michael turned Romania against fascist Germany and concluded an armistice with the Allied Powers. King Michael opposed the “sovietization” of Romania after World War II. When a communist regime was established in Romania in 1947, he was overthrown and exiled, and he was stripped from his Romanian citizenship a year later. Since the collapse of the communist rule in Romania in 1989, he has visited the country several times and his citizenship was restored in 1997.

7 Caragiale, Ion Luca (1852-1912)

Very important Romanian playwright, prose writer and journalist, representative of the classical trend. He was a contributor for the most renowned humor gazettes of liberal orientation, and for liberal and conservative newspapers. Refusing to comply with the aesthetical and social taboos of his time, he made a deep analysis of the Romanian society in all his works, from plays and literary prose to humorous sketches, politically-biased columns and epistolary literature. In 1905, he settled in Berlin together with his family. He was the father of the prose writer and poet Mateiu I. Caragiale and of the poet Luca I. Caragiale.

8 Eminescu, Mihai (1850-1889)

considered the foremost Romanian poet of his century. His poems, lyrical, passionate, and revolutionary, were published in periodicals and had a profound influence on Romanian letters. He worked in a traveling company of actors, and also acquired a broad university education. His poetry reflected the influence of the French romantics. Eminescu suffered from periodic attacks of insanity and died shortly after his final attack.

9 Legionary

Member of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, also known as the Legionary Movement, founded in 1927 by C. Z. Codreanu. This extremist, nationalist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic movement aimed at excluding those whose views on political and racial matters were different from theirs. The Legion was organized in so-called nests, and it practiced mystical rituals, which were regarded as the way to a national spiritual regeneration by the members of the movement. These rituals were based on Romanian folklore and historical traditions. The Legionaries founded the Iron Guard as a terror organization, which carried out terrorist activities and political murders. The political twin of the Legionary Movement was the ‘Totul pentru Tara’ (‘Everything for the Fatherland’) that represented the movement in parliamentary elections. The followers of the Legionary Movement were recruited from young intellectuals, students, Orthodox clericals, peasants. The movement was banned by King Carol II in 1938.

10 Legionary Movement (also known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael)

Movement founded in 1927 by C. Z. Codreanu. This extremist, nationalist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic movement aimed at excluding those whose views on political and racial matters were different from theirs. The Legion was organized in so-called nests, and it practiced mystical rituals, which were regarded as the way to a national spiritual regeneration by the members of the movement. These rituals were based on Romanian folklore and historical traditions. The Legionaries founded the Iron Guard as a terror organization, which carried out terrorist activities and political murders. The political twin of the Legionary Movement was the ‘Totul pentru Tara’ (‘Everything for the Fatherland’) that represented the movement in parliamentary elections. The followers of the Legionary Movement were recruited from young intellectuals, students, Orthodox clericals, peasants. The movement was banned by King Carol II in 1938.

11 Iron Guard

Extreme right wing political organization in Romania between 1930 and 1941, led by C. Z. Codreanu. The Iron Guard propagated nationalist, Christian-mystical and anti-Semitic views. It was banned for its terrorist activities (e.g. the murder of Romanian Prime Minister I. Gh. Duca) in 1933. In 1935 it was re-established as a party named ‘Totul pentru Tara’, (‘Everything for the Fatherland’), but it was banned again in 1938. It was part of the government in the first period of the Antonescu regime, but it was then banned and dissolved as a result of the unsuccessful coup d'état of January 1941. Its leaders escaped abroad to the Third Reich.

12 Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea (1899-1938)

Founder and leader of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, also known in Romania as the Legionary Movement (1927), which pursued paramilitary activities and political terrorism. In 1930 Codreanu founded the political organization of the so-called Iron Guard movement. This extreme right-wing organization propagated exclusive nationalism, ‘Orthodoxism’ and anti-Semitism. By the end of the 1930s it became a mass movement and came into conflict with King Carol II of Romania. Codreanu was arrested and shot on the king’s orders in 1938.

13 Liga Apararii National Crestine (National Christian Defense League) (new)

Romanian fascist organization named after Alexandru C. Cuza, one of the most fervent fascist leaders in Romania, who was known for his ruthless chauvinism and anti-Semitism. Cuza founded the National Christian Defense League, the LANC (‘Liga Apararii National Crestine’), in 1923. The paramilitary troops of the league, called lancierii, wore blue uniforms. The organization published a newspaper entitled Apararea Nationala. In 1935 the LANC merged with the National Agrarian Party, and turned into the National Christian Party, which had a pronounced anti-Semitic program.

14 Legionary rebellion

failed coup intended by the legionaries in January 20-27 1941, which culminated with the pogrom of the Jews in Bucharest; after its defeat, Ion Antonescu established military dictatorship.

15 Red Assistance (new) – started in 1922 at the IV

Communist International. The aim of the communist aid organization was the material and moral support of the communist movement, their families as well as victims of fascism. The organization worked illegally in Transylvania and the rest of Romania, and was able to enlist the help of numbers of young people in it’s work. Financial support for the assistance program was procured through donations.

16 23 August 1944

On that day the Romanian Army switched sides and changed its World War II alliances, which resulted in the state of war against the German Third Reich. The Royal head of the Romanian state, King Michael I, arrested the head of government, Marshal Ion Antonescu, who was unwilling to accept an unconditional surrender to the Allies.

17 Patrascanu, Lucretiu (1900-1954)

Veteran Communist and respected intellectual, who successfully conducted an underground communist activity before the Communist Party came to power in Romania in 1944. Following this he was in charge of the Ministry of Justice. He was arrested in 1948 and tried in 1954. He was allegedly accused by Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej, the leader of the Romanian Communist Party, of helping Antonescu in his war against the USSR and of being a spy for the British secret service. In fact, he was the only rival from an intellectual background Dej had. His patriotism, which he openly expressed, was interpreted by the communists as chauvinism.

18 Sebastian, Mihail (Hechter, I

) (1907-1945) (new): novelist, literary critic, playwright, essayist, PhD in Economic Sciences and Law from Paris. His most important works were published in the 1930’s; they had a semiautobiographical character and aroused vivid literary and doctrine-related debates. He was an editor for ‘Revista Fundatiilor Regale’ (‘The Magazine of the Royal Foundations’) from 1936 until 1940, when he was fired because he was a Jew. In 1941, he became a teacher at the Jewish High School ‘Cultura’ (‘The Culture’), then at the Onescu College, a Jewish improvised university, where he held a class of comparative literature. He died as a result of an accident.

19 Ceausescu, Nicolae (1918-1989)

Communist head of Romania between 1965 and 1989. He followed a policy of nationalism and non-intervention into the internal affairs of other countries. The internal political, economic and social situation was marked by the cult of his personality, as well as by terror, institutionalized by the Securitate, the Romanian political police. The Ceausescu regime was marked by disastrous economic schemes and became increasingly repressive and corrupt. There were frequent food shortages, lack of electricity and heating, which made everyday life unbearable. In December 1989 a popular uprising, joined by the army, led to the arrest and execution of both Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, who had been deputy Prime Minister since 1980.

20 Romanian Revolution of 1989

In December 1989, a revolt in Romania deposed the communist dictator Ceausescu. Anti-government violence started in Timisoara and spread to other cities. When army units joined the uprising, Ceausescu fled, but he was captured and executed on 25th December along with his wife. A provisional government was established, with Ion Iliescu, a former Communist Party official, as president. In the elections of May 1990 Iliescu won the presidency and his party, the Democratic National Salvation Front, obtained an overwhelming majority in the legislative body.

Alice Klímová

Alice Klimová

Alice Klímová

roz. Justitzová
Praha
Česká republika
Rozhovor pořídila: Lenka Kopřivová
Období vzniku rozhovoru: březen – červen 2006

PLEASE NOTE - this is only the transcript of the interview, the final edited version will be uploaded later

Kazeta č. 1, strana A:

B: Tak, nevím od jakého začátku chcete?

A: No, Tady je rodokmen, tak já bych možná ze začátku vyplnila nějak trošku ten rodokmen, abych věděla zhruba nějaké ty obrysy o Vás. A potom podle toho scénáře, co jsem Vám dávala, tak asi podle toho.

B: Dobře.

A: Vy se jmenujete Alice Klímová?

B: Ano.

A: A rodné jméno?

B: Justitzová. Psáno německy. Jo?

A: Ano.

B: Justitzová.

A: A kde jste se narodila a kdy?

B: V Praze. 5.7.1928.

A: A kromě Prahy jste žila někde jinde ještě?

B: No, tak těch šest let v Anglii a pak asi patnáct let, jak já tomu říkám druhý exil, v Litvínově. My jsme museli v padesátých letech z Prahy pryč.

A: A vaším mateřským jazykem je co?

B: Čeština.

A: Ono těch otázek je tady víc, ale já myslím, že během toho rozhovoru k nim stejně příjdem, tak mě se to zdá takový jako hodně zdlouhavý. A za války jste byla v Anglii? Celou dobu?

B: Ano.

A: Máte nějaké sourozence?

B: Měla. Měla jsem sestru, ta už zemřela v roce 1981. Starší.

A: A jak se jmenovala?

B: Emílie. Provdaná Passová. Dvě „s“.

A: A kdy a kde se narodila?

B: V Praze. 22.listopadu 1922.

A: A zemřela tedy kdy?

B: 5.6.1981.

A: A váš manžel?

B: Manžel, Robert Klíma. Z Ostravy. Nebo byl. A narozený 7.4.1920.

A: On je židovského původu?

B: Ano.

A: A jeho mateřský jazyk?

B: Taky čeština.

A: A žije ještě?

B: Ne, ne. Už zemřel. 5.listopadu 1983.

A: A nějaké děti máte?

B: Mám syna. Jiří Klíma. Také datum narození?

A: Ano, to taky.

B: 24.května 1949 v Praze. A dcera Věra Egemová.

A: Egemová?

B: Egemová, narozená 17.února 1953 v Mostě.

A: A máte vnoučata? Kolik a jaké?

B: No, takhle. Jedno od dcery. Syn má jednoho adoptovaného a ještě dva co vyženil, protože první manželka mu zahynula, takže se oženil podruhé, takže celkem pět. Samý kluky.

A: Všichni? A váš tatínek se jmenoval jak?

B: Bohumil.

A: A kdy a kde se narodil?

B: 14.10.1894 v Praze. To už je prehistorie. A maminka Lída. Lída, byla rozená Glauberová a ta se narodila 12.6.1894 taky v Praze.

A: No, a ještě tatínek žil celou dobu v Praze, celý život?

B: Ano, matka taky.

A: Matka taky? A jejich mateřským jazykem bylo co?

B: Nejsem si úplně jistá. Tatínek čeština a u matky možná němčina, nevím. Ale každopádně obojím se mluvilo. Mluvilo se česky i německy doma.

A: Jako u nich doma? U matky?

B: U matky a i my jako děti, částečně, protože vím, že babička mluvila raději německy než česky. Dědeček zas ne. Takže to bylo takový smíšený.

A: Tak jste se to alespoň naučila.

B: No, jo a ne. Mluvit, ale nikdy jsem se nenaučila číst a psát. No a dneska jsem většinu toho pozapomněla. Takže pokud nějaké slovo vypustím, tak mám relativně slušnou výslovnost, ale ty znalosti tomu vůbec neodpovídají. No, to jako dítě se tu výslovnost naučí samozřejmě rychleji.

A: A jakou práci dělal tatínek?

B: Tatínek měl svůj podnik na elektro, no, výroba elektrod na sváření. Takovej malej podnik to byl.

A: A měl nějaké sourozence?

B: Měl, celou řadu. Ani Vám nepovím přesně kolik. Tři sestry, dva bratry. Pak, já si nejsem jistá jestli nějaká sestra nezemřela úplně jako malá. To nevím přesně.

A: Pamatujete si jak se jmenovali, třeba?

B: Kamila, provdaná Moravitzová. To byla sestra otcova.

A: Jo a psáno Moravitzová?

B: Tz, ano. A Olga Epsteinová a Hermína Tuková. A bratr byl Karel Justitz a Rudolf.

A: A pamatujete si od někoho z nich nějaké biografické data?

B: Vím, že ten Rudolf zemřel asi v roce 1937. Proč, to nevím. Jinak všichni zahynuli v koncentráku. To vám nepovím. Ačkoliv možná, kdybych někde hledala, tak bych to našla. Trváte na tom?

A: No, když tak potom někdy ještě.

B: Jo? Já to někde myslím mám.

A: A tatínek přežil válku?

B: Ne.

A: Nepřežil.

B: On tam zemřel.

A: A kde zemřel?

B: V Osvětimi.

A: V kterém roce?

B: Prosím?

A: V kterém roce?

B: 1944. 28.září 1944.

A: A váš dědeček z tatínkovy strany se jmenoval jak?

B: Toho jsem nikdy nepoznala. Oba jeho rodiče už nežili, když já jsem se narodila. Vím, že babička teda z otcovy strany byla Emílie a ta zemřela asi čtrnáct dní před narozením sestry. Proto jako byla pojmenovaná po ní. A nějak si teď nevybavím dědečka.

A: A z maminčiny strany teda?

B: Z maminčiny strany, babička to byla Otýlie, rozená Hellerová a ta se narodila 8.8.1870. a dědeček Julius Glauber, 1.dubna a 1866 nebo 1867, to přesně nevím a zemřel duben nebo květen 1933.

A: Babička zemřela kdy?

B: Já mám dojem že 1942. Pokud vím, všichni zemřeli v Osvětimi, babička v Treblince. 1942 nebo 1943, nevím přesně.

A: Maminka měla nějaké sourozence?

B: Ano bratra, Bedřich. 1.4.1894 v Praze, ale potom, po první světový vojně, asi od 20. roku nebo kdy, žil v Drážďanech. Po křišťálové noci potom se s rodinou vrátil do Prahy.

A: Maminka zemřela kdy teda, v kterém roce?

B: 1.října 1944.

A: Taky v Osvětimi?

B: Ano.

A: A víte něco o sourozencích prarodičů? Byli nějací?

B: Babička moje z matčiny strany měla sestru. Vím, že krásně pletla.

A: Jo?

B: Laura, Laura se jmenovala, ale jak příjmením? To už nevím. A jestli byla svobodná? To netuším. A z otcovy strany ti zemřeli ještě dřív než já jsem se narodila. O těch nevím nic.

A: A oni byli o kolik starší?

B: Já nevím. Tehdy se taky dřív umíralo, že jo? Dědeček z matčiny strany, jak říkám, ten zemřel v roce 1933, čili tomu bylo 6O a něco.

A: Tak stručný rodokmen teda je.

B: Dobře.

A: Tak já bych šla teď podle té struktury toho, co jsem posílala. A kdyby to šlo, tak že bychom prvně probraly tu tatínkovu rodinu, co si na ně pamatujete nebo nějaké spolužáky nebo tak.

B: No, to byly jenom skutečně, říkám, prarodiče otcovy jsem neznala a nic o nich jako nevím samozřejmě. Jedno co bych mohla říct, že to byla rodina, která držela velice pohromadě. Taková ta soudržnost, to určitě. Každou sobotu, vím, že se stýkali vždycky v nějaké kavárně. Jo, to bylo takové nepsané pravidlo. To ano.

A: A měli nějaké sourozence? Jo, měli, ty velké.

B: Jo, to byly ty tři sestry a ten jeden bratr, jak říkám, ten už zemřel dřív, podstatně.Takže ten ne. Měla jsem celkem dvanáct sestřenic a čtyři bratrance. A z toho snad jenom jedny sestřenice byly mladší, všechny byly starší než já a já jsem po nich po všech musela dědit. To bylo jako pravidlo tehdy, že jo? Přece se to nevyhodí, když to ještě může k něčemu sloužit. Tak to jsem jako, i když sestřenice jsem měla ráda, ale ony za to nemohly, že jo, pro to jsem je moc nemilovala. Ale první vlastní výbavu jsem dostala až když jsem jela do Anglie.

A: Aha, a do té doby jste všechno teda dědila?

B: No, tak většinou, tak ne stoprocentně, ale většinou, že jo. No a říkám, byly starší. Protože, když mě bylo, dejme tomu, osm a jim šestnáct, no tak to byl obrovskej rozdíl, že jo. Takže jsme se to té míry nestýkali, ale vím že jsem jako v některých jsem chodila, že jo, když už chodily, já nevím, nějak hezky oblečený a podobně jak to bývá, no. A jinak nevím co bych jako mohla povědět.

A: A vy jste také chodila do té kavárny s nima?

B: Ne, ne. To pro nás ještě nebylo, to se nedělalo.

A: A kde oni bydleli nebo odkud pocházel tatínek, z Prahy, které části?

B: Tatínek, z Libně. A já když jsem se narodila, tak jsme bydleli v Dejvicích. Nynější Kafkové, tehdejší Bachmačská. A když zemřel dědeček, tak jsme se přestěhovali do toho bytu, kde oni bydleli, což byla Sokolská, roh Sokolské a Žitné. Obrovský byt to byl, šesti pokojový. Dneska je to myslím prázdný a zpustošený. I když to byl nádhernej barák. První dům v Praze, který měl ústřední topení. Tam jsme byli jenom rok a pak jsme se stěhovali na Vinohrady. Takže do dneška Praha pro mě obnáší Vinohrady a Dejvice. No, takže tam jsem bydlela až do svého odjezdu.

A: No a prarodiče, co dělali? Co dělal dědeček? Jaké měl zaměstnání?

B: Z otcovy strany, nemám tušení. To nevím vůbec nic.

A: A nevíte třeba jak byli nábožensky založeni?

B: Byli všichni židé. To určitě. Já můžu jenom říct, že jako, co se týče mých rodičů, mý rodiny, že se dodržovaly svátky a tím to asi tak začínalo a končilo. Jo? Aby se v týdnu chodilo, já nevím, na bohoslužby, no tak to určitě ne. Jo, jak někteří ti ortodoxní mají košer. Tak to v žádném případě. Ne. To v žádném případě. Akorát ten Nový rok a, co to je, roš ha šana, že? Tak to chodili rodiče do synagogy, já snad taky. A na ten seder o velikonocích nebo kolem Velikonoc, že, tak to se chodilo k té tetě Kamile, na tu večeři. A co jsem já těžce nesla, že jsme nesměli mít stromeček doma. To jsem chodila ke kamarádkám. Tak to jsem cítila jako, no, prostě mi to bylo líto.

A: A sestře ne?

B: Já nevím, nějak jsme o tom nemluvily. Mě to nenapadlo. Nebo byla nad to povznešená. To už nevím.

A: A chanuku jste slavili?

B: No, tak že se zapálil ten svícen. To tak pro mě co se týče náboženství pro mě začínalo a končilo. No, tehdy bylo všude, ve všech školách, více méně, povinné náboženství, jo. No, takže já jsem chodila na to židovské náboženství, které bylo na jiné škole, to bylo tam „na smetance“, myslím, se tomu říkalo. A protože jsem měla ještě řadu jiných aktivit jako, já nevím, klavír a, já nevím, nějaký tělocvik a tak dále, tak, že jsem si stěžovala často na bolení hlavy, což mě tíží dodnes, tak rodiče usoudili, abych nebyla tak přetížená, že můžu jako klidně oželet to náboženství. Takže v páté třídě jsem už na náboženství nechodila, což jsem byla velice ráda.

A: To jste potom stejně už někdy jela do Anglie, ne?

B: No, tak to bylo od září do konce školního roku, že jo, ten poslední rok.

A: Neříkal Vám teda třeba tatínek něco ještě o těch prarodičích?

B: Ne, ne. Bohužel Vám nepomůžu.

A: Tak to nevadí.

B: Jediný, pokud Vás to zajímá, že, nějak, jsme příbuzní s malířem Alfredem Justitzem. Ale jak, nevím. Už dvacet, třicet let furt chodím, že to zjistím, ale ještě jsem se k tomu nedostala. A asi nedostanu. Já jsem hrozná, co?

A: Hlavně, že máte ten dojem, že to tak teda je.

B: To určitě, to vím bezpečně. Jestli to byl strýc mého otce, nebo co, nevím. To já teda moc nevím.

A: Tak kdybychom mohly udělat ty prarodiče z maminčiny strany.

B: Ano.

A: Tak o nich víte co teda?

B: Tak vím, že dědeček spolu se svým bratrem měli velkoobchod s kávou.

A: Tady v Praze někde?

B: Konkrétně dneska v Opletalově ulici. Tehdy to byla ulice Lützovova. A dnes je to Opletalova. A maminka tam chodila dělat takové ty sekretářské práce.

A: A ještě jako když měla vás už?

B: No, údajně, když já jsem se narodila, tak někdo mě tam nosil ještě na kojení, prý.

A: A jak to tam vypadalo v tom velkoobchodu?

B: Vím, že to bylo do suterénu. Ale víc nevím.

A: A měl to teda až do té doby než zemřel?

B: Jo.

A: A pak se s tím stalo co?

B: Nevím. Vím, že babička něco ještě nějakým těm starším zákazníkům prodávala. Nějakou tu kávu, jo. Ale co jinak, a co ten prastrýc můj, jako to nevím.

A: A mohla by jste mi nějak dědečka popsat?

B: Velice laskavý, hodný, milý člověk. Taková jedna vzpomínka z té Sokolské. Tam měl, po čem je dneska velká poptávka, ty psací stoly s takovou tou jako roletou. On u toho seděl a v pravém spodním šuplíku, tam míval kočičí jazýčky a když jsem přišla, tak si mě posadil na klín, vytáhl jeden ten jazýček, to nebylo zvykem tehdy dávat celý tabulky čokolády nebo co je to dneska, že jo, jenom po kouskách. „Jednu kočičku, pro mou kočičku.“ Tak to samozřejmě si pamatuju, že jo. Byl to takový ten, jak ve filmu se říká, takový ten hodný, laskavý dědeček.

A: A měl on víc vnoučat nebo jen Vás a sestru?

B: Ne, ještě od toho Bedřicha, co jak říkám, žil v Drážďanech, tak ti měli dvě děvčata.

A: Jo, ale tak stejně jste se asi moc nevídaly že?

B: Ale jo, ta jedna to je támhle ta, zrovna.

A: Aha.

B: No, často jsme se nevídaly, ale i když bydleli v Drážďanech, tak tahle Věra, to byla moje nejmilejší sestřenice.

A: Jo?

B: No, jsme se měly velmi rády. I když ona byla asi o devět měsíců mladší, ale i tak. Jsme se milovaly.

A: Tak mi o ní ještě něco řekněte taky ještě.

B: Nezapomeňte, že to už je, kolik, víc jak šedesát, pomalu sedmdesát let, to těžko můžete takhle popsat nějaké pocity nebo něco. Byla to strašně milá dívenka. Nevím, co bych Vám řekla.

A: A jak často jste se viděly, asi tak.

B: To vám neřeknu, to nevím. Já vím, že jsem dostala třeba nějakou fotografii ze srpna 1938, nějak nemám v paměti, že byli v Praze, ale je to z Prahy, takže to přesně nevím. Já jenom vím, že Vánoce 1937 jsem byla u nich v Drážďanech, to vím. Ale jak často oni jezdili sem, tak to si nepamatuju. No a ta starší Eva, ta byla o den starší než moje sestra. Jestli náhodou, pokud se hrabete tam v různých těch, já nevím, archivech nebo kde co, v tý obci, tak možná, že jste narazila na knížku, ani nevím jak se jmenuje, od Alfred Kantor, který namaloval obrázky z Terezína a té, z Auschwitz už ne, ale z Terezína. Nenarazila jste na to?

A: Asi bych musela vidět ty obrázky teda.

B: Protože s tím, ona ta Eva chodila. Taková velikánská láska.

A: V Terezíně?

B: Ano.

A: A ona se teda taky nevrátila?

B: Ne. Jsem to někomu půjčila.

A: Tak to nevadí, já se na to podívám jindy.

B: On to vesměs maloval zpaměti. On se zachránil. Tak. Co by jste ještě ráda?

A: Ještě, ještě jak dědeček vypadal?

B: To bych vám mohla ukázat fotografii, jestli chcete.

A: Tak to můžem stejně asi udělat potom dohromady ještě.

B: Až potom dohromady, dobře.

A: A tak babičku, kdyby jste mi popsala.

B: Babička, menší, hodná.

A: Veselá, živá nebo tak?

B: Veselá, no to bych váhala, asi tak. To veselejší možná byl dědeček. Babička nějak…, tak já si ji hlavně pamatuju po tom, co dědeček zemřel, protože pak jsme spolu bydleli.

A: Na té Sokolské?

B: Na té Sokolské a pak na Vinohradech. Jo? Takže možná že zvážněla právě z toho důvodu, že ovdověla, to je možný. To vám nepovím. Ale jako že by…, jako tatínka si pamatuji jako nesmírně vtipného člověka, jo? Věčně legrace. Tak to bych o babičce říct nemohla. Jo? Ale taková ta hodná babička, že jo, která dávala vylízat ty hrnce, a takovýhle to jo.

A: A trávily jste spolu hodně času?

B: Jako nemůžu říct, že by chodila se mnou na procházky nebo tak, to nějak nemám v paměti. To tak spíš doma, že se něco tak povídalo nebo to.

A: A předtím ještě když žil dědeček, tak jezdili jste společně na nějaké výlety?

B: Ne, to nějak nemám v paměti. Možná jo, ale jak říkám, nemám to v paměti.

A: A mohla by jste mi když tak popsat ten jejich byt, jak vypadal?

B: Jo, i když to už je sedmdesát nebo víc let. Vešlo se, bylo to v prvním patře, a dlouhá taková nudlovitá chodba a doprava, tam byly ještě další dva pokoje a tam bydlela prababička. Ale ne když jsme se tam nastěhovali, to ne. Já vím, že to jsme si dělaly legraci se sestrou, vždycky, že měla plyšový kanapíčko. Takový to s těma třásněma. Jo? Já to mám v paměti ještě dnes. No a pak doleva byla velikánská kuchyně. A pak byly čtyři, šest pokojů. Ty dva měla ta prababička vzadu. A čtyři. A to byly rachejtle obrovský. To byly strašně veliké místnosti, vysokánské stropy. A já tak nějak mám před sebou hlavně ten pokoj kde měl ten dědeček ten psací stůl, ale víc už si jako nevybavuju. Velikánská koupelna, kde se nějak topilo na tu teplou vodu. Tam byl nějaký kotel nebo co to bylo. Velká „špajz“ u tý kuchyně. Prostě to byly strašně velký místnosti. Pro to dítě působí všechno mnohem větším dojmem, že jo. Ale i dneska když se koukám zvenčí, jakej prostor to zabírá, no tak to je vidět, že to muselo být hodně veliký.

A: A teď tam teda nic není?

B: Ne, byla tam Druope, něco na , oční optiku kdysi, co tam je dneska nevím, ale e vidět, že ten dům chátrá velice. Sestra se v tom bytě narodila.

A: Jo? A babička s dědečkem měli nějakou výpomoc doma?

B: Jo, kuchařka, která jim vařila, uklízela.

A: A co dělala babička, když dědeček byl v obchodě?

B: Taky, jako vařila, dohlížela. No, dohlížela. Aby prostě, chod domácnosti byl, jak si představovala.

A: A ona taky pletla jako ta její sestra.

B: Nepamatuju si, to si nepamatuju.

A: Takže takové ty materiální poměry, ve kterých jste žili byly asi?

B: Zaopatření, řekněme, byly slušný. Rozhodně bych neřekla, že jsme patřili k nějaký bohatý tý. Ale taková ta střední vrstva.

A: A byl dědeček nějak orientovaný, politicky?

B: To netuším.

A: A nebo babička, v nějakých organizacích?

B: Myslím, že ne.

A: A oni košer taky nějak?

B: Taky ne. Ne.

A: A jinak chodili nějak pravidelněji do synagogy?

B: To nevím.No, tak když zpětně takhle uvažuju, tak ani nějak tu babičku nevidím, že by nějak chodila, ale možná jo. Ale jako k tomu židovství se jako celá rodina hlásila, to určitě. Ne jako národnost, to ne.

A: To jste měli českou?

B: Jo, to určitě. Ale rozhodně se k tomu jako hlásili. Nakonec já taky. A do tý synagogy nejdu, ani na ty svátky.

A:. A tak mohla by jste mi říct nějakou vzpomínku na ty prarodiče třeba?

B: Ne. To vám neřeknu. Jediný co jsem si zapamatovala s tím dědečkem a ty kočičí jazýčky. Jo? To, ale jinak, vám opravdu nic. Tak mě bylo čtyři a půl, když dědeček zemřel. Nevím, co si pamatujete z těch let a jste o dost mladší. Takže to opravdu vám nepomůžu.

A: Tak já bych teď vzala třeba maminku. A vaše maminka byla mladší než ten její bratr?

B: Jo, o tři roky.

A: Tak mi ji když tak popište nějak víc, jak si na ni pamatujete.

B: Maminka, jak bych to řekla, já to přeženu. Měla trošičku takový ten aristokratický způsob chování. Jo. Vždycky za dámu. Samozřejmě to s aristokracií nemělo vůbec nic společného. Ale vždycky, jak já říkám, jako za dámu, oblečená vždycky, dbala na to. Řekla bych, že na svoji dobu byla i celkem vzdělaná. Měla státnici z angličtiny, což tehdy bylo dost nezvyklé, že jo. Říkám, mluvilo se česky i německy. Myslím si, že ona měla víc německé školy. Ale to nemůžu zaručit, to nevím. Otec česky, to jo. I když také mluvil stejně dobře německy. Tatínek byl v první světové válce raněný, takže mu, myslím v roce 1933, museli brát ledvinu a vím, že ona se vzorově o něj starala. Opravdu s nesmírnou péčí a láskou. Takže na to byla zaměřená, že. A samozřejmě zaměřená, byla to žena v domácnosti, protože tehdy bylo velmi vzácné, že by žena chodila do práce. To byly opravdu jen takové ty velice chudé rodiny, kde to bylo z ekonomických důvodů. Rozhodně ne jako dneska, že někdo dělá kariéru. Takže byla doma, no a věnovala se nám, holkám a, dneska by se tomu řeklo zájmový kroužky, což tehdy nebylo, samozřejmě. Takže vím, že mě vodila, tehdy se tomu říkalo rytmika, dneska by se tomu říkalo spíš gymnastika.

A: Já jsem taky chodila ještě na rytmiku. A taky se tomu říkalo rytmika.

B: Jo? Já myslela že to zmizelo po válce.

A: Tak možná my jsme takový zastaralý kraj.

B: A to je kde.

A: No, na Jižní Moravě, pod Brnem.

B: Aha. No, vím, že to bylo jak je Palác Metro. Na Národní, tam.

A: Tam jste chodila?

B: Ano.

A: A sestra taky?

B: Ne, ta ne. Na klavír k nám docházela, jako ta učitelka. To byla, svatej člověk. Protože někdo tak hudebně nenadaný jako sestra a já, to se musí hledat. A já ji zbožňovala. Ona měla, jak já říkám, svatou trpělivost nad náma. A pravda je, že já dneska když poslouchám hudbu, já si nejvíc vychutnám ten klavír. Takže něco to asi dá. No tak, zkrátka se starala, abychom měly tyhle ty aktivity různé, aby jsme měly to, co se v slušné rodině „nosilo“ či dělalo. Tak asi takhle. Taky samozřejmě dbala, aby rodina držela pohromadě. No, jako asi téměř všude, sourozenci se štěkali, hubovali si, že jo. Tak to těžce maminka nesla, když padlo slovo jako „kráva“ nebo něco takového. Žádný sprostý slovo, to prostě neexistovalo. To jako, to se nesmělo. To jenom když nebyla v doslechu. To tatínek byl tolerantnější v tom, ale maminka v žádném případě. No, tak asi takhle.

A: A byla přísná na Vás?

B: Ne. No, takhle, když se něco řeklo, tak to platilo. Tak asi takhle. Ale jinak. Prostě jako ne. Vzpomínám si, když jednou jedinkrát v životě jsem dostala od tatínka naplácáno. A to jako vím přesně. V sobotu večer zase chodili nejlepší přátelé mých rodičů k nám. A to muselo být, jak jsem říkala, že ti příbuzní jak žili v těch Drážďanech, tak po křišťálové noci se přestěhovali do Prahy a první, já nevím, dva, tři měsíce bydleli shodou okolností ve stejném domě jako my. A teďka, tahleta Věra a já, jsme měly jsme vlézt do vany, se jako vykoupat. A já jsem pořád otálela a nechtěla jsem do té vany, protože před tím známým mých rodičů, před tím pánem jsem se styděla se svlíknout. A já jsem to nechtěla říct. A furt, a že musím do školy tohle, a že si musím naplnit pero, no, věčně jsem si vymýšlela. No a potom tatínek už toho měl plný zuby a dal mi přes zadek. Jo? No, ale říkala ta známá potom, že s ním nebyla celý večer řeč, protože pořád „ Já jsem naplácal svoji holčičku!“ a to furt omílal, prostě se z toho nemohl vzpamatovat. Takže tohle neexistovalo, nějaké bití nebo něco takovýho. Říkám, neuvědomil si nějakou tu přísnost, nebo co. To jako ne.

A: A byla s nimi tedy sranda? S tatínkem?

B: A tatínkem jo. S tatínkem věčně. Ten pořád nějaký vtípek. A tak dále. Tyhle ti známí, nejlepší přátelé jejich, ti, nevím přesně kdy, ale ještě v roce 1939, odešli z Prahy do Polska, a z Polska na Ukrajinu a skončili na Sibiři, ale oni byli chemici. Jo? No a v roce 1946 se vrátili domů. No, takže šťastní, že nás našli. A tak od nich jsem se pak dozvěděla hodně. Protože mě bylo jedenáct, když jsem odjížděla. Takže, ti nám jako vyprávěli různý věci, já nevím, co tatínek dělal. Třeba, když se šlo k nim, tak oni neměli mléko, protože neměli děti a rádi pili černou kávu. Kdežto můj tatínek rád trochu toho mlíka. Tak si bral sebou lahvičku, dal si ji do náprsní kapsy dovnitř a teď, takhle ten špunt vyndal, že si odstříknul to mlíko. Tak to byly vtípky mýho tatínka. Jak říkám, to vím od nich. To já si nemůžu pamatovat, tohle to. Tak to byl můj tatínek.

A: A s Vámi něco prováděl? Jako s dcerami? Takového veselého?

B: Nevzpomínám si. Je to možné, ale nevzpomínám si. Vím že ten strýc, ten matčin bratr, ten taky. Ten byl nesmírně vtipný taky. A ten vždycky říkal, že musí nechat vyrobit, jé jak on tomu říkal, takový přístroj na plácání dětí, jo. A pořád, že to nemůžou zhotovit, a tohle ještě chybí a tam to a že to nemůžou doručit, ale určitě že to přijde a pak, že dostanu pořádný výprask.

A: A kdy že dostanete?

B: No, až ta mašinka přijde, jo? No, tak takovýhle legrácky on dělal děckám. Tak to si pamatuju. Jak říkám, maminka ne, ta byla možná trochu vážnější. Ale ten strýček a tatínek, to byli srandisti, velicí.

A: A co maminku třeba zase bavilo?

B: Řekla bych, že čtení asi. Vím, že životní výkon její byl, jsem náhodou dostala zpátky, jedna z velice mála věcí, že vyšila takový goblén, jako takhle na stěnu. A sestře upletla dva svetry. A to byl vrchol jejích ručních prací. Ona rozhodně na to nebyla. Tak to určitě ne. Řekla bych asi, že chodili docela rádi do divadla, na opery. Protože vzpomínám, jak tatínek si každou chvilku prozpěvoval nějaké melodie z různých árií. To ještě dneska, třeba z Carmen. To vím. Ale jinak?

A: A brali vás také do divadla?

B: Ne.

A: Ani na nějaké dětské představení?

B: Nevzpomínám. Jediné co vím, že jsem byla dvakrát v kině, to byly začátky kinematografie, tehdy, že jo? Teďka nevím který bylo první, myslím že první bylo Sněhurka a sedm trpaslíků. To bylo kino Flora tehdy. A pak kino Blaník, myslím to bylo, Mickey Mouse. Protože tehdy to byly úplné prvopočátky kinematografie. Tak to byl zážitek obrovský, že si to dodnes pamatuju. Jo, Hurvínek a Spejbl, myslím. Myslím, že jsem byla jednou na Hurvínkovi, možná dvakrát. To jo.

A: O tom mluvil i pan Auerbach. Taky o Hurvínkovi a taky o Sněhurce.

B: Taky jo? To jo, no. Protože doma se přísně dbalo, já musela být v sedm hodin v posteli.

A: Pořád?

B: Jo. Ospalá jsem nebyla nic, ale prostě sedm hodin a bez milosti. Takže nějaké ty večerní ty. No samozřejmě, že byly odpolední divadla, že jo, a podobně. Ale to se muselo přísně dodržet.

A: Pro sestru to platilo taky?

B: Ne. Ta byla skoro o šest let starší. Tak ta ne. Určitě měla nějakou hodinu, kdy musela být doma, to určitě. Ale nepamatuju si do kdy.

A: A kde se vaši rodiče vlastně seznámili?

B: Kde? Tak to nevím.

A: A když tak mohla by jste mi něco říct o jejich mládí, jestli víte?

B: Ne.

A: Ani o tatínkově, a co on vlastně dělal?

B: Tatínek měl ten obchod s těmi elektrodami. Nejprve dělal nějakého obchodního cestujícího. Snad ještě když já jsem se narodila chodil s tím kufříkem a s tím obchodoval. To nevím. No a pak měl ten svůj podnik.

A: A kde ho měl?

B: Kde? Nejprve ve Srašnicích, průběžný, a pak v Libni. Dneska tam nahoře v Holešovičkách, jak se jede dolů, tak po pravé straně, takový hezký baráčky, ještě tam stojí.

A: A jak to bylo velké ten podnik?

B: Asi tam bylo dvanáct, nejvýš patnáct zaměstnanců. Jestli. Takže malé.

A: A byl jediný majitel, nebo tam měl společníky nějaké?

B: Jediný.

A: A chodila jste se tam někdy podívat?

B: Jo, velmi často.

A: Jak to tam vypadalo?

B: No, to už si nepamatuju. To jsem tam chodila ráda, mě tam měli taky rádi, byli rádi, když prohodili slovo, nějaký. To jo. Tak když jsme bydleli na Vinohradech, tak to do tý průběžný nebylo daleko. Já jsem snad chodila i pěšky sama. Tenkrát ten provoz nebyl zdaleka takovej jako dnes, že jo. No a pak se přestěhovali do těch Holešovic tak to už ne. Ale vím že jsem tam chodila asi mě maminka tam vozila, protože to už jsem sama těžko mohla. To už bylo daleko. Vemte si tam nějakou sušenku.

A: Mám si na Vás vymyslet nějakou otázku další. No, mohla by jste mi popsat, jak to vypadalo u vás doma?

B: Na těch Vinohradech?

A: No, tam, kde jste asi nejvíc bydlela.

B: No, to byla vila, jak se říká činžovní v podstatě, my jsme bydleli v přízemí, majitelé v poschodí a v druhém poschodí, tam byla dvougarsonka a tam byli právě ten strýc s tou tetou z Drážďan, ale to jenom pár měsíců. A v suterénu, tam byla jednou pokoj, kuchyň a jednou kuchyň, ale na chodbě záchod a voda atd. No, tak se dříve kolikrát bydlelo, že jo. Nevím do jaké míry znáte Vinohrady. Víte kde je Orionka?

A: Ano.

B: Tak ta ulice dolů, to je Říčanská a na konci té ulice, pak vedou schody dolů jako do Vršovic. A podél těch schodů to byla ta vila, ve které jsme bydleli. V podstatě. Ta ulice se jmenovala Na zájezdu, hned doleva se zahnulo. Tak v té vile jsme bydleli. Byl to krásný byt, čtyřpokojový. Ovšem tak jako tenkrát se to dělalo, že koupelna byla, se šlo přes ložnici. Byla tam krásná obytná hala, proti té hale byl obývací pokoj. V tom spali rodiče. Pak jídelna, pak babička měla pokoj a tady byla ložnice, kde jsem spala se sestrou a za tím byla koupelna. A pak tadyhle byla kuchyň. Atd. Byl to opravdu krásný byt, se zahradou. Protože majitelé, ti pak v květnu odjížděli, měli někde nějakou chatu. Tak ovoce ze zahrady, my jsme tam byly jediné děti, jsme si směly natrhat my, že jo. V podstatě ta vila patřila synovci Škody, toho plzeňského Škody, tak to dostali svatebním darem, tu vilu. Doufám, že taky dostanete něco takového.

A: No, to bych ráda.

B: Že jo? Takových by mohlo být víc, že jo. Byla to opravdu moc hezká vila. Tam jsme bydleli. Samozřejmě mám i krásné vzpomínky. Jednak bydlení hezké, že jo. A domov. Do školy jsem chodila. …

Kazeta š. 1, strana B:

… Když pršelo, tak jsem dostala padesátník na tramvaj. To byly dvě stanice. No a to byl prostě národní sport, koukat jezdit na černo. Ne,že jako jsem ten padesátník potřebovala, ale tak z hecu asi. Jak to dělává většina omladiny.

A: A chytli vás někdy?

B: Ne, nevzpomínám. Ne. To ne. To byly právě dvě stanice. Ale jinak jsme chodili pěšky vždycky. Dobrodružný. S kamarádkama na té cestě jsme se potkávaly.

A: A vy jste celých těch pět let chodila to téhle školy?

B: Akorát, začala jsem chodit do první třídy, jak jsme bydleli v tý Sokolský, jo, od toho září do ledna a v lednu 1935, jsme se pak přestěhovali do tý vily do těch Vinohradů. Takže dá se říct, že jo. Jo. Až na ten, ani ne, půl roku.

A: A proč jste se přestěhovali z té sokolské?

B: No, protože to byl strašně velikej byt, řekla bych až, já nevím. Rozhodně v té vile to bylo takový světlejší, příjemnější, že jo, s tou zahradou tam. Kterou jsme měli my k dispozici tak to rozhodně bylo příjemnější. Krásný místnosti.

A: A oni tam bydleli před tím prarodiče i se svýma dětma nebo jenom sami?

B: V tý Sokolský?

A: Ano.

B: no, tak děti už, to znamená moje matka, byly už dospělý, co já si vzpomínám, že jo, provdaný. Tak no asi jo. Říkám moje sestra se tam narodila tak asi matka s tím mým strýcem tam pravděpodobně taky bydleli.

A: ještě jsem se vlastně chtěla zeptat jaké měl tatínek vzdělání?

B: Nevím přesně, to jako si nejsem jistá. Maminka určitě maturitu měla. Jestli otec, tak to si nejsem jistá.

A: Maminka to měla na gymnáziu¸ nebo jinde?

B: Jo, pravděpodobně. Jestli nějaký Lyceum, nebo jak se to nazývalo, to nevím. Jo? To nevím. Ale jak říkám, určitě měla maturitu a měla tu, státnici na filosofické fakultě z angličtiny.

A: A jak se dostala k angličtině?

B: No, proč ne?

A: No, to je pravda. A tatínek v první světové válce byl kde na frontě?

B: Nevím. Jako mě to nikdy nenapadlo se ptát. Vás by napadlo se ptát jako osmi, desetiletá holka?

A: Ne.

B: Jo. Takže.

A: No, já jenom kdyby náhodou o tom nemluvili třeba.

B: No. Se sestrou se bavil mnohem víc. To já vím. Říkám, byla o těch šest let starší, takže to já vím že tam se jako bavili velice často. No a mě v životě nenapadlo nějak se jí vůbec na co ptát protože mě stejně tak nikdy nenapadlo že tak brzy umře, že jo. Jí bylo padesát osm. To jako bych nikdy nepředpokládala. Člověk je vždycky chytrej až když je pozdě. Dneska bych měla sto a tisíc otázek na ni. To už bohužel nedoženu.

A: A jak jste spolu vycházely jako děti?

B: No, jak říkám, jako děti jsme se každou chvilku rafaly hádaly a nadávaly, protože ona měla červenej penál a ještě k tomu na zip. A já ho měla hnědej a na zip nebyl. Tak takovýhle hlouposti mi vadily, i když můj byl z mnohem lepší kůže. No, ale já byla jako malý dítě věčně nemocná, nějaký ty chřipky a bronchitidy a tak dále. V ten okamžik ta by mi byla snesla modrý z nebe. Většinou to byly nějaký takový skleněný figurky nebo něco. Tak to jsme se milovaly, no jen mi bylo dobře, tak už jsme zase byly v sobě. Ale v momentě, když jsem byla, když jsme byly v Anglii, já si nevzpomínám, že bychom se byly někdy pohádaly. A to už mi byla více matkou než sestrou. A bylo nás víc, co měli třeba sestru nebo nějakýho sourozence v Anglii, ale já myslím, že nikdo neměl takovou sestru jako já. Ta byla naprosto jedinečná, jak se starala o mně.

A: A jaká byla povahově?

B: Jak říkám, zlatej člověk. Ne jenom ke mně. Jo. Mimořádně hodná. Ta by se rozdala na všechny strany, ale jestliže z nějakého důvodu někdo se jí znelíbil, tak prostě byl odepsanej. Jo? Prostě už s tím člověkem nekomunikovala. Jo? Při její, buď černý nebo bílý, jo? Ale říkám, doslechla se, že někomu není dobře, tam mu šla něco napéct a už to tam nesla a koukala co může zařídit, pomoct, a tak dále. Ale kolikrát na úkor vlastní rodiny, že jo. Protože v těch poválečných letech nebylo nic. A my měli dvakrát nic, že jo. Ale ta by se byly rozdala na všechny strany.

A: A co ji třeba bavilo?

B: Ta se velice zajímala o literaturu. To vím, že dostávala kapesné, které si ušetřila a nechala si třeba za ty peníze svázat Jiráska v kůži. Jestli by to udělala dneska ještě, to teda pochybuji. Jo? Ale tehdy jako jo. Ta byla skutečně, bych řekla, velice taková všestranná. A říkám, co se týče tý hudby, my jsme byly opravdu, jak se říká, ten hluch. Ale o tu hudbu se zajímala. Převážně bych řekla tu literaturu. Na sporty nebyla, to určitě ne. Mě nic nenapadá.

A: Maminka hrála taky na klavír?

B: Ne.

A: A tatínek taky na žádný nástroj?

B: Ne.

A: A vás bavilo co, když jste byla malá?

B: v podstatě nic moc. Já vím, že rodiče byli zoufalí, že jsem se neměla ke čtení. Já jsem nějak nechtěla číst. A až pak, nevím jak se mi dostalo do ruky, to dodnes vzpomínám. Knížka, která se jmenovala „Irča vede jedenáctku“, autorka nějaká Hüttlová. A byly to takový ty dívčí románky.

A: Já jsem to četla taky, tohle.

B: Jo? To ještě existovalo?

A: No, já jsem nevěděla co mám dělat. Byla jsem jednou někde, asi u babičky, jsem to tam někde vyhrabala.

B: Jo. Tak to mě chytlo. A tak jsem postupně pak začala trošku číst. Díky tomuhle tomu. Jo? A dneska si neumím představit život bez knížky, že jo. Ale tehdy mě to nějak… No, nějak si nepamatuju. Já jsem byla furt, jak říkal tatínek „ty seš víc na rukou a na hlavě, než na nohou“, věčně jsem někde hopsala, nějaký ty stojky a hvězdy a todle, takhle jsem se vyblbla. Ale nějaký vyhraněný zájmy jsem nějak jako neměla.

A: Jako v rytmice, tam to?

B: No, tam. Ale, já nevím, jako kdekoliv, když jsme byli někde venku, že jo. Hlavně v létě, na tý trávě. Tak to jsem tam někde takhle se snažila se vyblbnout.

A: A jak se tam bydlelo, na Vinohradech?

B: Krásně.

A: Tak mi to nějak popište. Jak to bylo dostupný.

B: No, ono dodnes, jo, to je tak zvaná vilová čtvrť. Jo? Velice příjemný prostředí, jak mám vždycky tu představu, že to bylo takový prosluněný, světlý. Jo? Nějak ty zimy se mi vymazaly z paměti. Vždycky člověku utkví v paměti to příjemný a milý, že jo, než to záporný. Dostupný. No tak, já vím, že jsme chodili pěšky třeba až na Václavák. To tehdy bylo docela běžný. Jo? Když si pomyslím. Nebylo to tak daleko od Flóry, a jít ten kus pěšky, to dneska by asi málo kdo udělal. Ale my jsme to jako, neříkám často, ale docela, prostě, nebylo to nic mimořádnýho. Jo? To jako rozhodně se chodilo víc tehdy všude než dneska. Pravda, že, myslím v roce 1937, to bylo, že pak tatínek měl auto. No, ale to jezdil on do práce a z práce a my, pokud se jezdilo někam v neděli ven. Jo? Poněvadž jako, tak jak je to dneska běžný, ani omylem, to jako neexistovalo tehdy. Že jo? No, říkám, bydlení tam bylo velice příjemný. Dneska je to to, co jako bylo po těch schodech dolů už ty Vršovice, tak tam byla ještě celá řada takových volných strání. Já vím, že jsme tam chodili sáňkovat třeba v zimě. To je všechno zastavený dneska. Jo? To už jako není. No a pak u tý školy, že jo, tam byly parky. Já vím, že se se mnou chodilo dost často do těch, do Riegrových sadů třeba, že jsme chodili. Takže tam jako bylo kam chodit na ty procházky. A chodilo se. Ne jako dneska. Rozhodně víc. Prostě takový příjemný.

A: A do Prahy, jako do města, jste se dostala často?

B: Tak dvakrát týdně jsem chodila na tu rytmiku, to jo. A to vždycky před tím, mě maminka vzala k cukráři a koupila nám věneček, žloutkovej.

A: Tak na nervy.

B: Asi. No, já byla hlavně strašně mlsná. Říkali mi taky Lízo, to nevím jestli to byla nějaká, jestli, že jsem všechno musela vylízat. Nebo mlsná koza Líza. A nebo jestli to byla nějaká zkratka jako Alice, ta Líza, to nevím jak jsem k tomu přišla. Jinak nevím, tak jako. Tak šlo se někdy do toho města, jako. Ale mimořádně často, to bych neřekla.

A: A když jste bydleli kousek od té „Orionky“ bylo to cítit?

B: Jo, to maminka říkala: „když budete holky hodny, tak smíte jít okolo a čuchnout si“. Jo, to bylo cítit. To bylo cítit. A před tou „Orionkou“ tam stál takovej vozík a prodával ovoce. A na cestu jsme dostaly, já už si nevzpomínám kolik, asi padesátník, korunu, si koupit nějaký ovoce do školy. No a po válce jako já jsem dlouho neměla odvahu jít okolo toho domu. A pak jednou v roce 1947, byl ten mládežnickej festival, no, zkrátka nějak jsme tam dělali dlouho večer a já jsem bydlela tehdy na Hanspaulce a nic nejezdilo, to noční tramvaje nebyly ještě. Tak kamarádka bydlela právě v tý Ruský, blízko a říká „tak pojď přespat k nám“ a musela jsem jít právě kolem toho baráku. Ona to nevěděla. No nic. To jsem překonala a ráno, když jsem se vracela, tak tam byl pořád ještě ten stánek s tím ovocem. A ten prodávající povídá: „tak co dělá sestra?“. Mě spadla čelist a povídám: „Odkud víte, že mám sestru?“. „Vždyť jste tady bydlely a chodily jste každý den.“ On mě poznal. Já jeho samozřejmě ne. Věděl, že rodiče jako zahynuli. A že prostě sestra a já jsme zůstaly. Takže to jsou taky takový drobný vzpomínky.

A: Jo to jo, no. A co vás bavilo ve škole? Chodila jste ráda do školy?

B: Ale no tak, jo, snad jo. Já bych spíš řekla co mě nebavilo. To byly ruční práce. To, v žádným případě. A vzpomínám jako dnes, že v páté třídě jsme museli dělat ažuru, nějakou zástěru, jednoduše, a tadyhle byl řádek ažury. A já jsem byla úplně nemožná. Tak, no, vzala jsem to domů, no a maminka byla stejně tak neschopná. Nicméně mi s tím nějak pomohla. Jo? Ale rozhodně to nebyl můj oblíbený předmět. Tělocvik snad byl nejoblíbenější. A krasopis, ten jsem taky nemilovala. Jo? Ale jinak celkem tak nějak. Jsem to v průměru absolvovala. Asi tak.

A: A učila jste se dobře?

B: No, tak premiantka jsem nebyla. Vždycky tam byla tak jedna až tři dvojky, asi tak. Určitě ty ruční práce a ten krasopis. Takhle. Samozřejmě tehdy byly jenom dívčí a chlapecký třídy. Že jo.

A: Jaké jste měla kamarádky?

B: Kamarádky. To byla Alena Hromádková. Její otec byl vrchní, ježíš, já nevím jak se to nazývá. Českobratrská církev. Co je jako vrcholnej ten.

A: Nemají oni biskupy?

B: Biskup snad nebyl. Já nevím. Každopádně byl něco v tom. A taky už byl ohrožený, právě z této funkce, hned po okupaci. Vím, že bydlela v Moravský, což byla souběžná ulice s tou naší školou. A ta už odjela v dubnu 1945, celá rodina. Jeli do Švýcarska a odtud pak do Ameriky. Já vím, že se pak vrátili, ale. I když jsem se nějak snažila, jsem se jí nikdy už nedopátrala. Další byla Věra Vrbenská. O jejím osudu jsem se dozvěděla vlastně až po válce. Její otec byl zakladatel, myslím, socialistické strany, nebo něco takovýho. A oni měli nějakou vychovatelku a ten otec se s tou vychovatelkou zapomněl. Ale říkám, to jsem se dozvěděla až po válce. A ta Věra je právě, vlastně to byla dcera tý vychovatelky. No a ten otec její s tou legální manželkou, ještě měla bratra, ti jeli do Moskvy. A já mám takový dojem, že on tam snad nějak zahynul za války. Na nějakou nemoc, nebo co. A ta Věra s tou, co by vychovatelkou, ty žily řadu let za války v ilegalitě. Ve sklepě. A nějak přežily. No a shodou okolností po válce jsem ještě chodila dva roky na střední školu. To bylo v Dejvicích, tak zvaná repatriantská třída. No a ta Věra tam byla taky. Takže jsme opět seděly vedle sebe, no. A pak byla ještě jedna kamarádka a s tou jsme jely společně do té Anglie.

A: Takže židovka, byla?

B: Ano.

A: A ty ostatní byly židovky nebo nebyly?

B: Ne, ne, ne. Byly tam asi. Ještě vím, že tam byla nějaká Dorantová.

A: Od vás ze třídy?

B: Ano. Ta nepřežila. A Růžena Železná. Ta přežila. To je co si pamatuju. Nikoho nenapadlo jako tohle nějak rozlišovat. Ještě co se týče tý Růženy, s tou Zuzkou, která byla jako taky v tý Anglii. Pak jsme se nějak úplně ztratily. No a úplně náhodně jsme se pak zase setkaly, my jsme odjížděly 29.června 1939, a 29.června 1989, čili přesně po padesáti letech, jsme se znova setkaly.

A: A cíleně nějak?

B: No, tak našly jsme se. Jo? A to datum bylo, více méně, náhoda. Jo? Ale pro obě nesmírně významný. Jo? No a protože, ona už, více méně, zapomněla česky. Protože byla jenom v anglickém prostředí a rodinách. Tak přinesla sebou nějaký dopisy. A mezi nimi právě dopisy, hned po válce co dostala, od tý Růženy. A z toho jsme se dozvěděly, že ona přežila koncentrák a my obě zíraly, ona to musela být židovka teda. Že jo. To jsme nevěděly. To si takhle kamarádky člověk nevyhledává, jestli je žid nebo ne. Ta přežila.

A: A přátelé vašich rodičů byli židi, nebo nebyli židi?

B: Většinou jo. Já bych řekla, že jo.

A: A tady jste říkala, že za vámi chodili nejčastěji. Kdo to byl?

B: Jmenovali se Kasovi. Jestli vám to něco říká.

A: Ne.

B: No, těžko. Protože jako.

A: A měli nějaké děti?

B: Ne.

A: Jo, to jste říkala. A přežili?

B: Přežili. No, přežili.

A: A jak to tak na tatínka přišlo s tou ledvinou?

B: To nevím. Jestli to byl nějakej průstřel nebo co, to nevím.

A: A byl dlouho doma?

B: To si vůbec nepamatuju. A tak když já jsem se narodila určitě ne. No a jestli hned po válce, nebo co. To nevím.

A: No a chodili jste třeba na nějaké vlety s rodiči? Nebo ne?

B: V létě. To určitě. Protože celé prázdniny jsme vždycky byly někde venku, to pronajali někde nějakou místnost nebo dvě, že jo. A tam jsme byli. A to když bylo pěkně, tak jsme byli vždycky u vody. Já spíš ve vodě od rána do večera. A když počasí jako na to nebylo, tak to jsme dělali výlety na dost dlouho. To vím.

A: A kam jste třeba jezdili?

B: No, první vzpomínky jsou na Dobříš. A pak hlavně Malá skála. Tam po tom Českým ráji jsme toho jako prochodili dost.

A: A jezdili jste tam jenom vy? Nebo ještě někdo, jiná rodina?

B: Vím, že ještě jedna rodina právě. S těma jsme jezdili. Tak jednak aby, tatínkové byli v Praze v práci, že jo, tak maminky jednak aby měly společnost a my děti taky. Že jo. No a ta rodina, s kterou my jsme jezdili. Nevím jak rodiče na ně přišli. Já si je pamatuju od nepaměti. Ti měli dvě holky. Ta starší byla stejně stará jako moje sestra. A ta mladší byla, myslím, o rok starší než já. Já jsem se s tou svojí docela dobře kamarádila, snášela. Sestra tu jejich moc ne. Ale zajímavější byli rodiče. Ta maminka byla židovka. Otec nikolivěk, ale ještě k tomu to byl němec. Myslím. Jo? Ale jako rodina byli perfektní. No a vzpomínám si, že, já nevím jestli do bylo šestnáctýho, sedmnáctýho března. Čili den, dva po okupaci. Jo? Hned. Že mě tatínek vzal, a šli jsme se podívat tam, kde oni bydleli. Oni bydleli kousíček jak bylo kino Flora. Teďka je tam ta pojišťovna, že jo, kousek. Tak Velehradská se to jmenuje. A jenom se šel tatínek podívat jako do oken, kde bydleli a tam visel hákovej kříž. Tak to, tudletu hrůzu jako vidím ještě dneska. To mi nikdo nemusel moc vykládat a vysvětlovat, ale hákovej kříž, to bylo, prostě, největší nepřítel, samozřejmě. Jo? A to jsem prostě nebyla schopná pochopit a polknout. Že jo? No, jak po válce jsem se dozvěděla, že jeho měli k tomu aby se rozved a on to odmítl. Jo? Čímž vlastně zachránil tu manželku i ty holky. Jo? Ta manželka, myslím, to byl únor 1945 a ty holky snad taky, šly do Terezína. Poslední tři. No, nicméně samozřejmě přežily. Jo? Ale pro mě, jak říkám, to byl šok. Protože to vidím dodnes. Vlajka vlála. No a když jsem k nim přišla. Nevím jestli to bylo po mým návratu, ale přišla jsem tam na Vánoce 1945, nebo kolem Vánoc. Protože k nim jsme chodili na ten stromeček. A taky když se vstoupilo, měli takovou halu. A to bylo před válkou, po válce. Vždycky tam měli takovej velikej stůl. A teď koukám a na tom stole byla, něco mezi ubrusem a dekou, co se dávalo na jídelní stoly. Takový ty brokátový ty. No a to tam bylo, to bylo mojí maminky. Jo? No a ještě, maminka měla takovou krabici na šití, jak se to takhle otvíralo. Jo? To tam taky bylo. Povídám: „jé, to je maminky!“. Kdyby měli tu duchapřítomnost aspoň to tam nedat, když věděli, že přijdu. Jo? „To nám dala maminka, abychom jim posílali balíky, když jeli do Terezína.“ Možný to je. Asi jo. Jestli je posílali nebo ne, já nevím. Jo? Mě jenom strašně vadilo, že to tam nechali, když věděli, že přijdu. Jo?

A: A ani vám to potom nějak nedali nazpátek?

B: Ne, vůbec ne, ne. Fotografie jsem od nich dostala. Ty nepotřebovali.

A: Aha. Takže rodiče to schovali všechno k nim?

B: No všechno ne.

A: No, jako to co chtěli nějak zachránit?

B: Já nemám tušení co tam nechali. To nevím. Jo? Já, byla jsem, a asi už zůstanu, strašně naivní. Protože. Vím, že když jsem. Sestra se vrátila z Anglie asi o tři měsíce dřív jak já. No a ta zjišťovala jestli někdo přežil a kde co je. A zřejmě, to mi došlo až tak během šesti let, možná, že musel být nějaký dopis. Asi u těch Škodů, kde jsme bydleli. Bych to tak tipla. Kde maminka, tatínek nebo oba popisovali u koho co je. Jo? Protože sestra mi říkala, že byla tam a tam a tam a každý odmítl něco vydat. Cokoliv. Jo? Proto já říkám, to mi došlo až po x letech, odkud věděla, že ty věci tam jsou. Jo? Takže když mi nevydali tady i krabičku na šití, jo, tak to je samozřejmě prkotina. Takže. Tak asi takhle.

A: Takže potom se vám vrátily po válce jen ty fotografie?

B: V podstatě fotografie, ale, což je úplný unikát, tady ta Míšeň. Ty hrníčky. Jo? A sice to můj strýc věnoval mamince jako svatební dar. Celou jídelní soupravu Míšně pro dvanáct osob. To bylo v době inflace v Německu a bylo to „za babku“. Jo? Strýček byl fotograf, chemik, doktor chemie, fotograf. A pravděpodobně ho ilegálně zaměstnal nějaký fotograf na „Tyláku“, na Tylově náměstí. Protože nesměli zaměstnávat židy. V roce 1946, já už nevím jak na nás přišli, ale přišel nějakej takovej pikolík, asi šestnáctiletej, že pracuje u toho fotografa tam a tam, a abychom tam přišli, že tam pro nás něco má. No, tak jsem se tam vydala, no a ukázalo se, že zřejmě to byl strýček, který tam dal tohleto. Jo? A ještě tam byly dvě Míšeňský figurky a pár sklenic. Ty byly rozbitý. Ta paní schovávala i ty střepy. Jo? No, začala pátrat po válce, že, jestli strýček nebo moji rodiče nebo někdo přežil. A zjistila, že jedině sestra a já. Celej rok nás hledali. Jak nás našli to už nevím. Jestli jsem se vůbec ptala tehdy, to nevím. Až nás našli, aby nám mohli tohleto vrátit. A lidi, které jsme znali, věděli, že jsme se vrátili s holýma rukama, neměli jsme nic. Jo? Tak ti všechno zapřeli. Tohleto, říkám, to je naprosto unikátní, aby byl někdo takhle poctivej a dával si tu námahu. Já jsem tehdy chtěla tý paní dát ty dvě figurky, vím, že to byl nějakej pes a, myslím, kočka nebo oba psi, to už nevím. No, vzpomínám jenom, jak jsem se s ní až hádala, aby si to nechala. Jo? Protože já nemluvím o tý hodnotě. Když ale pro mě to bylo v podstatě jediný co jsme měli po rodičích, že jo. Takže to bylo něco tak mimořádnýho. Ale říkala „vždyť to máte po rodičích“. Řekla jsem: „tak mám tohle to, ale za to, že vy jste to takhle opečovávala a nás takhle hledala“. No, tak nakonec jsem jí to vnutila, že si tohle nechá. Ale říkám, to bylo naprosto ojedinělý, tohle to. Nebo moje učitelka na klavír, se kterou jsem se sešla. Ta zase s výčitkami svědomí povídala, že tatínek přišel za ní, jestli by mohl u ní nechat jeden prsten, prý nějakej. A ona říká: „já to odmítla, protože kdyby tohle u mě našli, tak jsem měla prostě strach a odmítla to“. No a byla celá nešťastná, že to odmítla, že aspoň to bychom byly měly. No ale už bylo pozdě. No a teď celá bezradná, že někdo jiný si k ní dal dvě kostky mýdla. A ty dotyčný se nevrátili. Co má dělat? Takže tu tam se našel někdo poctivý. Že jo? Ale bohužel velmi málo. Velice málo. No. Takže asi takhle jsme dopadli.

A: Vy jste teda byly jediní z rodiny, kdo se vrátil?

B: Jo.

A: A váš tatínek byl nějak politicky orientovaný?

B: Já nevím. Ale tušila bych, že trošičku tak nějak směřoval k tý levici. Jo? Pochybuju, že byl organizovaný. Vím, že byl členem svobodných zednářů, a ti rozhodně jako nebyli nějací levicoví, zase. Jo? Ale sestra, ta byla členkou jedné mládežnické organizace a ta byla velice levicově zaměřená.

A: Jak se jmenovala?

B: Roten Falken, se říkalo, jako rudí sokolové.

A: Aha. No, pan Auerbach říkal něco o rudých skautech, že on byl členem.

B: Tak to bylo něco jinýho, to nebyli skauti. Jo? Čili, když tohle jí dovolil, tak asi musel mít taky nějaký tyhlety, jak bych řekla, sklony nebo jak. Jo? Pochybuju, že byl organizovaný. Ale asi měl, řekněme, nazvěme to sociální cítění. Jo? No, v podstatě já jsem přes tuto organizaci se dostala do Anglie.

A: Přes ty Roten Falken?

B: Protože ten vedoucí jel do Anglie, tam se spojil s obdobnou organizací. A ten napsal takovej oběžník, s tím, že tady je celá řada dětí ohrožených, a že by bylo třeba je dostat do Anglie. A kdo je ochotný si nějaké to dítě vzít k sobě. Nevím proč, že limitovali tehdy věk mezi deseti až šestnácti, myslím. Jo? A sestře už bylo šestnáct a půl, takže já jsem jela místo ní. Jo? Když já odjížděla, tak vůbec nebyla řeč, že by jela ona. Čistě náhodou ona přišla až tím dalším transportem. Tak, jo? A pokud vás to zajímá. Tak, aby se naučila pořádně německy. Číst a psát. Tak ji rodiče dali potom na německé gymnázium. A v roce 1934, tam přišla nějaká dívenka z Berlína, protože tatínka zavřeli do koncentráku a on byl novinář. No a nějak se spřátelily ty holky. Já vím, že ona chodila k nám občas. A v létě, když jsme jeli na ten letní byt, že jela s náma. A tak. A tatínka pak pustili. Maminka byla dětská lékařka. A jeli do Anglie. Já vím, že když já jsem přijela, tak byli na nádraží, tam na mě čekali. A to jsem si po létech dala dohromady. Tím, že ona byla dětská lékařka, sestra tam přijela s tím, že půjde rovnou do nemocnice se učit jako ošetřovatelka. Čili to musela zařídit tahleta maminka tý lékařky, že jo. A tím se dostala sestra do Anglie, že jo. Protože podmínka těch dětských transportů byla, že každý to dítě muselo mít kam jít. Jo? A ještě zaplatit padesát liber. Kdo to zaplatil za ni já nevím, ani ne kdo za mě. To už je zase jiná věc. Takže sestra přijela hned tím dalším transportem po mě.

A: Taky s Wintonem?

B: Taky s Wintonem, ano. No, já když jsem odjížděla, tak jsem měla povoleno padesát kilogramů. Ona jela o osmnáct dní později a už mělo povoleno jenom dvacet. Takže ty podmínky, ale ve všem, velice přituhovaly, že jo. Takže třeba už bych byla nesměla na gymnázium, ještě bych ale byla směla na tak zvanou „měšťanku“. Že jo, ani to dlouho netrvalo. A židovský děti nesměly vůbec už chodit do školy, že jo. Nesměly chodit do parků, a já nevím, do kina, nikam prostě. Na žádná veřejná místa. To už jsme naštěstí nezažily. Tohle to.

A: A nějaké teda to zhušťování té atmosféry? Ano nebo ne?

B: Prosím?

A: A nějaké to zhušťování té atmosféry? Jako po té politické stránce. Že byl Hitler v Německu a tak? To jste vnímaly?

B: Vnímaly. Já jako ani ne jedenáctiletá pochopitelně do té míry zdaleka ne. Ale pamatuji si, že k nám chodil, jestli to byl nějakej študák nebo co, je to možný,prostě nějakej mladík, myslím, dvakrát týdně na obědy. Jo? čili buď ze Sudet nebo taky z toho Německa, po tý křišťálový noci, anebo, prostě vím, že to bylo od podzimu. Jo? taky. Mě to všechno docházelo až tak nějak zpětně. Jo? Pamatuju si jak dnes na ten patnáctý březen, byla to taky středa, jako teďka bude středa opět. Že jo? A tak trošku padal sníh. No a když jsme přicházeli k tý vodárně v tý Moravský ulici, tam, no, viděla jsem tanky. To v životě nezapomenu, když desetiletý dítě jde kolem tanku. A nemáte tušení proč a co. Jo? Když ty hlavně na vás míří. Jo? šla jste kolem těch německých vojáků. Teď ty čepice s tím kšiltem. No, nepůsobí to dobře. Rozhodně ne. Jo? Vím jak tehdy říkali jak vyjídali ty obchody. Hlavně šunku. Jo? jinak to, že se už se začínal zabírat některým židům i majetek, že museli přihlásit. Tak to mě rodiče neříkali. To mě jako nějak uchránili. Já jsem až, není to tak dlouho, v nějakých dokladech našla, že už tatínek musel, já nevím, přihlásit tu jeho továrničku nebo dílnu nebo co. Že jo. Že už se jednalo o tom, že tam bude nějakej ten jak tomu říkali ten Trojhändler, nebo co, ten správce, že jo. Tak to už se připravovalo. To jsem se dozvěděla až po mnoha a mnoha letech. Že jo. Ale už to bylo těsně před mým odjezdem. Že jo. Tak zřejmě dělali co mohli, rodiče, aby mě uchránili od všeho nepříjemného. Tak jako to, že když se naskytla ta možnost, že mám jet do tý Anglie, tak s úsměvem na tváří „to je ohromný, ty se máš, ty pojedeš do Anglie, to bychom taky chtěli, to určitě pojedeš k moři“, jo, prostě udělali z toho senzaci pro mě. A já jsem se těšila. Jo? Pochopitelně ani oni nemohli tušit, že už se neuvidíme. To nevím, jestli by byli takhle dokázali tohle to. A v podstatě když došlo k tomu rozhodování mají, nemají. Tak to byli zase ti jejich nejlepší přátelé, kteří je přesvědčovali, aby nás poslali. Jo? Protože říkali: „podívej se jak se zachovali v Rakousku k židům, co byla křišťálová noc v Německu, nemůžete čekat nic dobrýho, ať aspoň ty holky jsou v bezpečí“. Nebo to jsem byla tehdy jenom já, že jo. takže díky jim, že přemluvili rodiče, aby mě poslali. A oni tohle všechno dokázali s úsměvem na tváři to takhle naservírovat. Dneska, když se vžiju do tý jejich role, tak mi jde mráz po zádech, jak to dokázali. Takže, když někdo dneska přijde a řekne „Jéžiš, co ty sis musela všechno prožít.“. Říkám: „já, já vůbec ne, rodiče“. Já byla vždycky nějak chráněná. Já měla štěstí, že jsem přišla k hrozně dobrý rodině, mladý, milý. A celej život nade mnou měla ochrannou ruku moje sestra. Já jsem nepoznala, co to je nemít kolem sebe lásku. Což je strašně důležitý, že jo. neměla jsem ten pocit, že jsem nechtěná, nežádoucí, což ta moje kamarádka, se kterou jsem chodila do tý obecný, ta to měla. Ta přišla do rodiny, kde nebyla žádaná a chtěná. Jo?

A: A proč si ji tam vzali teda?

B: No, tak byl to hlavně on. A oni byli v domnění, tak na šest neděl. No a pak vypukla válka. Jo? a zřejmě ta manželka toho pána. Ta paní. Ta tomu tak nakloněná celá nebyla a asi ta trpěla nějakou poruchou duševní, že se chovala tak jaksi divně. Takže zdaleka ne, měl každý takový štěstí. Že jo.

A: A vaši rodiče se chystali emigrovat?

B: No, byli by rádi, kdyby to bylo možný. Ovšem to jako bohužel nešlo. Po okupaci. No, prostě nebyla možnost, že jo. Jednou, když už tady byla okupace, no tak každej se vzdal majetku a všeho možnýho, že jo. To bylo podplácení, podplácení. Dneska když slyším, že někomu se podařilo ještě v roce 1940 se dostat ven, jo. ale jim bohužel ne.

A: A někdo z vaší rodiny emigroval?

B: Jeden, jéžiš, jak byl příbuznej, maminka měla bratrance, sestřenici. Tak to asi bylo, jestli to byl bratranec z druhýho kolena nebo něco takovýho. Tak ten, nevím jak, skončil asi v Palestině a pak byl v severní Africe s naší armádou. Československou. A ti pak v roce 1943 se dostali do Anglie, že jo. A v roce 1944 pak do Francie a pak jako. Tak to snad jedinej. A ještě jeden přibližně stejně příbuzný. Jeden ten co by bratranec, jak říkám, z kdo ví, kterého kolena, ten přežil koncentrák.

A: Který koncentrák? Osvětim?

B: Asi. To nevím přesně.

A: A vy jste se setkala s nějakým antisemitským projevem ještě než jste odjela?

B: Ne. Já v podstatě ani před tím, ani nějak pak. Manžel jo. Já celkem ne, spíš tak bych řekla okrajově a velice tak v těch padesátých letech. Ale jako osobně v podstatě ne.

A: A sestra nebo rodiče nebo někdo z rodiny?

B: Sestra taky bych řekla že ne. No, rodiče tak ti to pocítili na vlastní kůži, na vlastním těle. Že jo.

A: No, ale před tím ještě?

B: To nevím, to nemůžu říct. To ne. Ale aby někdo vysloveně jako mi řekl „no jo, co vy židi..“ a vždycky hned něco tak to ne. To ne. Ještě tak možná, jak říkám, má to být vtip, že jo, někdo to i používá. „On je to žid, ale je to dobrej zubař.“ Jo? Tak to já říkám, to je takovej ten skrytej nebo nevinej antisemitismus. Že ty lidi si to ani neuvědomujou. Tak asi tak. Tak s něčím podobným možná. Jo? To jo. Ale v podstatě jedna kolegyně, se kterou jsem učila řadu let, i ta je trošku ten typ. Ale kdybych jí řekla, že je, že má sklony k antisemitismu, tak ta by se durdila, čertila a nikdy by to nepřiznala. Jo? Ale jednu, dvě poznámky tohoto typu jako utrousila. Jo? Ale jinak nemůžu říct.

A: A bylo to o vás tak jako známý, že jste židovka?

B: Já jsem se s tím nikde netajila. Jo, to jako. Dcera moje ta teda nosí hvězdu, i za totality. Já ne. Ale já jsem s tím nikdy tajnosti nedělala. Já se nemám za co stydět. Tak co by jste ještě ráda?

A: Ještě něco o tom vašem odjezdu do Anglie.

B: No, odjezd. Tak jak jsem říkala, že to bylo s úsměvem na tváři, kdy jsem dostávala nové šaty a podobně. Takže pro mě to bylo ohromě vzrušující. Já jsem se , jak říkám, měla na co těšit. No, ten poslední den, ten mám jako velmi živě v paměti. To byl 29.červen. Byl to čtvrtek a shodou okolností zrovna končila škola. Takže já jsem dodělala přesně pět tříd obecné školy. A blízko nás, kde jsme bydleli, asi před rokem nebo tak, tam začal prodávat někdo italskou zmrzlinu, která byla mimořádně dobrá. A maminka moje ta moc na sladký nebyla, ale tuhletu zmrzlinu od toho Itala, tu měla strašně ráda. No a já byla ten typ, který si vždycky všechno šetřil, kdežto sestra, ta všechno musela sníst hned, že jo, a tak. No, nic, takže jsme tam dost často chodili. A jako na rozloučenou mě vzala tam k tomu Italovi na zmrzlinu. Kde takovej velkej kopec stál korunu, takže to mě jako koupila a ještě k tomu se šlehačkou. A to byly dvě koruny. To bylo tehdy hodně peněz, že jo. Tak to jsme snědly tam, v té cukrárně. Nebo, to nebyla ani cukrárna jenom tu zmrzlinu tam prodával. No a pak odpoledne přišli se rozloučit právě ty drážďanský sestřenice. A kufr, ty zřejmě už byly nějak podány na nádraží. Jestli už, já nevím, den před tím, týden před tím. To nevím, to si nepamatuju. Jenom, že na cestu jsem měla ruksak, ovšem to se nedá srovnat s tím co je dneska. To byl jenom plátěnej pytel. No a mám v paměti, že babička mi dala na cestu půl kila meruňek. Což tehdy jako, ještě asi to byl dovoz nějakej, nebo co. No, takže na nádraží jsme šli asi v sedm hodin. Rodiče a sestra. Babička zůstala doma. S tou jasem se rozloučila doma. No a vidím ještě dnes, jak holčičky malý mačkaly panenky. A chlapečkové zase medvídky a tak dále, že jo. Někteří ti tatínkové se snažili ještě někomu honem nějaký anglický slovo naučit nebo podobně. A každej vždycky: „a piš!, a piš!“. Že jo. A pak najednou jsem tam viděla ty známý mých rodičů. Protože ti už žili v ilegalitě. Tak přišli na nádraží jednak se mnou rozloučit a žili každej sám už. Takže se tam setkali. To bylo těsně než odjeli do toho Polska. No a pak jsme jako postupně nastupovali do toho vlaku. Vím, že jsem seděla u okna. A každej jako, že jo, nataženej krk z toho okna pak. A jakmile se začal vlak, jak se dal do pohybu, tak najednou vidím, že se tatínek rozplakal. A moje poslední slova jemu bylo prostě: „Tati, nekrop tady a nedělej mi ostudu!“. No, tak to bylo poslední co jsem, já jsem řekla. To už se táta neudržel, že jo. Protože nikdo netušil na jak dlouho, kdy se vrátí.

Kazeta č. 2, strana A.

A: A sestřenice se nepokoušeli? Nebo jejich rodiče se nepokoušeli?

B: Ano, já jsem si to nějak neuvědomila, ale když jsem před lety procházela korespondenci co jsem dostávala do Anglie. Tak tam jsem našla dopis právě od strýčka, kde píše, že Věra dalším transportem přijede za mnou a bude v Newcastle. No a to je ten poslední transport, který už neodjel. Takže. Každej se snažil. No, každej. Devadesát pět procent. Že jo. Děti, dospělí. Ale ne každej měl to štěstí. Že jo. Tak to, zrovna to měl být jeden z největších transportů, asi dvě stě padesát nebo tři sta dětí a pokud vím, tak z toho snad nikdo nepřežil. Ona tam měla taky jet, no.

A: A co na to říkaly vaše kamarádky, že pojedete?

B: Nevzpomínám, nevzpomínám tohle. No tak, do jaký míry. Ty děti si taky nemohly uvědomit, co to je, když odjíždíte od rodičů do cizí země, kde neznáte jazyk. Nevíte ke komu. Nevíte kam. Akorát Anglie. Nebo Británie spíš. Že jo. Protože někteří byli i ve Skotsku. Či kde jinde. Tak to nevím. To si nevzpomínám. Opravdu. Jak na to reagovali.

A: A učila jste se před odjezdem angličtinu?

B: No, velmi krátce, ale že bych něco se byla naučila, to si moc nevzpomínám. Vím, že to bylo. Ten dům bych ještě měla popsat. Jo? Teď si nevzp. Pod „pavlákem“ kousíček někde. K nějaký paní jsem chodila. Velmi krátce. Takže dá se říct, že jsem neuměla nic. Asi tak. Že jo. Když chodíte jednou týdně půl roku, tak to nemůžete se zase tolik naučit.

A: A maminka se snažila vás něco naučit?

B: Ne. To si nevzpomínám. Ale to je to nejhorší. Učit vlastní děti.

A: no, a když ona měla teda tu státnici z angličtiny, tak pracovala nějak jakože něco s tím dělala?

B: Myslím, že ne. Jestli to uplatnila v tom velkoobchodě svýho otce, to nevím. Jestli to nějak i tak daleko šlo. To nevím. To si nevzpomínám. Nevím.

A: A vzala jste si něco takového typického, nebo, sebou do Anglie?

B: Co jsem si vzala, to byla Babička od Boženy Němcové, kterou jsem dostala na rozloučenou od tý mý učitelky na klavír. Tu mám dodnes. No, to jo. A jinak si nevzpomínám. Něco. Možná ještě nějaký ty knížky, to jo, ale jinak to bylo ve směs takový praktický. Oblečení asi.

A: A vy jste teda nevěděla kam pojedete?

B: Ne. Ne.

A: A jak jste se to dozvěděla?

B: No, až na místě. Až na místě. V podstatě až jsme dorazili. Tak nás bylo asi patnáct. Právě z té skupiny, že jo. Tam na nás čekal ten, řekněme, pražský vedoucí. I ten anglický a mí přátelé, teda přátelé mých rodičů. A jeli jsme. Východní část Anglie. Do jednoho tábora, abychom se trošičku aklimatizovali. Což bylo takový jako jejich dárek nebo něco podobnýho. Což bylo velice milé, pěkné. Spali jsme pod stanem. A protože já jsem odjížděla pár dní před svými narozeninami, tak tihle ti přátelé mých rodičů tam za náma, za mnou tam přijeli. A vím, že přivezli zmrzlinu. Ta byla velice podobná jako ta ruská zmrzlina v těch oplatkách. Tak to byl tehdy ten ….. Icecream. No a přinesli toho víc, aby bylo pro všechny. Tak to si vzpomínám, že nám strašně chutnalo. No a pak nás rozvezli po těch různých rodinách. Nebo jestli si přijely ty rodiny pro nás. To už nevím. No a protože rodina, ke které já jsem měla přijít ještě neměli postel pro mě. Takže jsem byla pár dní u jiné rodiny, která bydlela velice blízko a vzali si taky jednu tu dívku. Já myslím, že ona byla ze Sudet. Ale to není podstatný. Takže jsem byla tam několik dní. No a vzpomínám jak dnes, že jsem byla na záchodě a přijdu zpátky do pokoje a tahle ta, já myslím, že se jmenovala Lia nebo Lea nebo nějak tak, strašně plakala. A já povídám „co se děje?“. „Mě se stejská“. No, v tu ránu se mě stejskalo taky. Takže jsme měly duo, slzavé údolí. No, a obě dvě jsme napsaly zoufalý dopis domů, jak se nám stýská. A že přeplavu moře. A já nevím co všechno. Dopis jsem hodila do schránky a už mě bylo dobře, už jsem o ničem nevěděla. No, pár dní na to jsem dostala zoufalej dopis od maminky. Že jo. Celá nešťastná. Že si určitě zvyknu brzo. A že zatím tatínkovi dopis neukazovala. Že jo. No a teďka tetičky všechny psaly. Ať se uklidním. Říkám, já už jsem dávno o ničem nevěděla. Že jo. No tak tatínkovi ukázala ten dopis až když jsem začala psát zase normální běžný dopisy. Ale dítě si vůbec neuvědomí, co může způsobit. Co tohle to pro ty rodiče bylo. Protože nikdo mi vlásek nezkřivil. Nic. Jo? No a tak potom jsem přišla do tý svojí rodiny. Že jo. Ti byli velice mladí, hodní, milí. Měli čtyřměsíční mimino. Já měla svůj pokoj pro sebe, velkej, krásnej. Že jo. Už tam byla i ta postel. No, říkám, měla jsem štěstí. Byli to hrozně milí lidi. Navíc to nebylo daleko od Londýna. Takže tím pádem, jako, bylo možný se vídat se sestrou, která byla v tý nemocnici. A měla jednou za čtrnáct dní, teďka nevím, myslím, že celý den, volno. No, já jako dítě jsem jezdila jako na poloviční jízdný. A to bylo kousíček autobusem a pak už to bylo jenom podzemkou vlastně. I když to bylo předměstí Londýna. Že jo. Takže to jsme se každou druhou sobotu scházely. No a to mini, mini kapesné, které ona dostávala. Tak to všecko jako věnovala na mě. Buď do kina, na zmrzlinu nebo prostě. Aby mě vždycky udělala nějakou radost. Že jo. Což teda opravdu udělala. A při tom, jak jsem se po letech dozvěděla, tam měla hlad v tý nemocnici. Tak ne, aby si něco koupila na přilepšenou, tak to všecko investovala do mě. Že jo. No. No bohužel květen 1940. Ten odnesla ona hlavně. Protože já už jsem u té rodiny nemohla zůstat déle. Protože ten pán musel rukovat. Oni čekali další dítě. No a na mě by nedostali žádnou podporu. A ta podpora u těch vojáků byla tak malá, že měli co dělat z toho vyžít a ještě k tomu splácet hypotéku na dům. Takže jsem pak jela, se odstěhovala k jiné rodině a současně sestru vyhodili z nemocnice, coby cizinku. To byly výjimečný případy. No a ji to potrefilo. Takže ona byla na dlažbě. Doslova a do písmene. Že jo. No a podařilo se jí díky tomu všemu, jak měla málo jídla a ještě tohle, že si, jak se ukázalo asi o deset nebo více let později, že měla tuberu pak z toho. No. No takže. Já jsem pak přišla k jedné rodině. To byli čtyřicátníci. Bezdětní. Hodní, ale velice takoví, jak bych řekla, jednoduchý lidi. Kde sice jsem měla svůj pokoj, ale koupelna tam nebyla v tom baráčku.

A: Vůbec?

B: Ne. To se chodilo do společných nějakých těch lázní. Nebo něco takovýho.

A: Aha.

B: No a zřejmě v tom městě musela být velice silná židovská komunita. Protože se doslechli, že tam žije židovské dítě v nežidovské rodině. Což oni nemohli přenést přes srdce. Já klidně. Oni ne. No, takže se stalo, že jsem se tím pádem dostala do židovské rodiny. Cožpak to by nevadilo. Ale oni byli strašně ortodoxní. Jo? To už byli lidé tak kolem šedesátky. Původem to byli emigranti buď z Litvy nebo z Lotyšska. Ze sedmnáctýho roku. Jo? No a, říkám, já tohle jsem nebyla vůbec zvyklá. Já jsem znala jen ty nejzákladnější svátky. Ale tady. Vzpomínám, že v pátek odpoledne jsem musela třeba natrhat novinový papír na záchod, protože se nesmělo trhat ani. Jo? Kapesník se nesměl nosit v kapse. To se muselo uvázat takhle na zápěstí. Jo? No, takový detaily. Já v životě o tom neslyšela nic. Jo. No, tak jsem brzy se přizpůsobila, protože dítě ve dvanácti, ve třinácti, to je jak vosk, tvárný. A hlavně já byla přesvědčena, že když tohle budu všecko dělat a dodržovat, že zachráním rodiče. Jo? No, stalo se, že tam taky jsme byli vybombardovaní v baráku, v kterým jsme bydleli, že celá část toho domu byla zasažena. Takže jsme se vystěhovali jinam. No a teďka sestra chtěla, abych za ní přijela. Jo? A to bylo dost daleko od Londýna. Protože já měla poloviční jízdné a ona jako neměla na to, že jo. I když už mezi tím práci sehnala. No a ta rodina „kdepak, v zádným případě, Londýn je tak bombardovaný, to jako nemůžeme si dovolit vzít si na sebe“ že kdyby se něco stalo, že jsou za mě zodpovědní. A pořád ne, ne, ne, že to nejde. No až sestře zřejmě došlo, co je hlavní důvod, tak potom jednou napsala, že tam vedle ní bydlí nějakej rabín a u toho, že bych mohla bydlet, a abych přijela na Vánoce. Najednou to šlo. Jo. No. Takže jsem jela za sestrou na Vánoce do Londýna, byl to pátek večer. Pochopitelně vlaky zpoždění, za války, už tma. No, hned jsme se našly. Rok a půl jsme se neviděly. Možná ještě malinko víc. A první moje bylo: „tady mám kufry, odnes mi je“. Protože já jsem je nesměla nosit, ale ona židovka mohla. No, ta jenom lapla po dechu. No, popadla kufr, že jo. No a teď jsme přijeli. Ona bydlela v Hostelu takovým, s několika čechy. A teďka něco jíst. A povídám: „ne, to není košer“. „Co budeš jíst?“ „No, já nevím.“ Teďka utahaná, tak spát „zhasni, mi“. Já jsem nesměla zhasínat. Já jsem si z ní dělal poskoka, jo.

A: A ona to snášela?

B: No, všechno jako ha, ha, ha, chi, chi, chi, jo? Ale to byl předstíranej smích. Takovej z tý nervozity. Jo? Tak mě bylo třináct a půl a jí bylo devatenáct. A ona měla tuhle zodpovědnost vlastně, za mě. Jo? Tak ona jako předstírala smích, ale musela z toho být úplně zničená. Jo? No, ukázalo se, že, v uvozovkách, onen rabín. Říká vám něco jméno Lüben? To bývával velice známý pražský rabín. A tohle to byl jeho, myslím, synovec nebo vnuk nebo něco takovýho. Jo? Ovšem, žádnej ortodoxní žid. Nic. Jo? Ale byl to prapůvodem nějakej rabín. No, a teďka. Já furt. Já nevím co jsem jedla jestli suchej chleba nebo co. Já vím že tam měli košer margarín, protože ten byl lepší, ale z jinýho důvodu ne. No a teďka někdo tam napek i vanilkový rohlíčky. Sliny se mi sbíhaly. Já disciplinovaná, že jo. Nic. No, ale teď jsem si sedla vedle toho Lübena a koukám jak všechno baští. Příští den naživu, nic mu nebylo. Všecko přežil. A teď byl Štědrej večer nebo Štědrej den a byla husa, knedlík, zelí. No tak to už košer ne košer, to už jsem nevydržela. No, takže tím jako padlo tady částečně to moje velké ortodoxtví, no a hlavně sestra byla zděšená, ne jenom z tohohle, ale já zapomínala česky. Já jsem přijela a já jsem mluvila s anglickým přízvukem, hledala slova a tak dále. No a ona věděla nebo zjistila, že tam je ta československá škola, státní, no tak se jí podařilo, že jsem se tam dostala. Já jsem se ještě vrátila, tam na sever, k tý rodině. No a o dva nebo tři měsíce později, už jsem byla ve škole.

A: A tam jak jste bydlela, tam nebyl nikdo, žádny Čech nebo něco takovýho?

B: Tam na severu?

A: Ano.

B: No, tak nevěděla jsem o tom, ale teďka po letech, když se objevily ty seznamy, tak jsem našla někoho, kdo tam bydlel taky. A my jsme o sobě nevěděli, ovšem. Jo, ještě. Já jsem byla celkem rok a půl v tý rodině. A, já nevím, po půl roce možná dýl, si oni vzali ještě jedno dítě. Myslím, že byla taky ze sudet. A měla mladší sestru a ta byla u jejich syna. Ale to byla taková, jak bych to řekla, nevýrazná, taková myš, nic neříkající osůbka. A, ve kterým to bylo roce? 1998 nebo kdy. Zkrátka, měli jsme sraz tý naší československý školy v Anglii a jeli jsme na nějakej výlet. A přede mnou tam jeden manželskej pár z Izraele. „A napadá mě, jezdíte někdy do Prahy?“ „No, někdy.“ Já jsem říkala: „no, když příště, vyhledejte mě, ráda se s vámi sejdu“. A já nezapomenu, jak ona tak podivně se na mě koukla. Tečka. Asi rok a půl na to dostanu dopis z Izraele. Jméno mi nic neříkalo. Otevřu ten dopis, no a to byla podepsána Sibi. No a to byla ta dívenka, se kterou já jsem u tý ortodoxní rodiny bydlela. A jak na mě přišla? Ta její sestra mladší, se provdala za jednoho mýho spolužáka. A já se domnívám, jak se na mě tak divně podívala, že jí asi něco tam nějak bliklo. Jo? No, proč trvalo rok a půl než tohle dali dohromady a ta mě napsala. Já nevím. No, tak jsem samozřejmě byla velice překvapená, že jo. Hned jsem jí odpověděla. Já ten dopis ještě nehodila do schránky snad ani a už jsem měla odpověď. No, já nejsem žádnej psavec. A tak jsem sice odpověděla, ale zase už ne tak hbitě. Mezi tím jsem dostala dva, tři dopisy od ní, kde jako předstírala, že ještě nenapsala, jo. A furt že mi tak děkuje. A teďka ještě takovou tou staroangličtinou mi psala. No, já jsem za chvilku byla, prostě jsem neměla tušení o čem jí psát. Přitom jsem cítila, že by šíleně ráda, abych ji pozvala a přijela, aby přijela sem. No tak já za prvé tady ten pidi byteček, ale já už jsem viděla jak bych se jí musela, ne čtyřiadvacet, ale nejméně osmadvacet hodin denně věnovat. Jo? Tak to jsem si jako nechtěla ani připustit k tělu. Ale jak říkám, já hlavně neměla tušení, o čem si s ní psát. Takže já jsem, více méně, tu korespondenci končila. A teďka, no mezi tím, ale velmi záhy na to, ta její sestra zemřela. Jo? Na rakovinu. A teďka na tom posledním srazu, to bylo v červnu, tam ten její švagr byl, na tom srazu. No a říkal: „hele, ona tak tě prosí, kdybys jí napsala“. Já jsem řekla: „Petře, já to vím, ale já nevím, co jí psát“. Jo? Říká „ona tak strašně touží po přátelství a žádny si nemůže udržet“. Ona je, zřejmě, já ji nechci odsuzovat, ale domnívám se, že je takovej ten typ, co umí lézt na nervy. Já si myslím. Já se domnívám. „Viděla jste ten film Síla lidskosti, od Mináče?“

A: No, ale …

B: Ten dokument? Tak ona tam je taky v tom filmu. On Mináč byl v Izraeli. A to já jsem se ho ptala : „hele, jaká ona je?“. „Praštěná“, mi řekl. Jo? Tak já jsem to nějak vycítila, že je trošičku nějak. Prostě, že má nějaký problémy, asi. Jo? A on jako byl hrozně hodnej. On to myslel dobře. No, tak jsem jí jenom jako napsala pozdrav, že jsem se setkala s tím švagrem. A že to bylo hezký a milý. No, naštěstí tu korespondenci neobnovila. Pak mě, myslím, ona psala, že. Ona měla ještě jednoho bratra v Anglii. Že ten zemřel. No, tak jsem napsala, co by, kondolenční dopis. Jo? Ale, říkám, já nemám tušení, o čem bych si s ní povídala. No, tak tohle to. Jak říkám, svět malej a plnej náhod. Že jo. No. Asi takhle.

A: A s těma anglickýma rodinama jste nějak udržovala kontakt?

B: U kterých jsem byla?

A: Ano.

B: No, tak z toho města v podstatě ne.

A: A jak se to jmenovalo teda to město?

B: Barrow in Furness. To je sever. Severo západ. A tam byly doky. Proto to taky bombardovali tolik. Tak s těma rodinama ne, ale s tou první rodinou, ke který jsem přišla, ano. S výjimkou těch padesátých let, kdy se jako nedalo ani dobře. No ale, když se mi podařilo do tý Anglie dostat, tak určitě jsem se u nich zastavila. Samozřejmě. Tam byl opravdu moc hezkej vztah. A oni se pak odstěhovali na západ Anglie, jihozápad. Tak to ještě s manželem jsme tam jednou byli. Tak to taky, to bylo strašně milý. Já vím, že jednou jsem někde byla a oni přijeli ještě a jenom jsme si sedli na oběd na nádraží a hned zase odjeli. Jen abychom se viděli na chvilku. No a pak jsem tam byla 1994, 1996, to jsem u nich byla tak den, dva, možná tři. A to on už dost špatně chodil. No asi rok nebo dva na to, zemřel. No, ta paní ještě žije. jí bude teďka v září devadesát. Ale bohužel je úplně hluchá a nefunguje jí ta krátkodobá paměť. Ona do detailu řekne, jaký to bylo, když jsem já přijela v tom devětatřicátým roce. Kdy, kde, co, jak. To má perfektně zafixovaný v paměti. Ale co měla k snídani, to určitě vědět nebude. Ona nepíše nikdy. Ale aspoň na Vánoce nebo mě k narozeninám vždycky poslala lístek. No a teďka asi rok, dva ne. Tak jsem měla strach jestli se něco nestalo. A volala jsem. A prostě že to číslo neexistuje. Tak mi syn na internetu vyhledal adresy a telefony, ona má tři syny, tak jednoho z nich, tak jsem mu zavolala. Tak jsem mu nechala vzkaz, hned mi volal zpátky, že teďka bydlí blízko toho prostředního syna. Dal mi telefon. No, takže občas to dělám tak, že zavolám tomu synovi nebo ta snacha to zvedne, já ji znám, že jo, my jsme se setkaly. A ta ji zavolá, že budu volat, protože ta by buď neslyšel ten telefon nebo nevěděla kdo volá. Tím jak špatně slyší. No tak hovory jsou. Ví kdo jsem: „jé, to jsem ráda, že tě slyším, jak se máš?“. Tak řeknu, že dobře. Pak se zeptám jak ona se má. Ale to neslyší už. To neví. A „Jak jsi stará, teďka?“ tak to jí řeknu. To zase neslyší. „No, já už musím být taky pěkně stará, kolikpak asi mi je, no, už asi nemám daleko od devadesátky?“ Tak jí řeknu, kolik jí je. No, zkrátka hovory á o voze, ona o koze. Je to jako svým způsobem smutný, ale vím, že jsem jí udělala ohromnou radost, že jsem zavolala, aspoň. No. Takže občas takhle ten styk udržujeme. No a já právě jsem i psala tomu synovi. Já jsem říkala, že jsem si dělala obrovský starosti, co s ní je. Tak myslím, že on ví. On má moji adresu, telefon. Tak že kdyby něco bylo, že by mi dal vědět.

A: A třeba kdyby jste jí napsala dopis, nebylo by to takový lepší?

B: Jo a ne. Ale ona na to nikdy nereaguje. Ona nikdy i v době kdy byla v pořádku. Jo? Tak v podstatě nikdy jako toho moc nenapsala a teď už vůbec ne. No, tak já se snažím třeba k vánocům, že jo, nebo na ty narozeniny. To jo. Ale vím, že to nebude mít odezvu.

A: Ale tak asi ji to potěší stejně.

B: Jo, určitě. To samozřejmě.

A: A bylo to těžký pro vás se usadit v Anglii?

B: Vůbec ne. To vůbec ne, protože, jak říkám, to byla nesmírně hodná rodina. S tou sestrou jsem se vídala. Ten jazyk jsem se naučila poměrně brzy. Ta sestra týhle paní byla učitelka. Takže já jsem šla, čemu by se říkalo, i když bych byla patřila věkově do šestý třídy. Tak jsem šla do pátý, právě k tý její sestře. A ta se mně nesmírně věnovala, hlavně po vyučování. A tak. Takže, když jsem v tom květnu 1940 přijela na sever, to už nechtěli věřit, že nejsem Angličanka. Jo? Jedině, že to byla škola, prostě, kde se neplatilo. To byl nejhorší typ školy. Jo? Protože neměl kdo by za mě zaplatil nějakou lepší školu. Takže jako jsem se tam toho moc nenaučila.

A: V které, v té české škole?

B: Ne, ne, ne, ne, ne. V tý anglický. Než jsem přišla to tý český. Jak jsem byla u těch ortodoxních židů. Jo? Tak to, tam jsem se toho moc nenaučila. Že jo. Vím, že se tam učilo šít, vařit a takovýhle věci.

A: Takže to byla nějaká rodinná škola nebo něco?

B: Ne, ne, ne, ne, ne, ne. To byla něco, čemu se tady říkalo „měšťanka“. Ano. Byla tam angličtina, byla tam, já nevím, něco alá dějepis, zeměpis. Ale jen takový ty nejzákladnější základy asi. No. A i ta úroveň těch dětí, ta byla hodně nízká. Protože já jsem pak vlastně byla o třídu výš než, věkově. A pořád jsem ještě byla jako, hodně excelovala nad nima. Já nejsem žádný studijní typ. Jo? Takže jako škola dobrá to rozhodně nebyla. Takže pak když jsem přišla do tý český školy, tak jsem měla co dohánět. Že jo. No. Tak tam už to byla zas o něčem jiným.

A: A sestra udělala tu zdravotní školu někde?

B: Ne, protože ji vyhodili. Tak tu bohužel nedodělala.

A: Ona studovala v Anglii teda tu zdravotní?

B: Jo. Jo.

A: A nedodělala ji.

B: Jo. Jo.

A: A před tím pracovala v nemocnici.

B: Ano. No, to bylo v nemocnici přímo. Jo? Se to učilo. Takže potom jednu dobu dělala v nějaký redakci, zase vydávali český nebo československý časopis. A pak přešla do továrny na munici. Že jo. Protože každý se musel nějak zapojit do toho válečného úsilí. Takže dělala v továrně. A asi pak půl roku dělala nějakej kurz chemie. Protože, když se vrátila, tak šla rovnou do Terezína. Tam odvšivovat a proti tyfu a takovýhle ty. Záležitosti. Takže se snažila, získala takový rychlokurz, řekněme. No.

A: A ona byla celou válku v Anglii?

B: Ano.

A: Teda v Anglii, v Londýně?

B: Ano. Tam se provdala, těsně než odjela.

A: Ještě za války?

B: Ano.

A: A za Angličana, nebo?

B: Ne, za Čecha. Vojáka. Takže takhle. Podstatně horší samozřejmě bylo, když jsme se vrátily. Když jsme neměly vůbec nic, neměly jsme kde bydlet, kde spát a nic. To byly krušné doby.

A: A do kdy jste udržovaly kontakt s rodiči?

B: No, v podstatě než vypukla válka. To se mohlo normálně psát, což znamená červenec, srpen.

A: To byla chvilka.

B: Chvilička. Ano. Velmi krátká. Zřejmě tatínek měl někoho v Holandsku, protože vím, že jsme pak dostávaly dopisy přes Holandsko. Ovšem to byl taky necelej rok, když Holandsko padlo. Jo? Takže pak ty jejich nejlepší přátelé. Oni měli ještě jedny. Jedny co šli až na tu Sibiř, že jo. A tydle ti byli v Anglii a pak do Brazílie, jeli. Tak přes tu Brazílii. Jenomže to trvalo někdy rok, než byla odpověď. Jo? To trvalo strašně dlouho. Takže to bylo pár dopisů. Protože. A ještě než šli do Terezína, tak měli povoleno přes Červený kříž psát. A to bylo dvacet pět slov i s tak zvanou „placenou odpovědí“. Kde jsem zase já nebo sestra, mohla taktéž těch dvacet pět slov napsat. Co člověk napíše do pětadvaceti slov? „Máme se dobře, myslíme na vás a jsme zdrávi a v pořádku.“ Že jo. Víc se napsat nedá. No, to bylo jenom do té doby, než šli do Terezína. Konec.

A: A do Terezína šli kdy?

B: V roce 1942, v listopadu. Takže tím všecko skončilo. Tak co by jste ještě ráda věděla?

A: Ještě bych ráda věděla. No, když já jsem si to napsala a nemůžu to po sobě přečíst.

B: Aha. To se mi stává taky.

A: Taky to je takový „krasopis“. Něco o té české škole mi řekněte.

B: No, ta původně byla zřízená vlastně pro děti vládních činitelů a vojáků a letců. Takže ze začátku tam těch dětí nebylo tolik. Postupně přibývaly. Tam byli už třeba před válkou zástupci Bati, zástupci Sigma pumpy, několik rodin. Tak ty děti chodily do těchto škol. Taktéž případně jiné rodiny, které emigrovaly. Byli tam i, teda, rodiče s dětma. No, a postupně jsme tam začaly přibývat i my, takzvané Wintonovy děti. Že jo. Jak se kdo o tom dovídal nbo z různých důvodů. Takže ta původní škola, kde jsme byli v tom Hentonhallu už kapacitně nestačila. Jednak. Jednak byla už taky v dost špatném stavu, takže jsme se na podzim 1943 přestěhovali do Welsu. Což původně byl hotel a byl předělaný právě na to, jako internátní škola. Takže jsme pobývali tam. Byla to nádherná krajina. Tam nikdo nevěděl, málem, že je válka. Že jo. Takže po tý stránce jsme byli taky chráněný. No, až na pár výjimek, se tam téměř každýmu líbilo. Byli jsme tam velice spokojení. Nebyly mezi náma žádné rozdíly. Jestli tam někdo měl nebo neměl rodiče. Já si vzpomínám, že jeden chlapec, tatínek byl na vojně a maminka se snad na krátkou dobu nastěhovala tam do tý vesničky, a ten ředitel nedovolil, aby ta maminka tam za klukem chodila, protože ostatní taky nemají maminku tam. Jo? Tak na jedný straně jo, na druhé vím, že se scházeli tajně. Tak. Samozřejmě. Ale abychom se necítili takhle nějak, nějaké rozdíly. Ti co tam někoho měli, tak občas dostávali nějakej balíček. Že jo. Nějaký ty mlsoty a podobně. No a dvě moje kamarádky nejlepší, jme neměly nikoho, nikdo nám nic neposlal. A jednoho dne se rozdávala pošta a já dostala balík. Bez odesilatele. V tom balíku bylo pečené kuře a nějaká jabka. No a ten dotyčný, já jsem pak přišla na to, to byl ten co rozdával, prostě jako sekretář ředitele. Jo? Si zřejmě všiml, že my tři holky nedostáváme nic a věděl, že se rozdělíme. Což, samozřejmě, jsme taky udělaly. A každá z nás má dodnes v paměti, jak jsme vzaly to kuře a ohlodávaly a šly tam před školu. Tam bylo takovej trávník, prostě takový prostranství. Tam jsme šly a ty kosti jsme házely za sebe. Já nevím jestli jste viděla ten film Jindřich VI. Jo? A to on právě ten Loten, když hrál toho Jindřicha, jak to dělal, jak jedl jo, to kuře. Mlaskal. Ten tuk mu tak to. A jak házel ty kosti za sebe. A my dělaly totéž. Jo? Takže prostě z toho vzniklo kamarádství opravdu na doživotí. Tak moje nejlepší kamarádka ta Věra Gissing. Ta se pak vrátila do Anglie. To je kamarádství, které se nenajde jen tak honem. Jo? Kde, já nevím, kdybych ve dvě, ve tři v noci zazvonila tak otevře a prostě udělá všecko, první, poslední. Totéž já tady. A ne jenom ona. Ale to jsou tak mimořádně silná pouta, protože ty osudy naše jsou tak pevně spjaty, že jsme byly spolu v takové té kritické době našeho mládí. Kdy jsme spolu vyrůstaly. Že to zanechalo vliv na nás jako na stálo. Ten průvodce v tom filmu Síla lidskosti, ten Joe Schlesinger, to je světoznámý novinář dnes. Čili už v důchodu, sice. To je pravda, ale pořád ještě něco dělá a žije teďka v Kanadě. Já jsem byla v roce, je to dva a půl let, myslím, jsem byla v Americe, kousek od New Yorku. A, no zkrátka jsem říkala, že tam budu a jestli je nějaká šance, že by přijel. Jo? No a říkal jestli to jen trochu půjde, tak že jo. A až tam budu, ať mu dám vědět. Tak jsme pak spolu mluvili. Říkal, že škoda, že to nabylo o týden dřív nebo později, to už si nevzpomínám. No, protože potřeboval stejně do New Yorku. No, kvůli mně předělal celej pracovní program, kde měl, já nevím, dělat nějaké interview s, já nevím, kolika ambasadory. A celej ten štáb televizní a všecko. No a přijel za mnou. Na, já nevím, dva, tři dny nebo kolik. Z Toronta, kousek od New Yorku. No, to každej neudělá. Že jo. Říkám, to opět svědčí o nějakých těch poutech nebo. Já jsem tam byla teďko v listopadu, tak to bohužel nemoh, opravdu, to byl velice vytíženej. Ale sešlo se nás pár zase. No, dvě ty děvčata byly z New Yorku, jeden přišel, jeden přijel z Washingtonu. To taky. Washington, New York, to je tak „kousek“ cesty. Jo? A jenom na ten oběd. Jo? Tak to já chci jenom ilustrovat jak jsme pevně, jako, jaký pouta jsou mezi náma. Jo? A není to jenom o tom. Já říkám, že kdokoliv by potřeboval pomoct tak. Ředitel tý školy. V podstatě jedinej, kterej ještě žije, tomu bylo v prosinci sto. Pořád duševně, jéžiš, kéž bychom byli my takhle duševně čilí jak je on. A nějak jsem to připomněla tam, tak okamžitě mi dali peníze, abych tady něco koupila pro něj a něco uspořádala. Jo? Naprosto samozřejmě. To není otázka jestli na to mají, nebo ne. Ale taková ta pozornost. Jo? Si vzpomenout. Si udělat radost, jeden druhýmu. Tak říkám, to jsou taková. Teďka právě byly taky dvě děvčata tady, z tý školy. Tak ta jedna, která byla mimořádně nepořádná. Takovej flegmatik a propadala a já nevím co všechno. Dneska to je člověk tak mimořádných schopností. Organizaček a všeho jiného. Neznám nikoho, kdo by uměl všecko tak hbitě zařídit a zorganizovat. Já nevím jestli jste slyšela o tom, že prodává remosky v Anglii. Jo? Tak ta byla úplně před krachem, ona i zachránila. Protože zařídila, že se prodávají teďka remosky v Anglii. Která sem vozí nespočet turistů. Jo? Každý rok. Jo? Teďka má něco, s nějakou školou hotelovou, nebo co. Takovou výměnnou akci. Teďka říkala, že přijede zase v dubnu, kvůli nějaký tý hotelový škole. Jo, oni pak přijedou k ní. Ať si lověk vzpomene na co chce, tak všecko zorganizuje. Zařídí. Neuvěřitelně schopná. Jo? No, tak to je taky taková dobrá kamarádka.

A: A kolik vás tam bylo, na tý škole?

B: Tak to vám nikdo nezodpoví. Protože, jedni přišli, druzí odešli. Že jo. Někdo odmaturoval, někdo zase třeba ten poslední rok, pokud tam měli rodiče, tak je vzali, aby aspoň se naučili pořádně anglicky. Tak je dali do anglický školy, že jo. Takže to nikdy se nedá říct přesně. Já bych to velmi zhruba odhadla, takových sto padesát. Ale velice zhruba. Jo? Takže to, říkám, nedá se to tak přesně určit.

A: A těch Wintonových dětí tam bylo kolik?

B: Teďka zrovna jsme o tom mluvili a někdo říkal, že to mohlo být takových pětadvacet procent. Jo? Pokud, to bych musela vzít seznam a asi nějak to dávat dohromady. No. Ale díky tomu, že jsme byli v tý škole, tak jsme o sobě věděli. Že jo. Ti co ve škole nebyli, ti se velmi těžko dohledávají teďka. Tak to zase vymyslel ten režisér Mináč, nějakou akci, v domnění, a řekla bych že správnou, že celá řada těchhle těch lidí potom, po válce, se odstěhovala do jižní Ameriky. Že tady nikoho neměli a ta jižní Amerika ta přijímala jak nacisty, tak ty co přežili koncentrák. Ti přijímali prostě každýho. Takže je velmi dobře možný, že se tam nachází celá řada těch dětí.

A: A do Československa se vrátilo kolik dětí?

B: Tak počet vám neřeknu.

A: Tak zhruba tak, v procentech.

B: Nevím, nevím. Protože se vrátily nejenom jako ty Wintonovy děti, ale i ty co byli třeba s rodičema. Jo? Ale velká většina se potom buď ještě v šestačtyřicátým nebo v osmačtyřicátým a téměř zbytek v osmašedesátým pak zase někam, se vrátili. A dneska jsou, do slova a do písmene, po celým světě. Až v Tasmánii třeba.

A: Tak to máte známé všude.

B: Doslova, ano. Celá řada jich je v Izraeli, v Severní Americe, Kanada, pochopitelně Anglii. Zajímavý, že ne ve Francii. Tam je nějakej spolužák. Asi dva nebo tři. Ale z Wintonových dětí ne. Jo? No, a tady ještě tak do nedávna mohlo být takových patnáct, osmnáct. Bohužel celá řada už jich zemřela. Takže dnes jich tady je tak dvanáct, možná čtrnáct. Víc ne.

A: A většinou v Praze?

B: Jedna je v Českým Krumlově. Jeden v Kolíně. A jedna je v Zadní Třebáni. Jeden byl v Ostravě, ten už deset let nežije, ale jinak prostě z Prahy. No. Asi tak.

A: Co jste dělali třeba v té škole, když jste neměli školu?

B: Půjčili jsme si kolo a jezdili tam po těch kopcích. Tam je nádherná krajina. Překrásná. Obzvlášť o víkendech. Ping-pong jsme tam hodně hráli. Tam bylo kousíček, to patřilo ještě k tomu areálu, jezero. Takže na takovou, já nevím, dvacetiminutovou procházku to bylo moc hezký. Kluci měli svoje fotbalové družstvo. My zase volejbal nebo házená. Dost tomu sportu jsme se věnovaly. No a každou sobotu večer byl nějaký program. Třeba se hrály hry. Někdy česká, někdy anglická. No, tak to se muselo nacvičovat. Že jo? Nebo nějaké kvizy. Tak někdo musel ty otázky dávat dohromady, že jo. Nebo diskusní, nějakej večer. Já nevím, rovnoprávnost žen. Nebo co budeme dělat až se vrátíme. Že jo. A takovéhle věci. Někdy to byl poslech gramofonových desek. Tancovačka. Všechno možný. Čili na řadu těchhle akcí bylo nutno se připravit. Že jo. Ne vždycky. Ale záleželo na věku. Že jo. Většinou to dělali ti starší.

A: Jo, jo. A …… - učili jste se hodně??????

B: Jo. Většinou jo. Měli jsme tam knihovnu, takže bylo možný si pučit nějaký knížky.

A: České nebo anglické?

B: Obojí. I slovenské. Jo? Samozřejmě, kolik těch knih mohlo být. Nebyly učebnice. Ty psali učitelé sami. Takže pro ně to musel být mimořádně náročný úkol. Ne, jenom, že nebyly učebnice, ale my jsme do tý školy přišli každý s naprosto jinými znalostmi. Jo? Protože dítě rychle se naučí, ale stejně rychle, nebo ještě rychleji zapomene. Takže z tý češtiny jsme toho mnoho zapomněli. A každej chodil do jiný anglický školy. Jo? Třeba já vím, že v tý třídě co jsem byla já, byla jedna dívka a já, co jsme neměli nikdy frančtinu. Protože ve všech anglických školách, těch trochu lepších, ta frančtina byla a celá řada jich přijela přes Francii. Takže francouzsky uměli. Že jo. Uměli každý jinak i tu angličtinu. Dějepis, zeměpis, matematika. V každým předmětě jiná úroveň. Jo? Takže tohle skloubit nebylo jednoduchý. Nehledě na to, že jsme byli puberťáci, rodiče tam nebyli, že jo. Byla to internátní škola. Ale zajímavý přes to všechno k žádným, takovýmhle, nemravnostem nedocházelo, jo. Že samozřejmě lumpárny že jsme dělali. To bez pochyby. Ale já myslím, že žádný takovýhle hrozné přestupky tam nebyly.

A: Co jste dělali za lumpárny?

B: No, já nevím. Schovávali něco kantorům. A, no, prostě to, co se běžně dělá. Asi tak nějak. Si moc nevzpomínám. Že jo?

A: A ti učitelé vám dělali i vychovatele, potom po škole? Nebo to nedělali?

B: To jsme měli sestry na to. No, učitelé taky. Měli službu. Že jo. No, a já si vzpomínám, že jsem si vysloužila dvojku z chování.

A: Jo?

B: No, protože na latinu jsme měli učitelku. Ten typ, strašně hodnej, ale neudrží si kázeň. Jo? A navíc ráčkovala. A když někdo neuměl slovíčko, tak ona vždycky „tak třikrát!“ což znamenalo třikrát napsat. Jo? No, pochopitelně já jsem slovíčka nikdy neuměla. Tak já rovnou: „Třikrát!“ Tak se naštvala a říká: „Ne, pětkrát!“. Tak já příště: „Třikrát nebo pětkrát?“. A ona: „Desetkrát!“. No, a takhle holt jsme se bavili, že jo.

A: Až z toho byla dvojka z chování.

B: No, přesně tak. Jo? Takže takové jsem byla dítko.

A: A ty židovské zvyky vás ještě držely ve škole?

B: Ne, ne, ty mě velmi rychle opustily. Tak jak rychle jsem je nabrala, tak mě zase opustily.

A: Pan Auerbach říkal, že tam byl i nějaký rabín.

B: Jo, byl. Ano. Byl. Rabín a katolický kněz a protestantský. Docela ten rabín Stránský pak jednu dobu byl vrchním rabínem v New Yorku. Už nežije samozřejmě. Jo, to jako. Ale to všecko bylo na bázi dobrovolnosti. Že jo. No.

A: A taky s vámi dělal nějaký program? Jako že by se taky zúčastnil rabín vašeho volejbalu nebo tak?

B: To si myslím, že ne. To si nevzpomínám. To ne. To vím, že tam jak bylo to jezírko, tak tam byl takovej domek, kam se jako dávaly ty loďky. A to bylo prázdný nějak v tu dobu. A asi tam ten katolický kněz měl to svoje náboženství nebo mše nebo co. Jo? A bylo tam taky mešní víno. No, co páni kluci neudělali? Nějak se tam dostali a to mešní víno vypili. No, tak průšvih velikej. …

Kazeta č. 2, strana B:

B: … A přece se snažil ten rabín o potrestání. Jo? A ten katolickej kněz říká: „no, byla to klukovina, tak jako nechte to“. No, ten jako trval na přísném potrestání. A mezi jinými tam byl i Julius Sidon, což je nevlastní bratr současného rabína. Jo? A já myslím, že on to odskákal ale nevině. Já myslím, že on tam snad ani u toho nebyl, ale někdo něco prásk a jeho pak snad i, jestli, vyloučili nebo co. To snad ne. To už nevím. Ale vím, že on to nějak odskákal. Tak takové běžné klukoviny se dělaly, že jo. Pak přišli maturovat letci. No, a hrdinové, ale před tou maturitou byli rozklepaní, jak já nevím co. Že. Jak bývá každej. Tak oni taky. A v prvním patře, tam byla ředitelna, pak ten sekretář tam měl svoji kancelář. A všude na dveřích tam byly cedule a taky tam byl záchod. A co neudělali ti páni hoši, než že zaměnili ty cedule. A tam, kde byl ředitel dali, že tam je záchod. No. Takže teďka, když tam ti letci chtěli na záchod, no tak vrazili, že jo, dovnitř, a tam ředitel. A ten za stolem. Žádnej záchod, že jo. No. Tak zase jako velkej průšvih. „Kdo to udělal?!“ Tak takovýhle běžný věci, který se na školách dělaly, tak to se dělalo tam taky. Že jo.

A: A nejmladší děti byly jak staré?

B: No, takhle. Tam byly české jesle, školka, obecní škola, střední škola.

A: Taky v tom areálu?

B: Ne, ne, ne. Jesle, školka, ty byla někde úplně jinde. A ta obecní škola, ty byla v tak zvané Meisenhall. Což bylo kousek od toho, kde původně byly ta střední škola, a když my jsme se přestěhovali, tak oni šli, myslím i tam, částečně, a to bylo pak už dost daleko. Že jo. My jsme pak byli v tom Welsu a oni byli, to bylo západní Anglie. Kousek. No. Tak ti pak byli tam. Ale společně jsme nebyli. To byly vždycky jiné budovy. Ze začátku ta obecná a střední škola nebyly daleko od sebe, ale byly to jiné budovy. Chodil tam dnešní senátor Outrata. Ten chodil snad do první třídy, tam. Bývalý velvyslanec v Londýně Pavel Seichter. Taky tam chodil. A taky jenom do první třídy. Že byli malinký, že jo. Ti tam měli rodiče. Jo? Takže asi takhle. Já si jdu ještě pro nějakou vodu. Nechcete taky?

A: Já ještě pořád mám ten čaj. Děkuju. Tak já zase popřemýšlím nad otázkama.

B: Dobře. Jen papejte.

A: Když povídáte tak já tady nechci žvýkat, do toho. Měli jste nějaké informace o tom co se děje doma?

B: No, myslím, že to bylo kolem roku 1944. Se objevilo něco v novinách o krutostech v koncentračních táborech. Jo? Tak to se k nám taky dostalo. Ale, asi mládí má určitej takovej ochranný filtr. Protože já jsem si nepřipustila, že něco takového by se mohlo týkat mých rodičů. Ani jsem si nebyla jistá, že jsou v koncentračním táboře. Že jo. Ani to jsem s jistotou nevěděla. Tak to ano. Ale sami Angličané tomu nechtěli nějak ani moc věřit. Že jo. O tom byly určité pochybnosti. Ze začátku. No, a v roce 1945, já si na to tolik nepamatuju, ale jiní ano, že po válce už teda přišly do školy dlouhé seznamy lidí, kteří přežili. A jak každý nad tím stál a hledal někoho. Já si na to nějak nepamatuju. Ale řada jako mých spolužáků ano. Jo?

A: A jako to byly seznamy lidí, kteří přežili a vrátili se do Prahy?

B: No, já nevím, kam se vrátili, ale přežili. Jo? Vím, že ta moje nejlepší kamarádka Věra Diamantová. Ta dostala zprávu, nějaký telegram, že maminka a teta přežili. A všichni jsme se s ní nesmírně radovali. Že jo. Jsme se těšili s ní. No a asi měsíc na to, dostala další zprávu, že maminka zemřela na tyfus. Jo? Tohle, to byla zpráva, konec dubna, začátkem května. A ona zemřela 10.května. Prostě na pochodu smrti. To měla. A to už zemřela tý svý sestře v náručí. Čili tetě tý Věra. Ta teta přežila teda. Já ji znala a já jsem snad u nikoho neviděla tak hluboký smutek v očích po celou tu dobu. Se s tím prostě nedovedla vypořádat. Ona byla jediná co přežila. Že jo. A ta sestra její jí zemřela takhle v náručí.

A: A ona se teda potom starala o tu Věru?

B: Jo. Jo. No, spíš obráceně. Věra o ni. Jo. Jo. To byl tak zdrcenej člověk, zničenej. Takže tohle to tak nějak postupně. A myslím, že každý z nás celý léta doufal, že se někdo někde objeví. Že jo. Protože celá řada těch lidí, co přežila koncentrák třeba se ani nevrátila do Prahy a rovnou jeli, já nevím, do Izraele nebo do Ameriky. Nebo někam. Že jo. Tak jsme si po celou dobu dělali iluze, ale myslím, že nikomu se nenaplnily.

A: A vy jste se to dozvěděla jak, co se stalo s vašima?

B: No, v podstatě sestra to všechno zjišťovala. Jo. Ta se vrátila hned v červnu 1945. Já po tom, nás repatriovala škola, tak my jsme se vrátili koncem srpna 1945. No a to už jako věděla, že zatím nikdo nepřežil. Což neznamenalo, že by se někdo třeba pozděj neobjevil. No, bohužel, neobjevil. Že jo. Protože i ti kdo přežili a měli někde někoho tak taky je hledali. Že jo. Se snažili. Protože byly místa, jako u Hybernů, že jo, kde byly dlouhatánský seznamy těch, kdo přežili. A u toho přišpendlený cedulky „Jsem na živu“ a, já nevím, „Franto, ozvi se mi na tu a tu adresu“ třeba. Jo? Takže tímto způsobem lidi se hledali. Každou chvilku v rozhlase byly nějaký výzvy, že jo. Těch způsoby bylo spousta. Někdy někde se našli lidi, ale spíš častěji ne než jo. Protože. Manželova matka třeba přežila. Že jo. No, tak každej dal ihned vědět kam to bylo jen trochu možný. Že se setkali pak. Protože myslím, že taky byla určitá místa, kam převáželi ty lidi co přežili. Do nějakých, já nevím, domovů nebo něco podobnýho. Že jo. A i třeba my, co jsme se vrátili z Anglie, když tady nikoho neměli, no tak taky. Do takových domovů a když jim nebylo ještě šestnáct, tak je dali do sirotčince. Moje sestra chodila dennodenně pěšky, protože nic nejezdilo od konečný, myslím to byla jedenáctka tenkrát, z Liboce na letiště, aby mě prostě nepropásla. Jo? Aby mě někam nestrčili a ona nevěděla kam, a já zas nevěděla kde ji hledat. Že jo. Tak dennodenně chodila a to už byla v jiným stavu. Akorát ten pátek, než já jsem přijela, přiletěla ta moje nastávající švagrová, což ale tehdy nikdo nevěděl, že jo, ale sestra ji znala. A ta jí řekla, že přiletím v pondělí. Tak tu sobotu a neděli než jsem přiletěla nebyla. Jo? Ale, říkám, aby mě, prostě, neprošvihla. Jo? Takže jinak by se byli těžko hledali, ti lidi. No. Říkám, ty dali do nějakýho domova. A teďka když nám bylo sedmnáct, že jo. A teďka najednou, celou dobu se vždycky o nás někdo staral, buď v tý rodině nebo v tý škole. Že? A teďka najednou, kde seženeš peníze, kdo ti bude dávat podporu, nějaký potravinový lístky, do jaký školy mám jít, že jo. Dokončit aspoň tu maturitu. A takovýhle věci. No, a nikdo nikomu nic neřek. Nikdo neporadil. Jo? Jenom je tam strčili někam a starej se. Jo? A v podstatě ti lidi, co přežili, taky. Jo? Chápu, byl konec války, takže každej měl hlavu jak škopek. Ale že by úřady byly nějak vstřícný, jestli k těm, co přežili nebo i k nám dětem, nějak myslím, že dvakrát nikolivěk. Že spíš každej se staral co se dá urvat. Z bytů po němcích, a kdekoliv jinde. Že jo. To jako na to byli velice bystří. A my co jsme žili v Anglii a zvyklí na skutečnou poctivost, tak to nám vůbec nepřišlo. Jo? Tohle to. Takže trvalo hezky dlouho, než nám byl přidělen nějakej byt. Cokoliv. Že jo. I když švagr jako zahraniční voják na to měl přednostní právo.

A: Takže to jste potom bydlela u sestry?

B: Jo. Ale nejprv, asi tak ty první, já nevím, čtyři měsíce, prostě kdokoliv známej, neznámej měl volnou postel a nechal mě tam přespat. No. No a pak konečně, že jo. Se švagrem. To byla dvougarsonka, i když pěkná. No, ale sestra, jak říkám, těhotná, švagr a jeho sestra se vracela ze Švédska, takže jsme tam byli čtyři dospělí. Jo? No, ta se brzo odstěhovala do nějakýho podnájmu, pak. Že jo. No a pak se narodilo mimino. Ale pak byl problém vůbec najít postel, na kterou si lehnout. Čím se přikrýt. Nějakej talíř, hrnec. No, v obchodech nic nebylo, že jo. To opravdu byly těžký doby. Tohle to. Každej přesvědčenej, když jsme byli v Anglii, co všechno jsme si nepřivezli. No, někteří na tom byli finančně líp. Jo? Já určitě ne. A moje sestra taktéž ne. Že jo. Takže my jsme měli opravdu jenom to nejnutnější.

A: A peníze jste měli jenom ten sirotčí důchod teda?

B: No, já jsem pak dávala nějaký hodiny angličtiny, abych měla ještě něco. Že jo. Protože ten sirotčí důchod jsem nechala sestře jako na živobytí. Což bylo jak nic. No. Takže. Jak říkám, ono se ani za ty peníze v podstatě nic nedalo koupit. Ale aspoň na tu tramvaj abych měla a podobně. No. Tak to rozhodně snadný nebylo.

A: To musel být hrozně velký šok, vrátit se z té Anglie sem po válce.

B: Ano, to jo. Člověk by si řekl války, že jo. Samozřejmě to je hrůza. Tak ty hrůzy války snad docházely až o mnoho let později. Ale tohle to bylo nesrovnatelně horší. No, a pak ty padesátý léta, to bylo ještě, to tomu dalo korunu. Jsme museli z Prahy pryč. A manžel dělal jako slévač, on byl tedy vyučenej slévač, to je pravda. Ale i tak, ani to nestačilo. V roce 1953, když byla měnová reforma, tak ho potom vyhodili, na hodinu. Jako nespolehlivej.

A: Za měnové reformy?

B: Jo.

A: Jak to?

B: Ostatní všichni stávkovali. Jo? A on ne. Ostatní zůstali. Jeho vylili. No, proč? Protože byl žid a byl v západní armádě. To jako nepotřeboval nikdo nikomu vysvětlovat, že jo. I když to nebylo takhle úředně řečeno. No. Takže pak šel do dolů. No, to odnesl pak zdravotně. Že měl vředy, dost dlouho byl doma. Samozřejmě jsme se snažili vehementně se dostat zpět do Prahy, což nešlo, protože byt vám nedali, když nemáte zaměstnání. Zaměstnání vám nedali, když nemáte trvalý bydliště. No, jak za feudalismu. Že jo? Tak to byl takovej začarovanej kruh. No. Tak až pak, že tchýně tam měla garsonku, tak se tam přihlásil. A dostal zaměstnání. No, bohužel zemřela brzo. No, alespoň nám zůstala ta garsonka, kterou se nám později podařilo vyměnit za něco většího. Takže jsme se tím způsobem dostali zpět do Prahy. Už se nám „dýchalo“ trochu líp.

A: Jo a víte teda nějak jaké byly ty osudy vaší rodiny od té doby co šli do Terezína?

B: No, v podstatě ne. Byli v Terezíně. No a pak.

A: A nesetkala jste se s někým třeba kdo by je znal a kdo přežil?

B: Sestra s někým, ale myslím, že nic moc se nedozvěděla. Jo? Jestli to je pravda nebo ne. Ale někde jsem se, ale i tohle četla, že slibovali. Tatínek šel 28.září a ty ženy nebrali. Jo? A ty zoufale chtěly za tím manželem. Protože nikdo nevěděl kam. Jo? Jenom věděli, že to bude ještě horší jak Terezín. Jo? Ale že to jsou v podstatě vyhlazovací tábory, to v Terezíně se nevědělo. Takže všichni chtěli sebou, nebo za nima, takže skutečně maminka šla 1.října. Ale to už zřejmě už nežili. Jo? Takže to jsem někde se i doslechla. Ale taky někdo, údajně snad, řekl sestře. Protože, nevím kdy, ale každopádně v lednu 1945, se dostalo snad čtyřicet, padesát lidí do Švýcarska. Moje tchýně byla mezi nimi. Jo? Prý to někdo, byla možnost, že maminka taky by tam se dostala. A ona že ne, že chce za tatínkem. Jestli to je pravda nebo ne. To se nikdy nedozvím. Ale víc jako zpráv, to jsme neměli. Že jo. Asi tak.

A: A s vaším manželem jste se seznámila kdy?

B: Čtyři dny před odjezdem z Anglie. A sice právě švagrová, tedy budoucí švagrová, že jo. Ta měla, kolik tehdy, jestli desetiměsíční miminko. A ti co byli v tý československý armádě, ti už byli tady. A dostali týdenní dovolenou, kdo chce jako ještě do Anglie. Protože tam měli třeba rodiny nebo jiné známé, příbuzné. Že si chtějí dát do pořádku svoje věci. Tak mohli jet. Tak on přijel do Anglie zpátky z Prahy. A právě šel z švagrovou a tam jsem já ho uviděla. Pro mě to byla lásky na první pohled. Ale on měl nějakou Angličanku tam. Tak ji chtěl přemluvit. Ale ta se nedala. A říkal, že jde švagrovou jako doprovodit a že se hned vrátí. No, já jsem čekala, čekala. Nedočkala jsem se. Pak jsem se dozvěděla, že přijel až asi v sedm hodin ráno a hned zase jel dál někam. No až pak v Praze jsme se zase setkali.

A: A kdy jste se vzali?

B: V dubnu 1948.

A: A vy jste potom nastoupila ještě do školy tady?

B: Ano. Ano. Já si ještě dodělala poslední dva ročníky gymnázia.

A: Na vysokou jste se hlásila?

B: Na vysokou jsem šla. Protože tehdy otvírali pedagogickou fakultu, obor mateřské školy. Já sice dětičky měla ráda, ale abych šla na první nebo jinej stupeň, tak jsem si řekla, že kdyby měl někdo zlobit tak, jak já zlobila tu latinářku, tak jsem si řekla „tak to teda ne“. Tak jsem šla, jak říkám na ty mateřské školy, protože to bylo jenom na jeden rok, tehdy. No, a už jsem jako věděla, že mám vážnou známost, tak že budou v brzku vdavky. A jako jsem byla natolik sebekritická, že vysloveně studijní typ nejsem. Tak jsem šla jenom na tohle to, což bylo ukončeno státnicí. No. Pak ještě dálkově jsem si dodělala na první stupeň. No.

A: A manžel teda za války dělal co?

B: No, vojáka.

A: Celou dobu?

B: Ne, on když přišel, tak dělal v nějaký továrně.

A: Do Anglie emigroval?

B: Jo. Přes Polsko.

A: A sám nebo ještě s někým?

B: S bratrem.

A: A pak vstoupil do RAF?

B: Ne. On byl voják, ne letec.

A: Jo. Jo.

B: Do armády. Myslím, že to bylo v listopadu 1941.

A: A kde bojoval?

B: No, tak byli všichni, že jo, nejprve v Anglii a pak hned jak se nalodili v roce 1944, tak u Dunkerque. Francie, Dunkerque a tam.

A: Ještě jste říkala, že jste vyprávěli v tom internátě, co budete dělat po válce. Co jste myslela, že budete dělat po válce?

B: No, tak mě bylo jasný, že v sedmnácti letech toho moc nedokážu, že jo. Ale myslím, že představu jsem žádnou neměla. Ne. Ne.

A: A když jste byla malá, měla jste představu co budete dělat?

B: Ne. Ne. Ne. Já jsem to nevěděla ani když jsem odmaturovala. Já věděla co nechci.

A: A co?

B: Medicínu, práva, kantořinu. Tak, odříkávaného chleba největší krajíc, jak se říká. Že jo? To byl taky důvod, proč jsem šla na ty mateřinky. Jo? A byl to hodně tvrdej chleba.

A: A proč jste se rozhodla zůstat tady? Neuvažovali jste o tom emigrovat?

B: Tak v roce 1948 rozhodně ne. Protože to jsem se zrovna vdala. Že jo. A nějak nám to nedošlo. Nebo nechtěli jsme. Já jsem pak velmi silně o tom uvažovala v roce 1968. Ale protože já jsem typ, který nejprv něco udělá, nebo řekne, a pak teprve přemýšlí. Tak jsem si říkala, tohle je příliš závažná věc. Kdežto manžel ten byl vždycky takový velice rozvážný. A všechno si důkladně promyslel. Tak jsem to rozhodnutí nechala na něm. Tak dlouho uvažoval. A nakonec řekl ne. Druhou emigraci ne. Mě bylo čtyřicet, jemu osmačtyřicet. V tom osmašedesátým zrovna jsem tam měla, jsme tam měli, kluka. Tomu bylo devatenáct. A ten řekl „ v žádným případě, když vy zůstanete tady, já se vracím domů“. Jo? Holce patnáct. A v podstatě naše kvalifikace byla, že oba jsme znali ten jazyk, což by bylo usnadnilo začátky, ale živobytí s tím člověk neudělá. A hlavně ne v těch letech. Dobře, udělali jiní, ale bylo to jako riziko. Jo? Takže nakonec jsme rozhodli že ne.

A: A vaše sestra tady zůstala taky, taky neemigrovali?

B: Ne. Ne.

A: A jak to potom, se odvíjel váš život dál? Po válce?

B: Po válce, no, tak jak jsem říkala. Odmaturovala jsem, šla jsem na vysokou ještě. Taky jsem se provdala. Pak jsem asi rok učila na tý mateřský škole. Pak se mi narodilo dítě. No, v padesátých, jednapadesátým roce manžela vyhodili ze zaměstnání.

A: Za to že byl žid?

B: No, více méně. Jo. On dělal tehdy na ministerstvu zahraničního obchodu. Jo. Tak řečeno to nebylo, že jo, ale spoustu lidí tam vyházeli tehdy. Že jo. To ještě mohl být rád, že ho nezavřeli. A teďka my jsme pak bydleli se sestrou a byli jsme domluveni. Zkrátka, my jsme měli zažádáno o první družstvo, které tehdy bylo. Tak zvaná Solidarita. A když ty byty přidělovali, tak nám to oznámení poslali na špatnou adresu, takže jsme ten byt nikdy nedostali. Jo? No, takže jsme o to přišli. Takže jsme neměli kde bydlet. Ten byl bez zaměstnání, že jo? No a tehdy taky byla tak zvaná akce 77 tisíc do výroby. Což bylo maskování, aby právě tady tyhle nepohodlné lidi dostali do fabrik. Že jo. Tyhle intelektuály. No, takže manžel nastoupila to tak zvaných „Stalinových závodů“, dneska „Chemické závody Litvínov“. Tam jsme dostali dočasně byt v Teplicích. Pak v Litvínově. No, takže jsme se přestěhovali tam, tam se taky narodila dcera. No a po tý měnový reformě, jak jsem říkala, ve třiapadesátým, ho vyhodili na hodinu z fabriky. Takže šel do dolů. A to záhy, jako, pak měl žaludeční vředy. A s tím byl každou chvilku doma. Až tam se vyskytl jeden velice slušnej člověk, který mu pomohl, že začal pracovat v „Báňských stavbách“. Takže tam částečně. A jak jsem říkala naše stálá snaha byla, se dostat do Prahy. Tak to už jsem říkala. Že jo? Takže ze začátku bydlel s matkou. No a pracoval jako redaktor v „Sentinelu“, což byla státní nakladatelství technické literatury. Takže tam pracoval. Překládal a tak dále. Pak byl na „volný noze“, překládal. Pak jednu krátkou dobu dělal v ………. No, prostě věnoval se překladům, že jo. No a já sem potom, když jsme se přestěhovali do Prahy, tak jsem začala pracovat v Artii. Taky tak zvaný tisk ve mzdě, což bylo zaměstnání, které se mě zamlouvalo asi nejvíce. Jenomže jsem tam zůstala pouze šest let. Pak se ze mě taky stala „persona non grata“. Po okupaci, že jo jsem dostala taky vyhazov. No, takže jsem hledala, kde zakotvit. No, takže pravděpodobně jediný, nebo aspoň jediný co jsem našla, bylo na plicní klinice ve Veleslavíně, kde jsem dělala od překladů vědeckých článků až po, že jsem chodila na poštu. Prostě děvečka pro všechno. Že jo. No, a pak manžel onemocněl. Takže úvěrem, když jsem mohla, jsem šla do důchodu, abych se o něj starala. Bohužel to bylo jenom pár měsíců. Pak zemřel. No a po jeho smrti jsem v podstatě začala učit angličtinu. V podnicích a ty kurzy. A dělám to dodnes. V případě ještě teďka chodím spolu ještě, buď s panem režisérem nebo někým jiným, tím Mináčem, po školách, kde se jim ukazuje ten film „Síla lidskosti“. No a já jim pak povídám svoje zážitky a pocity a tak dále. Takže mám takovej pocit, že aspoň malinko splácím dluh.

A: A vy jste se to jak dozvěděla o tom, že to organizoval Winton?

B: Když to v Anglii jako vyšlo na povrch. Tak ta Věra, moje kamarádky, nějak mi o tom psala nebo říkala. Ale každopádně měla tu videokazetu. Co bylo v Anglii ten pořad. Přijela s tím do Prahy. No, tady se nás několik sešlo a podívali jsme se na to. No a byla u toho moje dcera i můj vnuk. A ke své hanbě musím přiznat, že jím došlo víc než mě, vlastně co to všechno obsahovalo, obsahuje, o čem to je. Protože mýmu vnukovi zrovna bylo jedenáct, tak jako mě, když jsem odjížděla. Jo? A ačkoliv tehdá ještě anglicky neuměl, tak takhle mu kanuly slzy a plakal, protože, říkám, pochopil. Že jo. A moje dcera taktéž. Jo? Že to se týkalo hodně dětí, ve věku jak je její syn. Že jo. No, a pak v devadesátým roce, jsme měli sraz naší školy ve Welsu. A tam pan Winton přijel.

A: Jo?

B: Ano. Takže tam jsem ho poznala poprvé. A shodou okolností on bydlí velice blízko právě tý Věry. Takže kdykoliv jsem v Anglii, tak vždycky se vídáme. Že jo. Buď u něj, nebo u tý Věry. Nebo obojí. Že jo? No, takže je to kouzelný pán, kterýmu bude v květnu devadesát sedm. Nesmírně duševně čiperný, aktivní. Neuvěřitelný. A snad přijede v květnu do Prahy.

A: A máte nějaký program? Nebo jenom tak?

B: No, pan režisér Mináč chce ještě dělat takovej nějakej další kus filmu právě. Děti Wintona. A různý, prostě, ještě takový ukončení, řekněme, k tomu. Jo? Tak. Jednak a jednak takovej nějakej sraz nově nalezených jeho dětí. Protože pár se jich našlo. Tak v rámci toho by chtěl ještě něco dát dohromady.

A: Takže ještě pořád se ještě v tom pátrá?

B: Jo. Takhle. On angažoval jednu školu. A sice škola Mezinárodních vztahů. Jedna je diplomatická část, jedna Public Relations. No a několik těch studentů se tam o to velice zajímalo a dělají tak zvané detektivy, přes ty krajanské spolky a ambasády leckde. A prostě takhle přes internet. Vyhledávají. Protože celá řada lidí ani neví, jak se dostali do Anglie a pak takhle dál. Jo? Obzvlášť ti, co byli úplně malí. Že jo?

A: Byla jste někdy v komunistické straně? Nebo tak?

B: Byla. Ke své hanbě.

A: A kdy jste vstoupila?

B: V roce 1948. Ne, v roce 1946. 1946 ano. To mě bylo jen tak, tak osmnáct. Ano. Ale jak jsem říkala. Sestra byla dost levicově zaměřená. Čili ta už v Anglii vlastně vstoupila. A já byla hodně pod jejím vlivem. Ale spousta lidí jako opravdu poctivě, upřímně věřila. Že jo? Takže jsme se domnívali, že nám pomůžou zachránit. Bohužel tomu tak nebylo.

A: A třeba rok 1948, ten vás nějak ne to?

B: Až později. Až ty důsledky když se začínaly ozývat, že jo. Protože celá řada našich známých právě z Anglie, že jo, ti byli pozavíráni a tak dále. Že jo. Takže pak se nám začínaly teprve otevírat oči. Ale z toho rozjetého vlaku nešlo vyskočit. Takže až po tom roce 1968. že jo. To jsou ty osudové chyby.

A: A měla jste z toho nějaké vy, problémy, že jste židovského původu a že to, že jste byla v té Anglii?

B: No, jak jsem říkala. Nikdo mi to do očí neřek. Že jo. Ale taky kolem toho šestapadesátýho, myslím, taky. Že jo. Taky takové různé nepříjemnosti, že jo. Taky to bylo jako. A když mě vyhodili z Artie, tak taktéž. Že jo. Jedno s druhým. Oni vám to do očí neřeknou. Tohle to. To nějak vyplývalo ze situace.

A: A ten šedesátý osmy rok, tak to jste vnímala jak? Třeba tu okupaci? Nebo kde jste byla?

B: V Praze. Nebo vlastně konkrétně jsme nebyli v Praze. My jsme byli na dovolené. A syn byl v Anglii.

A: A co tam dělal?

B: Na brigádě. Co by? Se učit anglicky, samozřejmě. Že jo. Ale dostal tam povolení pracovat, což bylo výjimečný. A přijel jeden jeho kamarád z Francie. A nějak protože, takže, my jsme byli někde za Chrudimí, já už nevím kde to je přesně. Tak tam v těch místech. A prostě jsme se domluvili, že dcera s tím hochem pojedou do Prahy. Protože on chtěl do Prahy. Že jo. Se podívat. Tak že jo. Tak ráno, brzo, manžel je posadil na autobus a přišel zpátky. A přišel zpátky: „okupovali nás Rusové“. Já povídám „a tos je pustil jako do toho autobusu?“. Ten kluk mluvil jenom francouzsky, Věra jenom česky. No, jak se domluvili, nevím. No, ale přijeli na Florenc. Teď se všude střílelo. No, to bylo dobrodružství. No a my okamžitě sedli na první dopravní prostředek a nějak jsme jeli do Prahy. Že jo. No, tanky všude, že jo, střílelo se. Doprava nefungovala, nic. No a teď, sestra měla kluka na Slovensku někde. Tak taky celá nervózní, kde je, jak je. Mobily neexistovaly tehdy, že jo. No, takže bylo to víc jak dobrodružné. No, ten první rok celkem ještě šlo. Že jo. To ještě byla ta eufórie, jo, toho Pražskýho jara. Horší to bylo potom v devětašedesátým. To už pak začalo přituhovat. A dost. Takže když to odskákal manžel v těch padesátých letech, já zas v těch šedesátých. Jak jsem říkala, když mě vyhodili z tý Artie, tak jsem říkala nějakýmu soudruhovi. Jsem říkala: „No, v čtyřiačtyřicátým roce, moji rodiče šli do plynu za to. V padesátých letech, můj manžel dostal vyhazov na hodinu. A když teďka já dostávám výpověď a mám jedenáctiměsíční výpověď.“. Že jo, jsem říkala: „to je ohromnej pokrok, to moje děti mají ještě větší naději“. No jo. Takže.

A: Tak mi ještě řekněte o vašich dětech?

B: O mých dětech?

A: No.

B: Děti asi jako každé jiné. Jo? Asi si přehodili role. Kluk byl vždyky hodnej, mírnej. Kdežto ta holky, holka vždycky byla taková ta uličnice. Jak to někdy bývá. No, Jirka vystudoval slaboproud. No, byl zaměstnanej nejdříve v Adipně. A pak, jak se to jmenovalo, nějakej ústav obráběcích strojů. No a nějak krátce po Sametové revoluci dal výpověď a od té doby je na volné noze a překládá, hlavně technické překlady dělá. No a dcera, ta jako dost toho prostonala. Ta měla takové drobné chřipky, pak bronchitidy. A který měla i třikrát do měsíce. Takže jsme ji nechali opakovat, myslím sedmou třídu, protože skoro nebyla ve škole. Pak šla na střední. A to půl roku jakž, takž. Pak druhou půl roku dělala externě, protože pořád nemocná. V třetím ročníku chodila snad jenom dva týdny do školy. Pak dostala revma. Byla, já nevím v koliky, nemocnicích. No, odmaturovala, že jo. Chtěla na vysokou, tak díky, právě, mým průšvihům se nedostala. A krátkou dobu dělala v tý prodejně Sentinelu. A, kolik, ve dvaadvaceti se pak provdala. Pak měla kluka. No a začala dělat u rentgenu a je u toho pořád.

A: A co je bavilo třeba, když byli malí?

B: No tak, Věra, ta hlavně cvičit, cvičit. Ta dělala, závodně i, gymnastiku. A Jirka, no ten dodnes miluje lyžování. Do čtrnácti, do patnácti náruživě četl. Od tý doby konec. To už ho nějak tolik nebavilo. A no, co jinak. Tak bych řekla od všeho kousek. Asi tak. Oba mají svoje zdravotní problémy. Tak to je taky. Nemůžou udělat vždycky všechno co by chtěli, jak chtěli. Asi tak.

A: Kam jste třeba jezdili na dovolené, když byli ještě mladší?

B: No, tak to hlavně záleželo na finančních možnostech. A to byly velmi omezené. No, tak vím, že jsme párkrát byli někde u Ohře, což byla nějaká podniková, taková velice primitivně vybavená, boudička. Tam jsme byli. Pak jsme byli někdy někde u Lipverdy, na severu Čech. V Jevanech jednou, dvakrát. Jak se kde, co naskytlo.

A: A do zahraničí jste jezdili?

B: No, tehdy to nešlo. Když byli malí.

A: Ani nějaký to Bulharsko, nebo tak?

B: No, to jsme byli až někdy v sedmdesátých letech. Dřív to jako nešlo. Nejprve Rumunsko, pak Bulharsko. Bylo to všechno omezené. Jednak možnostmi a jednak finance. Ta nějak nikdy nepřebývaly.

A: A kdy jste se poprvé podívala nějak víc na Západ?

B: To bylo v osmašedesátým. Nejprve jel Jirka v šestašedesátým. To jel na tak zvané „Fruit picking“. A šedesát sedm jel manžel, já šedesát osm a Věra šedesát devět. Jo? No a pak byl konec, že jo. No a pak jsme jeli s manželem spolu, na příslib, jsme zázračně dostali, sedmdesát šest. A v osmdesátým to bylo na pozvání, ale tu už byl manžel nemocnej. No a to bylo, více méně, takový sbohem se švagrem. Ten žil v Americe a oni přijeli do Anglie, takže, aby se ještě viděli. No, manžel to nevěděl, že jo, do tý míry. Ale my jsme to věděli. No. A já jsem pak v pětaosmdesátým roce, jsme měli první sraz naší školy, po čtyřiceti letech. Takže to jsem byla. Což bylo opravdu úplně fantastický. Neuvěřitelný. I když po čtyřiceti letech máte pocit, že to jsou spíš čtyři týdny, co jste se neviděla s těmi lidmi. A s kým jsme se přátelili tehdy, tak znovu se to navázalo, to přátelství. To, kdo to nezažil, tak těžko pochopí, ty dojmy. To byl neuvěřitelný zážitek. To bylo překrásný.

A: A jinak udržovala jste s někým kontakt?

B: No, tak s tou Věrou, tu, tam. Pokud to šlo. Protože ona sem jezdila za tou tetou. Že jo? A, když byl Jirka, šedesát šest, šedesát osm. Tak byl u ní. Věrka taky. Jo? Tak s tou ponejvíc. No a hlavně potom v pětaosmdesátým, když se jako znova navázaly kontakty, tak od tý doby s celou řadou, zase. No. Velice mnoho. Takže, říkám, můžeme říct, že máme přátelé po celém světě.

A: Tak můžete jezdit, všude si na výlety a cestovat.

B: No, bohužel i to cestování něco stojí, že jo. Já vím, že když jsem byla poprvý v Americe. Tak já byla na tom východním pobřeží. No, tak to bylo neuvěřitelný je tam vidět, zase ty lidi. To bylo opravdu nádherný. Když každej je taky rád, že vás vidí. A měla jste pocit, že neobtěžujete nikde. Naopak. Jo? Že jste opravdu mezi dobrými přáteli. Kteří se snažili mi ukázat co se dalo. Že jo. Věnovali čas a všecko. Nesmírně příjemní. No. Tak to byly takovýhle milé zážitky.

A: No, a vaše děti jste třeba nějak vychovávali k tomu židovství?

B: No, nikolivěk vědomě. Oni vědí, že jsou židovského původu. Žádný nějaký ty židovské svátky nebo co, jsme nedrželi. Že jo. Vědí, že existují. Za totality Věra chodívala tam mezi tu mládež, tak zvané „děti Majzlovky“. Že jo. Bohužel po převratu se to hodně změnilo, takže už tam přestala chodit.

A: Jak se to změnilo?

B: No, už tam začala chodit jiná parta lidí, že jo. Už to nebylo ono.

A: A co to bylo přesně? Ty „děti Majzlovky“.

B: To byla mládež, právě která, mladí lidé, kteří se hlásili k židovství. A prostě takhle spontánně nějak se stýkali, že jo. Pobavit, popovídat, že jo. Třeba i na nějaký ty svátky, já nevím, tu chanuku. Ne kvůli, že by byli nějaký pobožný, to určitě ne. V žádným případě. Prostě z přátelskýho ducha. A tak nějak. No.

A: A její manžel je taky žid?

B: Ne, ona je rozvedená. Ale tak čtvrt. Její tchýně, ta už nežije teda, ta byla polo. Ale on má velké pochopení jako pro židovskou otázku. Velice.

A: A z té manželovy rodiny vlastně přežil válku kdo?

B: Jenom matka.

A: Jenom matka? A bratr teda.

B: Jo. Bratr byl taky v Anglii. A jeden bratranec, kterej pak emigroval do Izraele. Jo a jedna sestřenice, ale ta byla taky za války v Anglii. Vlastně celá ta rodina, i ti rodiče.

A: A ta matka byla kde jeho?

B: V Terezíně.

A: Jenom v Terezíně?

B: Jo. A ten bratranec jeden, ten myslím byl i v Osvětimi.

A: A osmdesátý devátý rok jste jak prožívala?

B: No, ve velké eufórii asi jako každej jinej. Že jo? To jsem s Honzou, tehdy čtrnáctiletej vnuk, každý den chodili na Václavské náměstí. Dcera byla nějak nemocná. No samozřejmě asi jako každý, obrovský iluze. Který se mnohým z nás rozplynuly do značné míry, ale zaplať pánbůh i za to, co z toho vzešlo. Že jo? To byl ten největší klad toho všeho. Ten režim byl svržený. A doufejme, že se nikdy nevrátí.

A: Ale preference jim rostou.

B: Ano. Bohužel, rostou hodně. Ale i tak nevěřím, že by se doslova vrátil ten režim co byl. Ne v tý míře.

Kazeta 3, strana A

B: Kde jsem bydlela, tak já odhaduji, že mi mohlo být tak.. něco mezi osmi a deseti.

A: To je před tou vilou tam?

B: Ano, na Vinohradech.

A: A nevíte, kdo to fotil?

B: To nevím, to nemám tušení.

A: Tak tohle, dvojka.

B: Tohle, podle toho jsem byla vybraná do toho transportu, to se posílalo, jo. Tohle, jestli se nemýlím, tak to bylo tak braný snad ve škole někde. Čtvrtá třída.

A: To je ta škola ještě česká tady?

B: Česká, samozřejmě. Tohle je tak přibližně ještě ze stejné doby, to mi mohlo být tak tři, čtyři roky, a tady jsem se sestrou.

A: Já bych teda ještě potřebovala nějaké fotografie Vašich rodičů.

B: To já strašně nerada dávám z ruky.

A: No, já Vám věřím.

B: Tohle, no, to samozřejmě originál je jeden jedinej... tohle. Možná, že mám fotokopii otce, to nevím, musím se podívat.

A: A kdybychom tam zašly společně za tím pánem, co to scanuje, že by to udělal na počkání?

B: No, tak jedině tak. A to je třeba?

A: No, oni to tam chcou.

B: Jedině tak. Protože i tohle dávám velmi nerada z ruky. To se přiznám.

A: Tak já nevím, kdy by se Vám to tak nějak hodilo?

B: Teďka přes ty svátky asi nefungujete, viďte?

A: Já tady budu, já klidně, ale zase nevím, jestli on pracuje, protože to je u něho v práci.

B: To jako by bylo tak nejvhodnější. Pondělí vidím na zubaře, ale možná, že v pondělí odpoledne...

A: Tak já se s ním dohodnu, jestli vůbec on bude v té práci teda.

B: No. Ve středu odpoledne to určitě ne, to učím. Jinak zatím nevím. Tak se domluvte a dejte mi vědět.

A: Dobře.

B: A to byste mi pak při tom vrátila.

A: Anebo možná, ono je to zbytečné, že bychom to pak udělaly všechno zaráz.

B: Jo, takhle, tak to jo.

A: Tím pádem byste to Vy měla pořád u sebe.

B: Jo, to jo, dobře.

A: A který jste dělala?

B: Jé, to už Vám nepovím. Já vím, že jsem dělala, a to už je hodně let, taky z obce, jak ona se jmenuje... Dvě ženy to dělaly... Vím, že jsem za ní byla, ne ve Střešovicích, v Břevnově, někde tam... jak ona se jmenuje?

A: Hyndráková, není to?

B: Jo, Hyndráková. Ano, to už je hodně dlouho, tohle.

A: Zhruba tak? Před deseti lety?

B: No, to určitě. Nevím, to bylo někdy v době, kdy přijel jeden spolužák z Izraele a taky jí něco povídal. Už si nevzpomenu, kdy to bylo, ale už jsem bydlela tady, a tady už jsem čtrnáct let.

A. Takže čtrnáct až deset let.

B: Jo. Asi tak nějak. Řekněme ten prostředek. Ale jinak... Zajímavé je, a to už je taky hodně let, se ke mě dostal jeden Číňan, který snad v Číně byl, já nevím, jestli mu bylo sedmdesát, osmdesát, ale žil tady před válkou, protože jeho otec byl tady velvyslancem. Tak žil tady, uměl česky, pak žil taky v Berlíně a když vypukla válka, tak se dostal do Švýcarska a žil ve Švýcarsku. Tak vystudoval historii a zaměřil se na moderní historii a taky přišel, tak jsme mu toho tady napovídala, protože on dával dohromady knihu. A úplně náhodou, je to tak dva, tři týdny, jak má Jana Klusáková vždycky v neděli tu Nedělní knihovničku, tak jsem zaslechla... takhle, on mi potom psal, že ta kniha už je v tisku a že to bude velice dobrý. Tak jsme věděla, že knížka vyšla, a pak jsem se dozvěděla, to může být takové dva, tři roky, že zemřel. A teďka ta Jana Klusáková o tom povídala, že to vyšlo v češtině, ta knížka.

A: A jak se jmenuje?

B: Mezi Berlínem a Prahou. Jang, jak on se jmenuje, já jsem kdysi měla jeho vizitku... to jsem asi vyhodila.

A: Ještě jste se nedívala, co tam psal o Vás?

B: Ne, takhle, protože jsem zjistila, že to stojí asi čtyři sta padesát korun, tak jsem si říkala, na ten odstaveček...

A: To si můžete okopírovat...

B: No. A tak. Já si nepamatuju, s kým vším jsem mluvila, ale bylo jich jako dost.

A: Tak já tam napíšu tu Hyndrákovou.

B: Jo, to určitě. To vím, to určitě, ale jináč... Pak jsem taky s Janou Klusákovou jsem v rozhlase byla, ten host Jany Klusákový jsem byla, a pak tady byl Jiří Vejvoda, když tady byla ta moje kamarádka Věra Gissing z Anglie, tak to jsme něco do rozhlasu povídaly taky, já si to nepamatuju, opravdu.

A: Tak toho máte opravdu hodně.

B: No, hodně. Já si to nepamatuju. Teďka hned po Vás přijde zase nějaká redaktorka, z toho, z Učitelských novin, ježiš pro noviny už hodněkrát, to si ani nepamatuju, vím, že ot bylo konec května nebo začátek června, protože manželka jednoho našeho spolužáka z té školy v Anglii dávala dohromady všechno o té naší škole. A tady se to mělo uložit do toho Národního archivu a já jsem byla s tím senátorem Outratou na letišti, když to přišlo, tak tam taky povídání do toho rozhlasu a snad v televizi... to bylo pak ještě, kolem toho byl článek v novinách...

A: Sbíráte to ještě všechno?

B: V podstatě jo, protože ze mě se stal takovej archivář. A díky tomu, když Matěj Mináč, víte, kdo to je, že jo? Začal děla ten dokument, tak začal dělat něco o panu Wintonovi, dostal se na mě, a to byl asi půl hodinovej rozhovor, celej udivenej, že ještě žije, a přišel ke mně a když zjistil, že já mám ty seznamy, a tam tu knihu výstřižku, tak to byl úplně v sedmém nebi, a tady mi prohrabal všechno, co se dalo, protože já byla úplně taková studna materiálu, že jo, no a stejně tak co se týče dost, i té školy. Ale už jsem si řekla dost, už to nemám kam dávat. Ale vyplatilo se to mockrát, že jo. Každou chvilku se něco děje, tak nějaký článek se hodí, že jo.

A: Letos máte taky sraz s tou školou?

B: Ne, ne ne ne. Nejprv jsme to měli po pěti letech, potom po třech, teďka ta, co ot organizuje, řekla že už dost, jednak že už toho ona má dost, že už jsme staří a nemocní a tak dále, no, bohužel je to pravda, taky vždycky, taky se stává, že někdo umře, že jo, tak začaly velké křiky a protesty, tak že ne, tak zase za tři roky, takže zase za dva roky. Snad.

A: Tak se máte na co těšit.

B: Ale jo. Tak jestliže ne to, tak já hlavně s tou Věrou, tak to se v rámci možností vídáme. Aspoň každej rok, že jo.Ona má těžce nemocnou dceru, tak jinak by asi častěji....

A: Jsem si četla ty dvě knížky od ní.

B: No. Ty Perličky, že jo, a tu Zachráněnou generaci.

A: A teď sjem byla v knihkupectví a úplně náhodou jsem tam našla knížku od Sylvie...

B: Součkový.

A: No, no. Tam měli v Levných knihách výprodej za třicet devět korun.

B: Jo? Takhle, já tu druhou nečetla.

A: Tohle je z Akademie.

B: No ono je obojí z Alademie. To první je myslím Psáno osudem a politikou, jo, tak tu mám, a tu druhou ne, to je něco s Masarykem myslím, říkala. Tak to nevím. To jsem nečetla.

A: No, ale tuhle jsem si koupila za třicet devět korun.

B: Jo? Tak to ani nevím, že je to takto zlevněný. No. To jo. Ona mi ji věnovala, tak ani nevím, za kolik se prodávala. Kde já ji mám? Já ji musela někomu půjčit? Ale to já si hlídám... Já vím, že jsem ji půjčila té...ale ta mi ji vrátila... To bych nerada o to přišla. Taky patří do toho mého archívu. No, takže už znáte řadu mých, to, no anglicky umíte? Tak by možná Vás zajímalo, to Vám ale nedám z ruky, jestli na internetu, tady ty Timezones, Joe Schlessinger. Je to možná víc pro mužské...

A: O čem to je?

B: Dá se říct taky jeho životopis. On je skutečně věhlasnej novinář. Světoznámej. Pracuje v kanadské televizi. A on v tom filmu, ta Síla lidskosti, tam dělá průvodce. A on v tom píše, tak to dětství taky, jak se dostal do Anglie, jak tam byl v té škole a tak. Potom tady utekl v padesátým roce, nebo jednapadesát, a stal se novinářem a pracoval na každém kontinentě. A jelikož je tak mladej jako já, tak ještě teďka nedávno mi psal, že jede na dva týdny do Bolívii a na jaře jako do Evropy, a že si odskočí do Prahy, aby se sem podíval. Takže ten je věčně vytíženej. Protože já, když jsem byla předposledně v Americe, tak za mnou z Kanady přijel. Jenom na den, na dva, což jsem si jako velice považovala, že se utrhl a přijel za mnou. A když jsem tam byla teďka v listopadu, tak to mu nevyšlo, že jo, on pořád pracuje ještě na plný úvazek.

A: A on má nějakou rodinu?

B: No,tak má dvě dcery. Manželka mu zemřela, to bylo akorát v době, jak tady byla premiéra toho filmu Síla lidskosti, proto nepřijel, a to bylo nula jedna. Takže žije sám. Ta jedna dcera se snad teď v léta má stěhovat z Ameriky do Kanady za ním, a druhá je v Americe. No, takže takhle. Dost jako, ta Susi taky psala něco... Říkám, tohle takové hodně politické.

A: Tak já si to zkusím někde najít.

B: Jak říkám, a internetu se to našlo určitě.

A: Celá ta knížka?

B: To nevím. To spíš kdyby se dalo objednat.

A: Ještě jsem se chtěla zeptat...

B: No, nono, povídejte.

A: Tam je jedna podsekce otázek, na které jsem zapomněla: Váš vztah k Izraeli.

B: Eh. Takhle. Rozhodně nejsem sionista. To v žádném případě. Ale pokud... považuji to za vlast židů, že jo, což neznamená, že každý žid tam má žít. Pokud chce, samozřejmě, že ano. A jelikož dva tisíce let bojují o tento svůj pidi státeček a napracovali se tam dost, nadřeli, a z té neúrodné půdy skutečně něco udělali, já myslím, že mají velikej nárok, nebo, naproste járok na tuhle půdu, a měli by je tam v klidu nechat lidé žít. Palestincům neupírají právo žít tam také, vedle sebe, ale musí je nechat v klidu.

A: Sledovala jste ty konflikty, které tam probíhaly? V šedesátém sedmém, sedmdesátém třetím?

B: No, tak studovat určitě ne, to v žádném případě, ale sledovala jsem, co bylo v rozhlase, v televizi, v novinách, no tak to samozřejmě. Já jsem tam byla jen jednou jedinkrát, ještě vlastně za totality, a v momentě, kdy letadlo dosedlo, tak mě.... no, já nevím, je to strašně působivé a strašně silně to působí. Já to neumím vyjádřit. Možná, že někdo, kdo se umí lépe vyjadřovat, tak jo.

A: No, tak to stačí, když je to působivé...

B: Velice. Velice. Velmi silně. Prostě člověk má pocit, ano, sem patřím. Ale na druhou stranu si neumím představit, že bych tam žila.

A: A nikdy jste o tom neuvažovala?

B: Ne. Takhle. Ta možnost se ani v praxi nevyskytla. Možná jen hned po válce, ale já toužila domů z té Anglie, že jo, a je pravda, že v pětaosmdesátým, kdy jsme měli první sraz té naší skoly, a byli tam taky naši spolužáci z Izraele, tak mi to nabídli. Že mi jako pomůžou a tak dále.

A: V tom pětaosmdesátým?

B: V tom pětaosmdesátým. Tak jsem řekla, děkuji pěkně, ale já už tady mám děti, rodinu, v těch letech už jako … těžko člověk jako mí kořeny, ani nevím, jestli bych po tom byla toužila. Těžko říct. Ano, podívat se, samozřejmě, ale žít tam? Těžko.

A: A co Vás nejvíc zaujalo, když jste tam byla?

B: Já nevím.

A: Celkově ta atmosféra? Ten dojem?

B: Ta atmosféra! Já to neumím vyjádřit, ale s kýmkoliv jsem mluvila, moje dcera tam byla taky, a stejněj pocit, jestli to je ta sounáležitost nebo co? Já nevím, já to neumím vyjádřitl. Těžko. Vy jste tam byla?

A: Ne, nebyla, nemám tolik peněz.

B: No. Já to neumím říct.

A: A ještě tam mě napadlo, ta Věra tam píše, jaká nadšená vlastenka v té Anglii ona byla. Vy jste byla taky?

B: Taky, ale ne tolik jako ona. A ona ještě dnes, když sem přijde, tak cokoliv, český chleba, to je to nejlepší, co existuje. Anebo, já nevím, když jí udělám vajíčka, tak český vajíčka jsou lepší než anglický, a i tak, a acylpirin náš je lepší než jejich aspirin.. prostě, nevím, o všem je přesvědčená, že všechno je lepší. No. Takhle, zase není tak neobjektivní, taky ví a zná, jaké jsou tady nedostatky, hlavně jaké byly, takže to umí rozlišit. Ale jo, já taky nemám ráda, když jsem v cizině a někdo řekne něco nehezkého o naší republice. To velmi špatně snáším. Tohle. I kdyby na tom bylo kousíček pravdy, tak to nerada slyším. Tak po té stránky vlastenka jsem, to určitě. Já si na své děti můžu hubovat jak chci, ale žádnej cizí mi na něj sahat nesmí. Asi takhle.

A: Ještě mi tam chybí, kdy měli Vaši rodiče svatbu? Víte to?

B: To vím. Devětadvacátého ledna devatenáct set dvacet dva.

A: A oni měli nějakou židovskou?

B: Asi. Asi. To nevím. To ještě bylo hodně dlouho před mým narozením. A i kdyby, tak to asi... ale řekla bych, že jo, ale zaručit to nemůžu.

A: Jo, Vy jste tam ještě mluvila o prababičce. Pamatujete si na ni?

B: Vůbec. Jo, jojojojo. Ano, Jenom vím, že měla vzadu v Sokolské tam dva pokoje a měla červené plyšové kanapíčko. Jinak nic. Musela být hodně stará. A asi z toho pokoje ani moc nevycházela. A dlouho jsem ji nemohla zažít. To určitě ne. Protože my jsme se do té Sokolské v roce třicet tři, když dědeček zemřel, jsme se tam stěhovali a jestli ještě tehdy žila nebo krátce potom zemřela... a mně bylo pět let, když jsme se tam stěhovali. Tak co si z toho můžu pamatovat? Můžu Vám udělat nějaký čaj, kafe nebo něco?

A: Ne, ne.

B: Tak vodu nějakou?

A: Tak jenom obyčejnou vodu.

B: Bublinkatou, nebublinkatou, ochucenou?

A: Bublinkatou. Děkuji.

A: Pak jsem se ještě chtěla zeptat, s těmi Rudými sokoli jste potom ještě byli nějak v kontaktu?

B: Ne. No, takhle. Ta první rodina, u které jsem byla, jo, tak ti patřili do té organizace, že jo. A vím, že se občas, asi v létě dělali nějaké tábory nebo něco takového. Vzpomínám, že na jednom z nich jsem byla, ale víc nic.

A: A když jste měla prázdniny v té škole, tak jste byla kde?

B: No, asi u té rodiny … ale nějak. To mě vůbec nenapadlo tohle. Čili to asi na mě žádnej dojem nenechalo, asi se nikam nejelo, to už nevím. To nevím. Když jsem byla v té české škole, to jo, to jsem jezdila do Londýna za sestrou.

A: Když jste byla v české škole, tak jste jezdila na prázdniny za ní?

B: Jo, to jo. Ale když jsem byla u těch rodin, tak to si vůbec nevzpomínám. To mi nějak vypadlo z paměti, úplně.

A: Děkuji.

B: Prosím.

A: A jaké jídlo s u Vás vařilo?

B: To nemám tušení. Já jenom vím, že jsem byla strašně vybíravá, já jsem byla hrozné dítě, a maminka nesnášela česnek, tudíž špenát se dělal bez česneku. A to byl vždycky problém, abych ho snědla. Já si nepamatuju, to opravdu nevím. Odjakživa jsem byla mlsná, všechno sladké jsem měla ráda, ale co se vařilo nevařilo...

A: A co Vám chutnalo?

B: No, říkám, všechno sladký.

A: Všechno sladký.

B: Ale to si opravdu nepamatuju. Já jsem nikdy moc na jídlo nebyla, hlavně nejsem. Jsem nejradši, když to nemusím vařit, ale nevzpomínám, opravdu.

A: Ještě jsem se chtěla zeptat, jak jste oslovovala sestru?

B: Mimko. Celá řada lidí jí říkala Mílo, doma se jí někdy říkalo Mimi, já jí říkala Mimka.

A: Tak děkuji, mě už k tomu žádné další otázky nenapadly, když jsem to dělala.

B: Dobře. Tak já Vám tady tohle to doplnila. Ještě teďka, když jsem přišla domů tak jsem honem na to.. když tak se na to jukněte, jestli to tak vyhovuje nebo ne.

A: Je, Vy jste mi to doplnila anglicky, děkuji.

B: No, jo, když to je v angličtině, tak jsem si říkala...

A: Jo, je to lepší.

B: Tak na to jsem jako velice velkej prevít, to dávám velice nerada z ruky.

A: Já jsem myslela, že mu to zanesu teď rovnou, ale on už teď odpoledne nebude v kanceláři, takže mu to zanesu zítra dopoledne.

B: Dobře.

A: Tak do konce týdne by to mohlo být hotový.

B: Já tady docela mám od tatínka tohle, jestli to stačí?

A: No, tak jo, tak se řekne, že nemáte nic lepšího.

B: Já teda ten originál samozřejmě mám... Tak co chcete konkrétně?

A: Tak Vás, když jste byla malá, rodiče, sourozence...

B: Já tady mám tohle, co je pro mě velice vzácná fotka, to jsou rodiče a sestra.

A: A ze kdy to je?

B: Tak třicet osm, třicet devět?

A: A to je před vaším domem?

B: Jo. No, tak náš nebyl, ale v něm jsme bydleli.

A: A sestře bylo tenkrát kolik už?

B: Patnáct? Tak stačí to, coby sestra? Pak tady mám ještě nějaké jiné, ale říkám, čím míň toho dám z ruky, tím jsem radši. Tady mám zrovna ten originál...

A: Ale tak já si klidně půjčím jenom tu kopii.

B: No, nerada bych, jestli to stačí... tohle byla moje maturitní...

A: A jaké jste, Vy jste neměla žádné problémy, když jste se vrátila do Československa? Jak se na Vás dívali?

B: Takhle, já jsem chodila do takzvané repatriantské třídy, což znamená, že každému tam nějaký ročník chyběl. Buď byli totálně nasazení, pak tam byl jeden hoch, co byl v Terezíně, a byli tam asi dva spolužáci, co byli v Anglii se mnou taky, ani neívm, proč ti ostatní, proč... ale většinou končili v kvartě. Věkově jsme patřili do septimy. Já vlastně v Anglii končila v kvintě, takže bych měla pokračovat v sextě, ale já hlavně neměla kde bydlet ze začátku, každou chvíli jinde, každý se domníval, že když jsem přijela z Anglii, tak musím mít kdovíco, kdovíjaké hadříčky, no tak bylo nám sedmnáct, tak která holka se nechce parádit, že jo, za války nic nebylo. Já vím, že za války nebyly taneční. A tak maminka jedné spolužačky, že budeme chodit do tanečních, a že mě vezmou s sebou a že mě bude dělat jakoby garde, a já říkám, děkuji pěkně, ale já nemám žádné šaty na sebe. No to nemohla pochopit. Já, která přijela z Anglie... Já neměla. Nejenom, že tam všechno bylo na příděl, ale my neměli ani jak vyčerpat příděl, protože já neměla za co si co koupit. Že jo. Takže to nikdo nepochopil, tohleto. Prostě jsem byla takovej outsider. A já vím, potom, když jsme měli taky takovej nějakej ten sraz, tak tam jedna spolužačka, která taky v osmačtyřicátém nebo kdy emigrovala, skončila ve Vídni, a pak mi říkala, po dvaceti letech, teďka teprve chápu, jak ti bylo, jak jsi se cítila, když jsi přijela jako emigrantka zpátky jaký to bylo. Jo. Ale na to ona musela být taky v té emigraci, aby to pochopila. Nikdo jinej to nepochopil. Já abych měla aspoň si mohla koupit legitimaci na tramvaj, tak jsem dávala hodiny, abych měla nějakou tu korunu. A prostě žila jsem naprosto jiný život než ostatní.

A: A cítila jste to ze strany nějakých lidí, že by se k Vám stavěli nepřátelsky, kvůli tomu, že jste …

B: No, tak nezapomenu jeden incident jedné naší češtinářky, když jsme dostali za úkol psát, tehdy se tomu říkalo kompozice, dneska by se tomu říkalo slohová práce, jako domácí úkol, české divadlo za okupace. Já jsem za ní šla a říkám, prosím vás, já tohle nemůžu napsat, já tady nebyla. Já o tom nic nevím. Já nevím, kde čerpat nějaké informace... No tak máte rádio, můžete poslouchat rádio. Já jsem říkala nemám. Já nemám žádnej domov, já nemám nic, kde něco čerpat. No byla krajně nepříjemná. Mně se to samozřejmě strašně dotklo, že neměla trochu pochopení, to mě nenapadlo jí cokoliv vykládat o svém osudu, jak jsem žila nebo žiju... ale největší šok byl pro mě, když jsem se dozvěděla snad po dvaceti letech, že vlastně ona, no, asi už nežije, byla židovka, byla v koncentráku, seděla s tou Gustou Fučíkovou, ale to jen tak mimochodem, a já jsem si z toho vydedukovala, že to byl takový, já nevím, antisemitismus je těžko použít tady, ale že, já nevím, že já jsem se musela mít ohromě dobře, když jsem byla v té Anglii, zatímco ona byla v tom koncentráku. No měla, ve srovnání s ní. O tom není pochyb. Na druhou stranu ona měla pochopit, že já jsem bez rodičů a že tne můj život taky nebyl na růžích ustlanejch. Tak nějak tu zlobu si chtěla vylít na mě. Tohle u mě zůstalo to nepochopení. A že úřady nevycházely vstříc, to je jako bohužel víc jak známo, hlavně po osmačtyřicátém. Tak to jsme cítili velice, možná manžel ještě víc než já.

A: Myslíte, že jste měla větší problémy kvůli tomu, že jste židovka, nebo že jste byla v Anglii? Nebo kombinace obou?

B: Kombinace obou. Já bych řekla, že manžel měl větší problémy, že jo, taky byl v té Anglii, a taky tne nesprávný původ, abych tak řekla. Mně se to nedávalo tolik najevo, ale, taky mu to nikdo neřekl do obličeje, ale vyplývalo to z toho. To nesla ta doba s sebou, že jo. Asi takhle. Tak mi teďka řekněte, co všechno... jsem nucena Vám propůjčit. Tak to je babička, to je matka. Co se týče rodičů mého otce, tak o těch nevím nic a taky nemám žádné fotografie, protože ty zemřeli dávno před tím, než jsem se narodila. Jo. O těch nevím nic. Jo, takže, co z toho.

A: Možná že tu matku.

B:Tak. Tohle taky?

A: No, pokud by to šlo...

B: Dobře. To je maturitní, tohle to je, buď tohle, nebo nějaká jiná, to se dávalo..

A: To jste taky Vy?

B: No, nonono. Buď podle toho nebo podle nějaké jiné mě vybírali, nebo, kam jsem ji dal, to je to stejné větší, že jo?

A: Vy jste mi nějaké ty fotky donesla.

B: No, nonono, já teďka koukám, kam jsem je dala. To je asi tak ze současnosti teďka, jo, tady to je. Tak buď, myslím, že podle téhle, ta se posílala. Tahle. To byla nějaká školní, tak co ještě byste ráda?

A: Tak asi tuto, možná i toho tatínka na oskenování...

B: Tohle nebo tohle?

A: Tak která se Vám líbí víc?

B: Tohle.

A: Tak tohle. To je tak ta stejná doba? Ten třicátý osmý?

B: No, určitě.

A: A máte nějaké fotky z Anglie?

B: Možná, že tohle, ale to je jako věkově víceméně... já bych řekla, že ne. Myslíte jako z doby válečný? Myslím, že ne.

A: Ještě mě napadlo, měli jste tam nějaké kapesné v té Anglii?

B: Něco jsme dostávali.

A: Od státu?

B: Ne. To byl takzvaný Czechoslovak Trust Found, ale asi to nějak s vládou muselo souviset. Už jsem se ptala několika lidí, jestli si pamatují, kolik jsme dostávali, ale nikdo si nepamatuje. Takže já vím, že to bylo tak na tu pastu na zuby a případně poštovné nebo tak, ale jinak...

A: Oblečení jste třeba dostávali od nich taky? Nebo to jste si museli kupovat z toho kapesného?

B: Z toho kapesného nikolivěk, vím, že jednou prostě nějakej svetr mi někdo koupil, a jinak taky jsme snad měli možnost jít na Mezinárodní červenej kříž, a to jsem snad využila jednou, že jsme potřebovali nějaké deky, a ty byly pletené. Tak to jsem tady potom po válce tu vlnu rozpárala a ještě ji asi mám. No, tak to mi sestra většinou asi něco dala, když někdo něco odložil... Tak z té válečné, jestli najdu něco skupinového.. Pochybuju, pochybuju...

A: Jak často tam jezdil za váma do té školy někdo z československé vlády?

B: Tak to nevím. Jednou, dvakrát... Vím že ještě, když jsme byli v tom Hinton Hallu, že tam byla jednou Hana Benešová... Tak já nic nemůžu najít.

A: Tak to nevadí, tak kdybyste potom našla třeba něco z toho srazu?

B: Z toho srazu? Tak těch je hodně. Aby se to nepomíchalo.. Jo, tak to fotil ten Joe Schlessinger a tohle byla jeho manželka. Tihle jsou ze Švýcarska a tihle dva jsou z Izraele. Jo, tak když jsme měli první ten sraz, tak jsme každý u stolu našli pohled, ot je to městečko, a každému tady něco napsali. Což bylo strašně hezké.

A: Z toho městečka ti lidi?

B: No, ano, ti obyvatelé. Tak tady je taková skupinka.

A: Tak nějakou skupinku, kde byste byla Vy a třeba ta Věra.

B: Tady třeba, ale to zase nejsme tak moc vidět.

A: Anebo máte nějakou fotku s Wintonem třeba?

B: Určitě jo. Tady jsem, tady jsem jednou přinesla tu vlajku. Tohle je ta budova, dneska je to opět hotel. Tady nám přišly dětičky zpívat. Tady je zase Věra, tady jsem já...

A: A tady to je kdo?

B: To je taky spolužák, ten je z Izraele zrovna, taky.

A: To je z toho osmdesátého pátého ty fotky?

B: Jo. Z toho posledního nemám ani jednu. To je těch fotek čím dál tím míň. Protože já nefotím, tak jak někdo pošle, tak tentokrát mi nikdo nic neposlal... Tohle to je pozdější... Jo, to je teďka, dva tisíce pět.

A: Tak poslal.

B: Jo. To je ten Joe Schlessinger, to je ta Věra, tady to je Milena, Lady Milena, a to je Eva Krušinová, ta žije tady.

A: Tak mohla bych tady tuto?

B: Nono.

A: A mohla bych si kdyžtak půjčit i tady tu školu, jak tu máte tu fotografii?

B: No, nonono. Jako samotnou tu budovu, jo? Tady je to. Tohle je taky hezký. My jsme na tom prvním srazu tam zasadili lípu. Taková malinká, dneska už je to strom velikej, tak tohle tam nechali přidělat. Tak si s tím pohraju později. Takže, jeden, dva, tři, čtyři, pět, šest, sedm, jo? Stačí.

A: Jo ještě nějakou tu novější.

B: Tak tady, jeden, dva...

A: To jenom jednu.

B: No, právě, tak kterou?

A: Tak tuhle. Ještě kdyžtak nějakou Vaši poválečnou.

B: Poválečnou máte tady.

A: Já myslím s manželem. Případně s dětmi.

B: No ježišmarja.

A: A nějakou s tím Wintonem.

B: Jo, s tím Wintonem. Nevím, kde hledat. To není ono, jestli ji najdu zrovna... Samozřejmě, že nenajdu... Todlencto bylo v roce devadesát osm, čili všem, co nám bylo sedmdesát.

A: Jo, to je paní Šímová tady.

B: Taky nic. No, tak tady je jedna, to není zrovna nejpovedenější. Tady je v Krumlově.Já vím, že nějaká je ještě z Václaváku, když tady byl poprvé, v tom jedna devadesátým.

Strana B:

B: ...no, kdekdo.

A: Co to je za strom, tady co máte před stromem?

B: To je sakura, ta japonská třešeň. Což je nádhera tuto dobu, a pak říkám, pak to bude fuč a my tady budeme mít takový růžový koberec. To jk všechny ty květy spadnou, takže je všechno na zemi..

A: To jste taky Vy?

B: Jo. Jsem se rozčílila.

A: Co Vám provedli?

B: Já nevím, furt něco. Pořád něco. Já byla téměř nejmladší, takže si mě dobírali.

A. A kam jste jezdila na lyže?

B: To bylo myslím Svatej Petr. Asi jednou nebo dvakrát. Já to nenajdu. Že by tady něco? Pochybuju... Tady je svatební moje, jestli Vás to zajímá...

A: Vaše sestra Vám šla za svědka?

B: Za svědka ne, ale byla tam. Já Vás zklamu...

A: Tak to nevadí, tady to stačí.

B: To je fotek, ale když člověk to hledá, tak samozřejmě to není... Furt. Nemám... Až to budu uklízet, až budete pryč, tak je najdu.

A: Tak až je budete potřebovat příště, tak budete vědět, kde jsou.

B: Ne, to už mezitím zase rozházím... já jsem to měla docela srovnaný, ale jak každou chvilku někdo něco chce a něco jiného, tak mám tady v tomhle takový maglajz. Ještě jediný, že bych něco měla, jak mám samotného Wintona... Tak to za chvíli donesu fotku...To jsou ty moje, jak říkám, archívy. Tady mám jednu jeho s manželkou... Z toho nevidím nic. To je ta Betty Maxwell, to byl velvyslanec tady, ale při jaké příležitosti, to nevím, co byl zač.

A: Já bych potřebovala nějakou, kde jste Vy s Wintonem.

B: No, podívám se, jestli něco najdu, ale nevím, nevím. Tady je jedna ze školy, to je naše tercie. Tak bohužel. Když, tak já jsem už ztratila Vaše číslo, tak mi ho napište, kdybych něco našla, tak bych Vám zavolala.

A: Nebo až Vám já přijdu vrátit ty fotky, tak potom.

B: No.

A: Chcete to mé číslo teda?

B: Jojo. Ale až se uvidíme, tak stejně... Taky si napíšu číslo, pak nevím, kdo to je...

A: Já jsem tam napsala i jméno.

B: Jo. Díky. Takže kdy myslíte, že byste to měla?

A: No, tak on to tak dělá do týdne?

B: Případně mu můžu říct, aby is tak trošku pohl, že bych Vám to vrátila už o víkendu. No, třeba.

A: Já taky budu radši, když už ta zodpovědnost na mě nebude. Mohla bych ještě tyhle dvě?

B: Ale jo.

A: Tohle, to jste mi říkala, to jste Vy před Vaším domem.

B: Před domem, ano. Tam jsme bydleli.

A: A třída asi tak která? Nebo rok?

B: Třicet sedm, třicet osm.

A: Dva. To jste Vy a Vaše sestra.

B: Ano.

A: A kde to mohlo být focené?

B: To je asi u fotografa bych řekla. No, to je fotograf, Staromák.

A: A rok?

B: To bych tak řekla, že mi mohly být tak tři roky, tak třicet jedna, třicet dva.

A: To je maminka, trojka. A co je to tak za rok, asi?

B: Nevím, něco mezi třicet šest a třicet devět.

A: Čtyři je tatínek, a taky ten třicet šest?

B: No, tak nějak.

A: Pět, to je Vaše fotka, když jste jela do Anglie...

B: Ano, ta se posílala, podle toho jsem byla vybraná.

A: Tak fotka je to pěkná...

B: Čili třicet devět. Určitě.

A: Tak šestka, to jsou rodiče a sestra před domem.

B: Mh. Tak třicet osm bych tipla.

A: Sedm to jste Vy u maturity.

B: Ano, to je rok čtyřicet sedm.

A: Vy jste měli nějaké tablo taky?

B: Hm.

A: Osm je Vaše svatební. Svatbu jste měli na Staroměstské radnici?

B: Ne, Clam-Gallasův palác. Tam se tenkrát oddávalo. To ještě nebyla radnice.

A: To je osm. Devět. Devět je sraz té Vaší školy.

B: Dva tisíce pět.

A: A ti lidi, co tam jsou, to je kdo?

B: No, tak Eva Krušinová, ta žije tady, ta dělala sestřičku a její manžel byl češtinář. A její vnuk je Pavel Zuna. A tady ot je ten Joe Schlessinger, ten dělal toho průvodce tím filmem, to je Lady Milena, která organizuje ty srazy.

A: To je ta za ním?

B: To je ta za ním. A Jinač je tady známá jako Lady Remoska, která zavedla prodej remosek do Anglie. To je Věra, to jsem já, a to je Uta, taky jedna spolužačka.

A: A ta bydlí v Anglii nebo kde?

B: Jo, v Anglii. Joe je v Kanadě, akorát Eva a já jsme tady, jinak ty tři jsou v Anglii.

A: A je to před tou školou?

B: Tady, to je ta budova, zboku to je. Čili asi tahle část. Když se jde, takhle se přichází tamtudy.

A: A sešli se tam i nějací učitelé na tom srazu?

B: Vždyť už nežijou. Jedině ten ředitel, kterému bylo sto v prosinci.

A: Ten tam taky jezdí za váma,

B: Ne, ten byl akorát jednou, když jsme měli v Krumlově ten sraz. V pětadevadesátým.

A: A on se vrátil do Československa?

B: Jo, on žije tady.

A: Tak to je devět. Desítka je ta škola.

B: Ano, ta škola.

A: A jedenáct jste Vy. A ještě teda toho Wintona?

B: Jo, tahle, jo?

A: No, nono.

B: To je taky v Krumlově, v pětadevadesátým.

A: A ti lidi?

B: To je Ruth Hálová, ta žije v Krumlově, to je manželka a to je Lia, nevím, jak se teď jmenuje, ta žije v Anglii.

A: A jaký měl Winton program, když tady byl?

B: No, tak přijel na ten sraz hlavně. Že jo. Tehdy.

A: Devadesát pět. Takže to byl sraz školy?

B: To byl sraz školy a on přijel, ano.

A: Aha.

B: A myslím, že ještě zůstal pak nějak den u Ruth... on se tady zdržel ještě... a pak tam jel na víkend? Já už si to nepamatuju. Opravdu.

A: A tak strávíte s ním hodně času, když tady je, že jo.

B: No, to samozřejmě. Takže je jich kolik?

A: Mělo by jich být dvanáct podle toho číslování. Takže já mu to tam zítra zanesu a hned Vám zavolám, kdy Vám to vrátím.

B: Dobře.

A: Děkuji.

B: … přátelé mých rodičů.

A: To jsou ti, co emigrovali kamsi pryč? Ti chemici?

B: Ano. A tohle to byla vlastně sestra mého švagra.

A: A oni se potom vrátili do Československa zůstali tady.

B: Ano. Oni byli bezdětní, takže my jsme jako jim tak trošičku dělali, no, oni byli trošku mladší než rodiče, asi deset let, ani ne.