Travel

Dezso Deutsch
Budapest
Hungary
Interviewer: Dora Sardi and Eszter Andor

My family background
Growing up
School years
During the war
Post-war

My family background

My paternal grandparents were born in Hungary around the 1850s. My grandfather’s name was David Deutsch. I do not know my grandmother’s name;  I never met  her. She died young, in childbirth. Grandfather David died in 1936 at home, in Bakonytamasi, where he . He had been living there all along. One of my father’s grandfathers fought in Kossuth’s army [in the 1848 Hungarian War of Independence]. That Which means that, beside having a strong Jewish identity, he believed and considered himself a Hungarian.

I do not have real living memories of my father’s brothers and sisters. It is because I did not visited them very often. I know about one of his sisters of his, who . This sister helped her father run their store. She wagsot married, and her son and daughters who managed to survive the war, tnow hey all live abroad. My father had a brother, too, who moved to Ujpest and had a shoe store. He did not survive the Holocaust, either. Many of my relatives live abroad.

My mother’s parents lived in Tet, near Gyor. Tet was quite a big village. There was a  rabbi;, who lived there, there was everything a Jewish community needed. T, there was an Orthodox and a Neolog branch, too. There was a shochet, as well. The proper religious Jews devoted their lives completely to their being Jewish, to business and to the family.

Grandfather’s name was Bernat Sauer, grandmother’s Lina. She must have been born in the 1860s. My grandparents had a store which was then called the haberdasher’s. They traded with all kinds of clothing and sold fabrics too. The store was on the Main Street, near the Main Square, in the city. It was named the Sauer Haberdashery. They had a big family house. I do not know how many rooms exactly, but four is for sure. They needed it too as the family was a big one. And the store was in the same building only it opened onto the street.

They [my grandparents] occupied themselves with two things: business and synagogue. They had their own seats in the synagogue. Grandfather had some kind of position in the Jewish community, I am not sure what it was exactly but he was a member of some committee and  probably even  the president of that board. Grandfather would go to synagogue twice a day. He prayed with the prayer shawl and leined [the reading of the Torah] tefilin [phylacteries]. Almost like an Orthodox of the strictest kind. He wore ordinary dark gray suits [not a caftan]. He had  little payot, which he tucked behind his ears. He did not have a beard but his head was always covered – he wore a hat even when at home. Grandmother naturally wore a wig and in the house she wore a kerchief on her head. Grandmother partly ran the house, partly worked in the store. But as a matter of course, there was a house maid as well.

It was mostly at summertime that we would visit them, but not too much of that either. I was not too enthusiastic about the [maternal] grandparents and was not very keen on visiting them anyhow. We, the young generation had a little more modern way of  life and thinking, in the school too, and we were raised without being compelled to wear caps, and I had a moderate hairstyle too. I was about 13 or 14 and had a hairstyle when I went to visit my grandparents and the first thing they did was to have my hair cut saying that one could not appear before the rabbi like that. And there they would see to it that we wore something [hat or kipa] on our heads all the time.

My mother had five brothers and sisters, two of them my mother’s elders. There was Kari  [Karoly], then Aunt Riza, Aunt Sari, Naci, Uncle Dezso and my mother. My mother as well as the other children received the same [strictly Jewish] education. We were really and truly religious yet everyone of us spoke Hungarian but of course we all had an excellent command of Yiddish as well, and sometimes we switched over to that language.

The young ones worked for the [family] business for a while, then each went on their way. Some  moved  to Paks, others to other places. Some opened a store of their own. Each had some kind of a store but none of them dealt with foods. Sari had a leather goods store. All of them got married. Aunt Sari had two children, both of them girls, Aunt Lisa had two as well, one of them, Shmule lives in Israel: he emigrated as a young lad in 1939 and took part in the wars of  liberation too. He established a family in Israel. Dezso had three children – two girls and one boy, the latter died during the war.  He [Uncle Dezso] also had some kind of a store. Uncle Naci became director to a store that belonged to a big mining company, he sold [mining] tools and accessories. I do not know where it was: he became a little estranged from the family. He too had a family, wife and children as well. Karoly had married already before the war and they all died, they were all taken to Auschwitz along with the grandparents. Karoly alone came back home and here he remarried, established a new family then went to Israel and died.

My father’s name was Mor Deutsch. He was born in 1882 in Bakonytamasi  but of course he did not live there. My mother, Iren Sauer, was born in Tet in 1887. My father actually completed his elementary studies only, then, I think, he went to Vienna where he worked and learnt the language. First he married a very religious woman from Papa. It was an arranged marriage. Unfortunately she died in childbirth, but the child, Zoltan, survived. My father remarried, there was a young lady recommended to him – as was the custom of those days – and he married her. The little boy was less then a year old when he came into the custody of my mother. To me Zoltan was as if he had been my own brother and as far as I remember I only came to know later that he was not full kin to us. Later he came to live in Celldomolk where he opened a small store which in time grew bigger and bigger.

Growing up

[In Celldomolk] the majority of the Jews settled in the core of the town but not in separation. There was no ghetto, but the Jews lived close to each other, not in one single street, but in a few streets within one neighborhood. Our next door neighbor on the right was Christian as well as the one on the left side. But we had a good relationship. The Jews mostly made friends with Jews but we maintained good connections with the others as well, partly on account of the business. In Celldomolk there was an Orthodox and a Neolog community. The two communities were not on good terms with each other at all. They spectacularly neglected each other. The two schools fought and eventually the Orthodox community took over the school where pupils from Neolog families could come as well, however there were Neolog families who sent their children to some other school. Nevertheless, friendly private connections did exist between Orthodox and Neolog people.

Our store was in the center of Celldomolk, and I think it was the best store in Celldomolk. It offered everything except for food, that is, fabrics, haberdashery, shoes. It belonged mostly to the family as we were four of us brothers and two sisters and my mother was an excellent business woman. She also worked there part time but there were employees too. Generally eight or nine people were employed, mostly Jews.

In the store there was everything on stock: carpets, fabrics, silk. The store was in a one-storey house but it was a long building. It consisted of several departments. There was the textile department, the department of accessories, then shoe department. Later, after having finished school, I became the director of the shoe department. My father bought the goods mostly in Budapest, but there were wholesalers in Papa, or in Szombathely. Partly he himself traveled, and later we also went up to Budapest to get stuff, partly the big firms had their agents who toured the country with the collection and one could order from them.

My parents worked very hard. A holiday was out of the question for them and we were there to help them. There was nothing like going on holidays like people do today, only at times of religious celebrations would they close the store. The family never had their lunch together except for religious festivals. No such thing as lunchtime existed at work: we would go and get our meals one after another in the flat at the rear end of the house. Evening dinners were more like family gatherings because by that time the store was already closed. In those days business was very important for Jewish families. When opening hours were regulated by law, the store was open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. But in the wintertime, when Sabbath was over,  my father would go and open the store even on Saturdays. That’s when the new week came in early and he would go and open the store at around 5 for an extra hour or so. There was a steady system of credits. We had lots of customers who worked for monthly salaries and came regularly to us and were indebted to us and many would purchase goods on credit. There were some who would pay only a part of their debts, and accounts had to be kept for them. At the same time we ourselves purchased goods on credit. This was a widely accepted custom.

My mother did not have to struggle too much with household chores as she herself worked in the store. She would not go out shopping too often. At the time of weekly fairs we had so many customers, it would have been impossible for my mother to go to the market.  It was always the housemaid who went [to market]. She was the one who cooked, she knew what to buy. But she went to kosher places only – she was not allowed to go anyplace else. But our customers often brought us presents, like fruits or vegetables. It was an absolute necessity for us to have a housemaid who was capable enough and would keep an eye on everything because most of the time my mother was busy with the store. And that stood for my grandparents too. Because  my grandmother was also busy with the store. Women had their very important, decisive role in the business. The housemaid was a real family member for us. She would help with everything, she learnt how to keep kosher and was verily like a grandmother. She lived with us – there was a place fixed for her next to the kitchen but she never ate with us – she had her meals in the kitchen. 

My mother also had a beautiful wig. Every day someone came to comb it. They put the wig on for her and so she was ready to start the day. Ladies wore only long sleeves even in summer and the tops were long too, as well as their skirts, but they looked very attractive all the time. My mother’s deepest concern was to raise us in the manner that we become good Jews, but she accepted that times were changing and she considered, for example, that maybe it was not so very necessary for us, boys to wear caps all the time, though it is also true that  in spite of our conduct  which was a bit closer to modern ways, we still remained very much Orthodox. We did not really digress from religion, just handled certain things in a different way. In fact the Jewry of the time had two main concerns: the great fair and the religious holidays. Those were the events we were always preparing for. Of course we young people frequented cafes, we were allowed to go to the dancing school when I was 18-19-20 years old. I and my brothers and sisters were absolutely Orthodox, but not that old fashioned. Well, my mother was not so happy about it, but what could she do? A typical reaction of hers was when I received my call up to the army, in her first shock she asked:  “yeah, but what about your meals?”

My parents were not particularly educated, and we did not have too much money, so we did not buy too many books. They would rather read books on Jewish matters if  they read books at all.  
We subscribed to the paper Egyenloseg [Equality] and to the Pesti Naplo [Pest Diary] which was the best paper of its time, a daily. Then there was the Miriam [prayer book for women], which was in Hungarian. My mother, however, read Hebrew beautifully too, only she did not understand what she was reading, so she would rather read the ladies’ prayer book in Hungarian.

During the first world war my father served  in the Italian front from 1917 to 1918. He came back when the war was over. He received a decoration  and I remember that he brought his pistol home, which he kept hidden somewhere. And at home he was a Jew and a Hungarian at the same time. And as being a member of the Alliance of Front Warriors decorated with an award of war merit,  he was convinced he would never suffer any harm from the Hungarians,  then see what happened.

Where I was born that was a smaller house and the store was in a separate building. Then later we had a pretty big house with a big yard and the store in the front and the family lived in the rear tract. We had four rooms which we needed too because I had two sisters and three brothers. My eldest brother was Zoltan. He, just like everyone of us, worked in the store, then in 1937 or 38 he became self-employed and moved to Dobrogkoz. That’s where he married and he went on working there. He had one child. He always observed his religion very strictly. Then there was Jeno. He was born in 1911. He too started working in the store and never left. Then he got married and two children were born to them. The elder must have been about three and a half when he was deported to Auschwitz, the other one less then six months old. Jeno was drafted into forced labor and died a few weeks before the end of the war in Mauthausen. Nandor was with him all along. The next brother is Nandor. He too worked in the family store, got married, was deported and his wife and little daughter perished. He alone came back from Mauthausen. Then I came in 1918, then my sister, Rozsi who was born in 1921. That time it was the custom that children had to help in the store. But she finished her studies too. She was a beautiful, intelligent girl. Unfortunately in 1943 she got married. My father strongly objected. not because of the boy but he said “You have four brothers and if one of them is unable to attend the wedding ceremony, you should not get married.” But she did and that was her bad luck. She too was deported and when her hairs were shaved the doctor noticed that she was pregnant and immediately she was sent to the gas, though she had been selected for work because she was strong and healthy, she could have survived the camp. My youngest sister, Margit,  was born in 1928. She was 12 when I left, a beautiful one, still in school. She was 16 when she was deported. She was also killed.

School years

I went to the Jewish elementary school which was a school of six grades. It was run by the Orthodox community. Here everybody was Jewish and as far as I remember there were Orthodox students wearing payot, but that was the only difference between them and us, we were all equally religious. We did not wear payot. Everybody spoke Hungarian, but the schoolteacher spoke Jewish [Yiddish] occasionally. We understood both.

When I finished elementary school I wanted to go to middle school. At first my mother strongly objected and said I did not need it and why should I go to a totally secular school. Eventually I went to the middle school in Celldomolk which was said to be a very good school. My mother consented to it on condition that I was not going to do any writing on Saturdays. The director was a decent man so it was I alone in the whole school who got the permission to be exempted from  writing. [On Sundays]. I would not even bring my schoolbag to school  – everything I needed I packed on Fridays, I left them in my desk and on Saturdays I would just be sitting and listening all day. In the school there were some Jews, they were Neolog, not religious. I had Christian classmates, but neither from them nor from the part of the teachers ever came anything [anti-Semitic remarks] because there was this director, a very strict and firm person but very nice and honest at the same time. My favorite subjects were arithmetic and geometric. I was the best student in my class. I also liked German, because I knew Yiddish so I was good at it too. I did not have to attend religious education. When the class started I would just go home, when it ended, I walked  back. During my school years I played football, I was member of a team. Later we played these games, mostly table tennis, and teams were set up by Catholic, Lutheran and Jewish societies.

From my first grade on I attended another school too, where I studied Jewish subjects. It was not a proper yeshiva, it was a kind of pre-yeshiva. It was run by the Orthodox community and we were about the ten of us students there. We studied Humesh [the five books of  Moses], Rashi [commentaries to the Talmud written by Rashi], Gemore  [Gemara, part of the Talmud which interprets and explains the Mishna which preceded it], as well as Tosefot [critical and analytical glossaries attached to the Mishna and the Gemara]. The classes had their special choreography. There  was a copy of the Talmud and we would read out from it, then the bocher [yeshiva student] explained it, then we discussed it  and gave the explanation of the different stories and we were supposed to understand the different points of view of the sages. We translated everything into Yiddish. Then sometimes we discussed the same thing in Hungarian. The discussion was in Hungarian. There was no homework but a so-called review or report on Sundays. It was conducted by the rabbi and he asked questions on the subjects we had covered  the previous week  It was not a proper exam but rather a discussion of the material we had studied the previous week. He would ask questions and he would add his own explanation to the given question. I liked going to this place but it was quite stressful because I would come home from school, have my lunch and by two o’clock I had to be there. I generally studied until six and I had to do my homework in the evening [for the middle school.]

Friday evenings and festival nights in general were decisive in the life of the family. [On Fridays] we would go to the synagogue with my brothers and sisters. Women would stay at home because they prepared the dinner with the help of the housemaid, of course, who was naturally a Gentile. She would serve the Friday meal and she would fetch the Saturday dish from the baker’s. [After worship] there came the Friday dinner. According to the tradition  my father blessed the boys one after the other, every week, which was such an uplifting feeling. [For dinner] we often had  stuffed fish, also soup and chicken stew. After dinner there was zmirot [psalms], singing. Then on Saturday mornings we would go to the synagogue. Then we would have lunch. 

Of course all Jewish tradition was strictly observed in the family. I have a very vivid memory of an event. One Saturday morning I was out in the yard when someone knocked on the door and one of our regular customers stood in the door with her sobbing daughter. As it turned out the daughter was to have her wedding the next day and her shoes which they had bought in our store were too small for her. So the mother said, “Please, Mr Dezso, I know that this is a holiday for you, but please, do me a favor and let me exchange these shoes. I am not even going in, you just hand it out”. Well, I did not have the heart to refuse her, I went in and brought a pair one size bigger which meant I did not have to touch money at all or anything, and just when I was handing over the shoes my father came. He saw me coming out of the store with a parcel in my hand, on a Saturday, and the lady started to explain that she was responsible, she was the one who asked me to do it and the like. My father did not say a word, he just simply went into the house. But when the customers were gone, he started to shout at the top of his voice. He actually hollered and declared that as long as he lived and the store belonged to him, nobody in that house would ever be allowed to work on Saturdays. In short he was always aware of what was the most important thing at a given moment: business, synagogue, family.

All holidays were strictly observed. The store was closed, we celebrated the holiday and went to worship. The most distinguished holiday was Pesach because that is one of our most important holidays starting with the Seder night. On Seder night we went to the synagogue, then we held the Seder which could go on until as late as half past eleven. There was a rich Seder plate, with  naturally charoses [a mixture of ground nuts, apple, wine and cinnamon] on it, along with bitter herbs and eggs and there was salty water on the table. It was my father who held the Seder, he explained everything. I, as the youngest boy read the Haggadah out. Everything [all utensils] were kept apart for Seder. In this period nothing was used from what we used normally, everything had been carried up to the attic. On the day before there was the process of doing hometz [the removal of all leavened products from the house] which lasted for one day. I did not take part in that, it was done by my mother and the maid. Whenever we were given any new clothing as children, it came for Pesach.

Then there was Succoth. Outside the entrance to the house we had a kind of fenced arbor. In the summertime one could sit there then in the afternoon my father and his friends played cards there. Then at the time of the Succoth it was very easy to prepare the tent, and everyone would eat there during the holidays. We had of course lulav [palm tree branch], and etrog [a kind of lime fruit]  in the house and we would be sitting out under the tent and read the Kohelet [Ecclesiastes; one of the five scrolls] and other things. My father would explain things and we also told what we were taught about those things at school. At Chanukah candles were lit in the synagogue, every day, as it came, one after the other. My mother would light them at home too and she told the blessing on it each evening, along with the girls. We, children would play, played with the spinning top. At Purim it sometimes happened that some kind of a role-play was staged in the school. They would animate the story of Esther, they would put on costumes, learned the roles and perform  the play. We would prepare presents, some cookies. Everyone would bake some, send it to their friends and close acquaintances and of course would get a lot in turn. There were some students with us who lived in the countryside but wanted to go to some Jewish school and so they came to live in Celldomolk and “eat days” [i.e. they would go and have their lunch with different Jewish families each day]. My mother regularly received such students then at each holiday we would be given huge parcels from the parents of these children.

During the war

I finished the middle school in 1938. Then I started to work in the store. At first [my duty was] selling goods, keeping the place tidy, then later on I did the purchase along with my father. We had a separate shoe department which was not a common thing those days and I became assigned to direct that department. My father would never stay behind the counter. There was a strict counter-system those days. My father would stay in the customers’ area while I stood behind the counter. I worked in the store until 1940.

In the middle of 1940 I received my call up letter from the army. I registered as a regular soldier and did not know that that could be the beginning of something. We were taken to Koszeg where after two sessions of training we were rounded up and told that we weren’t trustworthy enough to defend the country so we would serve as laborers. An indeed this was the first forced labor division, so we became the first Jewish forced laborers. We worked in Koszeg for a while, then at road constructions, trenching and unloading train carriages. There was also some agricultural work. It was all quite hard but we were all young and strong. From time to time we were allowed to send a postcard home but were not given any leave. From places all over the country Jews who were liable to military service had been directed to Koszeg, so two divisions were set up. We were told that we were expected to follow absolute discipline and the slightest breach of discipline would be sanctioned. There came 1942, the two years almost passed [the duration of compulsory military service] when in the summer of that year we were instructed to write a postcard home and say that we wanted them to send us all the necessary clothing for march as well as for cold weather because we were not entitled to be given any clothing any more. They packed us into a train and that was when a very typical scene occurred. The trains that carried the soldiers of the Hungarian Army to the front were finely decorated with flowers. When we arrived at the railway station a train beautifully prepared like that was standing there. When our commander caught sight of it, he ordered that all flowers should immediately be removed because we were only Jews and not Hungarians defending their country.

We traveled almost one week by that train. Food was not distributed too often and when we stopped we were already on the territory of Ukraine. Then came the march on foot. We were informed that we were going to cover more than 1,000 km in cavalry march – which meant 30 km per day and there would not be any rest only after having walked 15 km – so we’d better throw away all luggage that was not absolutely necessary, like canned food, and so on. The march lasted for more than a month and not once did we sleep under a roof. During the march we were given food too, I won’t say that it was sufficient and delicious but some kind of catering it surely was. And the weather was not that bad, as it was the summer period. Then we arrived at the river Don where we got accommodated in nasty tents and the trench digging and tank trap setting started. It was an absolutely senseless work to do and in the meanwhile fall, then the merciless wintertime and the frontline was approaching. Until fall we had been having a relatively nice commander who had no ill intentions. But when it dawned on him that the front was rapidly approaching and it would be impossible to defend ourselves, he asked for a leave and never came back. He was replaced by another one who was ruthless and a sadist and we were falling like flies.

I got hit in November and to my great luck I was taken to a hospital where the Hungarian soldiers got treatment, but the Jews were just thrown into the basement without beds or anything. The doctor would come down once a day but did nothing  -- Jews were not supposed to get medicament or bandage. We were given some kind of food and when I was already recovering I started to help those around me. One day the First Lieutenant Surgeon came downstairs to visit and he was accompanied by a girl. After the doctor had left she hurried up to me and asked “Mr. Deutsch, don’t you recognize me? I used to be a regular customer of your store in Cell[domolk], see these shoes, I bought them in your store. I am not in the position to help but I will try to keep an eye on you.” Days were passing and all of a sudden she comes and whispers in my ears that the next day everyone capable of walking would be sent back to the front, because the hospital was too crowded and I’d better figure out something. So the next day the First Lieutenant duly came and told us that we should be on our way. I told him I had just been written to my unit and asked for my clothes that I left behind when I was taken to the hospital and if I were to get back right now, I would just outright miss my baggage, and it was minus 30 degrees Celsius there and I was sure to freeze to death right away. He was a decent guy so he took me off the list and said that I should go by the next transport. And a few days later he even managed to organize me as a help-all in the basement, along with another guy. We had to bring the food, carry out the dead, look after  everybody and the like. So I got access to the kitchen where I was sometimes given an extra portion and that way I could share my regular portion with the other people downstairs.

That was going on like that for a while and one morning we woke up to realize that the hospital was empty. Food and all equipment lying around, the whole building deserted. While the Russians attacked, the Hungarians fled and no one cared about us, we were just left behind. For a few days we did not really know what had happened, then the Russians came and told that we were prisoners of war. For a short period of time we stayed on, then we were transported to camps. We went by train as far as the Eastern borders of Russia. It was already summertime by the time we arrived at our destination, the summer of 1943. Here I stayed for five years. Our job was the felling of trees. It was extremely cold, the rule was that we went to work only when the  temperature was above minus 40 degrees Celsius. If it fell under 40 degrees we would be given a day off. Boarding was all right and all those who reached these camps  starting off from the road construction in Hungary, all of us survived. Here one did not have to die any more.

Post-war

In 1947 those who were not fit for work because of their health were sent home – regardless of their being Jewish or German or Italian or Hungarian – we were all put together, but in the barracks people were separated according to their nationalities. The Jews however were not accommodated separately, we lived where the Hungarians lived. I’ll never forgive them for treating us the same way [as the non-Jewish Hungarians] and that we were not sent home earlier. In 1947 we were given a postcard so we had the chance to write back home ( it was the first time after five years that I was allowed to write home) that we were alive and well. And as I did not know whom to write and of course one had heard many things of what happened to the Jews, I wrote the postcard and addressed it to the Mayor’s office in Celldomolk. My brother got my card and knew that he could expect me home. Then in the spring of 1948 we too were released and sent home –  that year there was a big release campaign .

I went to Celldomolk straight away as I got home from captivity. My brother had already been home for almost three years, he got married and had a child too. I went home – in our house there lived my brother, his wife and their six-month-old little daughter. My brother told me what happened to whom. It was horrible. I helped my brother in the store but that time stores already started to become nationalized so I was given a job in Szombathely in a textile emporium where I dealt with the distribution of products. This store fulfilled the demands of  the whole Vas county. I got promoted to a relatively high position. I joined the party but then those days that was kind of natural, although I never became a very busy party member.

Of course one had to work on Saturdays too but I always remembered that it was a holiday. And I went to the synagogue on the high holidays. I took a day off  so that I could attend the service. It was quite obvious to everybody but I would never talk about it in particular. It was maybe the day before Yom Kippur when the secretary of the party comes up to me and asks whether I am taking a day off in order to go to the synagogue. I told him that it was so. So he says “you’d better not go, it is not really appreciated.” So I answered that at Yom Kippur there is a ceremony when we remember our deceased. During the war my grandparents, two brothers, two sisters, my parents and cousins got killed. He stopped bothering me, I think he got the message. I attended the synagogue anyhow, not much for prayers but I was seeking connection with my fellow Jews. There was a common room above the prayer hall –  the synagogue itself was too big for us – where we played cards and chatted, I went there quite frequently. I kept connection with the Jews all along.

It was in Szekesfehervar during a business trip that I got acquainted with Klari, my wife, who lived with her father. Her mum had been killed in Auschwitz, but she and her father had come home. Her father Andor had an upholstery while Klari worked as a shop assistant. When we decided to get married I applied to be transferred to Szekesfehervar. By that time I was already the second person at  the company, but Klari would not leave her father on his own and no place else could we have such a nice and spacious home as in Szekesfehervar. So I got transferred to a local textile center as a  distributor and  purchaser.

We had a civil wedding, but afterwards we went to the Szekesfehervar rabbinate, accompanied by a very few people only, and the rabbi also married us. In the mid-fifties this was not a common thing to do but to us it meant a lot. We regularly attended the synagogue and we were active members of the Jewish community. The Jewish community had about 30 members. That time it was not trendy to be Jewish and there were lots of mixed marriages. At the time of holidays we were always present in the prayer house – there was no proper synagogue functioning here either – and we would organize meetings as well. 

In 1956 nothing extraordinary happened in Szekesfehervar. A few people demonstrated, but nothing could be felt of what was going on in Budapest and in some other places in the country. In 1956 I was already married and had a job. We had my wife’s dad to look after so I was not in the position of thinking about emigrating to Israel. But when there were the wars in Israel I was deeply concerned. Of course I was not in the position to help, but I kept my fingers crossed for Israel. It was very comforting for me to know that Jews were able to protect themselves against others, that they had arms and they were able to fight and win. It was good to know after all that had happened in the second world war. It is not just that it gives you the feeling of security that a there is a Jewish state. I also appreciate that country very much and I would be really happy if there were real peace over there. Although I was not able to emigrate because whenever we were about to go and visit my relatives, my wife fell ill. We decided several times to go, but in the end we never went. It was only after her death that I managed to get there in 1998. It is a fascinating country.
Since we moved to Budapest I went more often to the synagogue. At first I attended the synagogue in Dohany street then the one at the Rabbinical Seminary. Since my wife died I am in the synagogue each Friday and I pray. I spend my afternoons at the Shalom Club where we play cards with my friends. I keep connections nearly exclusively with Jews. I have my doctor in the Jewish hospital. It’s among them that I feel secure.

Sonya Adolf Lazarova
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interviewer: Svetlana Avdala
Date of interview: November 2005

‘When I get up in the morning the first thing I do is put on lipstick.’ And the lipstick suited her. During our work of several days she always met me with a large smile and a table arranged, because Sonya is a person who likes to give and help people. It’s not accidental that she fulfilled her dream to become a nurse.
And one day she said to her mother, ‘How happy I am that you gave birth to me!’ Sonya really has a jolly character. For her there are no bad people or situations. She speaks about the events in her life without pompous heroism or stoicism. They just happened like that.
At the age of 82 Sonya starts her day with applying lipstick and yet she still shivers when speaking about her first big and unfulfilled love. Years simply passed by without touching her.

Growing up 
My family
Going to school 
During the War 
After the War
Glossary

Growing up

My name is Sonya Adolf Nusan. I was born on 12th August 1923 in Ruse [Northeastern Bulgaria, 251km from Sofia]. My ancestors were German and Russian Jews but I have no memories about them, as I’m the youngest of the six children in our family. My eldest sister’s name was Gizela, born in 1910, and then came Liza, born in 1912, Hilda, born in 1915, my brother Fridrich, born in 1917, and my sister Zivi, born in 1921. Only Zivi and Fridrich are alive today. She lives in Israel, while he lives in Bulgaria. They were all born in Ruse.

From my earliest childhood I remember the pretty house that we had in the center of Ruse, behind the theater on Konstantin Velichkov Street. It was owned by my maternal family: my mother, Berta Hirsh Nusan [nee Goldenberg] who was born in 1888, her sisters Liza and Erma as well as my maternal grandparents. We sold it about two or three years ago. It was surrounded by an orchard. I remember my mother and father but I have no memories of my grandparents. When I was born they weren’t alive and I have no information about their names. Later my sisters used to tell me that they had had servants at home, as well as a remarkable order, which indicates that they were well off.

My father, Adolf [Avram] Lazarovich Nusan, was born in Ploesti in 1887. I have no information about his exact date of birth. At the age of 20 he came to Bulgaria, to Ruse. He spoke Romanian, Bulgarian and Yiddish. I know that he wasn’t rich, it was even rumored that he came here ‘barefoot,’ when he, sort of quickly, married my mother. I don’t recall anyone telling me why he came to Bulgaria – but most probably to search for a more profitable market for his craft – millinery, as well as better treatment of his Jewish origin, because his real name was Avram, yet he changed it to Adolf in Romania for the sake of convenience. I don’t know how and why he married my mother, but I know that she was a true beauty, she came from a well-off family, and moreover she was a very kind-hearted woman and always ready to help people. So I believe these were the reasons for their marriage.

Though my father was ‘barefoot,’ he had a successful business: the millinery. In Ruse he established a hatter’s workshop with seven employees. In this workshop they initiated the production of hats with a stiff body, both cylinders and straw hats, which was a rare practice for Bulgaria in those days. In the period of the wars [the First Balkan War 1, the Second Balkan War 2 and World War I 3] the workers enrolled in the army and the workshop closed down. Maybe this was the reason why my family moved to Sofia in order to try to make a living.

My mother was born in Ruse. Her mother tongue was Yiddish and Bulgarian, but she spoke several other languages: French, German, Russian, and English. She had graduated from a German college in Ruse, which was a high level of education for a woman at that time. At home we spoke Bulgarian and Yiddish.

I was three years old when my family decided to leave Ruse and move to Sofia. We settled on the fifth, i.e. last, floor of a building on Maria Luiza Street, as it was the cheapest one. We used to rent it until our internment in 1943 4.

There was a yard in which we, the children used to play draughts, ‘people’s ball’ [ball game in which two teams try to get the other side’s players out by hitting them with a ball], rope. The neighbors in the block of apartments were mostly Bulgarians, but other Jewish families also lived in the blocks, which surrounded the common backyard.

Our family inhabited a kitchen and two rooms. My parents used to sleep in one of the rooms, while we, the girls, slept in the other one. My brother used to sleep in the kitchen. The furniture was very modest. There were beds, tables and a dresser. Instead of a wardrobe we used to hang our clothes on a hat and coat rack, which we covered with a piece of cloth. We used a firewood-burning stove. There was a toilet in the hallway and running water in the kitchen, yet there was no bath. My sisters used to go to the public city bath, and when I was a little girl I used to be washed in a trough with heated water.

We used to sleep two in one bed, head to toe. And when my mother woke us in the morning she always confused our names because she could never recognize us in this position. Actually all of us always woke up at the same time.

At that time Sofia used to be calm, clean and green. It wasn’t crowded with enormous blocks of apartments and there was no terrible deafening noise. Jews were dispersed all over the city, but mostly in Iuchbunar 5, where the poorer ones used to live.

I remember the synagogue on Ekzarh Yosif and Bacho Kiro Streets: the old one. [The interviewee means the Midrash. According to the statistics by 1912 there were 5 synagogues in Sofia, one of which was attended by the Ashkenazi Jews. By 1928 the number of Ashkenazi Jews in Sofia was 1,600, with a synagogue and a rabbi. There was also a cheder with 15-20 children and a teacher.] There was a rabbi but I can’t recall his name and he was wonderful. I remember the service. It was in Bulgarian. I remember the cautionary speeches [prayers], choir, etc.

My family

My mother was an educated woman. Although she had graduated from a German college in Ruse and despite the fact that she spoke several languages, after her marriage she was devoted to bringing up her children, born every second year. She was a very noble person. She lived for the sake of helping people. There weren’t bad people according to her. She was ready to help anyone yet she never took part in charity organizations. Her genuine goodness was expressed in many cases, which I would love to share with you. She never yelled at us, nor did she punish us. Calmness was the most important thing to her. She always taught us to forgive people and to never get angry. She was tall, with a white face and blue eyes; the only blue eyes in our family. She always put her hair up in a bun. She didn’t use make up and always dressed in a plain manner.

My father was also a very handsome man: tall, slender, dark hair and eyes, and a mustache like that of a movie star. He always dressed elegantly and wore a soft hat. In Sofia he opened a millinery workshop with an associate of his. It was on Lege Street. Later this associate cheated him, my father went bankrupt and got divorced for reasons that I don’t know. [Editor’s note: Until 1944 marriage of Jews in Bulgaria was performed and legalized by the consistory with a marriage contract (ketubbah). In Bulgaria at that time there was no institution of civil marriage (Christians respectively got married in the church). Regarding divorces the quoted books usually are: ‘Shulhan Arouh’ and ‘Even Aezer’ by Joseph Caro, where the following sections are examined in detail: engagement, vow, marriage, ceasing of marriage, divorce, chaliza (release of marriage due to childlessness). ‘Jewish marriage and divorce law,’ a handbook by Rabbi Daniel Zion and Albert Varsano comments on all cases of Jewish practice in ceasing marriage and divorce and generalizes the rabbi experience until 1940.] Then he decided to leave for Israel in 1939. He remained there and stopped supporting our family. He passed away there but I have no information about the year, most probably between 1955 and 1965.

My father wasn’t interested and had no respect for money. He wasn’t capable of saving; he had a Bohemian nature. He was always ready to give his last penny to someone who would ask him. He traveled a lot on business and when he returned home there were always presents for us: something nice and delicious, very often kebapcheta [grilled oblong rissoles] or ‘marzipanes’ [a confectionery consisting primarily of ground almonds and sugar]. He didn’t earn much and never did he bring home the full amount, but my mother never blamed him for it. Actually they resembled each other a lot in this matter because she in her turn willingly invited anyone even if she would deprive us of something. My parents were tender and kind people. They never punished us, nor did they scream at us. My elder sisters were engaged in my upbringing. I would like to talk about them.

Gizela Asher-Anski [nee Nusan] was the eldest among us and a leader in every sense. She was talented, ambitious and intelligent. She made a brilliant artistic career with appearances in Israel and the USA, where she passed away.

She graduated from a Bulgarian elementary, junior high and high school. After graduation she initially worked in the famous dress atelier of Otto Seiner on Lege Street. There she sewed, cut, and worked as a model and sometimes, because imagination was among her greatest gifts, she designed her own clothes. As early as her work in Otto Seiner’s fashion atelier she used to play in the Jewish amateur theater [In 1928 a theater troupe was formed at Byalik chitalishte 6. It was led by Mois Beniesh and Leo Konforti: a theater and film actor, who was born in 1911 in Dupnitsa, and died in 1970. His work is mostly associated with the ‘Ivan Vazov’ National Theater.] together with Leo Konforti, Bitush Davidov [a librettist], Milka Mandil [an actress, she’s still alive and lives in Israel], Nichko Benbasat [a public figure, journalist, who worked at the Bulgarian National Radio for many years]. There she met her future husband, Eliezer Asher Anski [a writer and playwright, who was active in the 1920s-1930s], who was a director.

Leo Konforti, with whom they were close friends, most probably introduced her to some leading actors of the time. She attracted their attention and later she appeared on the stage of the National Theater with Ruzha Delcheva [(1915-2002), a famous Bulgarian drama and film actress, graduated from Nikolay Osipovich Massalitinov’s theater school in 1935, specialized for three years in ‘Deutsches Theater’ in Germany, actress of ‘Ivan Vazov’ National Theater since 1938], Magda Kolchakova [b. 1914, a Bulgarian drama and film actress, played in the ‘Ivan Vazov’ National Theater from 1940] and Ivanka Dimitrova [b. 1920, a Bulgarian drama and film actress, played in ‘Ivan Vazov’ National Theater.] It’s difficult for me to name the theater plays she performed, although I have seen them all. Nor can I remember the years when I watched them.

She knew many people from Sofia’s artistic Bohemian circles. The people mentioned above often visited us. She was always the center of attention in these merry companies: she sang, told funny stories, recited poems by [Hristo] Smirnenski 7, [Hristo] Botev 8, [Nikola] Vaptsarov 9, and others. She got married around 1939 to Eliezer Asher Anski. He was a Sephardi Jew. His family was well-off. They owned an apartment on the corner of Tsar Boris and Tsar Simeon Street [in the center of Sofia]. He was always quiet, reticent, and uncommunicative; maybe sort of a calm background to the ‘bright’ Gizela, who always shone. Probably it was due to his character that he couldn’t achieve a good career as a director. Later, when in 1948 their whole family moved to Israel, he changed his profession and started making art mosaics.

Gizela and her husband were two complete opposites. Eliezer adored Gizela and immensely loved their son Alex, who was born in 1940. In Sofia they lived at first in a lodging on Sofronii Street and after that they moved to Eliezer’s own apartment. When they left for Israel, their son Alex also started appearing on the theater stage as early as a little boy. He also made a good artistic career and now is a famous actor in the Abima [Hebrew: ‘the stage’] National Israeli Theater of Tel Aviv. His artistic talent, a continuation of his parents’ gift, was also revealed when he starred in a radio show addressed to mothers of Israeli soldiers which was meant to keep their spirits high. [Apart from being an actor, Alex Anski leads a radio show on the Israeli Military Radio. He also speaks Bulgarian].

Lili [Liza] also worked as a seamstress in the fashion atelier of Otto Seiner. She finished Bulgarian elementary, junior high and high school as well. She was also artistically gifted and was attracted by Gizela to the Jewish amateur theater, but she didn’t have Gizela’s genuine talent. She loved reading a lot. She had inherited the affinity to learning foreign languages from my mother. She attended language courses, spoke several languages and later became a bookseller. She was well-measured and frugal in company. She was always elegantly dressed, attentive to the smallest detail of her dress, because she was very exacting both to herself and to the other people. She got married in 1956 to the dentist Isak Assa, with whom she lived but had no children. She divorced him in 1958 and left for Israel by herself. There she worked as a seamstress, and got married again, to a Russian Jew with the family name Nisan, who had a daughter. She raised the child as her own. She died in Israel around 2000.

Hilda finished only a Bulgarian elementary and junior high school. She had a beautiful voice and participated in an amateur Jewish choir at the Jewish chitalishte. [Editor’s note: After World War I, in 1919 the ‘Obsht Podem’ [Common Uplift] Jewish chitalishte was founded. It existed until 1924. In 1924 the Jewish chitalishte ‘H.N.Byalik’ was formed, which by 1928 was already fourth in range among the Sofia community centers, ‘Aleko Konstantinov’, ‘Gotse Delchev’ and ‘Hristo Botev.’ The community center had 1900 volumes of literature, a theater troupe, a literature circle and a Jewish choir. There was also another Jewish chitalishte that was situated in Iuchbunar quarter, between Klementina and Opalchenska Streets.] In her selflessness and devotion to people Hilda resembled mostly my mother. She worked in a hosiery factory. She married Mihayl Mihaylov, who was a Bulgarian and an electrician by profession. They had two daughters, Lilyana and Borisalva. She never moved to Israel and died in Sofia, but I can’t recall the year of her death.

Fridrich was diligent, strict and reserved. He had the gift of an artist. Very often, when Gizela and Lili brought patterns home, which they had to draw and design in accordance with their clients’ bodies’ dimensions, he used to help them. It was as early as then that he started revealing his designer capabilities. He graduated from the ‘Hristo Botev’ construction vocational school. [Editor’s note: Technical schools are dedicated to specialized technical education. There are 3- and 4-year ones. Apart from the common subjects, the educational system includes specialized technical subjects oriented to the respective industrial branch – construction, mechanics, chemistry, electronics, etc. A great part of the students of technical schools continue with a higher technical education.] It was because of these skills that he became a designer and later, a constructor, in a science institute.

He has married twice. His first wife, Valka, was Bulgarian. He has a daughter, Nina, with her. He lived with Valka for ten years before they got divorced. Later he married a colleague of mine, Vanya, a midwife. I introduced them to one another. They liked each other and went to a sweet shop. They got married in 1965. Vanya also has a daughter from her first marriage. The two stepdaughters lived together with Vanya and Fridrich. Vanya actually raised Fridrich’s daughter from his first marriage, who had never lived with her mother. Vanya was a very noble person, yet Fridrich also divorced her due to property arguments.

Zivi was shy, meek, caring and a great housewife. She graduated from the Romanian school [Editor’s note: According to the practice every official religion in the country registered in Sofia after Bulgaria’s Liberation from the Turkish rule in 1878 had the right to support its own school, for example: Armenian church with an Armenian school, Greek church with a Greek school, Catholic church with a Catholic school, etc.]. It was situated behind the Central Synagogue. She was deeply in love with Isak. They went to live with his family a year before they got married.

Isak was a very handsome and ambitious man. His family was poor and as a student he had to both study and work in order to provide for his family. Until the third grade he used to work as a shop assistant and a barber’s assistant. But as ambitious as he was, he finished evening classes and later the Institute of Ecomomics with honor. Finally he became the director of the ‘Stalin’ technical school. Zivi worked for many years as a typist in OJB ‘Shalom’ 10. They have two children: a son, Sabitay and a daughter, Ruth. Isak died in 1981. In 1992 Zivi left for Israel and currently she lives with her daughter.

Apart from my parents, my sisters and brother were also involved in bringing me up. Actually they were the tough ones. They inspected whether my shoes were polished, whether all the buttons were well sewed, whether everything was neatly and tidily put in order. I wasn’t supposed to be late in the evening and had to strictly do everything I was told.

Once a friend of mine took me to a hairdresser. I was 12-13 years old then. When I came home Lili saw me and told me to immediately wash my hair, although I hadn’t even paid for my hairstyle. How strict she was! If I had done everything like I was ordered and supposed to, I was awarded with a small cone of ice-cream; it cost stotinkas [pennies, 1 stotinka = 0.01 lev]. It was my award and it was possible for me to receive it only at the end of the week: on Saturday or Sunday. I often told them that I was going to marry an ice-cream man, because I just love ice-cream, even now.

Fridrich was responsible for the preparation of my lessons. He examined me and checked whether I had learned my lessons. Gizela and Lili worked and all the rest went to school. Thus they supported the family budget. My two sisters dressed very elegantly; after all they worked in a fashion atelier and I wore their clothes. How impatiently I used to wait for Hilda to come home, so that I could wear her coat and go out. I wore all of her clothes with the exception of underwear and shoes, because I had large feet. When I was growing up they used to buy me larger shoes, which often ‘banged.’ Therefore they always made me wear wool socks, in order to fill up the shoes. And Gizela and Lili used to wear silk ones. When the soles tore, we used to cut them and fill them with cardboard and that is how I wore them.

We weren’t poor and we always had something on our table, yet we lived economically. Once a week, Zivi, Hilda and I used to go to the women’s market [one of the first Sofia markets. It was called this way, because its sellers were mostly women from neighboring villages. Other popular markets are: Rimskata Stena [The Roman Wall Market] in Lozenets quarter, as well as ‘Dimitar Petkov’ Market and Pavlovo Market.]. We usually went there late in the afternoon when the sellers lowered the prices. We used to buy meat and sausages from the Dokuzanov butcher’s. We used to buy from the so-called ‘pieces:’ the smaller parts of the big parts, which were cheaper. I would like to mention here that we, the children, didn’t observe the kashrut. Such kind of food was never cooked at home, therefore we felt free to buy meat from Dokuzanov.

At that time in Sofia street-vendors used to sell salep and boza 11. We used to drink salep 12. It was a colorless sweet drink with a very pleasant scent and the thickness of boza, but it was cheaper than boza and we often used to dilute it with water. It was very tasty indeed.

Thanks to the contacts of my two sisters Gizela and Lili, who communicated with the artistic circles, we used to read a lot of fiction books at home. I remember ‘Gone with the Wind’ [by Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949)], and ‘From Heraclitus to Darwin’. I was most interested in the medical books. While the others were playing with dolls I used play ‘doctors and patients.’ I dreamed of healing people.

My parents’ friends were both Jews and Bulgarians. They kept relations with the Jewish community also. A Bulgarian friend of mine, whose name was Victoria, often visited us. She had become part of our family. We used to share everything with each other: we went to the cinema, we studied together, but as soon as we offered her something to eat she always declined the invitation. Only after 9th September [1944] 13 she admitted to us that she had been told that Jews prepared their food with human blood. She felt really sorry about that and about all these missed opportunities to taste our delicious food. My mother used to cook quite well but I can’t say she was a great cook. I don’t remember any of her recipes. The whole family used to gather around the table every evening. At lunchtime we were always busy and we weren’t able to have lunch together.

At that time people visiting your home wasn’t such a common practice as it is now. The most important thing for a housewife was keeping the household and bringing up the children. We were six kids and practically my mother didn’t have any free time at all for meeting with her friends. We used to gather with my maternal family mostly during the high holidays. My mother had two sisters. The elder one, Liza, had four children, and the younger one Erma, had one daughter. Later, during the Holocaust, Erma burned to death in a camp near Pleven [Kailuka camp] 14, set on fire by the Branniks 15, while she was helping to save people.

Liza’s family was richer than ours. Some of her five children had good jobs and earned well. Their family used to live close to us, on Ekzarh Yosif Street. Erma’s family was really well-off. They had a bakery for bread, buns and sweetmeats on Dondukov Street [now Blvd.] and they often used to help us with money and various things. We were closer to aunt Liza’s family and used to walk together in the Borisova Garden [a central Sofia park created by Austrian specialists for Tsar Ferdinand at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century], or used to visit a tripe-shop, and I hate tripe soup.

We didn’t go to restaurants often. Of all siblings Gizela most often visited restaurants, with her friends and admirers. She used to bring home the remains of the large portions. I first went to a restaurant much later with Gizela’s and Lili’s friends, and my two sisters especially warned me not to order too many things. I’ve learned from them that the best meal to order is a portion of kebapcheta.

I used to visit the synagogue on every holiday, but not every Friday. I went with my mother because she was more religious than my father who, being a hatter-trader, used to travel a lot. In the evening or during her spare time she used to read us the Old Testament and told us different biblical stories in a very picturesque way. Tanti [aunt] Liza was religious and on holidays she often visited us with her children. I remember Yom Kippur and the taanit. It was difficult for me to fast, as I was the youngest and I was always tempted to eat something delicious, yet I wouldn’t dare. My mother forbade us and kept an eye on us.

On Pesach we used to move the table from the kitchen to the living-room because there was more space there. Very often at that time Gizela’s friends used to visit us including the Bulgarian ones. They showed great interest in this holiday. They were most interested in matzah, which we used to receive from the Jewish community house or the synagogue for free, as far as I remember. My mother also used to prepare burmolikos 16: crumbled matzah dipped into fresh milk and eggs. This mixture was poured with a spoon in heated oil. My favorite holiday was Chanukkah. I loved the kindling of candles and making a wish. I always wished to become a medical worker and it just happened so.

I must say that our Bulgarian neighbors regularly treated us with Easter cake and eggs on Easter.

Going to school

I studied at a Bulgarian school: the elite 11th secondary school. There were 25-30 students in our class. Five of them were Jews. Our class teacher was called Vassilev. My favorite subjects were Psychology and Logic. I also loved the Religion classes, although we, the Jews, weren’t obliged to take them. Yet I insisted and the teacher allowed me in. It was very interesting for me to listen to various biblical stories from the New Testament.

I remember that my desk neighbor was the cleverest Jewish child at school. His name was Isak. I can’t remember his family name. He wasn’t only clever but also kind and well-bred. So my decision to sit next to him wasn’t accidental. The teachers often praised him, and at such moments some classmates made vicious remarks mentioning his origin. They never showed such negative feelings to the other excellent students, such as Slavka Slavova [Slavova, Slavka (1924-2002): a Bulgarian drama actress, from 1942 till 1992 she performed on the stage of ‘Ivan Vazov’ National Theater], who was among the most exemplary students in our school. Once some Bulgarian pupils even wanted to beat Isak. But how interesting that another Bulgarian student called Hristo interfered and defended him. Maybe he was brought up in this way – to defend the outcasts. But I think that he rather sympathized with the Jews. Later he became a prominent artist. Unfortunately, I can’t remember his family name.

I used to sing in the school choir and often performed on the loudspeaker system. We used to sing a lot of songs, which we performed most often during holidays: ‘Varvi, narode vazrodeni’ [March Ahead, O Revived People] 17, ‘Shumi Maritsa’ [Maritsa Rushes] 18, ‘Chernei, goro’ ['Loom Dark, Forest' - a city folklore song] as well as a bunch of Bulgarian national folk songs.

My relations with the Jewish community were mostly in terms of the Jewish sports organization Maccabi 19. Besides me, its members were 25-30 Jewish boys and girls of different ages. There was a Bulgarian boy in it as well and his name was Lyubcho. ‘Maccabi’ carried out its activities in the gym of the Jewish school on Lavele Street. [In the place of today’s Rila hotel in the center of Sofia, right next to the small church ‘St. Nikolay Chudotvorets’ (Miracle worker) a Jewish school, one of the oldest in Sofia, was situated.] We used to gather two or three times a week in the gym. We were engaged in sports, did Jewish dances; we were brought up in good sportsmanship, and we also went on excursions.

They also supported us materially by means of sports clothes and snacks. Once they gave me money. Very nice relations were encouraged and kept among the Jewish children in Maccabi. I had a lot of friends there: Suzi, Zhak, Lili Yulzari, Sarika, Sheli, with whom I stayed in touch throughout the years. Once a week we used to gather at our houses in turns. Those were overnight stays during which we used to discuss topics from the Jewish history, we sang Jewish songs, I can’t remember which ones, which we learned from the pupils who attended the Jewish school, and we danced.

In our spare time we used to walk in the Borisova Garden with my friends from Maccabi; we also used to go to the cinema. We never spent our vacations outside Sofia and we never went on holiday. We most often went to the cinema. ‘Gloria Palace’ was right opposite our block of apartments. I used to buy tickets in the first row, which were the cheapest ones. I have watched all the movies of Charlie Chaplin. I remember the Soviet films, for example, ‘The Circus Princess.’ [Editor’s note: ‘The Circus Princess’ is an operetta by Hungarian-Jewish composer Emmerich Kálmán (1882-1953). The interviewee is probably referring to the German film adaptation of 1929.] My passion for the cinema lasted until 1942. After that, during the anti-Semitic acts 20, I was afraid to enter the closed room of the cinema hall, because there was no way to escape from it. Thanks to my two elder sisters I used to visit all theater and opera performances for free. I never missed a performance with Gizela’s participation, yet unfortunately it’s hard for me to recall their names.

During the 1940s as young boys and girls, we used to gather in front of the Jewish community house. There were UYW 21 members among them also. In this company I met my big adolescent crush, Rafael Nissimov – Feto. It lasted for four years. After that he got married, but not to me, and later he settled in Israel. At that time he used to live close to the Jewish community house and was an active revolutionary. I fell under his influence and decided to join the UYW. He inspired me to read, to pursue my aims, to be strong.

During the War

In 1942-43 the anti-Semitic acts started and it was then when we put on the badges [yellow stars] 22. I had two long plaits, with which I used to hide my yellow star and thus I walked the streets, and yet it was always visible. Twice Branniks and Legionaries 23 pushed me and pulled my plaits, they didn’t beat me up, but I fell down. The interesting thing was that people immediately came to help. Thrashings often took place in the Borisova Garden, but I always stayed aside.   

I remember that a man told us that ‘Jews would be taken’ and we decided to hide at our closest friends’ place. One night my sister and I went to their house but they didn’t open the door, they hid themselves and we had to return home after the curfew.

My noble mother was keen on helping people. She had a disabled friend, I can’t recall her name, whom she often visited in order to help her with the housework and cooking. She lived in Knyazhevo [a suburb of Sofia]. One day when she was coming back from her friend’s place the police checked her documents and found out that she was a Jew. Yet my mother didn’t wear the [yellow] star then for reasons unknown to me. Therefore she was sent to the Somovit camp 24, where she was kept for eight months.

In May 1942 my sister Hilda and I were interned to Karnobat [a town in Southeastern Bulgaria, 300km from Sofia]. My mother was sent to the labor camp in Somovit. Liza, Zivi, Gizela and her son Alex were sent to Vratsa, while Fridrich was sent to a forced labor camp 24. My father was already in Israel [Palestine at that time].

In Karnobat all Jews were allocated and settled in local Jews’ houses. They were scattered all over the town. We used to inhabit a large house with three other families. Asya and Olya Weisberg were in one of the rooms; Rafael Nissim’s aunt and cousin were in the other room and my sister Hilda and I were in the third. The landlords, also Jews, helped her a lot with furniture and food.

The life in Karnobat was like in a ghetto. There was a curfew and certain streets and places were forbidden for Jews. We didn’t have the right to leave the town. We weren’t allowed to work. We were given food from a cauldron. During the [police] blockade of Karnobat in which outlaws were hunted for, they not only broke into the Jewish houses and sought for people in hiding places but also robbed canteens, rucksacks and clothes.

We used to gather in the small park, where we walked and sang songs, but I can’t remember exactly which ones. I helped the landlords mainly with the household, because we were restricted from walking around. [At that time] I wasn’t a part of a UYW group and I wasn’t engaged in UYW activities.

One day Feto came to visit me and we went out for a walk to some hills. There we came across a man, who said that he knew a lot of things about Feto and me, and that he would give us away to the police. Feto pushed me and said to me, ‘Run.’ I ran down the hills shouting ‘Help, help!’ The two of them fought. In the end the man took Feto’s watch.

After that incident the head of the Jewish organization in Karnobat came to me and told me that I had to leave the town, as I was already rumored to be a dangerous political enemy and that would be of harm for the other Jews in Karnobat. He obtained permission from the town’s police for leaving the town and thus I found myself in Lukovit [Northwestern Bulgaria, 90km from Sofia].

I spent the time from spring 1943 to 9th September 1944 in this town. My mother was already in Lukovit, she was sent there from the Somovit camp, as well as my brother, who had come from the forced labor camps. My mother was accommodated in the priest’s lodging and instead of the rent, which most of the interned Jews were supposed to pay; she took care of him and helped him in the household. Being true to her selflessness and kind-hearted, she helped him with the housework and took care of an ill Jewish woman; I can’t remember her name.

Many rich Jewish families were interned from Stara Zagora [Central Bulgaria, 192km from Sofia] to Lukovit also. They rented more luxurious lodgings, they were elegant and they didn’t want to mingle with the poorer ones, especially if they had found out that those people were leftists or had been arrested or sanctioned by the authorities because of their leftist convictions. Life here was also like in a ghetto. There was a curfew and a ban to cross certain streets or places. We were fed from a cauldron, but a much better one.

I was engaged in a UYW group here. We used to gather at Mutsi’s place: the girlfriend of the well-known revolutionary Moni Dekalo. Her family was rich and this fact dispersed the police suspicions. We used to read books, write and prepare ourselves to spread leaflets, listened to Radio London, we were taught how to use a gun, we collected clothes and rusks and invented ways to send them to our friends detained in the police station.

There was a [Bulgarian Communist] Party group in the town, too. My brother Fridrich was a member of it. I was involved in an underground activity, I hid and distributed leaflets and if I have to be honest, I was always afraid. Once I went out in the yard of the priest’s house in order to fetch some firewood for the stove. Suddenly I saw some kind of light among the trees and I was scared to death. I quickly returned to the priest’s house. Then Priest Nikola accompanied me in order to check the situation and it turned out to be just a firefly. So these are the eyes of fear. Although fear never actually left me, I have never broken the [Communist] Party discipline.

Once I was told to bring some materials, leaflets, to the girlfriend of a [Communist] Party functionary, in order to hide them there. When I went there she refused to take them, because she said she was under surveillance and this could be dangerous for other communists also. So I had to return with the leaflets but I never thought, even for moment, that I might destroy them. I simply knew I had to find a place for them. 

When there was an alarm to hide in the air-raid shelter because of the bombardments, we used to run through some hills. Several Brannik members used to block our way then, but immediately other Bulgarians stopped them telling them that all people, no matter if Bulgarians or Jews, had the right to hide in the shelters.

In Lukovit I was arrested. Firstly Moni Dekalo was arrested and as he didn’t want to betray the more superior comrades, he gave us away, the smaller fish. I was sought for several days. When the police examined the lodging I was accommodated at, they couldn’t find me. My mother hid me for several days in the place of the ill woman she was helping, but I couldn’t stay there for a long time, so I had to come back home and I was arrested at my place. When the policemen were taking me away, she only told me, ‘God will help you. Put on warm clothes, so that when they beat you, you will be able to survive the pain.’

I was arrested and they led me under an escort in the streets. The whole town of Lukovit saw me, including the priest. I was confronted with Moni Dekalo. When they brought him in he was covered with blood. He only said that everything was disclosed. But in the corridors of the police station I passed by my brother and another comrade of his, who gestured with his hand to keep quiet. I was beaten up but not the way they had beaten my brother, for example. I was detained for two days. I didn’t say anything.

On the second day the priest came in order to intercede for me. He couldn’t believe that the girl with the plaits was involved in underground activities. Priest Nikola was a reputable man in Lukovit and thanks to him I was set free on the second day. Yet soon after that he realized that it wasn’t a slander and that my brother and I were involved in underground activities indeed and he threw us out in the street with all our luggage. His daughters begged him to leave us, yet he was adamant. He couldn’t cope with the thought that he was hiding communists. One of his daughters helped us find a room in the house of a gendarme. It was with an earth floor, isolated from the other parts of the house. We paid minimum rent and took care of the garden in the yard. I had to look for a job and found one in a bookshop. I was a typesetter.

The bookseller-owner was called Pencho Vlahov. His wife was German and her name was Ani. One day while I was at work the agent who had arrested me entered the bookshop. I immediately recognized him because his face was covered with pockmarks. The bookseller had told me to go and fetch something. There were a lot of people in the bookshop. I can only imagine how I looked when I came back after I had seen the agent. Pencho noticed my reaction yet he deliberately didn’t pay attention to it. He knew that I had been taken into custody for two days. The whole town of Lukovit knew. Of course, it was a great worry for my mother, but she also shared my leftist ideas without being a [Communist] Party member. She always supported me and calmed me down.

At that time my sister Zivi gave birth in Vratsa. My mother asked for permission from the police to go there and see her grandchild. I was afraid to stay alone and asked the bookseller Pencho to shelter me in his house. In return I would help raising his two children, as well as in keeping the household. I was accommodated in a closet.

One evening I heard a strong drumming on the door. I thought they were coming to arrest me again. I kept some leaflets in the closet. While all the rest were in the other room I hid the leaflets under the wardrobe in the bedroom. They weren’t coming for me. They just asked the bookseller to borrow his car, as they wanted to meet some boss. He refused, telling them that the tyres were punctured. The next day the family saw the leaflets. The German asked me to clean all the rooms and she went out with her two children so that I would be able to hide the leaflets again. And yet, she was German!

After the War

After the war we came back to Sofia. We rented a new lodging on Moskovska Street and 11th August Street. First we were given one room 26. All of us were accommodated in it: my mother, Fridrich, Hilda, Lili and I. Zivi had already married and she stayed with her husband. Gizela and her husband also rented a house somewhere but I can’t remember where. Nothing had remained from our belongings. We began collecting old furniture from our friends: Jews and Bulgarians, which they presented to us. We had a landlady. She was quite unmanageable and she didn’t behave very well. But not because we were Jews but because of her temper. Her daughter was very kind to us.

Life had a new beginning. I decided to make my dream come true: to cure and take care of people. I enrolled into nursing classes. My family wanted me to become a doctor yet this seemed very difficult for me. In the medical vocational school, where I graduated from, I made many new friends. I had a colleague, very beautiful, from the village of Buzovets [Northwestern Bulgaria, 107 km from Sofia]. She introduced me to my future husband, who was born in the same village. She decided to take me for a holiday there. For the first time in my life I not only visited a village but traveled in a certain direction. In order to reach the place I had to change trains. When I entered the railway station I didn’t know how to ask for the tickets. Otherwise the holiday in the village was a very merry one. We danced various dances and horo [Bulgarian national folk dance], we sang, we ate and we laughed. My future husband Yoncho Lazarov was also present there. This experience made our relationship even closer and more spontaneous.

My husband was born on 1st November 1920. His father was a disabled soldier, but his entire family: father, mother, brother and sister used to work in the TKZS 26. His family is of Bulgarian origin and with leftist convictions. During the anti-fascist struggle Yoncho was in prison in Sliven [Southeast Bulgaria, 246km South of Sofia]. After 9th September [1944] he was already a [Communist] Party member. He had already finished his studies in veterinary medicine; nevertheless he received an order by the Bulgarian Communist Party [BCP] to make a military career, because of the insufficient military personnel in the army.

We got married in April 1948. My parents, i.e. my mother and my sisters were a little prejudiced against my marriage, because Yoncho was of Bulgarian origin and was a military man, which meant a lot of traveling. None of my or his relatives was present at our wedding, which took place in the Civic Council. We only took our passports and we went there. Some military men, colleagues of my husband, were witnesses to our wedding. After the ceremony they invited us to lunch.

Afterward all of us lived in our apartment on Moskovska Street. My mother quickly ‘fell in love’ with her new son-in-law. They got along very well. Later she raised both my children. When we were in Sofia she used to live with us. And when we were on a trip to the countryside, as Yoncho often traveled, she stayed at my sisters’ and brother’s.

When we lived on Moskovska Street we were given one more room, something like a living room with a sliding glass door. In 1948 our first child, Orlin, was born. We still lived on Moskovska, but we filed an application for another home. Then we were given an apartment on Vrabcha Street. Then we had to leave for Razgrad [Northeastern Bulgaria, 277km from Sofia] because of Yoncho’s job, where our second child, Vanya, was born in 1952. After that we went to Kabiyuka: an elite horse breeding company in Shumen [Northeastern Bulgaria, 301km from Sofia]. Yoncho was invited as a head doctor there. There he learned that there was a competition for a scientific degree at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He enrolled in it and passed the test, so we came back to Sofia again. He worked there until his retirement and now he’s a Professor in Physiology.

After I graduated from the medical vocational school I worked as a nurse in the Fourth City Surgery. I started there and retired there. In 1954 I became a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party. There was a call at that time for the former UYW members to become BCP members. I used to be a BCP functionary and a deputy BCP secretary at the hospital. I was also the chairwoman of the Democratic Youth Committee. I have never had any problems because of my Jewish origin at my workplace. On the contrary, I was much respected for it.

After we began living separately from our children we used to spend our vacations and holidays in the mountain and at the sea at holiday villages. We celebrated all holidays: the Bulgarian, Christmas and Easter, and the Jewish ones. I buried my mother in the Jewish cemetery [in Sofia] in 1971 in accordance with the Jewish ritual. While my mother-in-law was buried in accordance with the Bulgarian traditions.

Our children were both raised with Jewish awareness, which means that they know facts from the Jewish people’s history and they know some of the Jewish traditions, and a Bulgarian one. Orlin graduated from the ‘Hristo Botev’ radio and television vocational school. He used to work in the Isotope Center. Today he owns a copier service company. He married a Bulgarian. Her name is Kalina Andonova. They have three children: Orlin, Toni and Yoncho, and a granddaughter, Ela. They live in Sofia.

My daughter Vanya also married a Bulgarian. His name is Emil Kostov. He is a roentgenologist. After graduating from a medical college, Vanya worked for a while as a laboratory assistant in the Institute for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases. Currently she lives in Angola with her family. They have two children, Andrea and Katerina, and a granddaughter, Alicia.

The Jewish self-identification is less revealed in our grandchildren. We did invite them to Jewish holidays, but they celebrate Christmas and Easter in their own environment. Whether my kids and grandkids feel like Jews or not, they have always participated in various initiatives of the Jewish community center.

I visited Israel three times: in 1961, 1966 and 1989. I went to see my relatives there. I have never had difficulties as far as Bulgarian state authorities are concerned in terms of my trips to Israel. Nor did I want to emigrate there, because my husband is a Bulgarian. Moreover Ivrit is a difficult language for me. Yet being there has always been very pleasant for me. I took to heart the Six-Day-War 28 and every event in Israel; moreover the official political line of the government here was anti-Israeli. Yet, politics is politics. The most interesting thing is that my husband supported me and suffered with me through everything that happened in Israel.

After 1989 29 we embraced the desire for democratic changes as something positive. But in the course of time I started feeling more and more embarrassed about this confrontation between socialists and rightists. Apart from the fact that our life is getting worse. I don’t approve the extremist acts such as setting fire to the Communist Party House and the Parliament 30.

As a whole our daily life became harder. Once we could allow ourselves to go on vacation, now it’s completely impossible due to financial reasons. When Yoncho used to work in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 31 we used to get together with his colleagues, no matter if Bulgarian or Jewish. Now we are leading a rather isolated life. Yoncho writes his books and scientific works, while I am engaged in the Jewish community center. I managed to incorporate him into the Jewish community, as a result of which he became more sociable and sort of came out of his private world.

I’m glad that the Jewish home [Bet Am] 32 revived its activities and raised the Jewish conscience to a higher level. I regularly attend the events there. What’s more, I actively participate in the life of the Jewish community, as I’m involved in all the events of the Health Club, which I’m a member of, as well as the Club of the disabled people. [The Club of disabled people gathers once a month in order for them to socialize with each other. They are informed about all changes in the social sphere and the Bulgarian legislation, which are focused on people with different levels of disability. With the support of this club Jews are able to visit sanatoriums once a year. All the expenses for their stay are being covered by the organization.] I visit the synagogue during holidays. I’m grateful for the compensations I received from Switzerland and Germany, as well as for the support of the Joint foundation 33.

Glossary

Emilia Kushnir
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Vladimir Zaidenberg

My name is Emilia Iosifovna Kushnir. My maiden name was Leibman. I was
born on December 16, 1924 in Kiev, at 3, Vladimirskaya Street, where I
lived until the beginning of WW II.

Family background 
Growing up
During the War
After the War

Family background

My father, Yosif Yefimovich Leibman, was born in 1884 in the town of
Radomyshl, in the Zhitomir region. I know practically nothing about his
parents. I only know that my grandfather's name was Khaim Leibman and
grandmother's name was Surah-Milka. I don't know her maiden name.

I remember the names of my father's sisters and brothers, and I have
some information about them. Father's eldest brother, Moisey Leibman, was a
bookkeeper. Until the Revolution he lived in Warsaw, and then he worked at
a brewery in Kiev. He was killed in 1941 in Babi Yar in Kiev. (Editor's
Note: Babi Yar was the location of the first mass shooting of the Jewish
population carried out openly by the Germans on September 29-30, 1941, in
Kiev. After the war, people spoke in whispers about Jewish murders, because
according to the official version of the Soviet government, the German
Nazis killed Soviet people of different nationalities in equal numbers.
Whoever expressed another opinion risked being thrown into prison.)

My father had two sisters named Leah and Esfir who died in Moscow in
the early 1930's. I know nothing more about them. Then my father was born
and after him his sister Klara and brother Wolf. The three of them came to
Warsaw to live with their brother Moisey around 1910. They stayed there;
the brothers were working in commerce. In general, Moisey was very smart,
and he tried to teach his relatives accountancy. Then Klara and her
husband, as well as Wolf, moved to the United States, where they died in
the 1940's. The youngest sibling was father's sister Manya, who died in
Kiev early in the 1950's, and his brother Tevye, who lived in Zhitomir and
then in Moscow, where he also died.

My mother's father, Shloyme Shenderovich, came from a very large
family with many children. He had brothers named Zalman, Yakov, and Israel
(all younger than him), and sisters named Tsira Frenkel, Fanya Katsnelson,
Basya Gukhman, and Nesya Babinskaya. About them I know only that Aunt Basya
lived and died in Baku, Azerbaijan, and Aunt Nesya died in 1974 in Kiev at
the age of 90.

They all lived in Belarus and my grandfather's mother let my
grandfather run the business his father had owned. I think he was the 1st
Guild merchant. After his death, responsibility for all their large family
rested on the shoulders of my grandfather, Shloyme Shenderovich.

The name of my grandmother, my father's mother, was Dvoira
Shenderovich. I don't know her maiden name. When I was born, my
grandparents were very old. My grandfather was born around 1863, my
grandmother around 1865.

My mother, Fanya Solomonovna Shenderovich, was born in 1896 in
Belarus, in the village of Kholmichi, near Rechitsy. Today it is known as
the Gomel region. Her parents also had many children. My grandfather was
not a fanatic, but he was a religious man. In Kiev they did not have a flat
of their own, they rented a room at 11, Borisoglebskaya. I remember
grandfather praying every morning. He put on his talit and those boxes on
ropes, I forgot their names (Editor's note: tefillin). He also wore a
yarmulke. My grandmother wore an artificial braid with a black lace cap to
keep her head always covered according to the Jewish religious tradition.
My grandfather died in 1937, my grandmother in 1939.

To all his children grandfather gave a secular education. I don't know
how to explain it, but none of his children was religious. My mother had
very poor knowledge of Yiddish; she knew very little, enough only to talk
to her parents.

Now about my mother's brothers and sisters. Her eldest sister was
named Rebecca. Her husband's last name was Kagan. She graduated from a
college of dentistry. Prior to the Revolution, her husband was a doctor in
Kharkov. After the Revolution he held high offices in Kharkov's health care
system. They had three children. She died in Kharkov in the early 1950's.

My mother also had a sister named Polina, and I would like to talk
about her separately. Then there came mother's sister Tsira, whose
husband's last name was Israelit. Tsira was a teacher in Leningrad. She
died in the early 1950'-s.

Then came mother's brother Alexander, who was born in 1897. Prior to
the Revolution he finished studies at a vocational school and worked in the
supply system. He died in 1952 in Donetsk (Stalino).

The youngest brother was named Srul. He was very ill with tuberculosis
of the bones. As far as I remember, he never worked, but was constantly
ill. He died in the evacuation in 1942.

Now I would like to talk about mother's sister Polina. She was born in
1884. As I already said, grandfather taught his children secular manners
and gave them an education. Sister Polya (nickname for Polina) went into
the Revolution. First she joined the BUND party. (Editor's note: BUND,
which means "Union" in Yiddish, was a Jewish political organization created
in 1897 at the Constituent Congress of Jewish Social Democratic Groups in
Vilno. At the 1st Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party,
BUND joined the party as an autonomous organization, which was independent
only in questions concerning the Jewish proletariat. After some conflicts
in 1903, BUND withdrew from that party and joined the Zionist movement
"Poaley Tsion." BUND demanded that a cultural-national autonomy be created.
In March 1921, BUND decided to join the Russian Communist Party of
Bolsheviks, which led to its self-elimination.) That's what Polina told me
personally when I met her much later. From what I remember, the family
mentioned that the police were searching for her, and that she emigrated
after some case and was secretly sent to Switzerland.

When she emigrated, Polina joined various revolutionary circles which
met to discuss what the future revolution would be like. Among the members
were many emigrants from Russia. The main one was Plekhanov. (Editor's
note: Georgy Plekhanov, 1856-1918, was a Russian theoretician and
propagandist of Marxism, and an activist in the Russian and international
workers' movement. They addressed him for any issues, but he was very
arrogant, behaving like a royal, and believed everyone should act on
his/her own.) Polina also met Martov (Editor's note: Martov's real name was
Yuliy Tsederbaum, 1879-1923, a Russian Social Democrat, and one of the
Mensheviks' leaders). She also met Akselrod, and I think she was a friend
of his sisters. (Editor's note: Pavel Akselrod, 1850-1928, was one of the
Mensheviks' leaders who emigrated after the October Revolution. He
propagated reforms, stood against the Soviet power, and even called for
military intervention.) In those circles she also met Lenin. (Editor's
note: Vladimir Lenin, 1870-1924, whose real name was Vladimir Ulyanov, was a proletarian
revolutionary, organizer of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and
founder of the Soviet Union). In their midst they called him an "iron
head," because they believed he always knew what he wanted. When he was
leaving for Russia, all the emigrants went to see him off at the train
station. He was late. Finally, he showed up - he had been shopping, looking
for a cheap cap.

Later, in 1912, Lenin and Krupskaya lived in Poland. (Editor's note:
Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, 1869-1939, was a participant in the
revolutionary movement, a Soviet state and party figure, and one of
creators of the Soviet system of people's education.) Krupskaya had
Basedow's disease and needed surgery. Meanwhile, in Switzerland there was a
famous Professor Kokhe, in whose clinic my Aunt Polina was then working.
So, somebody introduced her to Lenin and asked her to arrange a free
operation for Krupskaya. The professor performed this operation free of
charge, and in gratitude Lenin brought a box of candies and a bouquet of
red roses to my aunt.

At first, my aunt's life in Switzerland was very hard; even my
grandfather helped her. Then she graduated from a university, became an
oculist and withdrew from revolutionary activities. She was very concerned,
because being an immigrant she had no right to work in Switzerland, so she
was planning to go to Australia. But then she suddenly met her future
husband, who was an Italian Swiss; his last name was Rusko. She became very
rich. They lived in Lokarno and she had her own clinic. Then for many years
she was an activist in the Red Cross organization. Once, when fascists came
to power in Germany, even a Soviet ambassador turned to her, asking to tell
him about good places for recreation in Switzerland, where the Soviets
could send their leaders for a rest. They used to send them to Germany, but
they no longer could afford that.

After the Revolution, from what I remember, Aunt Polina tried to help
my grandparents survive. They lived a pretty good lifestyle with the money
she sent them from Switzerland. They could even help us sometimes. On
Hannukah they gave good gifts to all the children; my cousin who lived in
Kiev even got a violoncello. In summer they always went to a dacha in
Puscha-Voditsy or Vorzel - they could afford it due to my aunt's help.

In 1924, my aunt came to the USSR. Despite the fact that all
diplomatic relations with Switzerland were broken because of the murder of
Voikov. (Editor's note: Peter Voikov, 1888-1927, was an active participant
in the revolutionary movement in Russia, and a Soviet diplomat. He was
killed by a Russian White Guard officer.) Aunt Polina used her old
connections with the German Communists and received permission to come here
for a ten-day visit. She saw all of her relatives here. She left with a
heavy heart after having seen her old and exhausted parents. Before that,
in Switzerland, she had worried very much that she would not be allowed to
leave from here again.

After that she regularly sent money in foreign currency to my
grandparents through the bank. It became even better when in 1932 a special
trade system opened where food and clothes could be bought for foreign
currency and gold, because there was famine in those days which lasted
until 1938. My grandfather had already died. Then Aunt Polina sent clothes
and fabric through some company in Estonia or Latvia. Then communication
with her was interrupted for many years.

After finishing gymnasium (secondary school) during WW I, my mother
worked in a hospital. Then she gained admission to the University medical
school, but did not complete her studies. She was already in Kiev, but I
don't know how they got to Kiev. I know she married in Kiev, gave birth to
me and had complications - hearing problems. So after that she no longer
studied or worked outside the home, but was a housewife.

Growing up

My childhood was one typical of all Soviet children - kindergarten,
school and war.

I went to school in 1931. It was a regular Russian school. It replaced our
former Jewish school at 5, Vladimirskaya Street (one of the central streets
of Kiev), near our house. Until 1935, there was a Jewish school next to
us, then it was closed, and its director became director of our school for
some time. I don't know why that school was closed. You see, we were all
internationalists; we did not care who was Russian, Jewish or Ukrainian.
Our school was mixed - boys and girls studied together. There were Jewish
children in our class, but no one cared. There was, however, a Russian
family in our house. People were forbidden to celebrate New Year's or
decorate New Year trees (In the Soviet Union, people never celebrated
Christmas, but rather New Year's on January 1, hence people had "New Year
trees" instead of "Christmas trees"). I don't remember what year it was
when Postyshev allowed people to celebrate the New Year. (Editor's note:
Pavel Postyshev, 1887-1939, was a Soviet Communist Party activist). So,
this family invited me to celebrate either New Year or Christmas with them.
And the rest of our neighbors were surprised that they would invite me, a
Jew.

My best friends were Russians. We are still in very good relationships
with them. I certainly could understand Yiddish a little because I often
visited with my grandparents. I remember Jewish holidays well: Passover and
Rosh Hashana. We would go to Podol, to my grandparents, where we sat around
the table eating stuffed fish and chicken soup and drinking grape wine.
They baked matzoh at home. After grandfather's death, grandmother did not
go to synagogue, but to a private prayer house next to her house. And after
her death, traditions were no longer kept. We only visited father's elder
brother, who still kept the traditions.

I had a good time at school. I was a Young Pioneer, then a Komsomol
member. I was a Pioneer Leader, taking care of younger children. We
organized all kinds of activities, had an amateur theater, sang, danced,
etc.. Life was bubbling.

I had no religious friends, only atheists. I remember how churches
were destroyed. There was the Desyatinnaya Church across from my house. We
all were warned that it would be blown up; all the windows were sealed up
with paper. It was blown up in 1936, and all of us adults believed that
this was normal. Excavations were held there later and an ancient cemetery
was found. Then a historical museum was built on that site. I also remember
how St. Michael's Cathedral was blown up.

In the 1930's I remember that some people were arrested, including my
maternal uncle, Alexander Shenderovich, born in 1897, who was arrested as a
White Guard officer. I don't know exactly whether he really was in the
White Army, maybe during the Civil War. I don't know why, but when my aunt
was allowed to visit him in prison, she took me with her. I remember how he
was led out to us and we could visit with him. Soon afterwards he was
released and I remember how he came home with a tiny bag.

I remember how the father of one girl was arrested. He worked in
Soviet People's Committee. Then another girl's father, a military man, was
also arrested, but these girls continued to study at our class. We treated
them well, saying that their fathers were enemies of the nation. But people
did not have real hatred against such people because secretly nobody
believed they were "enemies of the nation."

Even though my friends and I were not interested in politics, we
certainly knew about Hitler and "Crystal Night." There was information on
it in the press. We went to watch movies like "Professor Mamlok" and
"Oppenhaim Family".

Nobody paid any special attention to this at school. We were
constantly preparing for a war. I remember the Finnish War a little, in
1940, when we had to stand in lines for food. It was hard, cold and long.
And then the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was signed. We believed it was for the
good, so that there would be no war. In general we did not think much about
it. We were confident that the Germans would be stopped immediately at the
border. We even sang songs to this effect. The breakup of the war found me
in Kharkov, where I was visiting my aunt. I remember we received a phone
call and were told to turn on the radio at 12 o'clock. Our radio was a big
black plate. So, we turned it on and heard Molotov's address to the nation.
My uncle was very anxious because his son was serving in Izmail (in the
Odessa region of Ukraine), and combat actions were already underway there.
To be honest, we immediately ran to the savings bank to get our money, but
restrictions had already been put on the giving out of money. I stayed in
Kharkov until early July. Kharkov was not bombed yet, while Kiev was bombed
all the time. My uncle often called us and said, "We are coming soon."

During the War

Then we began to see many evacuated residents of Western Ukraine. I
remember my cousin with her child came to Kharkov and told us that many
people were moving out of Kiev. My uncle tried to tell us the same thing on
the phone but secretly, saying that he and his family wanted to come and
see us. Otherwise he could have been accused of spreading panic.

My mother and her two brothers left Kiev for Kharkov, but they went
on a raft across Dneper and got to Dnepropetrovsk. There was my uncle's
organization, which was evacuating some cranes, metal constructions, etc.
They all were put on an open platform and sent to Sverdlovsk. It happened
so that they were passing by Kharkov, and they asked somebody to go and get
me. So, I joined them and we went to Sverdlovsk together. The journey took
twenty days.

We were in a tall, roofless train car. There were a lot of metal
constructions on the floor, and a tent stood upon them. That's where we
stayed. My uncle had a paper that said that we were in charge of the cargo.
That's how my mother and I were reunited.

My father remained in Kiev. He had to turn over his duties. In
general, there was no special Jewish evacuation. Enterprises and
organizations were evacuated, but nobody was going to evacuate the Jews.
There were people who did not believe Germans would kill the Jews. A family
from our house stayed in Kiev. They believed nobody would touch them. They
died in Babi Yar. My uncle, Moisey Leibman, was also killed there. His
former wife and older daughter came to visit him from Korosten. All three
of them died in Babi Yar - it was too late for them to evacuate.

Right before our departure from Kharkov we went to a theater
performance. During the war Michoelse's theater came there, and we watched
"The Wandering Stars."

When we came to Sverdlovsk we were not received there but sent
further on. Thus we found ourselves in a village 12 kilometers from
Krasnoufimsk. We had my mother's cousin, Nadezhda Babinskaya, with us. She
was a violinist at the Kiev Jewish Theater. Her daughter, a conservatory
student and a violoncellist, was also there. For both of them life was very
hard as they were not used to hard manual labor. At the collective farm we
were ordered to do the heaviest work possible. In general, all women worked
that way, but we came from a city and we were not used to such work.

My mother and I were settled at one house, my aunt and cousin at
another. My mother and I slept in one bed. I remember well that we had a
samovar and drank tea all the time - without sugar, and practically without
tea enough for one brew, but we could drink ten glasses of that. People
also had lice, excuse me. There was a special comb to comb them out. I also
had lice for some time.

In general, our landlords used the word "kike" all the time. But when
we told them we were "kikes", they did not believe us. They said, "No, how
can you be kikes? All kikes are red!"

My father first went to Chelyabinsk and then to Sverdlovsk. There he
found a job at the Urals Gold Trust Company; it was in a district full of
gold and platinum. Later he took my mother and me from that village, and we
lived in the village at the gold field, 250 km from Sverdlovsk. In the
beginning it was very hard. We had no food but bread purchased with bread
cards. There was a canteen, but only workers of that company were allowed
to eat there. So, my father would go first to the canteen (he had a pass),
and if the waitress was kind, she would leave his pass untouched, then I
had a chance to use the same pass, then my mother. But if they marked the
pass, my mother and I remained hungry.

In Sverdlovsk I went to school. There were three evacuated girls in
my class: one from Leningrad, one from Moscow, and me. Two of us were
Jewish, one was Russian. The father of the girl from Leningrad was chief of
the Diamond Party and they lived well. But we received skimpy soup and a
tiny roll (for cards). Once we learned that nobody ate that soup, so we
brought cans and took all the remaining soup home. We ate it all, but our
classmates misunderstood us; there was even an article in the paper that we
took all the soup left in the school. We stayed with another family. They
had food, flour, potatoes. So, their small children would open our doors
and shout: "Our mother is cooking ravioli today! And we won't give you
any!" We remembered this for a long time. My father was given potatoes,
which we baked, boiled, and fried.

Then life became better. A gold-digging artel (Editor's note: a
workers' cooperative, probably a state-owned company) was set up, and my
father received sugar and even oil. Then I finished school and started work
at the local kindergarten. Later, I attended Sverdlovsk University. Later,
my father found a job in Sverdlovsk, and while I lived in a dormitory, my
parents rented a part of a room.

After the War

We returned from evacuation in 1945. We wanted to go to Kiev, but
could not get there. Our uncle helped us go to Donetsk. Then I went to Kiev
to study at the Institute, but we could not get our flat back, so we had to
move to Lvov. A military tribunal prosecutor lived in our flat, and since
my father did not serve in the army because of his age, we were not allowed
to receive our flat back. He turned to the chairman of the city council for
help, but received none, so we had to go to Lvov. There we bribed the house-
manager (which was "unofficially legal") and bought a good flat from the
Poles. Many Poles were leaving for Poland at that time, for they did not
want to stay "with the Soviets." They were offered Ukrainian citizenship,
but they did not want it and almost all of them left. They did not call us
"Jewish" or "Russian", but only "Soviet." In general, they remembered how
good their life was "with the Poles." I also remember being in fear of
Bandera gangs. There I began to work at the printing shop and to study at
the Lvov Polygraphist Institute. Then we exchanged our good flat in Lvov
for a bad flat in Kiev and moved to Kiev.

I began to work at the "Radyanska Ukraina" ("Soviet Ukraine")
publishers. There I worked for the rest of my life, first as a labor
management engineer, then as the chief of the labor department, and then I
retired. I could not continue to work on my career. But I had been working
at the ideology department, which was very rare for Jews. After the war I
sensed a difference in attitude towards the Jews. I was no longer promoted
anywhere because I was Jewish.

I remember the year 1953 mostly due to Stalin's death. People in
general were very loyal to him, and our family was, too. I was hysterical
when I heard he died. It was a shock for the country to listen to the 20th
Party Congress with Khrushchev exposing Stalin's cult. Not everyone
believed that, many remained Stalin's admirers. (editor's note: the
proceedings of this Congress were secret. It is unlikely, but not
impossible, that the Interviewee knewof them at the time).

I married in 1955. My husband, Boris Markovich Kushnir, is Jewish. He
was born in 1924, in the village of Gaisin, in the Vinnitsa region. He
fought during the war as a private, and the end of the war found him
somewhere under Kenningsberg. Unfortunately, I know nothing about his
grandparents, only that they were Jewish. Boris, just like me, was brought
up in a Jewish family and received a good education. But his family never
were religious, so neither my husband nor I know Jewish traditions,
religion or language. We lived at a time when it was not very safe or
fashionable to be religious and attend a church or a synagogue.

Boris graduated from the Economic Institute of Kiev. He felt anti-
Semitism very strongly. He worked as an economist, but Jews were not
allowed such jobs. It took him a while to find a job at the art glass
factory, but then he was fired from there. He had a conflict with somebody;
anyway, he was fired because he was Jewish. Then for a very long time he
could find no job. Some of his friends - Russians, and Ukrainians with whom
he had studied, worked at the People's Economy Council and provided
recommendations for him. He went to many places, was told that people of
his profession were needed, but as soon as he showed his documents, he was
immediately denied any job offers. Explanations varied: we don't need you
anymore, etc., but nobody stated the direct reason. Then the
"Yuzhgiprosteklo" Institute was set up, he was admitted there, and he
worked there up till his retirement to pension.

I also felt anti-Semitism in my life. Jews were not given work at our
organization, but those Jews who were already working there were not
dismissed. When I was sent to work by the institute in 1949, the director
of that work was Nathan Kaplan, a very good man, active and famous. And
then the Central Committee of the Communist Party dismissed him for no
reason, allegedly for confusing two pages in a newspaper, even though he
had nothing to do with that. It was a real tragedy for our collective. Then
we had a Party meeting, at which we all had to vote for his dismissal, but
nobody wanted to vote for that, on the contrary, we wanted to get him back.
Well, it did not help, and organizers of that "rebellion" were also
accused.

In 1955 my aunt Polya came to us from Switzerland. I already mentioned
that we lost communication with her prior to the war. After the war, my
father found her. She said her husband had died. Our correspondence was
restored. Then again in 1949 there was fight against cosmopolitism, and
again we had no letters from her. Only after Stalin's death, a friend of
hers (whose son was a political figure in democratic Germany) came to us
and brought us a letter from her.

So, when we received a letter from her, telling us that she was
coming, my father went to the police to "legalize," so to speak, her visit.
He went and asked them if we could have a relative visit us from
Switzerland. The police said "yes," so, we went to the airport. My father
went to ask some boss whether we could meet her on the field. Again, the
answer was "yes," so we bought flowers, even though it was uncommon then.
We took my aunt and her son to the "Intourist" hotel. My husband and I went
to invite them to come over. They wanted to walk along Kreschatik. We went
to Ulyanovy Street. There, next to our house there was a terrible house,
with a toilet outside. My cousin, Aunt Polya's son, wanted to record this
house on video. My husband did not go with him. He said, "I don't want to
leave a trace in such affairs." My mother cooked a wonderful dinner and
invited everyone who knew my aunt. My husband noticed that outside our
house a car was being repaired for the whole time they spent at our house.
As soon as they left, the car left too.

Then they went to Moscow. We saw them off at the train station, and
they were watched again. After their departure, the police came to my
mother and to my workplace. My husband was also summoned to the personnel
department of his workplace and asked many detailed questions about our
guests and those who wanted to see them here. They tried to make him a
supergrass, but he declined the "offer."

When aunt Polya was in Moscow, no relatives or friends who lived there
were brave enough to see her. Only her cousin came to see her from
Leningrad.

My mother died in 1963. After that, Aunt Polya invited me to
Switzerland many times, and I went to visit her in 1967, 1972, 1974, and
1977. And in 1988 I visited cousin Franklin, when my aunt was no longer
alive.

We talked a lot with her. For her whole life she was an atheist. But
at the end of her life she was interested in this question. She told me
many times, "You know, nobody came back from there." At the end of her
life, when I would go for a walk with her, she would often go to the
Catholic Church. She would only come inside, stand for a while and leave.
Her husband and her daughter were atheists, but her son Franklin read a lot
about different religions and chose to become a Catholic. He is a Catholic
now, not a fanatic, but once a week he goes to mass.

When I visited them for the first time in 1967, they told me they knew
about everything that was going on in our country and were against it. She
asked me, "What did you kill Trotsky for?" (Editor's note: Trotsky (Leo
Bronstein, 1879-1940, creator of the ideological-political movement which
was antagonistic to Marxism and close to the Mensheviks. It was called
"Trotskyism." For "anti-Soviet" propaganda, Trotsky was sent outside of the
USSR in 1929 and deprived of Soviet citizenship in 1932. He was killed in
Mexico by Communist Ramon Merkader). I personally never knew he was killed;
nobody here knew that fact. "But Stalin killed him!" Aunt Polya said. They
said that in general the idea of Communism is not bad, but any idea can
exist for 20 years, while in our country the Soviet power was 50 years old,
but everyone in the leadership was thinking only about their own good. They
told me all these things, but I was, and am, a Soviet.

When the new political developments and wars started in Israel, my
father got very interested in them. He took all Jewish problems very
closely to heart. He subscribed to the Soviet Jewish journal and listened
to all the "Voices" (radio stations that were forbidden in our country and
whose radiocast was jammed); he wanted to know the truth. My father died in
1974.

For some time my husband and I were thinking of emigrating to Israel.
We knew very little of Israel then and were afraid to quit everything here
and find ourselves in a strange and unknown country. We thought we would
never again be able to return here and see our near and dear, for everyone
who left could not even keep up a correspondence with us because of our
fear of the authorities. Such correspondence was always checked by the
Security Service and it was dangerous; people could even be fired from work
for it. We also understood that it would be hard for us to learn a new
language and find a job. At that time those who were emigrating were held
up to shame. Then we decided that since we were alone, with no children, we
could stay here; and so we stayed.

Later, after my husband's death, I went to Israel. My cousin Franklin
paid for my trip. I certainly took everything there as something dear and
close. Everything was so interesting - the rich synagogues, the Torah
scrolls, the mezuzahs. I was there on Passover. I heard the words I had
forgotten long time ago, the words I knew in my childhood. Some things I
recovered in my memory, others things were new to me.

In Israel I learned about all the traditions, about how to celebrate
Passover, about prayers and Haggadah. Jewish life in Kiev is very
different. It is wonderful that we have "Hesed," synagogues and Jewish
youth organizations. I certainly don't want to pretend, because I am not
religious and will never be, but I am still very interested in everything
about Jewish life. Sometimes I think that we have lost something in our
lives due to the degree of our assimilation and being far from the Jewish
life. But it is not our fault - it is rather our trouble. That is why I am
really happy about the restoration of Jewish life. Even Russians and
Ukrainians are jealous, saying that the Jews are doing a good job, thinking
about one another, for the whole world is helping our Jews to survive and
to identify themselves with the Jewish nation. That is why it is so nice
that young people have plunged so deeply into the Jewish life, into various
Jewish organizations. They will not miss what being Jewish is all about.

I am very grateful to you for talking to me. I hope it will be
helpful. Thank you.

Ребека Гершон

Произходът на моето семейство идва от град Пловдив.  Родителите на майка ми и баща ми са родени и са живели в този град. Аз също съм родена  в град Пловдив – на 29 май 1923 г. Животът ми като дете в този град беше невероятен. Пловдив беше спокоен, уютен и много добре уреден град. Къщата, в която съм родена не си спомням, защото сме живели под наем и затова сме се местили няколко пъти през времето на моето детство. По това време беше съвсем естествено да се живее под наем и повечето семейства живееха по този начин. Изобщо животът ми в Пловдив беше една приказка. Семейството ми не беше особено богато, но аз съм изживяла детството си много щастливо. Пловдив беше за мен някакво очарование.

Прадядо ми по майчина линия е живял в Пазарджик и е бил гръцки поданик. Неговият произход идва от Гърция. Кога е дошъл в Бъпгария и откъде точно никога не е ставало дума в семейството на майка ми. Занимавал с търговия на дървен материал. Бил е много достоен и хубав човек. Спомням си, че баба ми, неговата дъщеря, ходеше всяка година да си заверява паспорта в службата по общинска безопасност в Пловдив, защото се водеше гръцка поданичка. Майка ми, нейната сестра и брат получават българско поданство след 18 годишната си възраст.

Прабаба ми по майчина линия се е казвала Естреа. Говореше и на ладино и на български. Прабаба ми по майчина линия живя доста дълго – при една от дъщерите си в Ямбол и идваше на гости в Пловдив при моята баба. Дори сме ходили на курорт – аз с баба ми и прабаба ми. Спомням си, че баба ми по майчина линия, Мазалтов Калеф пишеше на ладино. Беше много спокойна и мила жена. Разказваше ми приказки, беше много сладкодумна. Имаше неизчерпаем списък от приказки. Любимата ми беше за 1001 нощ. Баба ми беше много интелигентна и добра и всички в Пловдив много я уважаваха и обичаха. Когато почина, вече бяхме отишли да живеем  в София и аз бях в седми клас на гимназията.

Спомням си и един брат на прадядо ми, който живееше в Пловдив и беше много достолепен старик – много сериозен и достоен човек. Живееше на главната улица в града и аз му ходех на гости. Живееше сам с една домашна помощничка.

Майка ми Сарина имаше брат и сестра – Шмуел и Ернеста, а баща ми Алберт имаше трима братя и една сестра от първия брак на баща си – Шимон, Самуел, Йосеф и Матилда. Майката на баща ми е починала много рано и баща му се е оженил повторно. От втората съпруга на баща си има природени две сестри и един брат – Мари, Виктория и Леон.

Дядо ми по бащина линия, Аврам Гершон, е роден в Пловдив. Той беше комисионер по професия, но в по-голяма степен е издържан от баща ми и неговия брат, които бяха търговци и имаха голям магазин.Дядо ми и баба ми по бащина линия живееха в Пловдив на Сахат тепе в една стара българска къща с голям чардак[дървен навес] и огромен двор. Къщата имаше масивен каменен зид. Там имаше невероятна атмофера. Аз много обичах да ходя там. Къщата имаше три огромни стаи, които много ме впечатляваха, тъй като тогава живеех в по-скромно пространство. Там обичах да закусвам сутрин на софра [тадиционна ниска масичка] попара [популярна закуска от надробен хляб и прясно мляко].

Дядо ми по бащина линия дружеше изключително с българи. Цялата му среда се състоеше от българи и имаше непрекъснато гости за обяд или вечеря. Беше строг, хубав мъж, не много висок на ръст. Изпитвах страхопочитание към него, тъй като беше много строг, но и много грижовен.

В близост до къщата на баба ми и дядо ми се намираше малък площад, в който се намираше цирка. За мен беше невероятно изживяване да ходя на цирк и да гледам номерата с животните. В тази част на града се намираше стопанското училище и смесената гимназия, в която учих една година преди да се преместим в София.

Дядо ми по майчина линия, Хаим Калеф, почина когато бях едва на шест години. Спомням си, че когато се разхождах из Пловдив чух две жени да си приказват на улицата за това. Бях много малка и не разбирах добре какво се случва. Стана ми ясно едва когато майка ми ми обясни. Според нашите обичаи жените не ходят на гробища и не помня абсолютно нищо от погребението.

В Пловдив сме живели на няколко места. Местили сме се много често. Къщата, в която съм родена, не си спомням. Къщата, в която живеехме първоначално в Пловдив, се намираше на главната улица “Цар Освободител” срещу Бунарджика. След това отидохме да живеем на Сахат Тепе на улица “Станфорд”. На улица  “Цар Освободител” сме живели два пъти – веднъж в началото на улицата, веднъж в нейния край. Първият път живеехме с хазяи евреи, които живееха на горния етаж, а ние – на долния етаж. В тази къща се роди брат ми.

Със сигурност си спомням, че когато живеехме в къщата срещу Бунарджика, нямаше електрическо осветление, тъй като вечерно време баща ми използваше фенер. Тогава имахме и момиче слугинче, което помагаше в домакинството. Една вечер, когато се прибирахме вкъщи от някакво гостуване аз започнах да закачам и дърпам момичето, което носеше на ръце брат ми, който беше бебе тогава. Момичето изпусна брат ми да падне на земята. За радост не се беше  наранил, но аз изядох голям пердах. (или: “бях наказана от родителите си” б.а.).

Спомням си и друга случка от тази къща. Брат ми се роди много хубаво дете. Имаше къдрави коси, сини очи и големи бузки. Тогава започнах да ревнувам от него, тъй като цялото внимание вече беше насочено към него. Един ден помолих майка ми да го понося малко и заедно с мой братовчед излязохме на терасата. Бяхме купили големи червени бонбони и се опитахме да пъхнем един такъв бонбон в устата на бебето. Едва не го задушихме и си получихме наказанието.

Брат ми, Хаим Алберт Калеф,е роден на 16. 1. 1929 г.в Пловдив . Там е бил в детска градина. Едва в София започва първо отделение, стига до трето и тогава ни изселиха в Плевен. Фактически в България той остана без образование. След като се върнахме в София той започна да работи. Беше сръчно момче изапочна работа в един обущарски цех. Когато заминаваше за Израел, направи разкошни туристически обувки за цялото семейство. В Израел започна да се интересува от механика и завърши училище за “мазгер” механик, след което стана преподавател. Изработвал е проекти за големи конструкции в металургията.

Учех в еврейското училище до 4-то отделение. Беше ми много трудно и започнах да моля майка ми да ме премести. Особено трудно ми беше да науча едно стихотворение наизуст на иврит. До ден днешен не знам иврит и изпитвам голямо неудобство от това когато ходя в Израел.

Живеехме на улица “Карнеги” като срещу нас се намираше училището “Карнеги”. Преместих се в прогимназията в това училище, което се намираше точно от другата страна на улицата. Тази къща се намираше между Бунарджика и пожарната команда. Това е много приятен квартал в Пловдив. Там живеехме при една братовчедка на майка ми, която обитаваше първия етаж. При нас, на втория етаж, живееше още едно еврейско семейство, което беше пристигнало от Гърция. Започнах гимназиалното си образование в Пловдив – в 4-ти клас в смесената гимназия. През лятото на 1938 г. се преместих в София, където продължих да уча.

Най-накрая, преди да заминем за София, живеехме на Бунарджика, срещу главния вход - на улица “Цар Освободител”. Представляваше къща близнак – една къща, разделена на две. Гръцкото семейство живееше в едната част – гъркинята със съпруга си, двамата и сина, които бяха ученици и една дъщеря. В другата част живеехме аз, майка ми , баща ми и брат ми. Имахме отделни входове за къщата. Самата къща разполагаше с голям двор и насаждения, за които се грижеше гъркинята. Спомням си, че тя се отнасяше много недоверчиво към нас, защото може би си мислеше, че ще повредим насажденията и, но след като ни опозна, започна да дружи с нас. Гъркинята беше протестантка и агитираше майка ми да ходи на събранията на протестантската църква. Аз я придружавах, защото ми беше любопитно да наблюдавам техните събрания и обстановката – как насядалите по скамейките хора пеят псалми, тъй като това го няма в нашата синагога. Сега тази къща не съществува, защото на нейно място е направена жилищна кооперация.

Много обичах да се разхождам из Пловдив и имах тази възможност. Любимите ми места бяха Сахат Тепе [един от тите хълма на града ] , Бунарджика, [ един от тите хълма на града ]  река Марица. Събирахме се голяма група от деца и се скитахме из града. Играехме на много игри - като малка играех с момчетата на топчета. Тези топчета ги взимахме от бутилките за сода и лимонада. Играехме много и на стражари и апаши. Много интересна беше играта на духове. Събирахме се в къщи, спускахме пердетата и започвахме да викаме духове, докато не ни се привиждаше нещо и обикновено някой изпищяваше от страх. Разбира се, това правехме само когато родителите ни отсъстваха от къщи. Играехме и на криеница.

Спомням си, че когато живеехме на улица “Цар Освободител”, се събирахме няколко деца, на които бях казала, че ако копаем, можем да достигнем до средата на Земята. Представях си, че там има езеро, до което има лодка, на която можем да се повозим. Започнахме да копаем и разбира се, не стигнахме до нищо. Обичахме да берем сливи и други плодове от чуждите дворове и често ни се караха за това.

Винаги съм общувала с приятелите си на български език. Баба ми и майка ми говореха на ладино, но аз смятах този език за нещо архаично. Иврит не сме говорили. Едва сега започнах да се интересувам от ладино, защото виждам връзката с испанския език.

В семейството ми беше прието да се пазарува през дните сряда и четвъртък, а в петък да се готви. В събота не се готвеше, но се палеха електрически крушки и се слушаше радио; понякога ходехме и на кино. Семейството ми спазваше Кашер. Пазарувахме винаги от магазини, където равинът бе сложил печат и се ядеше изключително телешко месо За първи път вкусихме свинско месо след 9 септ. 1944 г., когато имаше голяма криза за храна и бях получила от службата си такова месо, което занесох вкъщи и за първи път майка ми сготви свинско месо.

Когато бях малка, баба ми по майчина линия ме водеше на синагога. Спомням си, че ме водеше на празника Кипур – празника на всеопрощението – когато не се яде по цял ден и се вечеря в шест часа вечерта. Тогава близките си прощават взаимно греховете. Празникът е посветен и на мъртвите и на живите. Когато свещенникът завършваше словото си в синагогата, захапвахме първо една голяма дюла, която беше първото нещо, което се ядеше през деня. Беше истинско събитие, ако децата успееха да издържат да не се хранят цял ден.

Празнувахме винаги Песах, когато най-възрастният от семейството чете молитвата за празника, свързана с легендата за спасяването на евреите от египетското нашествие. В нашата къща най-възрастен беше баща ми, но понякога се събирахме с близките на майка ми или на баща ми и тогава дядовците прочитаха молитвата. Бях по-привързана към семейството на майка ми, докато към роднините на баща ми изпитвах любопитство и интерес.

Почитахме и Ханука. Имахме специален свещник, който палехме на празника. Винаги се правеха богати трапези за празниците. На празника Пурим ми правеха торбичка с плодове – портокал, ябълка, фурма, рошков[специфично широколистно дърво] орех. Даваха ни и по някой лев и отивахме да се въртим на люлките.

Баща ми приемаше по свой начин религията. Преди всичко се вълнуваше от политиката – беше изключителен политикан. Баща ми не беше много религиозен. Но след като замина за Израел, стана по-религиозен. Там научи иврит и четеше вестници. Брат ми също научи иврит преввъзходно, преподавал е на иврит. Баща ми беше много ученолюбив и четеше редовно, въпреки че не беше завършил училище. Беше отявлен ционист и ревизионист и аз редовно спорех с него, тъй като имах леви убеждения. Баща ми, както и брат ми, нямаха много време да четат и да се образоват. Въпреки това имаха изключително задълбочени познания по някои въпроси. Не бяха учили нещо специално, но имаха имаха изключителни познания по география, история и икономика.

Баща ми беше търговец и отявлен политикан. Той търгуваше с кинкалерия и работеше повече със селяни. Продаваше панделки, дантели, копчета, но за мое съжаление не и играчки. Магазинът му се намираше на търговската улица близо до джамията при аптека “Марица”. Магазинът беше на два етажа. Първият етаж представляваше приемната, а вторият етаж беше за стоката. На първия етаж баща ми обичаше да приема гости. За тази цел винаги имаше осигурени пресни банички и други неща за хапване. Баща ми беше отявлен ревизионист и ционист и беше член на организацията “Жаботински” – еврейска организация, която пропагандира идеята и има за цел възстановяването на територията на Израел с бойни средства. Името на организацията идва от името на нейния основател, който е бил полски евреин – Владимир Жаботински. По това време евреите в Пловдив имаха много разнообразни политически въгледи като  баща ми беше от най-десните. Спомням си, че в организацията, в която членуваше баща ми, имаше и един Паси, който се явява дядо на сегашния министър на външните работи Соломон Паси.

Баща ми влагаше много средства в този магазин за политически сбирки и когато дойде кризата от 1929 г. , той фалира. Това е годината, в която се роди брат ми и оттогава започна бедността. Имахме домашна прислужница до времето, когато живеехме на улица “Станфорд”. След това вече нямахме възможност и майка ми сама пое домакинството.[ През 1929 г. в България започва икономическа криза, която засяга и семейството на Ребека Гершон]

За мен Пловдив беше като еврейски град-държава. Чувствах се много уютно в Пловдив. Роднините ми бяха много задружни и винаги са се събирали и са държали един на друг. Освен това през 20-те години аз бях единствената внучка и се ползвах с изключителното внимание на целия род. Живеех безгрижно и не съм мислила за политическата и икономическата обстановка в България. Винаги съм била нахранена и добре облечена.

Всяка събота и неделя излизахме извън Пловдив. Понякога тръгвахме и в петък вечер. Придвижвахме се с талиги [четириколесни закрити каруци с два впрегатни коня]. Ходили сме в Коматово, Куклино, Марково [села в Пловдивско]. Минавахме през великолепни орехови гори, които за съжаление не съществуват вече. С нас носехме специални скари за барбекю, кладяхме огньове. Моите родители много обичаха разходките в околностите на Пловдив.

Често, обикновено в събота, отивахме на Бунарджика, където беше Казиното. Живеехме наблизо и сядахме заедно с познати семейства да послушаме музика. Навремето беше известен певеца и танцьора Джип. В събота на децата даваха пари и отивахме да ядем пържени дробчета, кебапчета, купувахме си царевици, отивахме на сладкарница. Пловдив беше рогът на изобилието.

През 1937 г. родителите ми заминаха с брат ми за София,  а аз остаенах в Пловдив до следващата година. До заминаването си живях при моя вуйчо Шмуел и учех в смесената гимназия в Пловдив. Животът ми в Пловдив беше очарователен и когато дойдох в София плаках много. Цели шест месеца не можах да дойда на себе си. Аз заминах през лятото на 1938 г. за София, която тогава ми се стори отвратителна. Всичко ми беше чуждо и неприятно. Преживях много болезнено тази промяна. След няколко месеца отново заминах за Пловдив, тъй като бях във ваканция. Едва след като се върнах отново в София, успях да се адаптирам към новата обстановка, тъй като вече имах познати съученички. Ходех и в читалището, където също имах приятели.

След като заминаха за София, родителите ми отидоха да живеят първоначално на улица “Опълченска”, а след това – в къщата на една моя съученичка от гимназията на улица “Цар Симеон”. От тази къща ни изселиха в Плевен през 1943 г.Помня една бомбардировка в София, тогава живеехме на улица “Цар Симеон” при моята съученичка, която се казва Ани Пастуркова. Къщата беше на три етажа. Бомбардировката беше ужасна. Скрихме се в мазето на една съседна къща. Бомбардираха гарата, а жилището ни бише наблизо и всички гърмежи се чуваха много силно. В Плевен виждахме само ята от самолети, които отиваха към София. Променен параграф

Баща ми започна работа в София като търговски пътник в една шоколадова фабрика. Станаха близки със собственика, защото в лицето на баща ми той намери талантлив и отговорен човек.
Баща ми обикаляше страната и осъществяваше пласмента на продукцията в цялата провинция. Баща ми нямаше възможност да влезе в контакт с евреите в София. Пътуваше през цялото време и изобщо не се задържаше в града. Обикаляше страната, беше контактен човек и имаше приятели навсякъде из страната.Нивото на семейството на собственика по нищо не можеше да се сравнява с нашето. Семейството му беше от преуспели селяни. Бях съученичка с дъщерята на собственика в Трета девическа гимназия.

Първите антисемитски настроения усетих през 1939 г., когато обявиха Закона за защита на нацията [множество наредби за репресии срещу евреите в Б-я]. Спомням си, че се разхождах по булевард “Христо Ботев” заедно с моя приятелка. Тогава няколко души “бранници”[организация за репресии срещу евреите] започнаха да ни закачат и тогава за щастие моята приятелка, която не беше еврейка се обърна за помощ към един случайно преминаващ офицер. Изпитвах голямо унижение, когато ходех със значката. Била съм истинска късметлийка, че не съм поругавана и малтретирана.

Законът за защита на нацията от 1939 г. засегна първо собствениците на имоти – отнемаха им правото на собственост. Ние нямахме нито пари, нито собственост, но въпреки че баща ми работеше при български работодател, стагнацията започна да се усеща и при нас.

През 1941 – 1942 г. “Бранник” беше официална организация [организация за репресии срещу евреите]. Имах съученичка от гимназията, която стана член на тази организация. Случи се така, че след много години я срещнах отново. Нейната личност беше много отблъскваща. Срещата беше случайна на входа на Съдебната палата. Бяхме заедно с моя втори съпруг, който я познавал от службата си. Тогава съпругът ми я разцелува без да знае за моето отношение към нея. Аз реагирах емоционално и му зашлевих шамар. Тогава бях стажант в Съдебната палата, а съпругът ми беше юрист. След тази случка, макар и трудно, съпругът ми ми прости.

Завърших гимназия през 1941 г. През 1942 г. ни окачиха значките, за да личи, че сме от еврейски произход, но не загубихме кураж. Опитах се да започна работа в София, тъй като бях завършила машинописни курсове. В София нямахме възможност да се установим постоянно, защото нямахме въэможност за това. Семейството ни разполагаше с една заплата – тази на баща ми, а аз и брат ми бяхме ученици. Но през 1943 г. дойде известие, че сме изселени в Плевен. Бяхме принудени да разпродадем цялата си покъщнина от къщата на улица “Цар Симеон”, в която живеехме тогава. Променен параграф

Моите роднини от Пловдив не бяха изселени от града. Имали са ограничителен режим. Не са могли да ходят на работа и да напускат града.  

Леля ми по майчина линия беше женена за равин в Бургас. Той имаше гръцко поданство. Когато са започнали гоненията срешу евреите, околийският управител на Бургас е посъветвал равина да напусне страната, за да не попадне в концлагерите. За една вечер се приготвят и заминават за Турция през 1942г. и оттам в Израел. Леля ми тогава е имала две деца. В Израел не е живяла щастливо и се е развела с мъжа си. Пишехме си писма, от които стана ясно това. Писах й, че ще направя всичко възможно, за да й помогна да се върне в България, ако желае това. Но тя не пожела и остана в Тел Авив в Изарел, където почина от левкемия. Много обичах тази моя леля.

В Плевен първоначално ни настаниха в едно училище и след това ни разрешиха да си наемем квартира, която представляваше една стая. В Плевен живеехме до пътя, който водеше към затвора “Кайлъка” [“Кайлъка” е използван и за концентрационен лагер]. Този район е в покрайнините на града. Хазяите ни бяха много любезни и ни канеха да си наберем грозде от тяхната овощна градина.  Хранехме се в обществена кухня [на определено място в града в определен час се раздава безплатна храна за новопристигналите евреи]. Започнах работа в една фабрика за обувки. Станах “саяджийка” – правихме “саите”- това са горните части на обувките.променен параграф

В Плевен имах един изключително неприятен период. Единствено хората около мен бяха добри. В обущарската фабрика работех заедно с много други момичета, други хора отиваха да работят по лозята. Във фабриката бях репресирана от един майстор, който непрекъснато ме наблюдаваше и се занимаваше само с мен. Издевателстваше над мен и когато беше в лошо настроение ме караше да излизам навън и да събирам изрезки от кожата за обувки без никакъв смисъл. Накрая собственикът на фабриката дойде нри мен и ме посъветва да напусна и аз напуснах. Отидох в друга фабрика, където собственикът беше фашист. Там за щастие работеше един симпатичен евреин на възрастта на баща ми, който ме ориентира в обстановката и ме покровителстваше през цялото време. Слава Богу, дойде 9. септември[комунистически преврат през 1944]   и напуснах.

Майсторът от фабриката имаше нахалството да дойде в София и да ме потърси. Тогава аз го заплаших с арест. Не можех да проумея как възрастен човек със семейство може да постъпва така.

Това беше изключително лош период за мен. Благодарение на това, че ние, евреите умеем да се организираме, успяхме да преживеем. Събирахме се всяка събота и неделя с повод и без повод. Дори бяхме направили музикална група, в която се свиреше на цигулки. Пеехме, изнасяха се беседи.

В Плевен се случи нещо любопитно и парадоксално. Запознах се с трима младежи, които се държаха с мен като с принцеса, въпреки че бяха с крайно десни убеждения. Дори единият от тях беше легионер [профашистка организация до 1944 г.]. Покровителстваха ме и дори единият от тях беше влюбен в мен и ми подари красива гривна. Правихме си разходки, гостувах му и му имах безкрайно доверие. Тези младежи се държаха с мен като истински джентълмени.

В Плевен се запознах с представител на известната и заможна фамилия Асео, които бяха собственици на големи имоти в София, сред които и най-известното кино в града. Беше млад човек – студент, но беше с побеляла коса. Станахме близки, но след като се върнахме в София, пътищата ни се разделиха.

По времето на Холокоста вуйчо ми, баща ми и брат му бяха разпределени в трудови групи. Баща ми беше разпределен в трудовите групи [групи за принудителен труд] в Белене.  Вуйчо ми не е бил изселен, но е държан в гето, което е било създадено специално за евреите.Баща ми беше изключително издръжлив човек. Бил е болен само веднъж на старини. През 1988 г. получи тежък удар и е настанен в дом с медицинско обслужване.променено според желанието на Дора от Венгрия

Когато баща ми беше в трудовите групи, нямахме никаква връзка с него. Едва по-късно научихме къде е бил разпределен – в Белене [населено място в северна България]. В Плевен не разполагахме с никакви средства освен с моята скромна заплата.

Върнах се в София през месец октомври 1944 г. Влаковете бяха претъпкани. След 9 септември 1944 г. веднага ме поканиха в областното управление на МВР в Плевен. Работех в нравствения отдел и пишех протоколи на машина. Когато бе обявено, че можем да се върнем в София, отидох при областния управител, който беше много симпатичен човек и ми даде много препоръчителни писма. Когато се върнах в София, отидох в Дирекцията на милицията на площад “Лъвов мост”. Там един много симпатичен човек ме прие на работа в паспортния отдел.

Родителите ми се върнаха малко по-късно от мен и намериха квартира на улица “Цар Иван-Асен ІІ” в една двуетажна къща. Аз получих жилище от МВР на улица “Граф Игнатиев” и бул.”Толбухин”[днес “В. Левски”]. Тъй като квартирата на улица “Цар Иван-Асен ІІ” беше една стая, отидохме да живеем на бул. “Толбухин 2”, откъдето се беше изнесъл мой колега. Там делихме жилището с една моя сънародничка еврейка, която първоначално отказваше да ни приеме, дори на два пъти ни изнасяше багажа от жилището. Накрая, все пак, станахме добри приятели. Тя живееше в едната стая, а моето семейство – баща ми, майка ми, брат ми и аз в стая, кухня и хол. Апартаментът беше огромен. След като се изселиха родителите ми от България в Израел, получих предложение да го купя, но първият ми съпруг Мюнцер Благоев не се съгласи, защото смяташе, че всичко ще се превърне в държавна собственост. По-късно се наложи да освободим жилището, защото сестрата на собственичката продаде жилището. Междувременно родителите ми и брат ми заминаха за Израел. Тогава се преместихме с първиях ми съпруг на ул. “Марин Дринов”.

На работното си място не съм имала конфликти заради еврейския си произход. Спомням си една случка, когато една служителка от Дирекцията на милицията разказваше на колегите си, че е била изгонена от една “мръсна” еврейка, която е била собственичката на жилището, в което е била настанена. Тогава съществуваше практика властите да настаняват новопристигналите в София хора в къщи и апартаменти на други хора. Аз също бях настанена в подобно жилище на булевард “Толбухин” [сега “Васил Левски”]. Същият беше случаят с тази служителка. Аз станах и и ударих шамар. Дори да живеех при българка, никога нямаше да я нарека така. След това имах неприятности от моя началник, който ме заплашваше със съд. В крайна сметка всичко се размина и дори останахме приятелки с моята колежка. Животът е бил снизходителен към мен и не съм имала големи неприятности.

Имаше партийно решение от страна на БКП за заминаването на евреите – всички можеха да заминат. Но тогавашният началник на Дирекцията на милицията ме извика и ми съобщи, че дори да подам молба за заминаване, няма да ме пуснат поне 5-6 години. Действително, мен ме пуснаха да се видя с роднините си едва след 13 години – през 1963 г.След деветосептемврийския преврат от 1944 г. аз имах леви убеждения [прокомунистически]. Въпреки че много мои сънародници заминаха, аз не желаех това. Направих само формални постъпки, за да бъда толерантна към родителите си. Голяма промяна

След 9 септ. 1944 г. направих постъпки за специализация на брат ми в Чехия в училище на фирмата “Бата”. От мястото, в което работеше, не получи добра характеристика и не замина. Може би ако беше получил добра характеристика и бе заминал за Чехия, нямаше да замине така скоро за Израел. Това беше преломен момент в живота му.

След като се основа Израелската държава, евреите започнаха да напускат България. Родителите ми заминаха през 1949 г. , а роднините ми в Пловдив – през 1948 г. След това имаше една голяма “алиа” – заминаха всичките ми приятели. От около 45 000 души тогава останаха 10 000, а сега в България не знам дали има 5 000 евреи.Моите родители са били настанени в т.нар. “срикове” – специални бараки. Брат ми не желаеше да бъдат настанени в квартира в града и първото му жилище беше в Яфо – в новозаселената част на града.преместено

Баща ми е започнал веднага работа в Израел. Положението е било трудно, тъй като не е имало достатъчно работа за всички новопристигнали. Търсили са препитание на много места. Брат ми разказва една тъжна история, когато са ходили с баща ми от Пардес Хана, където са били на лагери, чак до Хайфа да търсят работа, но не са намерили, спали са на открито и са се върнали обратно. Брат ми е работил във варници, където са му били изгорени краката. После баща ми си намира работа в общинска строителна организация “Амидар” за строежи на жилища на новодошлите като домакин. Помагал е на хората да се настаняват и много са го обичали и уважавали. На 78 годишна възраст е обявил, че напуска и  цяла група хора са дошли при него да го молят да остане. Получавал е добра пенсия, майка ми е получавала социална пенсия. Имаха собствено жилище, което са оставили на брат ми.

Преди изселването ни в Плевен посещавах много редовно еврейското читалище “Климентина”. Много обичах да чета и ходех там предимно да чета. Постепенно там се запознах с различни хора, които започнаха да се занимават с мен и да ме просвещават. Преди заминаването бях в еврейска среда. След като се завърнах от изселването продължавах да ходя в еврейския дом и дори участвах в хора на еврейския дом. Но като служител в милицията имах неограничено работно време и това ми попречи да продължа. Средата ми се обособи с работното място и приятелката ми от училище.

С първия ми съпруг се запознах в работата си. Той се казва Мюнцер Благоев и не е евреин. Баща му е бил съратник на Георги Димитров[първия мин-председател на България сдлед 09.09.1944  и председател на БКП] и Васил Коларов[министър в правителството на Г.Димитров]. Неговото семейство е заминало нелегално в Русия през 1923г. През 1947г. се завръща от Москва. Завършил е право. През XII. 1949г. сключихме брак. Родителите ми не присъстваха.

По това време не чествах еврейските празници. След 09. IX.1944г. не беше актуално да се честват празниците. Повечето ми приятели бяха българи. Съпругът ми беше особен човек и живееше изолирано. Признаваше само братята си. Така постепенно се отчуждих от еврейската си среда.

Когато заминаха родителите ми, аз продължих да живея на бул. “Толбухин”2. Там живяхме и със съпруга ми. Той имаше конфликт с Вълко Червенков [тогавашен министър на културата] заради някакви възражения от страна на съпруга ми към управлението на коменистическата партия. От друга страна майка му беше със самочувствието на активен партиен функционер. Дори са били изгонени от жилището си по нареждане на Вълко Червенков.

Работих в Дирекцията на милицията до 1951г. Тогава изгониха съпруга ми Мюнцер Благоев, който работеше като инспектор, за неразбирателство с ръководството на Дирекцията и заедно с него – и мен. Бях много щастлива от този факт, защото докато работех там, бях много ограничавана и чувствах, че работата ми тежи. Тогава получихме по една заплата допълнително и аз си спомням, че отидох в магазина за платове, който се намираше на мястото на Американското посолство и си купих прекрасни платове. Получих препоръки за работа, докато него го уволниха и го наказаха партийно. Препоръките ми бяха за три места. Аз избрах съюза на Българо-съветските дружества. Другата ми препоръка беше за Градския комитет на БКП. Съюзът на Българо-съветските дружества се намираше на ул. “Мизия” и започнах работа като завеждащ връзки с чужбина. Там работих до заминаването ми в Китай.

Мюнцер Благоев бе уволнен през 1951г.. Чак през 1954г. започна работа. Хранила съм го 4 години. През 1954г. чрез министъра на финансите – Кирил Лазаров, който му е бил кръстник, влиза във МВнР с длъжност “аташе по печата”. През 1958г. бе предложен за заминаване в Китай и заминахме. Там живяхме 4 години. Мюнцер Благоев работеше като втори секретар на българското посолство в Китай.

Когато бях в Китай пращах писмата до родителите ми до майката на Мюнцер в България и тя ги слагаше в друг плик и ги препращаше до Израел. От България пращах директно писмата си.

След като се завърнах, нямах работа и реших да завърша образованието си. През 1956г. бях положила изпити за специалност право. След това прекъснах контактите си с университета, тъй като нямах време да уча и работя едновременно. Когато се завърнах от Китай направих постъпки пред деканата да продължа следването си. Зарърших през 1967 година, дипломирах се. Започнах работа в Съюза на юристите. След това бях юрисконсулт във “Водно стопанство” и оттам се пенсионирах.

Разведох се с Мюнцер Благоев през 1965г. заради големите неприятности, които сам си създаваше с конфликтното си поведение към официалната власт и произтичащите от   товa
последици върху мен. През 1974г. се объжих пак за мой сънародник от Пловдив, който познавам от ученичка. Вторият ми съпруг се казва Соломон Леви. Той ми остави син и дъщеря, които не бих имала, ако не го бях срещнала и с които сме в много добри отношения. Много са ми помагали – особено при преместванията ми в нови жилища. Времето, което изживях с втория ми съпруг беше изпълнено с много приятни мигове от пътешествия и ексурзии в страната. След като се оженихме, през 1975 г. , направихме едно пътуване до Израел като на връщане минахме през Гърция.

Докато бяха живи родителите ми, ходех много често в Израел – през 2-3 години. Понякога имах проблеми със заминаването си. Имаше една абсурдна ситуация - когато майка ми беше на смъртно легло ми казаха, че ще ме пуснат само ако отивам на погребение. Това се случи през 1983 година. Тогава вече беше починал съпругът  ми. Майка ми почина през следващата година.

По време на войните в Израел аз бях изцяло на страната на моя народ, за което щях да получа наказание. Смятах, че тази държава трябва да съществува, защото заради нея са загинали хиляди хора. Тогава бях стажантка в Народния съд. Спомням си, че един млад колега, чийто баща беше декан на Икономическия факултет, носеше всеки ден карта на Близкия Изток и отбелязваше със знаменца мястото на военните действия.

Помня едно събрание, в което Тодор Живков [първи секретар на българската комунистическа партия] имаше доклад и стана дума за израелско-арабския конфликт. Тогава един от присъстващите се изкза, че е готов да отиде да се бие на страната на арабите, на което Тодор Живков отговори с ирония. .

Смятам за нормално развитието на политическите процеси в Източна Европа. Процесът на отваряне на Източна Европа е правилен.

Смятах нахлуването на руските войски в Чехия за нещо нормално. Мислех, че там стават лоши неща, така бях възпитана. По време на събитията в Чехия бях в Израел на гости на моя приятелка, която ми беше колежка от структурите на МВР. Тя беше голяма комунистка. В Израел беше омъжена за един много симпатичен лекар. Била е изгонена от МВР и наказана заради връзка е един от началниците си, който е бил обявен за “враг”. Нейното име е Бека Франсез. На това гости тя изрази позиция срещу намесата на Съветския съюз. Тогава бях изумена. За мен това беше ерес. Въпреки негативните последствия върху мен от брака ми с Мюнцер Благоев – знаех, че щом спомена, че съм му съпруга, ще бъда изгонена от работа – у мен бе останало убеждението, че трябва да бъда вярна на  партията [БКП].

Пенсионирах се през 1978г. След 1989г. отначало бях много стресната. Струваше ми се, че се връщах назад към онова минало, от което се боях и което ненавиждах. След това разбрах, че е дошло време за промяна и на политиката и на икономиката. Съветският съюз пръв даде сигнал за това. Тогава разбрах, че не всичко е черно или бяло, че има и нюанси, че не всички които не са членове на БСП са фашисти, че не всички, които са членове на БСП са демократи и т.н. Започнах да чувствам хората като хора, а не като членове на дадена партия. След 1989г. бяхме изключително политизирани, беше еуфория. Сега разбирам, че един човек не прави политика. Уважавам хората заради качествата им.

Сега живея добре с помощта на брат ми, без грижа за насъщния. Посещавам еврейската общност. За съжаление нямам много близки приятели.

Rebeca Gershon-Levi
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interviewer: Dimitar Bozhilov
Date of interview: January 2002

My family background
Growing up in Plovdiv
Our religious life
My life in Sofia
During the war
My return to Sofia
My first husband
My second husband
Glossary

My family is from Plovdiv. My mother’s and father’s parents were born and lived in that town. I was also born there on 29th May 1923. My childhood in that town was wonderful. Plovdiv was a quiet, cozy and very well-organized town. I don’t remember the house where I was born because we lived in rented places then and moved several times during my childhood. It was quite usual at that time to live under rent and most families lived that way. My life in Plovdiv was like a fairy-tale. Our family wasn’t very rich but I had a very happy childhood. I found Plovdiv very charming.

My family background

My maternal great-grandfather lived in Pazardjik and was a Greek citizen. His ancestors had been from Greece. No one in my mother’s family ever told me when he had come to Bulgaria and from where exactly. I remember that his daughter, my grandmother, Mazaltov Haim Kalet, nee Sidi, who was a Greek citizen, had to go to the municipal offices in Plovdiv every year in order to certify her passport. My mother, her sister and brother got Bulgarian citizenship after they turned 18.

My maternal great-grandmother was named Estrea. She spoke both Ladino and Bulgarian. She lived to a very old age – with one of her daughters in the town of Yambol. She used to visit my grandmother in Plovdiv. We even went to health resorts together – my great-grandmother, my grandmother and I. I remember that my maternal grandmother wrote in Ladino. She was a very calm and kind woman. She used to tell me fairy-tales – she was very eloquent and had an endless list of tales. My favorite ones were those from the ‘A Thousand and One Nights’ collection. My grandma was very intelligent and good and everybody in Plovdiv respected and loved her a lot. She died after we had already moved to live in Sofia, when I was in the 7th class of high school.

I remember one of my great-grandfather’s brothers who lived in Plovdiv and he was a very impressive man. He lived on the main street and I often visited him. He lived alone; there was only one housemaid.

My mother Sarina Avram Gershon, nee Kalef, had a brother and a sister – Shmuel and Ernesta, and my father, Albert Haim Gershon, had three brothers and a sister from his father’s first marriage – Shimon, Samuel, Josef and Matilda. My father’s mother had died very early and his father married again after that. My father had two stepsisters and a stepbrother – Mari, Victoria and Leon.

My paternal grandfather, Haim Avram Gershon, was born in Plovdiv. He was an agent but my father and his brother supported him mostly as they were merchants and had a big shop. My paternal grandparents lived in Plovdiv on Sahat tepe [one of the hills in the town of Plovdiv] in an old Bulgarian house with a large chardak [a wooden penthouse] and a big courtyard. The house had a solid stonewall. The atmosphere there was wonderful. I loved going there a lot. There were three large rooms in the house that impressed me very much because I lived in a more humble lodging at that time. I loved to have breakfast on the sofra [a traditional low table] and eat popara [popular breakfast of crumbled bread and fresh milk].

My paternal grandfather had Bulgarian friends mostly. His circle of friends was totally Bulgarian and people used to visit us for lunch or dinner every day. He was a strict, handsome man, but not very tall. I respected him a lot because he was really strict but also a very caring person.

There was a small square near my grandparents’ house and the local circus performed there. I adored going to the circus and watch the animal shows. The economic school and the mixed high school, where I studied for a year before we moved to Sofia, were also in that part of town.

My maternal grandfather died when I was just six years old. I remember that I heard some women talking about that on the street while I was going for a walk in town. I was a very little girl then and I couldn’t understand very well what was going on. I understood it only after my mother explained it to me. According to our traditions women don’t go to the cemetery so I don’t remember my grandfather’s funeral. [Rebeca Gershon thinks that women should not go to the cemetery]

Growing up in Plovdiv

We lived in several places in Plovdiv. We moved from place to place very often because we lived in rented places. The house where we lived first was on the main street, Tsar Osvoboditel opposite Bunardjika [one of the hills in Plovdiv]. After that we went to live on Stranford Street on Sahat tepe. We lived twice on Tsar Osvoboditel Street – once at the beginning of the street and once at its end. The first time our landlords were Jewish and they lived on the upper floor and we lived on the first floor. My brother, Haim Albert Gershon, was born in that house.

I clearly remember that when we lived in the house opposite Bunardjika there wasn’t electricity there and my father used a lantern at nighttime. We used to have a housemaid – a young girl who helped in the household. One evening on our way back home from some visit I started to tease and pull the girl, who was carrying my baby brother then. She dropped him. Fortunately he wasn’t hurt but I got a big thrashing.

I remember another incident that happened in that house. My brother was a very beautiful baby. He had curly hair, blue eyes and big cheeks. I started to be jealous of him because all the attention at home was given to him. One day I asked my mother to let me carry him for a while and along with a cousin of mine we went out onto the terrace. We had bought big red sweets and we tried to stick it in the baby’s mouth. We almost choked him and we were punished afterwards.

My brother was born on 16th January 1929 in Plovdiv. He went to kindergarten there. He started school in Sofia and he got as far as the 3rd class when they interned us to Pleven. Practically he didn’t manage to get education while he lived in Bulgaria. He went to work after we came back to Sofia. He was a skilful boy and he started to work in a shoemaker’s workshop. He made a pair of lovely tourist shoes for everyone in the family before he left for Israel. He got interested in mechanics after he went to Israel, he graduated as a ‘mazger’ [Hebrew for mechanic] there and after that he became a teacher. He has created big construction projects in metallurgy.

I studied in the Jewish school till the 4th class. It was difficult for me there and I started begging my mother to transfer me to another school. I found it really hard to learn a poem in Hebrew by heart. I still don’t speak Hebrew and I’m embarrassed because of that when I go to Israel.

We lived on Karnegi Street and just opposite us was Karnegi school. I changed to that junior high school. Our house was then just between Bunardjika hill and the fire brigades. That’s a very nice quarter of Plovdiv. We lived on the second floor at a cousin’s of my mother, and she lived on the first floor. Another Jewish family that had come from Greece lived on the second floor as well. I started my high school education in Plovdiv – in the 4th class in the mixed school. I moved to Sofia in the summer of 1938 and I went on studying here.

In the last period before we left for Sofia, we lived on Bunardjika hill, opposite the main entrance, on Tsar Osvoboditel Street. It was a twin house, one house split in two. A Greek family lived in one half of the house: a Greek woman and her husband, their two sons, who were students and one daughter. My mother, my father, my brother and I lived in the other half. We had different entrances to the house. The house itself had a big courtyard and lots of plants in it and the Greek woman took care of them. I remember that she used to be very suspicious of us at first –she probably thought that we were going to do harm to her plants – but after she got to know us better, she became our friend. The Greek woman was a Protestant and she tried to persuade my mother to go to the Protestant church gatherings with her. I used to join her because it was interesting for me to watch their meetings and the atmosphere there – the people sitting on the benches and singing psalms – because you can’t see that in our synagogues. This house no more exists now; an apartment block has been built there instead.

I loved to walk around Plovdiv and I had the chance to do so a lot. My favorite places were Sahat tepe, Bunardjika and Maritsa River. A bunch of children used to gather and wander around town. We played a lot of games – I used to play with small balls with the boys, for instance. We took the balls that came with bottles of lemonade or soda. We used to play ‘thieves and policemen’ a lot. Another interesting game was ‘Ghosts’: We used to gather in different houses and pull down the curtains. Then we started to summon ghosts until we seemed to see something and usually one of us got very scared and cried out loud. Of course we used to do that only in our parents’ absence. We used to play hide-and-seek also.

I remember that when we lived on Tsar Osvoboditel Street I used to gather some children and tell them that if we dug the ground we would reach the center of the Earth. I imagined that there was a boat there and we could sail away on it. We started to dig and of course we found nothing. We loved to pick plums and other fruits from the trees in our neighbors’ courtyards and they often scolded us for that.

I’ve always spoken with my friends in Bulgarian. My grandma and my mother spoke Ladino but I thought this language was archaic. We didn’t speak Hebrew. I started to be interested in Ladino just recently because I realized the connection with Spanish.

In my family we used to go shopping on Wednesdays and Thursdays and on Fridays we did the cooking. We didn’t cook on Saturdays, but we turned on the lights and listened to the radio. My family observed the kashrut. We always shopped in shops where the rabbi had put his stamp; we used to eat veal mostly. We ate pork after 9th September 1944 1 for the first time. There was a great food crisis at that time: I got some pork from my work place, I brought it home and that was when my mother cooked pork for the first time.

Our religious life

When I was a little girl, my maternal grandmother used to take me to the synagogue. I remember that she used to take me on the holiday of Yom Kippur – on that day we don’t eat the whole day and then we have dinner at six o’clock in the evening. Then friends and relatives forgive each other their sins. That holiday is devoted both to the living and the dead. After the priest had finished his speech in the synagogue we bit into a big quince and that was the first thing we ate that day. It was a great success if the children managed not to eat the whole day.

We always celebrated Pesach. Then the oldest member of the family reads the prayer that tells the story of the liberation of the Jewish people from the Egyptian invasion. My father was the oldest in our home, but sometimes we used to gather with my mother’s or father’s relatives and then my grandfathers read the prayer. I was more attached to my mother’s family than to my father’s relatives. I felt they were more curious and interested in things.

We observed Chanukkah as well. We had a special chandelier that we used to light on the holiday. We always prepared big festive tables. On Purim they always gave me a small bag filled with different fruits – oranges, apples, dates and walnuts. They used to give us some money, too, and we went straight to the roundabouts and spent it there.

My father perceived religion in his own way. He was mostly interested in politics – he was a great dabbler in politics. My father wasn’t very religious. He became more religious after he went to Israel. He learned Hebrew there and he used to read newspapers. My brother also learned Hebrew perfectly – he used to teach in Hebrew. My father was very studious and he read a lot, though he hadn’t gone to school. He was a thorough Zionist and a revisionist and I often argued with him because I had left-wing convictions. My father and my brother didn’t have enough time to read and educate themselves. Despite that they both had a thorough knowledge of certain matters. They hadn’t studied anything special but knew a lot when it came to geography, history and economics.

My father was a merchant. He traded with haberdashery and worked with villagers mostly. He used to sell ribbons, laces and buttons but unfortunately he didn’t sell any toys. His shop was on the merchant street near the mosque and Maritsa pharmacy. It was a two-storied shop. The first floor was something like a reception-room and the trade articles were on the second floor. My father liked to receive guests on the first floor. That’s why he always had some fresh pastry or other small things to eat with him. As I mentioned before, my father was a devoted revisionist and a Zionist and he was a member of the ‘Jabotinsky’ organization [see Revisionist Zionism] 2 – a Jewish organization that propagandized the idea of reconstructing Israel’s territories via military actions. The organization is named after its founder – Vladimir Jabotinsky 3. Jews in Plovdiv had various political convictions at the time. My father was an extreme right-winger. I remember that there was a member in the organization in which my father participated whose name was Pasi – he was the grandfather of the present minister of foreign affairs Solomon Pasi.

My father used to spend a lot of money on the political meetings in his shop and that’s why he went bankrupt when the crisis of the 1930s 4 started in 1929. My brother was born the same year and that was when poverty started. We had a housemaid as long as we lived on Stranford Street. After that we didn’t have the opportunity to afford a housemaid and my mother started to do the housekeeping on her own.

Plovdiv was like a Jewish country-town for me. I felt very cozy there. My relatives were very united and they used to gather very often and supported each other a lot. Besides I was the only granddaughter in the 1920s and everybody was very kind to me. I lived a carefree life then and I didn’t think about the political and economical situation in Bulgaria at all. I was always well dressed and satisfied.

We used to go on excursions out of Plovdiv every weekend. Sometimes we left on Friday evening. We traveled in drays. We went to Komatovo, Kuklino and Markovo. We passed through lovely walnut forests that unfortunately no longer exist today. We used to bring special barbeque grills with us and light a fire. My parents loved these excursions very much.

Very often – usually on Saturdays – we went to the Casino, a place on Bunardjika hill. We lived nearby and we used to sit together with other families and listen to the music. The singer and dancer Djip was very popular then. We, the children, received some money on Saturdays and we used to buy some food for ourselves – fried livers, grilled rissoles, baked maize. We also went to the confectioner’s shop. Plovdiv was a horn of plenty!

My life in Sofia

My parents and my brother went to live in Sofia in 1937 and I stayed in Plovdiv till the next year. I lived with my uncle Shmuel and I was studying in the mixed school in Plovdiv until I left for Sofia. My life in Plovdiv was charming and I used to cry a lot when I moved to Sofia. I was out of my reasons for entire six months. I went to Sofia in the summer of 1938 and I thought it was very miserable. All was strange and unpleasant to me. I went through this change with great difficulty. After a few months I went to Plovdiv again because it was summer vacation time. I managed to adapt to the new situation only after I came back to Sofia again and I already had close classmates. I used to go to the library club and I had friends there, too.

The first place where my parents settled in Sofia was on Opalchenska Street and after that they moved into the house of a classmate of mine, Ani Pasturkova, on Tsar Simeon Street. Later, in 1943, we were interned to Pleven. I remember one air raid on Sofia. We lived on Tsar Simeon Street then. It was a three-floor house. The raid was terrible. We hid in the basement of a neighboring house. They bombed the railway station and our house was near it and we could hear all the thunder very clearly. In Pleven we saw only squadrons of airplanes flying to Sofia.

My father started to work as a traveling salesman in a chocolate factory in Sofia. He became close to the owner, who realized that my father was a talented and responsible person. My father used to travel around the country and he was in charge of the production disposal in the whole country. My father didn’t have the time to be in contact with the Jews of Sofia. He traveled all the time and never stayed in town for a long time. He was a sociable person and had friends all over the country. The owners’ living standards couldn’t possibly be compared to ours. They were prosperous villagers. His daughter was my classmate in Third Girls’ high school. We didn’t have the financial opportunity to settle in our own home in Sofia. We only had my father’s salary as my brother and I were still students.

During the war

I felt the first anti-Semitic moods in 1939 when the Law for the Protection of the Nation 5 was passed. I remember that one day I was taking a walk with a friend of mine on Hristo Botev Boulevard. Suddenly a group of Branniks 6 started to bother us and then fortunately my friend, who wasn’t Jewish, asked an officer, who was passing by, for help. I felt really humiliated wearing the Jewish badge. I was very lucky that I wasn’t violated and maltreated.

The law from 1939 affected those who owned some real-estate property first. We had neither money nor property and even though my father was working for a Bulgarian employer, we also started to feel the stagnation.

In 1942-1943 Brannik was an official organization. I had a classmate in high school that became a member of that organization. It happened that I met her many years after that again. She was a repulsive person. I met her accidentally at the entrance of the Court of Justice. I was with my second husband who had known her from his work place. My husband kissed her on the cheek without knowing what I thought of her. I reacted emotionally and slapped him in the face. I was a trainee in the Court of Justice at that time and my husband was a lawyer. My husband forgave me, though with great difficulty.

I graduated from high school in 1941. We started wearing badges in 1942 so that it would be clear that we were Jews, but despite that we didn’t loose our courage and I tried to start work in Sofia as I had studied to be a typist. We didn’t have the financial means to settle in our own home in Sofia. But in 1943 we were interned to Pleven. We had to sell all the belongings from our house on Tsar Simeon Street where we lived then.

My relatives from Plovdiv were not interned from town. They were put under a restrictive regime. They weren’t allowed to go to work or leave town.

My aunt Ernesta was married to a rabbi in Burgas. He was a Greek citizen. When the persecutions against Jews started, the district governor of Burgas advised him to leave the country so that he wouldn’t be sent to the concentration camp. So the family packed and left for Turkey in 1942 and from there to Israel. My aunt already had two children then. She didn’t live a happy life in Israel and she divorced her husband. We used to write letters to each other and that’s how I learned that. I told her that I would do anything possible to help her come back to Bulgaria if she wanted to, but she didn’t. She stayed in Tel Aviv and later she died of leukemia. I loved this aunt of mine very much.

We were first accommodated in a school in Pleven and after that we were allowed to rent a lodging – just one room in fact. We lived by the road that was leading to Kailuka prison [see Kailuka concentration camp] 7. This region was in the suburbs of the town. Our landlords were very friendly and they invited us to pick grapes from their fruit garden. We used to eat in the public canteen [Jewish newcomers in the town received free food at a certain place at a certain exact hour]. I started work in a shoe factory. I became a so-called ‘saiadjiika’ because I was among the ones that made the ‘sai’, the upper parts of the shoes.

I had a very unpleasant time in Pleven. Only some people around me were good. I worked with many other girls in the shoe factory; other people used to go and work in the vineyards. One of the masters in the factory repressed me quite a lot – he kept watching me and bothered me all the time. He tormented me and when he was in a bad mood he made me go out and collect the leather cuttings. There was no reason whatsoever to do that. Finally, the factory owner approached me and advised me to quit and so I did. I went to another factory, where the owner was a fascist. Fortunately there was a nice Jewish man of my father’s age who was working there and he helped me become acquainted with the atmosphere and protected me all the time. Thanks God, 9th September [1944] came and I quit my job there.

The factory master was impudent enough to come to Sofia to look for me. I threatened him with an arrest. I couldn’t understand how a grown up man with a family could do such a thing. So, that was quite a bad period for me. Thanks to our Jewish ability to organize ourselves, we managed to go through it. We used to gather every Saturday and Sunday without any special reason for doing so. We even assembled a music band in which the musicians played the violin. We used to sing and give lectures.

Some very curious and paradoxical things happened in Pleven. I met three young men who treated me as if I was a princess though they were extreme left-wingers. One of them was even a legionnaire [see Bulgarian Legions] 8. They protected me and one of them was even in love with me and gave me a beautiful bracelet as a gift. We used to go for walks together, I visited his house, and I trusted him very much. They treated me like real gentlemen.

I met a member of the famous and rich family Aseo in Pleven. This family owned big real-estate properties in Sofia, including the most famous cinema in town. He was a young man and still a student, but his hair had turned gray. We became close but after we returned to Sofia our lives separated.

My father, his brother and my maternal uncle were sent to forced labor camps 9 during the Holocaust. My maternal uncle hadn’t been interned, but he was sent to a ghetto that was built especially for Jews. My father was sent to the forced labor groups in Belene [a town in North Bulgаria]. We understood where he was allocated much later and we couldn’t contact him while he was in the forced labor groups. We didn’t have any other funds but my small salary at that time. My father was a very tough man and he was sick only once when he was already old. In 1988 he had a severe stroke and was put in a medical care center.

My return to Sofia

I returned to Sofia in October 1944. The trains were crowded. After 9th September 1944 I was invited straight to the district administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Pleven. I worked there and used to type reports. When it was announced that we could go back to Sofia, I went to the district governor who was a very nice man and gave me several recommendation letters. When I came back to Sofia I went to the Police Department on Lavov most Square. An amiable man accepted me to work in the passport department there.

My parents came back a little time after me and found accommodation in a two-storied house on Tsar Ivan-Assen II Street. I received accommodation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Graf Ignatiev and Tolbuhin Blvd [today Vasil Levski]. The lodging on Ivan Assen II Street consisted of two rooms only, that’s why we went to live on 2, Tolbuhin Blvd in the ex-lodging of a colleague of mine. We shared that place with a compatriot of mine – a Jewish woman who didn’t want us at first – she even put out our luggage twice. We became good friends in the end. She lived in one of the rooms and my family – my mother, my father, my brother and I – had a kitchen, a living-room and a bedroom. The apartment was enormous. After my parents moved to Israel, I was offered to buy the apartment, but my first husband, Miuntzer Blagoev Zahariev, didn’t agree because he believed that everything would become state property. Later we had to vacate the apartment because the owner’s sister wanted to sell it. Meanwhile my parents went to Israel. After that my first husband and I moved to Marin Drinov Street.

I haven’t had any problems at my workplace because of my Jewish origin. I remember an incident when a female officer at the Police Department was telling a story about how she had been chased out by her landlord. There was a certain practice then that the authorities used to settle the newcomers in Sofia in the houses and apartments of other people. She called the owner of the lodging where she was settled ‘a dirty Jew’. The same had happened to that officer. I stood up and slapped her face. I was also settled in such a lodging on Tolbuhin Boulevard at that time. I would have never called my landlord that way, even if she had been Bulgarian. After that incident my boss threatened me with court procedures. It all turned out fine in the end and we even remained friends.

The BCP [Bulgarian Communist Party] took a party decision regarding the departure of Jews – everyone could go. The director of the Police Department then called to tell me that even if I applied for departure they wouldn’t let me go for at least five or six years. And they really only let me see my relatives after 13 years – in 1963. After the coup d’etat of 9th September 1944 I had left-wing political convictions [pro-communist]. Although many compatriots of mine left, I myself didn’t want to. I made some pro-forma steps just to please my parents.

After 9th September 1944 I took steps so that my brother could go and specialize in the Bata 10 company school in the Czech Republic. He didn’t get a good record form his work and he didn’t manage to leave. Maybe if he had got a good record and would have gone to the Czech Republic, he wouldn’t have gone to Israel that soon. That was a turning point in his life.

After Israel was founded, the Jews started to leave Bulgaria. My parents left in 1949 and my relatives from Plovdiv in 1948. There was a mass aliyah 11 after that and all my friends left. Just 10,000 out of 45,000 people stayed here, and I don’t know if there are even 5,000 Jews left in Bulgaria today. My parents were put in so-called ‘srikove’ – special barracks. My brother didn’t want to be settled in a lodging in the town and his first home was in Iafo – in the newly-built part of the city.

My father started work in Israel immediately. The conditions were severe because there wasn’t enough work for all newcomers. They looked for work at many places. My brother tells this sad story about how my father and he went from Pardes Hanah, where they had been in the camps, right down to Haifa to look for work but they didn’t manage to find any. They slept in the open air and had to come back in the end. My brother worked in the lime-stores and his legs were burnt there. After that my father found work as a manager in a municipal building company called Amidar that built homes for the newcomers. He used to help people settle and they loved and respected him a lot. When he announced that he was going to retire at the age of 78, a large number of people came and asked him to stay. He received a good pension while my mother used to get a social pension. They had their own house and my brother inherited it.

I used to go to the Jewish cultural club Klimentina quite often before the internment to Pleven. I loved to read and I went there mostly for that. Gradually I met different people there who started to educate me. I was in a Jewish circle before the internment. After I came back I went on visiting the Jewish community center and I even used to sing in the choir. But as a police officer my working time was unlimited and that was an obstacle for me to continue going there. My circle then consisted of my colleagues and a friend from school.

My first husband

I met my first husband at work. He wasn’t Jewish. His father was a co-worker of Georgi Dimitrov 12 and Vasil Kolarov [a minister in Dimitrov’s government]. His family left underground for Russia in 1923. They came back from Moscow in 1947. He graduated in law. We got married in December 1949. My parents didn’t attend the ceremony.

I didn’t observe the Jewish holidays then. It wasn’t popular to celebrate holidays after 9th September 1944. Most of my friends were Bulgarians. My husband was a strange person and he lived in isolation. He accepted his brothers only. That’s how I gradually became estranged from my Jewish circle.

I went on living on 2, Tolbuhin Blvd after my parents left. I lived there with my husband. He was in conflict with Valko Chervenkov [then minister of culture] because of some objections that my husband had against the communist party rule. On the other hand his mother lived with the thought that she was an active party functionary. They had even been chased out of their apartment following an order by Valko Chervenkov.

I worked in the Police Department till 1951. They fired my husband then – he worked as an inspector there – because he didn’t get along with the management of the department, and they also fired me. That made me very happy because as long as I was working there I was very restricted and I felt it was a burden for me. We got one extra salary and I remember that I went to the textile shop, which was located where the American Embassy is today, and I bought some wonderful fabrics there. I received job recommendations while Miuntzer got a penalty from the party. My recommendations were for three jobs. I chose the Union of the Bulgarian-Soviet Societies. The other recommendation was for the City Committee of the BCP. The Union of the Bulgarian-Soviet Societies was then located on Mizia Street and I started there as head of international relations. I worked there till my departure for China.

After my husband was fired in 1951, he didn’t start to work again until 1954. I provided for him for four years. In 1954 the minister of finance Kiril Lazarov, who was Miuntzer’s godfather, became a press attaché in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He recommended Miuntzer for a mandate in China and so we went there. We lived in China for four years. Miuntzer worked as a second secretary of the Bulgarian embassy in China.

When I was in China I used to send my letters to my parents to Miuntzer’s mother in Bulgaria first and then she put them in another envelope and sent them on to Israel. In the times when I was in Bulgaria I used to send my letters to Israel directly.

When I returned from China I didn’t have a job and I decided to finish my education. I had passed exams for law in 1956. After that I had to leave university, as I didn’t have enough time to study and work at the same time. When I came back from China I applied at the dean’s office to continue my education. I graduated in 1967. I started to work with the Jurists Union. I was a legal consultant with the Water Industry company after that and I retired from there.

My second husband

I divorced Miuntzer Blagoev in 1965 because of the great trouble he brought upon himself with his attitude towards the official authorities and the consequences this had for me. I got married for the second time in 1974, to a compatriot of mine; I knew him from my school years. My second husband’s name was Solomon Levi. He brought into the marriage and left me a son and a daughter that I wouldn’t have, had I not met him. I get along very well with them. They have helped me a lot – especially when I had to move to new houses. The years I lived with my second husband were full of many pleasant moments and many excursions to the countryside. After we got married we went on a journey to Israel and on the way back we passed through Greece.

When my parents were still alive I used to go to Israel very often – every two or three years. Sometimes it was difficult to leave. There was an absurd situation – when my mother was on her deathbed, they told me that I could only go to Israel if I was going for a funeral. That happened in 1983. My husband had already died then. My mother died the next year.

During the wars in Israel I supported my people entirely and I could have been punished for that. I believed that this country should exist because so many people had died for it. I was a trainee at the People’s Court then. I remember that a young colleague, whose father was a dean of the Faculty of Economics, used to bring a map of the Near East every day and mark off the military action places with flags.

I remember a meeting when Todor Zhivkov 13 held a speech and he mentioned the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of the people then said that he was ready to go and fight on the Arabian side, but Todor Zhivkov answered ironically to that.

I think that the political developments in Eastern Europe are quite normal. The process of the opening of Eastern Europe is right.

I thought that the Russian military invasion in the Czech Republic was something normal. I thought that things were going in the wrong direction there – I was brought up that way. During the developments in the Czech Republic I was in Israel visiting a friend of mine – a colleague. She was a great communist. She was married to a very amiable doctor. She had been fired and punished for having an affair with one of her superiors, who was falsely accused of being an ‘enemy’. My friend’s name is Beka Francez. When I visited her she expressed an opinion against the intervention of the Soviet Union. I was amazed. That was a heresy for me then. Despite the negative consequences of my marriage to Miuntzer – I always knew that if I only mentioned that I was his wife I would have been fired right away – I believed that I should be true to the party [the BCP].

I retired in 1978. I was very scared straight after 1989 [following the events of 10th November 1989] 14. I thought that we would return to a past that I was afraid of and hated. Then I realized that it was time for a change in both politics and economics. The Soviet Union first signaled for that. I understood then that nothing is just black and white but that there are nuances. Not everyone who isn’t a BSP member is a fascist, and not everyone who is a BSP member is a democrat etc. I started to see people as people, not as members of a certain party. We were very politicized after 1989. I understand now that one man cannot make politics just by himself. I value people by their qualities now.

I live well with my brother’s support and I don’t have to worry about my living now. I gather with the Jewish community. Unfortunately I don’t have many close friends.

Glossary

Maria Eva Feheri
Budapest
Hungary
Interviewers: Dora Sardi, Eszter Andor
Date of interview: September 2001

My family background
Growing up
My school years
During the war
Post-war
Glossary

My family background

My paternal grandfather’s name was Jozsef Antal. I think his father lived in Austria, and he was named something like Anton. But I don’t know much about them, only that he was already Antal when, in the 1930s I knew him for a few years, because he died in 1938. I was so little, that when he died, I didn’t understand why so many people were coming. I was just staring, ‘Look how many guests there are!’ and I started to laugh. And my mother told me, ‘Shh, shh, this is because grandfather died’. After that, they hardly talked about him. Grandmother always cried, ‘Poor papa!’ He wasn’t too old, he must have been about 60. As far as I know he was born in Budapest. I think he was a kind of trader. I’m sure he didn’t have a shop here. He may have been an employee at some kind of company.

Whether my grandfather was religious, I don’t know, but the two of them, my grandfather and grandmother, observed holidays, I think; at least, they kept the fast [on Yom Kippur]. Perhaps they even went to the synagogue, but I’m not sure about that. They didn’t tell me about it because my father had converted to Christianity. It’s certain that my father was already non-religious. My grandmother kept the fasts even after the war, and there were those kinds of meals at holidays. As far as I know, I knew matzah balls from there. When I grew older, after the war, I fasted with her in solidarity, despite the fact that we had already converted. And I think she was kosher at first, because it seemed as if she cooked things separately, but then she may have put up with the fact that it was not like that in our house.

Grandmother Ella Kohn was from Szekesfehervar. I think she might have met my grandfather there. My grandmother was a housewife. Two children were born: my father and his younger brother, and she raised them. After my grandfather’s death, she moved to our place and lived with us until her death. She died at the beginning of the 1950s, and she was around 80 years old. Before the war she had a separate room, but she didn’t have one afterwards, she had only a small vestibule because our flat had been bombed. As a doctor, my father got an official residence room in Rokus hospital. There we were, the four of us and grandmother in the vestibule on a divan-bed. It was pretty hard for all of us, living in the one-bedroom apartment. Obviously there was tension because there wasn’t a very good relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. My mother was terribly troubled by grandmother’s having moved in, and that grandma always observed what she was doing, and what kind of company she kept.

My father’s brother was Jeno Antal. I think he was two or three years younger than my father. He went to America in 1938. He was a violinist and he played in the Rock Quartet, which is said to have been a renowned quartet. He got married back when he was still at home, to Katalin Bant, daughter of Bant, who owned the bread factory, and they never had children. They wanted to bring us to the US. It was discussed back in 1941-42, but the Americans didn’t want to let us in. Jeno Antal lived and worked up until the age of 80-82, then he died in America. Once he visited us here.

My maternal grandfather was Rezso Rasko. He died about the time I was born, and he must have been around 60 or 70 years old, because they said he died young here in Budapest, after having a tooth extracted. I think he was from Budapest, and I know he was a wood-agent. Grandmother Julia Altmann was from Transylvania. When they came to Budapest, I don’t know. My mum was born in Kezdivasarhely, but if I’m correct, her sisters were not. I think they came to Budapest around World War I, or even before. My grandmother’s father was Christian. Her mother, when she became a widow, already had a big daughter, and together with this Jewish girl, this Jewish woman got married to a very decent Christian farm manager. Because her mother was Jewish, my grandmother was Jewish, too. My grandmother believed in God and prayed. I remember a prayer book, in which she’d put a lock of my hair, as the first grandchild. But my grandparents couldn’t have been very observant. Grandmother didn’t work, she gave birth to five children, and brought them up. She was a wonderful grandmother, a real brood-hen; she was always talking about the five children, about how hard it was with that many girls. My mother and her brother were always fighting. There were big pillow fights and they played hide-and-seek in the dark. My mother also told me about it when I was sick and I really envied all those children; how good it must have been. Grandmother lived with her daughter Margit most of the time. She always came over to us, and looked after me and my younger brother. She was 81 or 82 years old, when she died, in or around 1958.

My grandmother had five children. The first daughter was my mother, Erzsebet Rasko, born in 1904. Two years later Margit was born. She worked for my grandfather’s wood agency and she was a businesswoman until the end of her life. She got married to a man named Lajos Biro, who died in the war, in forced labor, I think. She has one son. In 1956 she went first to Austria, then she lived in London, and decided that from then on, they would keep it a secret that they were Jews. She died something like six or eight years ago.

Next was Laszlo, he was born in 1909. I believe he was employed in the wood trade. He had a wife and a daughter. Laszlo died in the war. He tried to run away from forced labor and was shot by an Arrow Cross man. His family survived, his wife remarried, and in 1956 they emigrated to America.

After him came Rene. She was born in 1910 and she is still alive and lives in London. She got married to a man named Vadasz before the war. This Vadasz family was taken away by the Germans, despite the fact that they gave lots of money to the Gestapo, because it was a rich family. She also went to London with Margit in 1956, and she learnt physiotherapy there. She has one child.

The last one was Katalin, or Kato, she was born in 1915 or 1916. She had a high school diploma, then after the war, she worked at the Red Cross and she made aliyah in 1949. It was a terrible thing that her husband, who was half Jewish, was shot dead by the Arrow Cross 1 men because he was ‘disguised’ in military uniform. Then the Russians came, and one of them caught her and raped her. Then she said she’d had enough of this country and she left in 1949. She got married to a Transylvanian Jewish boy. They lived in Eilat [Israel], then, after the death of her husband, she went into a kibbutz. She has two daughters, Judit and Hanna. Judit is a teacher of handicapped children and she has three children. Hanna still works in the kibbutz now. She also has five children. Kato died recently.

My father Pal Antal was born in Budapest in 1898. First he was an internal specialist, and when they began to dismiss or displace Jewish doctors he learnt pathology, and he was a pathologist until he died. My mother graduated from the Szilagyi high school, and then she studied something to do with horticulture, and she worked in that field. She learnt to tailor and to sew just as a hobby. But she didn’t really have a profession; she was a housewife, and was at home. Later, after the war, she worked in public health as a hospital caretaker, and she completed courses. So she was skilled in hospital management. First she was in the Rokus hospital, then she was the manager of the Bakats Square hospital. My parents had their wedding in 1929, but it was only a civil ceremony.

Growing up

I was born in 1930, my brother Istvan seven years later. I believe they hadn’t planned another child because my mother told me that they went hiking in the Bakony mountain, and it was very cold, and she snuggled up to my father, and she didn’t have pessary on her. They were very happy though that it was a boy and he ate well – because I didn’t eat well – and he was very talented musically. I was very motherly with my brother, but being 14 I didn’t know what to do with a seven-year-old boy. And then, when I was 27 and he was 20, we started to get along very well. We could discuss everything, though we met very rarely. He went to the Academy of Music, and then he played the viola in an orchestra. He had a family and children, too. He died in 1985. He was still very young.

During my childhood we lived in Klotild Street. The apartment was very nice, with three rooms and a hall, and it had a servant’s room; I got the servant’s room later, so that I could have a separate room. We had a very pretty maidservant, named Ami, she did everything: cleaned, washed, cooked and served. Then in 1938, when dad was dismissed, my mother let her go. Then mum cooked and served. We had a big library at home. Dad was very serious, and he let me read everything. He had all kinds of books, including the classics. If he started reading a book and he felt from its style that this wasn’t real literature, he put it down instantly; he had such delicate tastes. Besides all this, he was a good mathematician. My father was on night duty in the old Madach theatre, and he took me there sometimes, and it was free. Mother didn’t go because my brother was small then. They took us to the children’s theatre – Uncle Lakner’s Children’s theatre – once or twice, and to the cinema, once or twice. My parents’ friends were mostly doctors and doctors who played music, and sometimes, in the evening, they performed chamber music at our place.

My father worked as a pharmaceutical advertiser for a German company for a while in 1938. In the 1930s one could foresee that Jews weren’t going to be allowed to stay. That was a very good position. That was one point. The other one was that he used to go out to the counties to tell the medical officers which medicine was good for what. Then he would stay with them for a few days at a time, and it would come out who-and-what he was, when, on Sundays, he didn’t go to church with them. He wasn’t that religious, for him it didn’t mean anything, I think, that he converted to Christianity only because he could support his family better this way. We didn’t talk about this much, unfortunately, and that’s all I know about it.

I think he had converted to Christianity earlier, before my birth. Still, as my mother is Jewish, at the time of my birth I was registered as an Israelite. And in 1937 he had me convert. My brother was already born a Christian, and he wasn’t circumcised.

My school years

I went to elementary school in Szemere Street. I knew I was of Jewish origin and that we wanted to go to America because of this, and perhaps the schoolmistress knew as well, because when it was a Jewish holiday she said to me, ‘You can also stay at home if you want’. She didn’t understand that my father didn’t insist on me being half-Jewish. The schoolmistress took it that we were doing it to save our lives, but that we surely wanted to keep the holidays.

School was in the morning, I had lunch at home, and so did my father. After lunch I did homework and went to skate, and sometimes to my girlfriend’s to play. My father began to give violin lessons because he was a great musician, although that wasn’t what he had studied, and he tried to teach me, but I think it didn’t go well. I would have liked to play the piano very much, but buying a piano was out of the question.

I think I made friends mostly with Jewish girls in school. But it wasn’t just because they were Jews, but because the social classes were very sharply divided: most of the Christian girls were wretched little proles. I had a very good girlfriend who was Christian; her family was very decent and they even made friends with my parents. It didn’t bother me that I didn’t go to Jewish religion classes, while my Jewish girlfriends did. This wasn’t a matter of discussion between the children. I remember instead that it was unpleasant that they were always wealthier because dad had already lost his [good] job, he could already only be an assistant doctor. But merchants and lawyers somehow earned more in the 1930s, and I always had lesser things: I wasn’t bought a bicycle, I didn’t have such good dresses at parties. I think there wasn’t a children’s party at our apartment during my school years because my mother was always afraid that we wouldn’t have enough money.

My auntie Rene regularly invited us to her villa because she had a rich husband and they had a villa in Balatonszeplak [near Lake Balaton]. Grandmother organized it so that she would look after each set of grandchildren for two weeks at a time. In Lepence there was a guesthouse where we went with acquaintances. But we never went abroad.

We had Christmas, but without keeping any of the Christian rites, such as presents, surprises, or a Christmas tree. You could see that my mother wanted to assimilate in this respect. She wasn’t religious either. We didn’t keep any other holidays as far as I know. I don’t remember any Easter, and we didn’t celebrate name days, only birthdays and Christmas. There was never a word about religion, right up until I was admitted to the state high school. Then I was taken to the nuns because the Catholic school admitted Jewish children, even if both parents weren’t Catholics, and the state school didn’t.

When I entered the school of the Ursula order, I had to take part in all kinds of things. In addition to this there was First Communion even in the elementary school. For one or two years I got giddy about how nice a thing the nun’s profession was, because I read about the life of small saints and I decided that I would be like them. I became a very good child then and my mother was surprised. And my father didn’t mind me going to communion in the morning, which had to be attended without breakfast. I think he looked on kindly at these things.

We prayed before and after every lesson, and we put on a veil on Sunday, and it was a great thing to serve at mass, but they only let me do it once. However, it was a problem being a Jew there, and we knew who was and who wasn’t. There was a kind of unspoken acknowledgement there. I was very afraid of the anti-Semite girls. But the class-mistress, Ms. Eva, who was secular, said that if she heard any child discriminating against other children, she would have that child expelled. Once, just as a joke, in order to make the others believe I wasn’t a Jew, I said, ‘Look, this girl has a nose like a Jew’, and to this, the girl said that she would tell Ms. Eva about it. I thought that would be such a scandal. But eventually it came out, after I won a school swimming competition, and the physical education instructor said that I should go along and join KISOP, which was a youth sports club. My mother told me that I shouldn’t go because they ask for the certificate of baptism of four grandparents – because that was in 1943 – and then I had to go to Ms. Emi and tell her that I couldn’t go because not all four of my grandparents were Christian. I was very nervous and I couldn’t sleep at night, for fear of what Ms. Emi was going to say about it. She said, ‘Antal, are you Jewish?’ And that was that. But I couldn’t go swimming any more.

My father taught me to do sports and not be afraid; he let me swim in the cold Danube and took me walking in the forest. We went on hikes with friends on Sundays. There was a steady group of friends. And I know that before we were broke, my father had a motor boat and we went to Szentendre [holiday village in the Curb of the Danube]. Dad bought some kind of land once in Monor before the war and we never saw it again because we didn’t go after it. It was never built on. It was only an investment that he made with the compensation that I believe he got for being dismissed from his work advertising pharmaceuticals.

In high school, I wanted to try what it was like to be a half-boarder. I had a great herd instinct in me and I was very sorry that in the 1940s, when my wealthier girlfriends could afford to go to a children’s holiday resort, my parents couldn’t afford it. Then I tried this half-board status and I ate with them for a few weeks and I studied in the study room in the afternoons. Then I got bored of it, or my mother got bored of it, because they asked for both money and ration tickets.

We had a uniform, like a sailor blouse with stripes and black stockings. Every day we had to wear that. Later when textiles were sold for points, we said that we couldn’t get black stockings, only drab or only knee-stockings. They told us to pull them up so that our knees couldn’t be seen.

I went there until the spring of 1944. I studied hard there. When the yellow star [yellow star in Hungary] 2 came, I decided that I shouldn’t go any more because you couldn’t go to school wearing it. It was March and I didn’t go any more. After the war I went to the Raskai high school and graduated from there in 1949.

During the war

During the war my father was fired from his German company, then from the university hospital, then from Janos hospital – there, too, he was a pathologist, but he worked for free. And then he stopped going in when a decree was issued that Jewish doctors couldn’t enter the hospital area [which was part of the anti-Jewish laws in Hungary] 3. In 1944 he was taken to forced labor. He was in Pocsmegyer for a short while. The Russian troops were already close then and they brought them back home to Pest [Budapest] and took them to the ghetto.

The house that we lived in on Klotild Street became a yellow-star house 4 because there were a lot of Jews there. In October 1944, when the Jews had already been deported from the countryside, the Arrow Cross men went into the yellow-star houses and said that everybody had to come out and they would take us to work. First the men, then a few weeks later the women were taken. And when they wanted to take my mother, too, she lay down on the bed as if she was sick and couldn’t go. A policeman, who looked like he was the father of a family himself, came and told her to get up right then. And she started pretending that she was sick, she couldn’t breathe, so the policeman brought a glass of water. But when she said that she couldn’t get up, he held up his gun and said, ‘Get up or I’ll shoot you right now!’ And at that very moment my grandmother entered and started screaming, ‘My daughter Bozsi what’s happening to you here?’ In the meantime the Arrow Cross man shouted to the policeman to come and he said, ‘This one here is having convulsions’. To this the Arrow Cross man said, ‘Leave her to hell, let’s go!’ And he left with the group. At that very moment my mother got up, she grabbed my brother and me and said that we wouldn’t stay here. She ran away with us.

A few days later my mother found a Swedish protected hospital and children’s home at 26 Erzsebet Boulevard and she took us there. It was a two-bedroom apartment, where about sixty children slept and we got along quite well. She said that she was a nurse and her husband was a doctor, and that she worked there on the ground floor with the sick old Jews. She placed us children there.

I was fourteen years old then, and I had a report book from the nuns. I said that I would find out about dad –
see whether he had gone home. The caretaker was a very decent man and he said that dad had been there and left a message that he was at 30 Akacfa Street, in the ghetto. I did all this without a yellow star. I went in, as at the time, the entrance to the ghetto was still open. I went up and dad was lying on a straw mattress with fifteen others. My father said, ‘Come on in, let’s stay together. I’m a doctor and I’ll get a servant’s room for the four of us’. And then we were there in the ghetto in a small servant’s room that faced the courtyard, and we didn’t even go down to the cellar – right up until the Soviet troops came in.

After graduation, I got married right away. At the banquet I was already married because Tamas, or Tomi, Weisz was to be sent to the Soviet Union to study right away. I said that we should get married because I had been dating him for years. Around 1943, I frequently went out to Marguerite Island with girlfriends, and boys always went there with us. He was one of them. And then he disappeared in the war. He was hiding with his mum in parks, everywhere. He was taken to a brickyard, and he escaped. And then he and his mum somehow always came and went to and from parks. They went home at night, then into a yellow-star house in Ujlipotvaros [a bourgeois part of Budapest, where a lot of middle-class Jewish families used to live].

Post-war

After the war Tomi graduated from the College of Theatre and Film Arts. His father, Lajos Weisz, was a dry goods agent, but he died of a disease in 1943. His mother was a dressmaker and she supported Tamas as long as he needed. After college, Tomi found a position at the Hungarian Film Newsreel Co.

When we got married we didn’t know where to live. We went to my mother-in-law’s for two days, but she was married by then, and her husband said that this wasn’t the reason he had gotten married: to share the place with us. Then my aunt Rene, who had also got married again, put us up in the rear quarter of her villa. My other aunt put us up for a few months. Slowly a year passed and Tamas got a single-bedroom union apartment at the Newsreel for his good work. We lived there for a while, until we came here in the spring of 1956. Tomi was still working at the Newsreel, and later it became the Newsreel Documentary Film Studio. There were always bonuses at the Newsreel. So we bought a car in 1960.

When a placard appeared in the streets in 1945 that said, ‘Hungarian Youth! Come on, do sports, have fun, dance!’, I said that this time I was like everyone else. And I joined MADISZ [Hungarian Democratic Youth Alliance] 5 so that I could dance and do sports. And they told me to stay: there would be work, there would be dances, and I’d see that everybody was the same from now on. And I liked it very much and I took the ideology for granted as well. I couldn’t believe what some of my other girlfriends told me about the Soviet Union. I was a believer with all my heart. I could argue even in tramways if somebody scorned it. Then there were still religion classes at school and our priest disparaged MADISZ a great deal. And then there was an argument between classmates and MADISZ members.

There were many Jews in the fifth district MADISZ organization. I think that the Jews I knew there believed that it was a new world and that the old one had been awful because we and our parents had been taken and had yellow stars put on and been spat on. And there shouldn’t be any more of this and the Communist Party and MADISZ was the best way to avoid it. And the others were proles who felt that they could become somebody, that we could finally study.

My father once talked with a friend who told him, ‘Pal you belong here, you have principles that are Marxist, join!’ And then my father joined and my mother joined, too. And when the resettlements [resettlement in Hungary] 6 came, a very decent, not-at-all-capitalist retailer-friend of ours, who had even brought food to us in the ghetto, was resettled, despite the fact that he had diabetes, and my father wrote to Rakosi [Rakosi regime] 7 about it. He was extraordinarily naive. In 1944 he had thought that if we did what the Germans wanted, there wouldn’t be any problems. And here he thought that if he wrote to Rakosi, they would bring back poor Gyula Marczis. Instead, they convened a party meeting in the Rokus hospital and he was expelled from the Party in 1952.

In 1956 [Revolution of 1956] 8 I would have liked to have left but my father said that in spite of the terrible things that had happened to him, because of his expulsion from the Party, we didn’t have to go away from here; the situation would become calmer now. And Tamas didn’t want to go because he said that he had a machine on loan to him from the Ministry of Light Industry and they would say that he was trying to steal it. Also, Gyuri, my son, was just three years old.

When I got married, I went to work at the Motion Picture Co. in the youth-organizing department where the pioneers were organized for Soviet films – in the largest possible numbers, and for Sunday mornings if possible, so that they couldn’t go to church.

In 1952 when my father was expelled from the Party I was already working at the Culture Department of the Pioneer Center as film organizer and I went in to the cadre official to say that my father had been expelled. He said he was sure that he could clear his case, but they relocated me to a district administrative position. In the meantime in the youth party school one of my girlfriends said to me, ‘Mari, we should study something, let’s go to the teacher training college’. What I had been interested in all my life was sports, physical education, but there was Hungarian language and literature here in the evening course and I graduated from that. At the time I was already known in the pioneer center in Obuda because I was an district chief secretary and I was still going to college and there was a position there. I taught in an elementary school, paid by the hour. I taught in several schools, then I got a real contract at Vorosvari Street. I worked there for many, many years.

In 1952 I had a premature delivery, Andras: he died quite soon after. Then came Gyuri in 1953, and in 1965 there was Gabor, who later died at the age of 19. He had just started university. He was a Hungarian-English major. It came suddenly, it’s called sarcoma. If it caught a young man, it killed him within months. Gyuri graduated from Eotvos Lorand University, majoring in Hungarian and Aesthetics. When it turned out that kidney disease is treated better elsewhere than here, he left. First he went with a scholarship, then in Berlin he made contacts in the Hungarian House [Hungarian cultural institution in Berlin], and he has worked there since. He’s a program manager there.

The children knew that they were Jews, we didn’t hide that, but we didn’t raise them to be religious because we already didn’t believe, either. When, in 1956 my son asked about little Jesus [traditionally, Christmas presents are said to be brought by little Jesus, rather than Santa Claus], when he was three years old, my husband said to him, ‘Gyuri, there is no little Jesus, but you don’t have to tell that to others because it hurts people’. It happened once, in a shop, that somebody asked, ‘Son, what has little Jesus brought you?’ He said to the man that there was no little Jesus and that, ‘[his] father told me that one doesn’t have to talk about this’. So Gyuri knew, and Gabor knew as well. And our close friends knew. Somehow our circle of friends formed in a way that they were all Jews, with one exception.

I didn’t really read newspapers, despite the fact that, as a party member, I should have, but I wasn’t interested in them. I didn’t know anything about Israel, except that Kato, my mother’s sister, was there and that it was not advised to correspond with her because that was not taken well here, and then I wouldn’t get a passport to go to the West as a tourist. For a long time we didn’t correspond with Margit, nor with Rene, who lived in London, but then, in the 1960s, we could even go there to visit them. And then we did. But I didn’t know anything about Israel. I knew about the establishment of the State of Israel and about the problems, when I read the book entitled ‘Exodus’ in the 1960s. I thought a little bit about how good it must be to live there where everybody is Jewish. I was there for the first time in 1985 and then I saw that perhaps not everything was so good there.

Of course my sense of being Jewish strengthened in me after the change of regime, because anti-Semitism began. And then, if you read things like that, it gets into your mind. That never came to my mind in the party state, because this was not a matter for discussion. Or rather, it seems it was – only it was done very much under cover, those who were Jewish hid the fact. And I didn’t know about the trials against Jews in the Soviet Union [the Doctors’ Plot 9].

Today I don’t go to any kind of temple, because that is my childhood. It’s like when somebody says it was a wonderful world because that was his youth. In the meantime my cousin from Israel started to come here and send presents; then I went to Israel. So now, I belong more. But it’s one thing to belong to the Jews and another that I can’t believe that there is a God who demands me to keep certain traditions. I can’t imagine that children have to wear payes, and girls have to wear long, warm dresses, or that it’s a problem if you eat noodles with cottage cheese. Would a God care about these things? I regard these things as absolutely childish and naive.

Glossary

Leonid Averbuch
Odessa
Ukraine
Interviewer: Nicole Tolkachova
Date of interview: July 2003

Leonid Averbuch’s apartment is located in the historical city center of Odessa, in a house built in the 1950s. The apartment is large enough and modestly furnished. In the sitting-room stands a big book-case. There are a lot of books, photos of Leonid from the different periods of his life, card indexes of famous Odessa citizens and chanukkiyah. In the corner near the window is a big writing-desk with a computer on top of it. Leonid is a man of average height, has a bronze sun-tan and a beard that makes him look like a sailor. Despite of his age he is full of energy and strength. Due to his public and literary activities Leonid Averbuch is well-known, not only in the medical circles of Odessa but also in the Jewish community.

Family background
Growing up
During the war
Post-war
Glossary

Family background

One of my maternal ancestors Itzhak Zaltzberg was born into the family of Aaron Zaltzberg, a salt miner, who came from the city of Salzburg in Austria to Odessa in 1806. My grandmother Betia Zaltzberg had a copy of the entry in the birth register about Itzhak’s birth, certified by the rabbi of Odessa in 1915. This entry disappeared during the Great Patriotic War 1 when our family evacuated.
Itzhak was my mother’s great-grandfather. His wife Shendel Zaltzberg-Shapiro was born in the town of Akkerman [since 1944 Belgorod-Dnestrovskiy] in 1810. They had eleven children. Two of their sons, Samuel and Wolf, were my great-grandfathers since my maternal grandmother and grandfather were cousins.

My grandfather Gedali Zaltzberg was born in Odessa in 1865. In winter 1872 his 28-year-old father Samuel Zaltzberg was hit by a horse-drawn sledge. He fell ill, developed galloping consumption and died in the same year. His wife Ita Zaltzberg, the daughter of a wine maker from Odessa called Gluzbar, died half a year after, so deeply struck she was by her young husband’s death. Seven-year-old Gedali became an orphan and his uncle Israel Zaltzberg, who owned a leather raw material supply business in partnership with his brother Wolf, adopted him. Gedali didn’t go to cheder. At the age of ten he went to grammar school. When he was 14 his uncle Israel died of pneumonia. After Israel’s death Gedali went to live with the family of Uncle Wolf, who was a very religious man and wasn’t quite so fond of commerce. Gedali was a business-oriented man. He knew German and French and became the representative of the company. Gradually Uncle Wolf transferred all responsibilities to him. Wolf’s wife Braina even addressed Gedali requesting monthly housekeeping allowances from him. Wolf and Braina had six children; two of them died in infancy. After they died Betia, born in 1875, became the oldest child in the family. Then there were three sons: Israel, Avrum and Moisey. Gedali liked his cousin Betia very much. He prepared her for the Jewish elementary school run by the Reivich sisters that she finished successfully.

In 1888, when Gedali turned 23 and Betia 17, they got married with Wolf and Braina’s consent. They rented apartments in Odessa before the [Russian] Revolution of 1917 2. They lived in the center of town like many families of intellectuals. My grandparents spoke Yiddish, but they also spoke Russian fluently. My grandmother also spoke Ukrainian and my grandfather knew German, French and Polish. Grandfather Gedali didn’t wear payes or a beard. He had a mustache. He liked fancy clothes. My grandfather didn’t wear a kippah at home, but he always wore a hat to go out. He went to the synagogue on holidays. Before the Revolution he often traveled abroad on business.

Before they had children Gedali and Betia visited Palestine. They visited the island Khios, Smirna and Haifa. Grandmother Betia told me a lot about this tour. I even remember the song with which Arabic kids teased travelers from Russia in Haifa, but my grandmother didn’t know the meaning of it. At the end they said ‘Maskok hamzir’ – Russian pig. One of the boys hit my grandmother on her eye with a pickle. My grandmother said they visited a kibbutz and mentioned the name of Belkind. He was probably an activist in the Zionist movement. [Israel Belkind (1861–1929): one of the founders of the pro-Palestinian organization Bilu in Russia, moved to Israel in 1882; got involved in educational activities and founded the first Hebrew school in Yaffa].

My grandmother told me that she was sympathetic with the revolutionary movement and gave shelter to revolutionaries in her apartment in Odessa. The October Revolution didn’t have a major impact on my grandfather’s family since they weren’t rich. After the Revolution my grandfather worked in a supply company, but then he fell ill and remained ill for a long time. My grandfather died of bladder cancer in Odessa in 1933.

After he died Grandmother Betia lived with her sons Wolf and Samuel on the first floor on 19, Kuznechnaya Street in the center of town. They had a well-known neighbor: Maliarov, the former owner and director of the private grammar school that my uncles finished. Every Sunday I went to visit Grandmother Betia. I played in their big yard and the adults could watch me from the window. They had running water and electricity and stove heating. There were five cozy rooms with expensive furniture. I remember a big cupboard with a marble board. There were crystal decanters for strong drinks, cups and wine glasses.

My grandmother was a wonderful housewife. Sometimes they hired housemaids who were usually young girls coming from villages to town to look for a job. My grandmother made delicious Jewish food on holidays – gefilte fish, fluden and strudels with jam, nuts and apples, but they didn’t follow the kashrut. They ate pork. On Sabbath the family had a festive dinner. I remember that there was matzah at Pesach. Grandmother Betia’s birthday was on the day of the first seder [according to the Jewish calendar] and she used to say, ‘My birthday is on the first seder’. There was nothing specifically Jewish in the house; there were no mezuzot on the doors. Grandmother Betia dressed in the fashion of the time. She didn’t wear a kerchief. She spoke Yiddish at home occasionally, but she preferred to read books in Russian. She was well educated and had a thorough knowledge of opera music. They liked music in the family.

My grandmother’s maternal cousin Sophia Wainshtein finished the private music school of Vasilenko in Odessa where she studied playing the piano. She was married to Alexandr Levinson who studied singing in this same school. Sophia accompanied him. Alexandr took on the pseudonym of Davydov. He became a soloist at Mariinskiy Emperor Theater in St. Petersburg. Sophia followed him to St. Petersburg. They had two daughters: Tamara and Tatiana, born before the Revolution. In the middle of the 1920s Davydov moved to Paris where in 1934 he worked with Fyodor Shaliapin [well-known Russian singer (1873-1938)]. In 1936 Davydov returned to the USSR and taught singing in the school of Mariinskiy Theater.

The Davydovs were evacuated to Novosibirsk during the Great Patriotic War. In 1944, when they returned, the family parted: Alexandr Davydov moved to Moscow to the actors-pensioners house and the wife with the daughters went to Leningrad. He hoped to have better conditions in this house. He died there in 1944. His family continued to live in Leningrad. Sophia and her daughters often came to Odessa in summer. My mother and uncle Samuel visited them in Leningrad. Sophia died in the 1950s. I never saw Davydov, but I knew his family very well. His daughter Tamara and I were friends. Tamara died in 1998. She was a master of performing and was awarded the title of ‘People’s Actress’.

During the Great Patriotic War my grandmother was evacuated to Tashkent [3,200 km from Odessa in present-day Uzbekistan] with her son Samuel’s family. When my grandmother was dying in Odessa in 1946 Uncle Samuel, who was an atheist, asked her, ‘Would you like to have somebody recite a prayer at your funeral?’ She replied, ‘No, I don’t want any bought prayers’. Grandmother Betia and Gedali had four children. They were all born in Odessa.

My mother’s older brother Wolf was born in 1894. He finished the private grammar school of Maliarov in Odessa and studied at the Medical Faculty of Novorossiysk University [since 1919 Odessa University]. When World War I began he went to the front. He was shell-shocked and got in captivity. He returned home in 1918. Sometime afterwards he became epileptic. This was a consequence of the shell shock. Uncle Wolf was a doctor. He was single, although he was handsome and a big success with women. He believed he didn’t have the right to marriage due to his illness. Wolf died in evacuation in Tashkent in 1942.

My mother’s other brother Samuel was born in 1897. He also finished the grammar school of Maliarov. Samuel entered the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Novorossiysk University in 1915 and then continued his studies at Kiev Polytechnic College. Once, during the Civil War 3, when he was traveling home from Kiev by train, the train was attacked by Petliura 4 troops. They were looking for Jews, but he managed to hide.

In 1929 the Soviet government sent Samuel to advanced training at Hettingen University and Hanover Polytechnic College in Germany. Samuel was a construction engineer. Before the Great Patriotic War he taught the subject of ‘resistance of material’ at Odessa Industrial College. He married Mina Vysokaya in 1938. She was a lecturer at the Odessa Conservatory. They didn’t have children. During the Great Patriotic War uncle Samuel lectured at Tashkent University, Tashkent Textile College and the Academy of Armored Troops of the Soviet Army. During the war he joined the Communist Party. He knew the theory of Marxism-Leninism well.

In 1949, when he was a lecturer at Odessa Polytechnic College, Uncle Samuel was accused of cosmopolitism [see campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] 5. I was waiting for him in the hallway of the conference-room where a meeting took place. The subject of the meeting was my uncle’s ‘case’. His friends and students spoke at the meeting criticizing my uncle. Later they apologized and confessed to him that they had been acting against their will. It was true because if they had refused to speak against him they would have had to share his fate. After the meeting I accompanied my uncle to his home. He didn’t speak on the way, but when we arrived at his place he said, ‘Well, I should expect an arrest now, I suppose’. He was so shocked that he went to bed in his clothes and shoes. He slept 48 hours. Later he went to the Central Committee of the CPSU in Moscow. He managed to resume his membership in the Party, but not his job. He moved to Penza, where he worked at Penza Industrial College, and then to Kishinev, where he was also a lecturer. He returned to Odessa in the 1960s after he retired. My uncle was a communist, but these events left a deep imprint on his heart. Samuel’s wife Mina died in 1977. Uncle Samuel lived the rest of his life with me. He died in
1986. We buried him in the Tair cemetery [the town cemetery] in Odessa.

My mother’s younger sister Ida Zaltzberg was born in 1901. She studied at Odessa Conservatory with Oistrach and Dankevich. [Editor’s note: David Oistrach (1908–1974): Soviet violinist, pedagogue, one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century; Konstantin Dankevich (1905–1984): popular Soviet composer, pianist and pedagogue. He taught in Odessa and Kiev Conservatories. In 1984 Odessa Music School was named after him.] Then she worked in the music school at the House of Scientists in Odessa. I remember my parents took me to her classes. In my memory Aunt Ida is a beautiful, well-dressed and bright woman. I associate her with the first symphonic concert in the Odessa Philharmonic that I went to. Her former fellow student Konstantin Dankevich was a conductor. After the concert he came to see us. He threw me in the air. He was a very tall man. I was about four years old then. Ida’s husband Moisey Barero, a Jewish man, had a daughter from his first marriage. Ida didn’t have children of her own. In 1941 Ida, her husband and her stepdaughter were killed in the ghetto in Odessa. She was 40 years old.

My mother Malka Zaltzberg was born in 1899. She studied at the Liberson private grammar school. The director of this school was a relative of ours. Later she studied at the grammar school of Shyleiko and Richter. My mother didn’t get any Jewish education at home. She was the peacemaker in the family – she always smoothed conflicts between family members. In 1919 my mother finished a six-month course of medical nurses and entered the Medical Faculty of Novorossiysk University. She graduated in 1922. She became a doctor at the central tuberculosis outpatient clinic called White Flower. Later this clinic joined the Odessa Scientific Research Institute of Tuberculosis.

My paternal great-grandfather Mordko Goldshtein came from Bogopol’. [Editor’s note: Bogopol’ was a Jewish town in Baltskiy district in Podolsk province. At the end of the 19th century 5,909 of 7,226 inhabitants of Bogopol’ were Jews.] He had five children: two sons, Abram and Haskel, and three daughters. There were different stories told in our family about the life of his older daughter Rachel, born in 1855. She was married to a big businessman in Kiev called David Benderski. I remember one of those stories. David had a lover who was a seamstress. He bought her an apartment. It happened so that he died when he visited her. This seamstress called my aunt to inform her on what had happened. My aunt went to the house of her husband’s lover with two broad-shouldered clerks of her husband. Those clerks carried her husband out of the house pretending that he was dead drunk. In the same way they took him into his bedroom. Rachel managed to prevent a public scandal by this smart conduct and plotting. There were two other daughters besides Rachel: Lisa, born in 1856, her name in marriage was Sher, and my grandmother Esther, born in Bogopol’ in 1854. My grandmother got married in 1885.

My paternal grandfather Leib Averbuch was born in Kishinev in 1865. My grandfather studied in cheder. After they got married my grandparents settled down in Bogopol’. Grandfather Leib was a senior man at the synagogue. He didn’t have any other job. My grandmother was the breadwinner in the family; she lent money to Christians. They were very religious and spoke Yiddish at home. Grandfather Leib wore a beard and mustache. He didn’t have payes, but he had whiskers. He wore a hood and a yarmulka in the synagogue. That’s what my father told me; I didn’t know my grandfather personally. He died in 1905 in a fire accident at the age of 40. He was asleep when his house caught fire. He must have suffocated in the smoke. I don’t know where the other members of the family were at that moment.

After this accident, the family moved to Odessa. I don’t know what made them move. I know that my grandmother and her children lived on Avcinnikovski Lane in the center of town. My grandmother’s brothers supported her. Before the Revolution they leased fields and were better off than my grandmother. Uncle Abram, born in 1952, had fancy clothes and looked like an aristocrat. He was very tidy and staunch. My parents believed that after the Revolution Uncle Abram lived on the money that he managed to hide from the expropriation by the Soviet authorities. Uncle Abram was married. He died in his late 60s, before the Great Patriotic War. Uncle Haskel made the impression of a sloppy and quarrelsome man. He had two daughters who lived in Leningrad. He became a widower before the war. He perished in Odessa ghetto in 1941.

My grandmother had two sons and two daughters. My father’s younger brother Haskel Averbuch was born in 1890. He finished a private drama school in Odessa. He was fond of acting. During World War I Haskel was recruited to the army at the age of 24. He was awarded two St. George Crosses 6 of the 3rd and 4th grades and a St. George medal. After the February Revolution Haskel took part in a congress of veterans of the war. He met A. F. Kerensky 7 at this congress. When Kerensky came on a visit to Odessa in May 1917 Uncle Haskel served as a mission officer for him. Kerensky solicited for his promotion to an officer’s rank and he became an ensign. After the October Revolution Haskel joined the Bolsheviks and was chief of militia in Odessa. When Denikin 8 troops entered Odessa he was arrested and sentenced to death for cooperation with the Soviet power. He was executed on 28th September 1919. My grandmother Esther kept some insignia of his officer’s valor: his dagger, orders and a medal, but she destroyed them in 1937 [during the Great Terror] 9.

My father’s younger sister Rosa, born in 1892, was raised in the family of her mother’s childless sister, Rachel Benderskaya, in Kiev. Rosa would have become the heir of a significant fortune of the Benderskiy family, if it hadn’t been for the October Revolution. The family’s property was expropriated by the Soviet authorities. Rosa finished the Medical Faculty of Novorossiysk University and married Konstantin Chertkov who came from a well-known Russian family of merchants in Odessa. Aunt Rosa and her husband left for Moscow in the 1930s. Her husband worked as an advisor at the Ministry of River Transport of the USSR, Aunt Rosa was a doctor, a throat specialist. They didn’t have children. Rosa’s husband died in the late 1960s. Aunt Rosa died at the age of 92 in 1984.

My father’s second sister Tsylia was born in 1896. She was a pharmacist. She lived in Odessa, was single and had no children. During the Great Patriotic War she was in evacuation in Tashkent with us. At the end of her life Aunt Tsylia moved to her older sister Rosa in Moscow. She died in 1956.

My father Grigori, his Jewish name was Gershon, was born in Bogopol in 1888. Like all other Jewish boys he studied in cheder. When his family moved to Odessa he became an apprentice to a pharmacist. It was a popular profession among Jews since it gave them the right to live beyond the [Jewish] Pale of Settlement 10. He finished the extramural Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy and was the director of a pharmacy at the same time. In 1927 my father received an apartment on Preobrazhenskaya Street in the center of town. It was a communal apartment 11. There was another Jewish family that lived in this apartment: the family of doctor Moisey Finegold. My father lived in this apartment with Grandmother Esther and his sister Tsylia.

Growing up

My parents were introduced to one another by their relatives. My father was eleven years older than my mother. My mother was 27 at the time. They went to the theater together. My mother worked and didn’t allow my father to pay for her tickets. My parents got married in Odessa in 1927. They had a civil wedding. There was no chuppah. Theirs was a pre-arranged marriage that grew into a solid reliable relationship. After they got married the newly-weds settled down in my father’s apartment on Preobrazhenskaya Street. The house where they lived belonged to an insurance company called Russia before the October Revolution.

We had four rooms in this apartment: my parents’ bedroom, were I slept as well, my grandmother’s room, my aunt Tsylia’s room, and a small room near the kitchen where the housemaid lived. The Russia insurance company provided furniture for our apartment before the Revolution. It was stylish mahogany furniture decorated with bronze. I remember a big mirror with a glass table, a low table and armchairs. My grandmother had an ancient chest of drawers in her room and an oak folding table. There were beautiful chairs with carved chair-backs. There were Moldavian carpets on the floors. After 1939 we got a radio set. There was a bathroom in this apartment, but my family didn’t use the bathtub since it was a communal apartment. I remember when I was small I was washed in a basin and when I grew older my father took me to the sauna. Most of our neighbors were Russian. The relationship between the neighbors was friendly enough and very reserved.

I was born on 31st October 1930. I remember well my nanny Olesia, a nice and caring old Ukrainian woman. I use to put my head in her warm jacket feeling very comfortable. She left when I turned three years old and our housemaid Irina Bessarab looked after me. I associate Irina with the famine of 1933 12. In 1933 Irina came from a village. She was thin and had her hair shaved since she had typhoid. She was taken to the kitchen. All she could say was, ‘Madam, may I have something to eat?’ Only after she had had some food, she could speak properly. She became a beautiful full-bodied woman. When she got married she lived in our apartment with her husband for some time.

I didn’t go to kindergarten. I studied with a teacher who had a Froebel 13 diploma; there were graduates of this institute in Odessa. Many of them knew foreign languages and taught children to speak a foreign language. My teacher Polina Ianovna Galka didn’t know any foreign languages, but when she fell ill or went on vacation we had a replacement, Victoria Georgiivna Moskalyova, who taught me French. There were seven other children in my group. This group gathered at the teacher’s home. We, children, brought our breakfast with us. We went for a walk on Primorski Boulevard or to Teatralnaya Square, or the Palais Royal [this is how Odessites call the garden near the Odessa Opera House], or Gorodskoy garden. Then we went to her house, where we had our breakfast, played games and learned to read.

I went to Novy Market with Grandmother Esther who bought kosher food products for herself. I remember my grandmother Esther well. She dressed like all other women in town. She wore long dark skirts and dark shirts. In winter she wore woolen clothes and in summer a fustian. She never wore light colors and even at home she wore a kerchief. Grandmother Esther didn’t quite have political preferences, but since her favorite younger son was shot by Denikin troops she hated all Whites 14; however, this doesn’t mean that she favored the Reds 15.

Grandmother Esther observed the kashrut. She didn’t trust my mother or the housemaid to prepare food for her. She bought her quarter of a chicken from one and the same seller, I think. Frau Frieda, a German milkmaid, delivered dairy products to our house. She came from Grossliebental, a German colony 16 near Odessa. Early in the morning, at 7am, she already knocked on the backdoor. When asked, ‘Who’s there?’ she replied, ‘Frau Frieda, I’ve got milk for you’. She wore a checkered kerchief. She had a big milk can from where she poured milk with a big mug that had a long handle. At times poultry tradesmen came to the yard shouting, ‘Want a chicken? Quarter chicken or chicken legs?’ There was a period before the war when there weren’t enough food products and bread was sold in limited quantities. Each family left a linen bag with a name at a store and then these bags were delivered on carts to the houses. The tenants came outside to pick up their bags. There was a bread rate per person. It wasn’t a famine because there was enough bread being delivered. There was a period when there was no sugar in stores and people bought caramel candy instead.

My parents treated each other with love and respect. After my father finished the Chemistry Engineering Faculty of the Industrial College in 1936 he worked as a chemical engineer at food enterprises in Odessa. I don’t remember the specific companies he worked for. My mother worked as a doctor at Odessa Scientific Research Institute of Tuberculosis. My parents worked a lot. They liked to spend their evenings with the family. We were doing all right, though we couldn’t afford any luxuries. My parents went to the theater and visited friends. Most of their friends were Jewish, but my mother also had non-Jewish friends. At home my parents spoke Russian and only switched to Yiddish when they didn’t want me to understand the subject of their discussion. My father spoke fluent Yiddish, but my mother didn’t know it quite so well. So when they switched to Yiddish my father teased her a little about the mistakes she made.

Both my grandmothers told me something about Jewish traditions, but I took it as a vestige of the past. I didn’t make this particular point to them, but I thought it was something that had nothing to do with me. Every Friday evening Grandmother Esther covered the table in her room with a yellow tablecloth and invited us to dinner. Her brother Abram and Haskel visited my grandmother on this day. They were almost the same age and often quarreled and Grandmother Esther had to help them to make it up. By next Saturday they were arguing again. My grandmother observed Sabbath. She didn’t go to the synagogue when I remember her, because she was very old.

My grandmother had religious books. She prayed from the siddur, read the Torah in Hebrew regularly and knew the weekly sections by heart. [Editor’s note: The Torah is divided into 54 parts; one is to be read each Sabbath. Two such parts are sometimes read on a single Sabbath; otherwise the cycle could not be completed in one year.] My father was an atheist, but I remember clearly that on one of the Jewish holidays – it may have been Yom Kippur – he put on his fancy suit and a dark hat and went to the synagogue. I don’t know what synagogue my father attended, but I think there was only one synagogue in Odessa at the time.

We didn’t have a big collection of books at home, but in our family we read a lot. There were subscription editions before the war and we had books by Balzac, Maupassant, Pushkin 17 and Lermontov 18. My father was very fond of Lermontov and often sang ballads using his lyrics. I was also good at literature for a boy of ten. My parents took care of what I read. They brought me books to read. I read books by Soviet children’s authors: Chukovskiy, Marshak 19 and Mikhalkov. Later I got the History of Animal World by Brehm. I took to liking adventure stories. Later my parents enrolled me on the list of readers in the library of the House of Scientists. My parents also went to the town library: my mother went there to prepare her dissertation and my father went there every now and then. My mother knew three foreign languages and my father knew two. My parents subscribed to the Bolshevik’s Banner communist newspaper.

Every summer our family rented a dacha [cottage] at the seashore. In 1938 Uncle Samuel built a dacha and we stayed there all together. When I was small we traveled to the dacha on a horse-drawn cart. I sat beside the balagula [coachman] on his seat and several times I even used the whip on the horse. Later we had our luggage transported on a truck and I used to sit in the cabin. I also remember how the husband of my mother’s friend Bella Goldman Rovinski, a Jew, deputy chief of the regional military hospital, gave us a lift in his cabriolet with a convertible tarpaulin top on their twin daughters Lilia and Maya’s birthday.

I remember people speaking in a whisper about the arrests in 1937. One of my parents’ closest friends, doctor Yakov Kaminski, was arrested in 1937. His wife Vera knocked on our door at 7 o’clock in the morning and asked us if she could stay with us for a while since her husband Yakov had been arrested. She had made the rounds of several of their acquaintances, but they didn’t even open their doors to her. My parents let her in, gave her a cup of tea and tried to console her. In the evening my father took her to her home. They supported her throughout Yakov’s time in exile, which lasted 20 years, and when he returned they remained friends. In 1938 my grandmother Betia’s brother Avrum Zaltzberg was arrested and executed without even a trial or investigation. In the same year my grandmother Esther died and was buried in the 3rd Jewish cemetery. We didn’t find her grave after the war. I guess it had been destroyed.

I turned eight in 1938 and my father took me to submit my documents to school in August. The director of the school, Riabukha, tested every child. Since I could already read and write and knew poems by heart he enrolled me in the 2nd grade. In January 1939 Riabukha was shot for deviations from the Party policy in the field of education. I liked to study. In the 3rd grade I was even awarded a diploma for my school successes. My first teacher was Maria Dmitrievna Dorokholskaya. We all liked her a lot. We also liked Valentin Alexandrovich Zhukov, our teacher of physics. He took part in the Spanish Civil War 20. He wore a Navy jacket and had an Order of Honor. Olga Moiseyevna Erlich was our teacher of rhythmic and singing. We sang in a choir and played in a so-called noise orchestra: we played castanets, triangles, etc. We often had morning concerts at school where we sang, recited poems and gave amateur performances. My father took me to the navy club in the Town House of Pioneers.

There were many Jewish children at school. I remember Bernard Shchurovetski. He was one year my senior. I remember him running ahead of a group of boys waving his hand as if he was holding a sable shouting, ‘Follow me, Jewish battalion!’ In 1948 he was arrested for Zionism when he was a student of Odessa University. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. As for the prewar period I want to say that the notion of the Soviet people wasn’t something abstract. It had its grounds. I never faced any anti-Semitism before the war, although we made quite clear the nationality we belonged to.

I met my schoolmates after school. We played the ‘cossacks and bandits’ game [an equivalent of ‘Cowboys and Indians’] and football, mostly with balls made out of cloth. We also played ‘mayalka’ tossing up a bag filled with millet or sand. The one that tossed it up for the longest time won. I also had friends in the yard. We played a stick game. There was a wooden stick and a board – a bat. We drew a circle and put the stick in the middle. Then we hit on its edge with a bat and when it popped up we had to throw it with the bat as far as possible.

I had a friend whose name was Ivetta. She was the daughter of our co-tenants, the Finegolds. She was three years older than I and had a big influence on me. Ivetta played the piano and I danced to this music with her friends or we danced to the radio. I fell in love with all her friends in a row. We played this bottle game: We stood in a circle and twirled a bottle in the middle. Then the two that the neck and bottom of the bottle pointed at kissed.

On weekends my parents and I went for a walk and to the theater. They took me to children’s performances at the Tyuz theater [theater for young audiences in the USSR], the Opera, the Philharmonic, and to symphonic orchestras. We often went to the cinema where we watched Soviet films. My father spent more time with me than my mother did. My favorite holidays were 1st May and October Revolution Day 21.
My father and I went to parades, bought flags and balloons. In the middle of the 1930s people began to celebrate New Year and decorate trees. At first Soviet authorities forbade Christmas trees since it was considered to be a religious Christian tradition. There were also so-called ‘fore post clubs’ when children got together in a room or hall in the district where they lived. We had concerts and other events there and played games.

My mother had a few relatives in America. One of them was my grandmother Betia’s brother Israel Zaltzberg. Uncle Israel was a communist in America, but he owned a factory. He visited Odessa in 1935. He visited my grandmother in her apartment in Kuznechnaya Street. There was a reception and there were photographs taken. He brought me some gifts. Our relatives corresponded with him before his arrival, but after he left all such contacts were kept secret since it became dangerous to disclose them [it was dangerous to keep in touch with relatives abroad] 22.

During the war

In 1939 Soviet troops came to Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. My father was recruited to the army and took part in those campaigns. The beginning of the war in 1939 was practically not discussed by the mass media. Sometime before it, the USSR entered into the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 23 with Germany. I remember the German Consulate in Odessa on the corner of Petra Velikogo and Sadovaya Street and two big red banners with white circles and black swastikas on them.

I was ten when the Great Patriotic War began on 22nd June 1941. My father was assigned to a military unit and although he had had myocarditis some time before and was 53 years old he joined this unit. When my mother mentioned that he could probably do something to avoid going to the front he replied that when fascists attacked the country a Jewish man had to be in the armed forces. He left that same day and never returned. This was at least the fourth war in his life. He went to the front-line forces in Bessarabia 24.
He served in a medical unit of Primorskaya army and was responsible for logistics supplies to medical institutions and subdivisions of Primorskaya army in Sevastopol. He perished there during the defense of Sevastopol in July 1942. I still have 16 letters that he wrote from the front.

In July 1941 my mother, Aunt Tsylia and I evacuated from Odessa. We went to Novorossiysk [700 km to Odessa by sea] by the military boat Dnepr. From there we took a train to Krasnodar – this was my first train trip. We got off at Zatoka station in Stanitsa Slavyanskaya on the way to Krasnodar. We got accommodation with a Kazak family, the Kulikovs. They didn’t care what nationality we belonged to. They treated us as if we were their family. They shared their food with us. Then we went to Rostov where we reunited with Uncle Samuel, his wife, grandmother Betia and Uncle Wolf. We went to Kalach by boat along the Don River, from there we took a train to Stalingrad, then we went to Kuibyshev down the Volga and from there we took a train to Tashkent.

In evacuation my mother was the manager of the X-Ray department at the Institute of Tuberculosis in Tashkent. In 1943 she defended her dissertation for the title of candidate of medical services and in 1947 she was awarded the title of senior scientific employee. I went to the 5th grade at school in Tashkent. In a year we moved to another district and I finished my 6th and 7th grades in another school. My classmate Lyonia Yusupov – his mother was Russian and his father was Uzbek and was the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist party of Uzbekistan – helped me to get a recommendation from his father to join the Komsomol 25. I became a Komsosol member in 1944 before I turned 14. In August 1944 during my vacations I began to work as a medical statistics specialist in the institute where my mother worked.

Before the war I didn’t face anti-Semitism except for the word ‘zhyd’ [kike] that I heard several times, but during the war there was open anti-Semitism. It was intertwined with the hatred to people in evacuation. The local Russian population, Russian people who were in evacuation in Tashkent and Uzbeks demonstrated it. Uzbeks knew the word ‘yakhuda’ [Jew in Arabic] and even at the market when a Jewish customer tried to bargain with them they said ‘Jebrei’ [mispronunciation of Jew], go away and come back tomorrow’. Once a group of local boys brutally beat me up, kicking me with their feet on my face and calling me ‘zhydowskaya morda’ [a Jewish mug].

I went to the synagogue for the first time in Tashkent in 1944. There was a meeting with a former inmate of the Warsaw ghetto who had managed to escape. My uncle Samuel took me there. On our way to the synagogue he told me a little about Jewish traditions. I cannot remember the details of what this man told the audience. He spoke German and there was an interpreter. [Editor’s note: this man most likely spoke Yiddish and not German.] My uncle Wolf died of a brain tumor in Tashkent. I heard the mourning prayer recited by a man from the synagogue for the first time in my life at his funeral.

Post-war

We returned to Odessa in October 1944 with the Odessa flour grinding factory. We arrived at Odessa-Malay station and from there we were taken to the hostel of the flour-grinding factory by truck. During the war Dumitrasku, the editor of the Russian weekly newspaper Molva, lived in our apartment on Preobrazhenskaya Street. When we returned it was inhabited by comrade Melnichenko, the chairman of the water transport district council. He occupied all six rooms of our apartment, although two families had lived in the apartment before the war. When the Finegold family – our co-tenants – arrived, Melnichenko did us a big favor: he vacated two rooms for their family and two rooms for us. He stayed in our apartment for quite a while. Actually all our belongings were gone. After returning to Odessa Grandmother Betia lived with us. She died in 1946. She was buried in the Jewish section of the second international cemetery. No Jewish rituals were followed.

I went to the 8th grade when we returned to Odessa. It was a different Odessa and so was I. I had new friends at school. I had many Jewish classmates. The director of the school Osip Semyonovich Stoliarski was a Jew. There were many Jewish teachers. There was anti-Semitism in postwar Odessa. Probably people contracted it from the fascists during the occupation. I often heard people say, ‘The Jews are back telling us what to do’.

In 1946 I entered Odessa Medical College. Since I was under 16 and didn’t have a passport I was admitted as a candidate student and was enrolled only after I obtained my passport. There was no anti-Semitism in college. There were many Jews in college: veterans of the war, mature people. I was an active Komsomol member and a member of the Komsomol committee of the college. In 1949, when I was a 4th-year student I married my co-student Sophia Rudman. She was a very interesting person. She was very musical, had the best marks in gymnastics and was a great success with young men.

Sophia was born in Odessa in 1928. During the war she was in evacuation in Tokmak, Kyrgyzstan, with her mother. Sophia is a Jew. Her grandfather lived in Moldavanka 26 where Jews lived in their own neighborhood and observed Jewish traditions. Sophia’s mother knew a little Yiddish and was a very sociable woman. She kept in touch with her Jewish surrounding. We didn’t observe the Jewish holidays in our family, but we bought matzah at Pesach. My wife’s mother could even make it. Basically, we didn’t observe any Jewish traditions or the kashrut.

In my 6th year of studies I began to specialize in lung diseases. After finishing college in 1952 my wife and I got a [mandatory] job assignment 27 to the village of Malorita in Brest region, Belarus, where we worked as phthisitricians. In 1952 during the time of the Doctors’ Plot 28 I got into trouble. Phthisitricians use to get into this trap. I treated my patients with pneumothorax. During this procedure an air bubble may get into a vein. If it gets into a venous vessel it may cause embolism. One of my patients – the agronomist Nikolay Misyuk had brain embolism once. I remember that in his case I had to fix his head in the lowest position with his feet up to force this air bubble out. I did this and he recovered, but he had hemorrhage in his retina. Nikolay appreciated what I did for him, but his wife wrote a letter to the prosecutor’s office complaining that Jewish doctor Averbuch wanted to kill her husband, an agronomist, to cause damage to the socialist agriculture. I was called to the prosecutor’s office where they had a talk with me, but at some point of time it all ended. When we were leaving Malorita we already knew that this Doctors’ Plot was just that. Stalin had died by then. His death was a hard blow. Besides, we were afraid that the new leadership of the country would strengthen its dictatorship. I dedicated one of my poems to Stalin’s death.

In 1953 I entered the clinical residency at the Institute of Advanced Training of Doctors in Minsk. My tutor was Professor Agranovich. Simultaneously I studied at the extramural postgraduate school in Moscow where my tutor was Alexandr Rabukhin, one of the biggest phthisitrician in Kiev. He was also a Jew. There were many Jewish doctors in the USSR while in phthisiology almost all of them were Jews. It was a difficult profession, but Jews wanted to have it.

Our daughter Irina was born in 1953. In 1955 my wife and I returned to Odessa where we rented an apartment, and we often went to see my mother. After my father’s death my mother didn’t marry again. She went on to work as a phthisitrician. She died in 1989 at the age of 90 and was buried in the international cemetery of Odessa.

After returning to Odessa I began to write my dissertation. Simultaneously I lectured at Odessa Medical College. My tutor made it clear to me that I didn’t have a chance to keep a job at the college because of my Jewish nationality. In January 1959 I began to work as a registrar at the regional tuberculosis outpatient clinic. I was appointed its manager in July of the same year. I often traveled on business to Ukrainian towns, Moscow and Leningrad.

I began to travel abroad in 1960. Those were countries of democracy: Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. When I visited Hungary in the 1960s I understood how serious events were during the Revolution of 1956 29, what tragedy it had been for the people of Hungary and what the real role of the USSR had been. About the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 [Prague Spring] 30 I remember that we listened to foreign radio stations. We understood that it was a blood-shedding suppression of the people’s movement. My friends and I had a negative attitude towards this.

We lived a stable and wealthy life. We communicated with Uncle Samuel and Aunt Rosa who lived in Moscow, and Lida, the daughter of Avrum Zaltzberg. We got together on birthdays or Jewish holidays. In summer we stayed at the dacha. Our son Grigori was born in 1965. My children always knew that they were Jews and identified themselves as Jews. However, they didn’t get any Jewish education. My children knew about the Holocaust and about members of our family who had perished in the ghetto and about their grandfather who had perished at the front.

Our daughter Irina studied in a secondary and a music school. She was a concertmaster and took part in concerts with children’s groups. After finishing school she finished the Music College in Vitebsk since it was difficult for a Jewish girl to enter the Music College in Odessa. After finishing this College Irina was the manager of a band that worked on a cruiser. She was also a soloist and played keyboard. Irina married a Russian man, Alexandr Rakov, a musician. In 1978 they moved to Australia. I cannot say that I was happy when my daughter left. I wasn’t sure whether it was the right decision, but it turned out it was. They live in Sidney where they opened a computer design company. Irina is a musician there. Their daughter Caroline was born in 1979. She finished a technical college in Sidney. Her specialty is computer graphics. I visited them in 1991. It was a wonderful trip and a happy meeting with my darling daughter and granddaughter Caroline.

Sophia and I divorced in 1968. Two years later Sophia married a Russian man. Since her second husband was Christian they celebrated Christian and Jewish holidays. They made Easter bread and painted eggs at Easter. They also observe Jewish holidays, but without strictly following all traditions. My son Grigori lived with his mother. He identifies himself as a Jew, although he is not even circumcised. Grigori finished school in 1972 and then studied at the Faculty of Physical Education of Odessa Pedagogical College. After his 4th year in college he was recruited to the army. He served in anti-missile troops in Zaporozhye. After his army service Grigori worked in a children’s home and then was a teacher of physical education at school. In 1991 he moved to Australia, to his sister Irina. He lives in Sidney and works as an assistant doctor.

I married Irina Chaikovskaya in 1969. Irina is Ukrainian. She was born in Vinnitsa in 1938. During the war she was in evacuation in Tashkent with her mother. My second wife finished the Faculty of Philology of Odessa Pedagogical College and the Faculty of Defectology of Moscow Pedagogical College. She is a speech specialist and an Honored Teacher of Ukraine. [Editor’s note: Honored Teacher of Ukraine is a state award.] We’ve been married for over thirty years now.

The 1970s were stable years in our country: no arrests or suppression. We were wealthy and had many opportunities to spend our spare time as we liked. My wife and I read a lot, went to the theater and symphonic music performances. Famous musicians and the best theater groups of the USSR often came on tour to Odessa. In the 1970s there was more space for criticism of the government. My professional life has always been the focus of my life. I was the manager of the tuberculosis clinic for 44 years. I was also involved in scientific activities. I have over 65 publications and one monograph. In 1994 I was awarded the title of candidate of medical sciences based on my scientific work. I have never been a party member.

In 1967 during the Six-Day-War 31 and in 1973 during another war [the interviewee is referring to the so-called Yom Kippur War] 32 I felt pain in my heart and wished victory for Israelites. I was terribly upset about the termination of diplomatic relationships of the USSR with Israel. I was convinced that it was a mistake of the Soviet government. I felt like protesting against the USSR’s support of the enemies of Israel. I always felt great interest in Israel. I always wanted to visit there and was very happy when I got an opportunity to do so in 1999. I admired the country and felt proud for the people. I sympathized with those that were moving to Israel, but I never considered this option for myself.

When perestroika 33 began in 1986 I had hopes that they would build socialism with a human face. I need to say at this point that I still feel sorry that socialism is a utopia. I’m really sorry that such is reality. This utopia is even more dangerous since it is so attractive.

The Jewish life has revived in Odessa. In 1997 I became a volunteer and member of the Board at the Jewish charity organization Gmilus Hesed. During this period I turned to Judaism to learn more about traditions and the history of the Jewish people. I remain agnostic to a certain extent. I’m not a religious Jew who goes to pray at the synagogue every day. I don’t follow the kashrut either, but I greatly respect the Jewish traditions. I know a lot more about the traditions and history of my people now and this gives me the feeling of solidarity with my people.

I go to the synagogue on high holidays. I take part in charity events. I’m the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Gmilus Hesed. I write in Russian for the Jewish newspapers Or-Sameah and Shomrei-Shabbos and the magazine Migdal Times. I write articles on Jewish subjects as well. I collect and publish materials about famous Odessites. I give lectures about outstanding Jewish Odessites and the history of anti-Semitism at the Open Jewish University at the educational center Moria. I write poems and prose. Some Odessa publishing houses published my volume of poems and a book of memoirs about Odessa and Odessites. Besides, my book about Jews who worked for the Soviet intelligence service has been published in two editions.

Glossary

Ernest Galpert
Uzhgorod
Ukraine
Date of interview: April 2003 Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya

Ernest Galpert is a tall slender man, quick in his movements. Although he will turn 80 in June one cannot call him an old man. He has a straight bearing and the figure of a young man. He has thick hair, bright and cheerful eyes and a nice smile. The name of Ernest is written in his official documents, but he is called Ari, affectionate for Archnut. His children and the rest of his family call him Ari-bacsi ['uncle' in Hungarian]. He speaks fluent Russian with a slight Hungarian accent. The Galpert couple is very hospitable and open. They have lived in this two- bedroom apartment for over 40 years. It's in a building built back in the 1920s during the rule of Czechoslovakia, in the old center of Uzhgorod. They have heavy old furniture in their apartment, and keep their apartment very clean. Ari's wife Tilda is a real keeper of the home hearth. Ari and his wife make a loving and caring couple. They are always together and Ari even joked that since his wife has joined a club in Hesed he will have to accompany her there. There's still a lot of love between them.

Family background
Growing up
During the war
Post-war
Glossary

Family background

My paternal grandfather and grandmother Galpert lived in the village of Nizhniye Vorota [60 km from Uzhgorod], Volovets district in Subcarpathia 1. I knew my grandparents very well. My grandfather, Pinchas Galpert, was born in Nizhniye Vorota in the 1860s. My grandmother Laya was born in the 1870s. I don't know the place of her birth or her maiden name. I've never met any of their relatives. My grandfather finished a yeshivah. I don't know where it was located. Their children were born in Nizhniye Vorota. My grandfather and grandmother had eight children. My father, Eshye Galpert, born in 1896, his younger brother, Idl, and his sister whose name I don't remember, stayed with their parents. My father's sister moved to her husband when she got married. I don't remember her. The rest of my grandparents' children also left their parents' home when they grew up. One of my father's older brothers, whose name I don't remember, moved to Bogota, Columbia. His other brother Moishe Galpert lived in Michalovce, in Slovakia. My father's older sister emigrated to Switzerland. My father's brothers Yankel and Berl moved to Palestine in the 1920s after training in hakhsharah camps 2 before World War I. Those were training camps for young people where they prepared Jewish children for life in Palestine.

In the early 1900s my father's family moved to Mukachevo. My father actually grew up in Mukachevo. After moving to Mukachevo my grandfather went to work at the Jewish burial society [the Chevra Kaddisha]. My father's younger brother Idl was his assistant. Idl lived with his parents before he got married. My grandfather was a Hasid 3. I remember him when he was an old man. He had a gray beard and payes. On weekdays he wore a black suit and a big black hat, and on Saturday he wore a long black caftan and a yarmulka with 13 squirrel tails that Hasidim used to wear on Saturday and Jewish holidays. [Editor's note: The hat that Hasidim usually wore on holidays is called a streimel.] My grandmother was a housewife. She wore black gowns and a black kerchief. She was very nice and caring and loved her numerous grandchildren. My grandmother died at the age of 60, in 1937. Now, at the age of 80, I understand that she wasn't that old, but at the time when I knew her, she seemed very old to me. Perhaps, my grandmother got prematurely old missing her children that lived far away from their parents' home.

My father's family was very religious. It couldn't have been otherwise in a Hasidic family. My grandfather went to the synagogue every day and so did his sons after having their bar mitzvah. They observed Sabbath and Jewish holidays at home and spoke Yiddish. My father and then his younger brother Idl finished cheder and went to study in a yeshivah in the town of Nitra in Slovakia. This part of Slovakia belonged to Austria-Hungary then. My father told me a little about the yeshivah where he studied. There were mainly young men from poorer families who came to study in the yeshivah from other towns. Students from wealthier families had meals in restaurants, but those who couldn't afford it had meals in Jewish families. My father told me funny stories about such dinners. One day he came to one family and another day somebody else invited him. Some families treated my father arrogantly, some friendly, and others with respect. By the way, when I was a child, we also invited students from the yeshivah in Mukachevo to dinner. Every Tuesday Chaim, a poor Jewish student, dined with us, and mother always tried to cook something special and make Chaim feel at home.

During World War I my father was recruited to the Austro-Hungarian army [the so-called KuK army] 4. At that time religion played an important role in the army and in life in general. The military could go to the religious establishments of their confessions when time permitted it, of course. Jews went to the synagogue on Saturday and Christians could got to their church on Sunday. Occasionally local Jewish families invited Jewish soldiers to Sabbath or other Jewish holidays. In their military units they had an opportunity to have kosher food cooked for them. My father was captured by the Russians and taken to Tver region in Russia. He told me about his captivity. He spoke of the Russians kindly. The landlords took prisoners of war to work for them. They kept the prisoners in good conditions and provided good food for them. My father was working for a landlord when in 1917 the Russian Revolution 5 took place. Then there was the Civil War 6. When the war was over in 1918 the Bolsheviks released all prisoner of war captured by the tsarist army and my father returned home to Mukachevo. Shortly after he returned he married my mother.

My mother's father, Aron Kalush, died before I was born. The Jews of Subcarpathia came from Galicia, Western Ukraine, for the most part. Many people's surnames derived from the names of the towns or villages they came from. There were many Jews who had the last name of Debelzer or Bolechover, which were the names of towns in Galicia. I think that the last name of Galpert derived from the town of Galper. There's nobody else with the last name of Galpert in Ukraine, I've only heard of the last name of Galperin. I can only guess that when their ancestors moved to Austria-Hungary, their family name was changed in German or Hungarian manner. Grandfather Aron's family must have moved from the town of Kalush, but that's only my guess. I don't know the exact place of birth of my grandfather. He was born in the 1860s. He was a glasscutter.

My grandmother, Laya Kalush, was born in Subcarpathia in the 1870s, but I don't know her exact place of birth. I don't know her maiden name either. She was a housewife. My mother and her sisters and brothers were born in Mukachevo. My mother was the oldest in the family. She was born in 1894 and named Perl. The rest of the children were born after an interval of one to two years. My mother's sister Ghinda was the second child. The third was Yankel and the youngest in the family was Nuchim. My mother's family wasn't as religious as Hasidic families, but they went to the synagogue on Sabbath and Jewish holidays, the men prayed every day at home and they, of course, observed the kashrut. All children were raised Jewish. The family spoke Yiddish at home and Hungarian to their non-Jewish neighbors.

There was an epidemic of the so-called Spanish flu in Subcarpathia during World War I. Many people died of this flu in Mukachevo. To prevent the spread of this virus people's corpses were buried in pits filled with liquid chloride in the Jewish cemetery. They also buried people that were still alive if they believed them to be hopelessly ill. My mother's younger brother, Nuchim, died that way. My grandfather died from the flu and Nuchim was still alive when they took him to the cemetery in 1914.

After Grandfather Aron died and after the mourning was over, my grandmother remarried. Her second husband was a Jewish widower from Michalovce in Slovakia where my father's brother Moishe lived. All I know about my grandmother's second husband is that he was a shochet. I don't remember his name. My grandmother visited us several times for a few days. I remember that she was an old woman wearing a black dress and a black kerchief. My grandmother and her husband perished in 1941 during World War II. Jews from Slovakia were taken to Auschwitz. In 1939 the fascists [Germany] attacked Poland and built concentration camps there. There were only rumors that Jews were taken to Auschwitz from Slovakia. My parents knew that my grandmother and her husband were taken to a concentration camp, but they didn't share this knowledge with us. However, we, kids, understood that something bad had happened. My mother kept crying repeating, 'How is Mother? How is Mother?' In 1944, when the Jews from Subcarpathia were taken to Auschwitz, we didn't have any idea what was happening there. We thought it was an ordinary labor camp, although in labor camps inmates also died from diseases or starvation. Nobody knew that it was a death camp. My mother kept writing letters addressed to grandmother, but we never heard from her and my mother was deeply concerned. Finally she received a letter from my grandmother's neighbors. They wrote that my grandmother and her husband perished in Auschwitz.

I have dim memories about my mother's brother Yankel. He perished during World War II, but it happened before the Germans began to take Jews to concentration camps. My mother's sister Ghinda got married and moved to her husband's town, to Vynohradiv [80 km from Uzhgorod]. I remember her well since I often spent my vacations with her family. Ghinda's husband was a tailor and she was a housewife after she got married. They had six children. One daughter died in infancy. Ghinda's children were about my age. The name of Ghinda's older daughter was Surah. One of her daughters, my niece Olga, died in Israel recently and her second daughter Perl lives in Canada. Ghinda's sons Aron and Yankel were in a concentration camp. After liberation from the camp they moved to Israel. They lived in a kibbutz. Aron died in the late 1980s and as for Yankel, I've lost contact with him. Ghinda's other daughter, whose name I don't remember, lived in Budapest, Hungary. She died in the 1970s. Ghinda had diabetes. She died in 1940. Yankel, Ghinda and her family were religious. My mother was the only survivor of all her brothers and sisters when the Germans began to deport people to concentration camps.

I think my parents had a prearranged marriage since it was common practice with Jewish families to address matchmakers - shadkhanim, regarding this issue. My parents had a traditional Jewish wedding in 1919 when Subcarpathia belonged to Czechoslovakia. My mother told me how many geese were slaughtered and who their guests were, but I can't remember any details. I was a boy then and took no interest in such things. They had a chuppah at home in the yard and the rabbi from the synagogue that my father attended. The rabbi conducted a traditional wedding ceremony and then the newly-weds had to drop a plate and step on it with their feet to break it. Now they break a glass, but in the past it was a plate. When the plate broke the guests shouted 'Mazel Tov!' and sang wedding songs. Then they danced. The newly-weds danced the first dance and then there were mitzvah dances where guests took turns to dance with the bride. Every guest paid for the right to dance with the bride. The rich always demonstrated how much they were putting on a plate and the poor quickly dropped money so that nobody could tell how much they put down. That's what my mother told me.

After the wedding my parents' relatives helped them to buy a house. The Jews in Mukachevo lived in the center of the town. There was a Jewish neighborhood in Yidishgas ['Jewish Street' in Yiddish] and there were also Jewish houses in other neighborhoods. My future wife, Tilda Akerman, also lived in Yidishgas and we lived in the neighboring street where Jewish houses neighbored non-Jewish houses. There was no place for growing vegetables near the house. Land was expensive in the central part of the town. Farmers lived and grew their products on the outskirts of the town. My paternal grandparents lived near us on Danko Street.

My father had a small store in the biggest room in our house with an entrance from the front door. There were three rooms and a kitchen in the house. We entered the living quarters through the store. My father sold all common goods in his store. He worked in the store alone, there were no other employees. He opened the store early in the morning. In the early afternoon he closed it to go to the synagogue and when he returned he opened his store again to work until evening. Occasionally, even when the store was closed some customers asked my father to sell them what they needed and my father didn't refuse to serve them. He had Jewish and non- Jewish customers living in our street. We, children, also helped him in the store. My father earned enough for the family to make ends meet. We were neither rich nor poor. We didn't starve and could afford to support the poor on Thursday so that they could have a decent Sabbath. To help the poor was considered to be a holy duty, a mitzvah. On Thursday contributions for the needy were collected at the synagogue and my father always gave some money to the collectors.

There were three children in the family. My sister Olga was born in 1920. Her Jewish name was Friema. I was born on 20th June 1923. I had the name of Arnucht written in my Czechoslovak birth certificate. I was named after my maternal grandfather Aron. During the Hungarian rule [1939-1945] I was called Erno and during the Soviet rule [1945-1991] I became Ernest, but my close ones always called me Ari. My younger sister, Toby, was born in 1925. She is called Yona in Israel. Yiddish Toyb for Toby means 'dove' and dove is Yona in Hebrew.

Mukachevo was a Jewish town. It was even called 'little Jerusalem' and it was a center of Hasidism. Jews constituted over half of the population of Mukachevo. There were over 15,000 Jews in the town. There were five to six children in Jewish families. The Austro-Hungarian authorities were tolerant towards Jews. Jews enjoyed equal rights with others and when in 1918 Subcarpathia joined Czechoslovakia life became even better. The president of Czechoslovakia, Masaryk 7, and then Benes 8 allowed the Jews to hold official posts. Religion was appreciated at all times. On Saturday the Jews went to the synagogue. All stores and shops were closed. Their owners and craftsmen were Jews. Non-Jews got adjusted to this way of life. They knew very well they couldn't buy anything on Sabbath and did their shopping on Thursday and Friday.

Many Jews owned craft shops and factories. Trade was mainly a Jewish business. Jews also dealt in timber sales. They managed woodcutting shops from where they sent timber to wholesale storage facilities where customers could buy all they needed beginning from planks and beams for construction and ending with wood for heating. There were wealthy Jewish families, but the majority of them were poor, of course. There were Jewish craftsmen: tailors, shoemakers, carpenters and cabinetmakers. The barbers and hairdressers were also Jews. Most of the doctors and lawyers in Mukachevo were also Jewish. Non-Jews were mostly involved in farming and held official posts.

There was a specific profession that only women did. Every married Jewish woman wore a wig. The moment she stepped out of the chuppah she had her head shaved and put on a wig. [Editor' note: Ernest doesn't remember correctly, the custom is that the bride's head is shaved before going to the chuppah.] Therefore many women made wigs in Mukachevo. They sold their wigs in Subcarpathia and had orders from Czechoslovakia and Hungary. This profession required special skills and mothers began to train their daughters at an early age.

Many Jews lived on what the Jewish community paid them. What I mean is that they were working for the community. There were about 20 synagogues and prayer houses in Mukachevo. There was a rabbi and shammash in each synagogue. There were many cheders where melamedim and behelfers, their assistants, worked. Children went to cheder at the age of three and needed additional help. There were specialists in circumcision called mohels. Some were selling religious books and accessories for prayers or holidays.

There were two shochetim in Mukachevo. They worked in a building near the synagogue. The Jews mainly ate poultry: chicken and geese. They took their poultry to a shochet to have it slaughtered. The building where he worked was called shlobrik [Editor's note: Ernest explained that the word 'shlobrik' was a dialect word used in Mukachevo area. This word may have came from the merging of the Yiddish words, 'shekht' meaning 'slaughter', and 'rekht' meaning 'right'.] There was one big room where many Jews went on the eve of a holiday. They were standing in lines to the two shochetim. There were many hooks nailed in the counter from the side where the shochet was standing. The owners brought their chickens with their legs tied together. The shochet hung chickens with their heads down on the nails. He had to strictly observe all the rules. He had his knife in his mouth. To slaughter a chicken he instantly cut the poultry's throat. The chicken was still kicking and the blood was splashing around. The shochet took the chicken off the hook and gave it back to the owner. The blood was still flowing from the chicken. It was a terrible sight. Jewish families usually sent children to the shochet. We liked going to the shlobrik before holidays since there were many other children there and we could enjoy talking. Children sometimes brought somebody else's chicken home and mothers had the idea to tie the chicken's legs with colored shreds so that a kid could easily recognize which chicken was his.

In cheder children mainly studied religion. There was also a Jewish grammar school funded by the Zionists. The teachers at this school belonged to various Zionist organizations. Kugel was the last name of the director of this school. He was a handsome tall man. The children studied Ivrit spoken in present-day Israel. There were teachers from Palestine in the grammar school. The Hasidim weren't happy with this grammar school since it didn't focus on religious subjects. This building still exists. It houses the Trade College today.

There was a yeshivah, a Jewish higher educational institution, in Mukachevo. The chief rabbi at the yeshivah was the popular Hasidic rabbi Chaim Spira [Shapira] 9. Our Hesed in Uzhgorod is named after him: Hesed Spira. Spira was a very authoritative Hasid known all over the world. I remember him very well since my father and I went to get shirayem - leftovers. A rabbi traditionally invites Hasidim to dinner on Saturday. The rabbi hands them leftovers of the dishes he had tried. Saraim was supposed to bring blessings to a person. Hasidim grabbed every piece from the rabbi's hands. Sometimes they even fought to get them. I remember when at the age of about five I crawled on all fours to the rabbi's table to get shirayem. My father didn't visit the rabbi every Saturday, but I tried to attend every Saturday. On Saturday morning my father went to the synagogue. When he came home we sat down for dinner and I rushed to the rabbi's house to get to the eshraim on time. Once I got confused and instead of sitting at the table with the rabbi I sat at the table for the poor that couldn't afford a festive dinner on Sabbath. They had cholent, beans stewed with meat. I had a meal, but then one of the Hasidim asked my father rather maliciously whether he was poor to the extent of sending his son to have dinner for the poor provided by the rabbi. My father asked me if this was true and then explained the difference between shirayem and dinner for the poor to me.

There was some competition between two rabbis in Mukachevo. Besides rabbi Spira there was the Belzer rebbe, also a popular Hasidic rabbi. He built a synagogue in Mukachevo and the community members divided into the admirers and opponents between the two rabbis. The synagogues of Spira and Belze were close to each other. I cannot tell what it was like with adults, but we, boys, whose parents attended different synagogues, even threw stones at one another. There were conflicts between the rabbis' office and the Zionists, too. One of the reasons was the Jewish grammar school. The grammar school paid little attention to religious subjects. The rabbis were concerned about such abandonment. There were also differences in convictions. Hasidim didn't think it necessary to move to Palestine. They believed that the Messiah would come to lead all Jews to their ancestors' land of Palestine and that they had to wait for Him where they were, while the Zionists were helping people to move to Palestine. Rabbi Spira often made angry speeches against the Zionists and even cursed them.

There is a well-known Jewish curse: 'to erase one's name so that nobody remembers it'. This curse is said at Purim when they mention Haman's name. Every time the name of Haman is mentioned, everyone boos, hisses, stamps their feet and twirls their graggers. Children start their rattles, adults hit the table with their fists and stamp their feet to blot out Haman's name from history. There's the expression 'blot out' the name or the memory of particular individuals. Rabbi Spira often used this expression when speaking about the Zionists. Sometimes it led to scandalous situations. Occasionally students of grammar school threw eggs at rabbi Spira during his speeches. Now I understand that it was wrong, but it wasn't considered to be so at that time: the rabbi spoke against the Zionists and they acted against the rabbi.

There were numerous Zionist parties in Mukachevo. There was the Mizrachi, an Orthodox Zionist party. At the age of 13 I attended a club in the Mizrachi for a short time. There was a dance club where boys danced with girls. My parents were aware that I went there. I was too shy and my parents wanted me to socialize with other teenagers. My mother even made me a fancy shirt for dancing. I was too shy to dance with girls and gave up dancing. There were other Zionist parties. There was a Zionist party called Betar. I would call them fascists. Those Zionists believed that they could reach their goals with weapons and force. There was the Hashomer Hatzair 10. They were chauvinist Jews, but they were communists. It still exists in Israel, and also has the same name. They are Zionists and speak for the State of Israel, but they believe that this state must be communist, or at least socialist. All Zionist parties were more or less religious and were in opposition to one another. There was an active and interesting life in Mukachevo.

Rabbi Chaim Spira died in 1937. Hasidim from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland came to his funeral. My father took me to his funeral although my mother protested. She was afraid that I might be treaded down by the crowd. I can remember very clearly the funeral of Spira. The whole town was in mourning. There were black cloths on the houses and people wore dark clothes. It looked as though it got dark all of a sudden. Non-Jewish residents also came to the funeral. There were police patrols in the streets and policemen were wearing special safety hats in case of trouble. People took turns to carry the casket from the house where Rabbi Spira lived, across the town and out of town to the Jewish cemetery. Every five to ten meters the casket was handed over to another group of men. There were so many of those that were willing to carry it that the casket could have been easily handed over all the distance between Mukachevo and Uzhgorod. Men were carrying it on their shoulders to pay honor to Rabbi Spira. People were crying. However young I was I remember this overwhelming grief. So many people came to the cemetery that there wasn't an inch of space left there.

My father, Eshye Galpert, was a Hasid and dressed according to the fashion. He wore a long black caftan and a black kippah, and a black hat and a streimel on holidays. He had a big beard and payes. My mother wore a wig and dark gowns. We only spoke Yiddish at home. We, children, spoke fluent Czech and studied in a Czech school, but our parents didn't speak any Czech since they were born in Austria-Hungary. The older generation and my parents, too, spoke Hungarian to their non-Jewish acquaintances.

Our father closed his store in the late afternoon and our neighbors knocked on our window if they needed something in the evening. Sometimes somebody felt ill and his relatives wanted to get a lemon for him at night. My father gave them what they needed through the window. He had to get up at night rather often since we had many neighbors. Most of them were poor Jews and my father didn't earn much from them. They used to buy 250 grams of sugar, or even 60 grams when they wanted to serve tea to unexpected guests. Sugar was expensive and very few customers could afford to buy a whole kilo of sugar. My father had his goods packed in packages for various customers. The shops were to be closed on state holidays and the authorities watched that this rule was strictly followed. Therefore, if my father had a customer on holidays he sent us, children, outside to look out for policemen nearby to avoid a penalty. On Sabbath and Jewish holidays the shop was closed and I cannot imagine what might have made my father sell goods on such days. Our non-Jewish neighbors knew very well there was no way to buy anything on holidays and did their shopping in advance. Twice a week my father rode his bicycle to buy goods for his store from wholesalers. He took back the smaller packages and had the bigger ones delivered to the store.

Growing up

My father had a nice voice and an ear for music. He sang in a choir when he studied in the yeshivah. Father liked singing and music. Uncle Idl had a gramophone. There was a handle to wind it up to listen to a record. Uncle Idl brought his gramophone when visiting us and then my father listened to music. However, he wanted to hear more. Hasidim weren't allowed to go to the cinema or theater. There were music films with Caruso, Mario Lanza and Chaliapin shown in the cinema theater in our town. [Editor's note: Mario Lanza (1921-1959): born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza, he adopted the stage name Mario Lanza in 1942, he sang opera in the movies; Enrico Caruso (1873- 1921): famous Italian opera singer; Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (1873-1938): one of the greatest Russian singers.] My father went to the cinema and stood by the backdoor where nobody could see him listening to the music. What would other Hasidim have said if they had known about my father's likes! When a known chazzan came to town he performed in the main synagogue, my father and I were sure to go to listen to him. Although we lived at quite a distance from the main synagogue on Friday evening or Saturday we went there to listen to a chazzan. My father sang and was a chazzan of the synagogue that we attended each Sabbath and on Jewish holidays.

At the age of three I went to cheder. All boys went to cheder at the age of three. Classes started at 6.30am and my mother woke me up at 5.30 every day. It was especially hard in winter when it was still dark and cold when I had to go to cheder. The cheder where I studied was a small white-painted room in the house in the yard of the synagogue where the melamed lived. I don't know exactly how much parents paid for their children, but I don't think it was much. In winter each pupil had to bring a wooden log for the stove. The rabbi was very poor and we had to help his wife about the house: we cut and fetched wood. We studied until lunchtime then we had a one-hour break. We ran home to have a quick lunch and ran back to cheder. The rabbi allowed us to play. Most of us came from poor families that couldn't afford to buy their children toys. We played football with a ball that we made from stockings.

We studied the Hebrew alphabet in the 1st grade. In the 2nd grade, at the age of four, we knew the alef-beys and could read prayers. In the 3rd grade when we were five to six years old we studied the Torah. The language was the same as in prayers, only nekudes were added. A different rabbi was our teacher in each grade and they had special training for teaching in their grade. There was a bamboo stick used ever since we were in the 3rd grade. Every Thursday the rabbi examined our knowledge. If a pupil didn't demonstrate a good knowledge the rabbi said, 'Take down your pants'. The pupil had to go down on his knee and the rabbi hit him as many times as he believed the pupil deserved. Every Thursday morning I got up in the morning complaining to my mother about a headache asking her to let me stay at home. My father understood very well why I had a headache since he had studied at cheder in his day, too. My mother asked my father to let me stay at home since she believed I was a weak child. One time doctors suspected I had anemia and my mother felt sorry for me, but my father always insisted that I went to cheder. Well, frankly, when I returned home from cheder I never had a headache to go and play outside!

At the age of six I had to go to elementary school. Jewish children went to Czech elementary schools for boys and girls. We had to study at the elementary school and cheder at the same time. School started at 9 in the morning. I had breakfast and went to cheder at 6.30, as usual. We recited prayers and at 8.30 I went to elementary school. After classes I went home to have lunch and then went back to cheder where we had classes until evening. I returned home late in the evening and did my homework for school. However, the schoolteachers knew that we had a busy curriculum at cheder and didn't give us much to do at home.

When I was to start elementary school my father cut my payes. He didn't want me to be different from other children fearing that they might tease me. Senior boys at cheder had long payes and so did my father and grandfather and I wanted to be like them. I began to cry when he was cutting my payes, but my father said that while I was a child he was to decide on the length of my payes and when I grew up I could decide for myself. When I turned 14 or 15 I secretly cut my payes being shy to wear them. My father reminded me how I had cried when he had cut my payes. I wore a tzitzit. At school I hid it under my shirt, but I never took it off.

We were told different things at cheder and at school and I often got confused about it. Once I came home after a class in natural history with tears in my eyes. I said, 'Our rabbi told us that God made this world in six days, but our teachers at school tell us different. Who do I trust? Our rabbi or our teacher?' Though my father was a Hasid he was a kind and smart man and understood that this was a collapse of my understanding of this world and a catastrophe for me. He said the following, 'You listen to both. What the rabbi says you study for cheder and at school you say what your teacher requests. When you grow up you will find out what's right for yourself.' I had all excellent marks at school and had no problems at cheder. On Saturday I visited my grandfather and he checked what I had learnt at cheder during the week. If he was happy with what he heard he always gave me candy. My grandmother gave me candy unconditionally, though. I visited my grandparents after school sometimes.

Girls attended Beit Yakov schools where they learned to read and write in Hebrew. They had classes that lasted a couple of hours once a week. My sisters didn't attend it because they learned at home with our parents. My mother could read in Hebrew and my father could read and write. Actually, girls were not taught to write. They were supposed to be able to read prayers. They didn't know the language and didn't understand what they were reading. At cheder we were taught to read in Hebrew and translate into Yiddish while the girls didn't know it. However, some Hasidic families taught their daughters to read and translate, but there were only a few. There were prayer books in Hungarian translation.

We studied in elementary school for four years and then had to complete four years in the so-called middle school 11. After finishing this school we could go to a grammar school. My sisters and I finished a middle school.

We observed Sabbath and all Jewish holidays at home. On Friday morning my mother started cooking for Sabbath. She made food for two days since she couldn't do any work on Saturday. She bought challah for Sabbath at the Jewish bakery, and vegetables and dairies at the market. Before Sabbath my father and I went to the synagogue. When we returned my mother lit candles and prayed over them. Dinner was ready. After the common prayer my father said a broche, a blessing over the food, and we sat down to dinner. Then we sang zmires. On Saturday morning my parents went to the synagogue. My father took me with him. After the prayer we returned home and father sat down to read religious books. He often read aloud to my sisters and me. For my sisters to understand he translated from Hebrew into Yiddish. He told us about the history of the Jewish people and retold us stories from the Torah. Then we went to visit my grandparents.

During the month of Adar we prepared for Pesach. My father had many religious books: the complete Talmud, the Tannakh and many others. Once a year before Pesach we had to air the books. We took a ladder to the yard and put special plywood boards on it. Then we put all books on these boards and shuffled all pages. This was the start of the preparations for Pesach. There was a list of activities to be completed every day. My mother cleaned the kitchen and my sisters and I had to do the rooms. We had to remove all breadcrumbs and gave all bread leftovers to our non-Jewish neighbors. On the eve of Pesach we checked that everything had been done right. If we didn't believe that everything was as clean as it should be we did the ritual of bdikat chametz, a symbolic clean up. [Editor's note: This ritual was obligatorily performed before every Pesach.] On the evening before Pesach my mother put a few pieces of bread somewhere behind a wardrobe, under the table or on a shelf. My father checked the house with a candle in his hand to determine whether there was any chametz left. He also had a goose feather and a shovel in his hands. He swept the chametz that he found onto the shovel and continued his search of the house. My mother was supposed to remember the number of pieces she dropped. The chametz that my father found was wrapped into a piece of cloth and a wooden spoon was also put there for some reason. This package was placed where it could be seen to ensure there was no chametz left in the house. On the eve of Pesach all neighbors got together to burn their chametz. Everyone had chametz wrapped in a piece of cloth, a feather and a wooden spoon that they dropped into the fire. Then they prayed. It wasn't allowed to eat bread after that. It was allowed to eat potatoes, but no bread.

Then the kitchen utensils and crockery were replaced with fancy pieces. We only used kosher utensils and crockery at home. There were dishes for meat and dairy products and they were not to be mixed. We also had special utensils and crockery for Pesach. We packed our everyday crockery into a basket and took it to the attic or basement and took the special crockery down. It was stored in the attic and was thoroughly packed. First we took down our utensils. We, children, couldn't wait until our parents unwrapped the glasses. Traditionally every Jew was supposed to drink four glasses of wine during the first seder. There were bigger glasses for our parents and smaller ones for us, children. Everybody had his own glass. We grabbed and kissed this crockery so happy we were to have special crockery in the house! We had fancy glasses for Pesach. The biggest glass was for Elijah, the Prophet 12.

The table was covered with a white tablecloth on the seder. We were in a cheerful mood. There were napkins with quotations from the Torah embroidered on them. They were used to cover the matzah. There was a Jewish bakery in Mukachevo where matzah was made. Before baking matzah the bakery was to be cleaned of chametz, then a rabbi inspected it and gave his permission for baking. Each family ordered as much as it needed and when ready the matzah was delivered to homes in big wicker baskets. The bakery was open for a whole month. The Jewish community provided matzah to poor families, but there was very little of it and those people were always hungry at Pesach since they weren't allowed to eat bread that was their major food. A day before Pesach the most religious Hasidim went to the bakery to make their own matzah since they didn't trust the bakers. Shmire matzot was very expensive. [Editor's note: Matzah shemirah is matzah made from wheat, which has been under observation from the time of reaping or grinding] Everybody bought matzah at Pesach, but based on what they could afford people bought different sorts of matzah. My father wasn't fanatically religious and we bought ordinary matzah. Nowadays there are special appliances to make matzah, but in the past it was made by hand. First they made the dough, rolled it out and put it in the oven within 20 minutes. [Editor's note: In most communities today the whole process from kneading the dough to baking must not exceed 18 minutes.] If it took longer the dough was considered to be sour and was no good for matzah. There were special rollers for making holes into the dough. The dough was made from the wheat that Jews had grown. There were Jewish farmers that grew wheat for making matzah. The grain was milled at special mills owned by Jews. There was no non-Jewish hand to touch the matzah. We weren't a wealthy family and we, children, were always hungry at Pesach. We felt like chewing matzah from morning till night, but there wasn't enough of it.

My mother also made stocks of poultry fat during winter time. We bought geese bred by Jews, took them to the shochet and then flayed it with fat on the skin. Before the process the kitchen was to be cleaned thoroughly to remove any chametz. There wasn't a single breadcrumb to be left on the table, since the cooking of fat wasn't to be made when there was any chametz nearby. There was a special bowl for melting goose fat. Then the fat was stored in a container in the attic. Even the poorest families did their best to have goose fat in store for Pesach.

Ten days before Pesach my mother prepared beetroots for borsch [vegetables soup] in a big bowl. She peeled beetroots, put them in water and at Pesach the beetroots turned into beetroot kvass [a refreshing bread drink made with yeast]. In Subcarpathia they called this dish borsch. Before Pesach my mother sent me to the shochet with the chickens. She made chicken broth and noodles. I still cook noodles at Pesach. I make them myself. I add eggs, water and salt to starch and stir it. Then I fry little flat pancakes in goose fat, roll them and cut them thinly. It makes delicious noodles. My mother also made potato puddings to serve with meat. Pudding could be made from fresh or cooked potatoes. Of course, she also made matzah and egg pudding. My mother also cooked cholent: stewed meat, potatoes and beans. She cooked potatoes for the borsch, cut them into small cubes, added eggs and beetroot kvass. It could be served hot or cold to one's liking. My mother made cakes for each day of the holiday. We, kids, also liked pieces of matzah served with milk. I remember pieces of matzah in my light blue enameled bowl.

We were to drink wine at Pesach. However, my father couldn't drink wine due to his stomach acidity. My mother used to buy figs imported from Israel and made special liqueur for Pesach. She made it in a big jar a month before Pesach right after Purim and all this time nobody was allowed to touch it in order to keep it kosher.

On seder my mother lit the candles. Special prayers, different from the ones to be recited when lighting candles on Sabbath, were said. The men of the family went to pray in the synagogue at that time. When we returned home the table was already covered with a white tablecloth and there was food on it. There were candles lit and it gave a special feeling of holiday. Seder was a family holiday. The word 'seder' means 'order'. There's a strict procedure to be followed at the seder. Participants have to recline: the seats were equipped with cushions, so that the participants could lean on them while eating to imitate freemen and nobility. Only my father reclined on cushions. The master of the house wears white clothes called the kitel. It's only to be worn on the seder and to the synagogue on Yom Kippur [Editor's note: Men are also buried in it].

My father sat at the head of the table and we began the seder. The seder procedures are described in the Haggadah. At the beginning of the seder the younger son asks the four traditional questions [the mah nishtanah]: 'Why is this night different from all other nights? For on all other nights, we eat both bread and matzah, and on this night we eat only matzah? For all other holidays we drink one glass of wine and tonight we drink four glasses? For on all other nights we eat all other herbs; and on this night we eat only bitter herbs? For on all other nights, we eat sitting up or leaning, on this night we all eat leaning?' Since I was the only son I asked these questions that I learned in cheder. We translated this conversation into Yiddish for my sisters to understand it. After answering these questions our father continued, 'We were pharaoh's slaves in Egypt...' singing during the recitation. There were intervals when we were to drink wine. Then father listed all the plagues that God brought upon Egypt, the ten symbolic plagues called makkot in Hebrew. Each time my father named another plague we were to pour a drop of wine onto a saucer.

There was a very interesting part when my father broke the matzah into two pieces, wrapped a bigger piece in a napkin and put it under a cushion. This is called the afikoman that is to be eaten after dinner is over. [Editor' note: Actually it has to be eaten as the last pace, without it one cannot finish the dinner.] After my father put away the afikoman we continued the seder. One of the children was to steal the afikoman and father could only have it back for a ransom fee. Of course, my father only pretended that he didn't see the stealing of the afikoman and it was a ritual.

Once my older sister Olga stole the afikoman and I saw where she put it and stole it from her! I spoiled the holiday for the whole family since we both burst out crying. We were to receive ransom from my father, but who was to receive it? Olga was saying that she had stolen afikoman and I was showing the matzah expecting to get the ransom. My father gave ransom to both of us. I don't remember what Olga received, but I got a thick pocket prayer book. I valued it highly having received it for giving back the afikoman.

The biggest glass of wine in the center of the table was for Elijah. We opened the front door so that he could come into the house. Well, we were concerned about leaving the door open since there were non-Jewish neighbors living nearby, but it was quiet in Mukachevo: non-Jews respected Jewish customs and traditions and were used to them. We, kids, couldn't wait until Elijah came into the house and sipped his wine. We expected to see the wine stir in the glass. Sometimes one of us said, 'I can see it!' Then we sang songs. The following day we had a similar seder sitting at the table and having the ritual repeated as if it hadn't happened the day before. In Israel they observe Pesach for seven days and in the galut they added one day to make sure it was done correctly. [Editor's note: Ernest means that in Israel Pesach lasts only seven days with one seder night, whereas in the Diaspora, the holiday last eight days long and there are two seder nights one after the other.] Then came four chol hamoed days. They are weekdays, but they are still Pesach. It's allowed to work or smoke at chol hamoed. The last two days of Pesach also had strict rules. On the eighth day some families had little matzah balls, matzah kreygelakh, cooked of matzah, eggs and black pepper. This was delicious! In Hasidic families it was considered to be a violation of the rules since matzah for matzah kreygelakh was to be dipped into water and at Pesach matzah wasn't to be mixed with water. Even if a drop of water fell on the matzah it wasn't good enough to be eaten at Pesach since wet matzah got sour and became non-kosher. Nowadays we also make these matzah balls when the family gets together at Pesach.

All holidays were nice in their own way. On Rosh Hashanah, when the shofar was blown we went to the synagogue with the family. On this day my sisters went to the synagogue with mother. In some Hasidic families daughters attended the synagogue regularly, but we weren't that fanatically religious. My sisters were with our mother on the upper floor and I stayed with my father. When we returned home from the synagogue my mother put apples and honey on the table that symbolized a sweet New Year. We dipped the apples into honey and ate them.

On Yom Kippur my father and I prayed in the synagogue for the whole day. My mother also went to the synagogue. We had a big enough dinner the night before since we were supposed to fast the whole day. Before I had my bar mitzvah mother always cooked cookies or honey cake to eat before Yom Kippur. My father took it to the synagogue to treat me while he fasted according to the rules. After I had my bar mitzvah I had to fast as well. Yom Kippur was a hard day since it was to be spent in the synagogue. Each family brought one or two candles. They were big enough to burn for 24 hours. They were lit on the eve of Yom Kippur and were left burning until three stars appeared in the sky the following night. All these candles generated fumes at the synagogue and I can't imagine how people could pray in this stuffy air, but their religious spirits probably helped them. There was a festive dinner at the end of Yom Kippur. Jews usually went to the synagogue located nearest to their homes. We went to the small synagogue in Duchnovich Street. That's the ancient name of the street that has been preserved up until today. Looking at the building one knew at once that it was a synagogue. All architectural traditions were observed. It was well maintained. Each visitor had a special chair with a board for reading the Torah. These chairs were called shtenders [pulpit]. There was a very beautiful aron kodesh, in which the Torah scrolls were stored. According to the laws there was a separate section for women on the second floor. There was a mikveh in Yidishgas in Mukachevo.

There are four days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot to make and decorate the sukkah. After dinner the family went out into the yard to start making the sukkah. Children enjoyed this time much. Poorer Jews made a sukkah from what they had at hand. We had a pre-manufactured sukkah of small boards with hooks. We set it up in one evening. Wealthier families that built their own houses had a balcony with an opening roof consisting of two parts. They had a reel roofing for the sukkah and put reed on top. There were gypsies selling reeds in the town. Some people also had reed mats that they used to make the roofing of their sukkah. Sukkot is in the fall when it often rains. When it rained the sukkah leaked and it made eating inside impossible. More religious people managed to catch a moment to have a meal in their sukkah. It happened occasionally that when the rain was over there were still drops of water falling into the bowl of soup. Wealthier families just unfolded their permanent roof to hide from the rain.

Children enjoyed making decorations for the sukkah. We decorated it like a Christmas tree. We made decorations of color paper and competed in whose decorations were nicer. I was good at making decorations and taught other children to make decorations. Children's mothers and grandmothers came to look at decorations that they had never seen before. We had meals in the sukkah throughout all days of the holiday. We took a table out there, ate and prayed there as required.

Purim was a merry holiday. A day before this holiday the adults gave children rattles and whistles. Our rattles were made of wood and plywood. When the Scroll of Esther was read at the synagogue during Purim the name of Haman was often pronounced and all children in the synagogue did their best to make as much noise as they could. On Purim treats - shelakhmones - were taken to neighbors and acquaintances. Children took trays of sweets from one house to another. My sisters and I also ran around with trays. We also received treats and gifts of small coins. Most important were the Purimshpilen. Children or adults prepared a song, a poem, a dance or a short performance at Purim. When preparing we kept it a secret what we were to perform. Then we formed small groups of two to three boys or a boy and a girl to perform in wealthier families. We were given a few coins or treats for it. My sisters and I also took part in such performances. In one day we collected quite an amount of money. Adults also gave performances at Purim. One man whose name was Chaim disguised himself in women's clothes for a joke. He went out with a boy holding an umbrella for him in any weather, even when the sun was shining. The boy also carried a hat for donations. Chaim carried a violin. People shouted 'Here's Chaim coming!' rushing to the street to welcome him. There was a lot of joking during the meal on Purim.

Each holiday had its symbols. The symbol of Purim was the rattle. On Simchat Torah all children had little flags stuck in an apple. On Chanukkah children played with a spinning top [also called dreidel]. There were four letters, one on each side of the spinning top and each letter was the first letter of a word in Hebrew. The letters stood for the words: 'nes', 'gadol', 'haya, 'po', which means 'a great miracle was here''. Each letter had its price. We played for money since on Chanukkah it's the custom to give money as a gift. This was the only day of the year when Jews were allowed to gamble playing dominoes or cards, but we traditionally played with a spinning top. There's a story behind this custom. When the Romans invaded Judea they didn't allow the Jews to study the Torah and Jews had to do it in secret. Children got together to study the Torah, but when they saw a Roman they pretended to be playing with a spinning top. Since then children have played with spinning tops on Chanukkah. [Editor's note: The origins of this custom are slightly different. During the time of the Maccabees, Jews were imprisoned for studying the Torah. In prison these Jews would gather together to play dreidel. Under the guise of idling away their time, they would engage in Torah discussions.] We made spinning tops from wood. We cut the frame and letters and poured lead inside. We were taught how to make them in cheder. My mother lit one candle more in the chanukkiyah each day.

In 1935 Benes became president of Czechoslovakia. After he was elected he visited Mukachevo. There was a meeting in the yard of the military barracks. All the residents of Mukachevo came to the meeting. Our school was also there and the schoolchildren had flags to greet the president. Benes had the same policy regarding the protection of human rights of Jews that his predecessor Masaryk had.

I turned 13 in 1936. Reb Alter, our teacher of Gemara at cheder, which I attended every afternoon after grammar school, prepared me to bar mitzvah in advance. I had to hold a lecture based on a section from the Torah. I can't remember which section it was. This was called the droshe. I had my bar mitzvah on a Saturday. This was the first time I stood by the Torah in the synagogue and wore my tallit. I recited the prayer that one had to recite when called to the Torah. There was a dinner party in the evening to which our relatives, my father's friends and my friends were invited. I was to read the droshe to them. The guests sat at the table. I remember there was beer and yellow peas cooked with paprika. There were big bowls with peas on the table. The guests ate the peas with their hands and drank beer. I read the droshe and then an older Hasid began asking me questions that I could not answer. I burst into tears and left the room. From behind the door I heard other Hasidim telling him off for spoiling my party. It was very hard for me to return to the room. I cried a little more and then my parents and guests talked me into coming back into the room.

Grandfather Pinchas died in 1936. He was about 65 years old. He was buried according to Jewish traditions in the Jewish cemetery in Mukachevo. My grandmother sat shivah for him. After he died my father's younger brother, Idl, took over the Chevra Kaddisha. I don't remember my grandfather's funeral, but I remember when my grandmother died in 1937. Of course, the family was very sad when she died, but I thought it was natural for older people to die. My grandmother was on the floor in a room. Her body was covered with a black cloth. There was a candle burning by her head. There were women sitting around her with their shoes off. They were crying. My father's older brother, Berl, came to the funeral from Palestine. Berl was good at conducting ceremonies. My father told me that even when Berl was still very young he was invited to be master of ceremony at weddings, and, he could make people laugh! That time Berl came into the yard crying, 'Mama, Mama!' Then all those present started sobbing. I felt fear and probably this was the first time I realized that death was final. Grandmother Laya was buried near my grandfather in the Jewish cemetery in Mukachevo. My father recited the Kaddish over her grave and sat shivah.

A year after my grandmother died my father's brother Idl decided to get married. He consulted a shadkhan that found a girl from Khust [60 km from Uzhgorod] in Subcarpathia for him. Her father, Mr. Katz, was a wealthy Jew. Everybody called him 'Polish' for some reason. He probably did come from Poland. He had several daughters. Since Idl's father had died, my father, his older brother, had to take the responsibility of making all marriage arrangements. The negotiations took place at our home and we, kids, showed much interest in what was going on. We were ordered to stay in the kitchen, but we eavesdropped from behind the door. There were the girl's father, my father and the shadkhan. My father and Katz began to discuss the girl's dowry. My father told the girl's father about the important position his brother had at the Chevra Kaddisha and that he was a decent and God-fearing man. He sounded to be the best and most desirable fiancé ever. Mr. Katz said that his daughter was a real beauty. The shadkhan said that the girl didn't need any dowry since she was like gold herself. It was my understanding that neither my father nor Idl had seen the girl. They negotiated for a long time before they reached an agreement. They agreed that Mr. Katz would put the negotiated amount of money into a bank and give the confirmation documents to Mr. Rot, the respected owner of the stationery factory in Mukachevo. If there was a wedding Mr. Rot was to hand these documents to Idl, if not return them to Mr. Katz. Idl's wedding took place about three months after the negotiations. It was a traditional Jewish wedding. There was a chuppah at home. Our mother and all Jewish neighbors did the cooking. It was a joyful wedding.

I turned 15 in 1938 and had to go to work. I became an apprentice to a mechanic, the Jewish owner of an equipment repair and maintenance shop. I learned to fix bicycles, sewing machines, gramophones and prams. My training was to last for two years. I actually started work a year later, but my master didn't pay me a salary. I did repairs and he received all money. He only gave me small allowances.

In 1938 the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia and gave the former Hungarian territory including Subcarpathia back to Hungarians. [Editor's note: The Germans only occupied the Czech lands, Slovakia became an independent state but that part of it, which was mostly populated by Hungarians, was in fact ceded to Hungary in accordance with the first Vienna Decision of 1938.] There were different moods about this. The Hungarians were happy and the older Jews remembered that there had been no oppression of Jews during the Austro-Hungarian regime and were hoping for the better, while the younger Jewish population believed the Hungarians to be occupants and spoke Czech, which was their demonstration of protest against the occupants. In the course of time it became clear that this was a fascist Hungary and the authorities began to introduce anti-Jewish laws [anti-Jewish laws in Hungary] 13. The Jews were forbidden to own factories, stores or shops. They had to transfer their property to non-Jewish owners or they were to be expropriated by the state. Only very few rich Jews managed to buy out their property while the rest lost their licenses and any chance to provide for their families. My father lost his trade license. My master also lost the license for his shop. In 1940 his shop was closed. My father and I had to look for a job. We went to work at Mr. Rot's stationery factory, which was still operating at the time. I became a mechanic and my father was hired as a worker.

My older sister, Olga, was a success with her studies at school. She finished school with all excellent marks and wanted to go to a grammar school, but my father was against it. There were Jewish classes at the middle school and the school was closed on Saturday while in the grammar school children studied on Saturday. However, when my father lost his license Olga had to go to work. She needed good clothes that my father couldn't afford to buy for her. My father talked to Mr. Rot about hiring Olga to work in his office. My father explained to Mr. Rot that Olga wanted to go to grammar school, but that he didn't have the opportunity to support her. He also said that even from a religious point of view he thought it was wrong for a Jewish girl to go to school along with atheists. My father asked Mr. Rot to give her a chance to learn to work in his office so that later Mr. Rot could decide whether he needed her as an employee. Mr. Rot was religious and agreed with my father that it wasn't proper for a Jewish girl from a good family to study in grammar school. He took Olga to work in his office. His factory had business relationships with paper suppliers in Germany and Bohemia. Olga knew Czech and was responsible for Mr. Rot's correspondence. Mr. Rot also hired teachers of stenography and German that came to our home to teach her. Olga became a secretary. Mr. Rot dictated his letters in Yiddish or Hungarian and Olga translated them into German and Czech. She made good use of her knowledge later on in life.

We grew up less religious than our parents. I met with other workers that were communists and this had its impact on me. Of course, we didn't become atheists, but we were certainly not as close to religion as our parents. My mother was very upset about it while my father was more condescending and forgave me many things. When I was in my teens I didn't want to stay at the synagogue until the end of the prayers. When I was leaving the synagogue to go out with my friends my father only asked me to come home when he did to cause my mother no additional worries. Once my mother got angry with me for some reason and said, 'Well, you will get back to religion when you grow older'. We treated our parents with respect, but that time I lost my temper and replied, 'Only if I lose my mind'. I cannot forgive myself for it. I can imagine how my mother must have felt hearing this from me. I feel so sorry that I didn't ask her forgiveness.

At Mr. Rot's factory I met my future wife, Tilda Akerman. She was called Toby then. Tilda and I were the same age. She came from Mukachevo. She told me that we studied together at elementary school, but I ignored her. Tilda worked at the factory. There were other girls there, too. When something went wrong with the equipment they called me to fix the problem. That's how I met Tilda. We had Jewish friends. Tilda's friend Frieda and my friend Voita worked at the factory. Frieda and Voita were going to get married when World War II was over. Tilda and I also fell in love with one another. We met after work and went for a walk. Tilda visited me at home and I went to see her at her home, too. My parents liked her. If it hadn't been for the war we would have got married, but because of the war we didn't know what was going to happen to us.

Tilda was born to a religious Jewish family. Her father, Aizik Akerman, made and sold wine and her mother, Ghinda Akerman, nee Weiss, was a housewife. There were eight children in their family. Tilda was the seventh child. Her older sister, Margarita, finished the Commercial Academy in Mukachevo. She married her cousin Weiss. They both sympathized with the communists. Margarita's husband moved to the USSR in 1938 and she was planning to follow him, when Subcarpathia became a part of Hungary and Margarita got no chance to leave. She had a son named Alexandr. When Subcarpathia became Hungarian territory Margarita had to support her family. She worked as an attorney and translator and took on any work she could find. We don't have any information about what happened to her husband. Tilda's brother, David, was a winemaker just like his father. Philip and Serena, Tilda's other brother and sister, also finished the Commercial Academy.

Serena sympathized with the communists and took part in the publication of a communist newspaper. She married a communist called Borkanyuk, a deputy from the Communist Party of the Czech parliament. For her parents her marrying a non-Jewish man was a disgrace. Tilda's mother rejected her daughter. Serena's marriage stirred up a wave of indignation among the Jews in Mukachevo. This caused Tilda's father's death in the synagogue in 1937, when he was murdered by some lunatic that hit him with a log on his temple. It was because one of his daughters was married to a non-Jew. Tilda had to go to work and Serena and her husband moved to the USSR.

When the fascists came to power in Hungary Tilda's brother Philip moved to Poland and from there to England. During World War II Philip was in the Czech Corps on the Western front. After World War II he lived in Uzhgorod, where he died in 1987. His brother Aron worked at a glass shop. Hugo was also a worker. Tilda's younger brother, Shmil, studied at school. Except Margarita and Serena all other children in the family were religious.

During the war

In early 1941 my father was recruited to Hungarian forced labor in Velikiy Bereznyy district. The so-called Arpad line was under construction there. [The Arpad line was a military defense in the Eastern Carpathians, the construction of which was started in 1940.] This was a labor camp of a kind. Jews were not recruited to the Hungarian army, but they had to serve in work battalions constructing defense lines, barracks and doing other construction work at the front. They had no weapons and often perished during firing. My father worked in the forced labor until 1942 when he was released due to his age.

Jews were having a hard life, particularly when the war with the Soviet Union began in 1941. There were many restrictions. Jews received bread per coupons. The wealthier Jews could buy food at a market while the situation was hard for the poor Jews. In 1943 all Jews were ordered to wear round yellow pieces of cloth on their clothes that were replaced with stars, but at least the Hungarians didn't kill Jews and there were no pogroms.

In 1943 my sister married Nuchim Weingarten, a Jewish man from Mukachevo. Our parents arranged a Jewish wedding for Olga. They had a chuppah at the synagogue and the wedding ceremony was conducted by the rabbi. Olga's husband was recruited into a work battalion and from there he went to the front. We had no information about him at the time.

In April 1944 I was taken to forced labor to Hungary. Tilda and I didn't know what was ahead of us. We agreed that we would keep in touch through my father's sister, who lived in Switzerland. We learned her address by heart: Lugano, Bella Visari, 10. I worked in Budapest and then in other places. We dug trenches and constructed defense lines. We stayed in a big barrack with no heating and got little food that barely kept us alive. My friend Voita and cousin Aron, my mother's sister's son, were in the camp with me. We worked from 6am till it got dark. There was a lunch break in the afternoon. When we got to our barrack in the evening we fell asleep immediately. There were guards in the camp, but it wasn't as bad as a concentration camp in general. We could talk in Hungarian with the local residents that told us about what was happening.

In summer 1944 Jews from Hungarian towns and villages began to be taken to concentration camps. We were aware of it. We also knew that all our relatives living in Mukachevo were taken to a concentration camp, but we had no idea about gas chambers or the extermination of Jews in camps. There were cases when inmates of our camp died from hunger or a disease, but this wasn't a death camp. My cousin Aron heard from locomotive operators that drove trains to Auschwitz that this was a death camp, but we just couldn't believe that people could be taken to gas chambers. We just didn't believe it. Only after the war did we get to know what was happening in Auschwitz and that our relatives perished there and how they perished. Both my father and my mother were taken to the gas chambers right away.

When the Soviet troops came to Hungary in January 1945 we were transferred to the Germans. We were under Hungarian rule, but after the transfer to the Germans we were taken to a German concentration camp in Zachersdorf near the Austrian border. However, it was a work camp, too. We worked in groups of 100 inmates constructing defense lines and anti-tank trenches for the Germans. This was in March when the snow was melting and we worked in knee- deep slush. The soil was damp and we had to throw it onto the surface with spades. It was hard work, but fortunately, it only lasted about two months. There were only six survivors in our group of 100 people.

The Soviet troops came to Austria in late March 1945. I had typhoid and was delirious. There were two-tier plank beds in our barrack. I was on the lower tier. On my last working day we were digging a trench and the Germans were training young boys to shoot nearby. I remember an officer yelling, 'The Russians will be here soon. Just pull yourselves together!' We could hear the cannonade already. I lost track of what was going on around me or how long I was delirious. I remember when my cousin Aron sat on my plank bed and said that the camp was to be evacuated and that we had to escape since they were going to burn down the camp. I was in no condition to walk. I told him to leave me and move on when we heard someone shouting, 'The Russians are here!' These words sort of eliminated any signs of disease from me. The six of us crossed the front line. There were bullets whistling around. We were afraid of being killed by a German or Soviet bullet. Finally we bumped into Soviet communications operators that were laying a telephone cable. They were trying to show us to lie down using gestures, but we kept walking. One of us was wounded on his hand. We covered 16 kilometers. Now, recalling this time, I cannot imagine how we managed to get to Szombathely in Hungary [about 20 km from the Austrian border]. This town was liberated from the fascists.

We were taken to a Soviet camp for prisoners of war from Szombathely in late March 1945. Soviet troops sent all those that were behind the front line to camps for prisoners of war. We came from concentration camps and had no documents and we became prisoners along with the fascists that had tried to exterminate us. We didn't have any documents and they took us for Germans or Hungarian fascists. We wore dirty and torn clothes. All prisoners stayed in a field. There were fascists among us. It was raining and very cold. We didn't know Russian. There were guards with machine guns watching us. We tried to explain ourselves saying we were 'zide, which means 'Jew' in Czech, but it only got worse. The guard thought we were abusing Jews and started talking at us. The only words we understood were, 'I will shoot at you!'

The next morning we stood in lines and marched to the railway station. We arrived in Uzhgorod. Again we were ordered to stand in line and marched somewhere with a guard about every 20 meters from one another. We came to a very narrow street in the center of Uzhgorod. We decided to try to escape when we reached a gate leading to a yard. Be what may, we thought. When we were near the gate we began to run. The guards didn't follow us. We got to an abandoned house where we found some food. We stayed in this house two days. We were eager to go home. We didn't have any information about home. Aron, Voita and I managed to get to Mukachevo. We walked most of the way. Occasionally we got a ride on a horse-driven cart. Farmers gave us food on the way. When we came home there was nobody there.

We didn't know anything about the situation. We took some rest and then decided to go to the Soviet army. We wanted the fascists to pay their price for what they had done. We hoped to liberate our relatives. We went to a registry office to volunteer to the army. When officers there looked at us they said we needed to go to a hospital rather than to the army. I was as thin as a rake and my companions looked no better. The officer that talked to us refused to accept Voita, but Aron and I kept begging him to recruit us. We were sent to a training battalion in Poland. At that time the war was over. So I happened to serve in the army, but not at the front. Subcarpathia belonged to the Soviet Union and I was subject to mandatory military service. I served in Poland for about a year and then I was sent to Khmelnitskiy, Vinnitsa region, Ukraine. I demobilized in 1947.

Tilda and I were destined to meet. She returned to Mukachevo when I was at service. In 1944 Tilda and her family were sent to Auschwitz where younger Jews were sent to work and older Jews and children were exterminated. The Germans needed workforce. Tilda's family perished in Auschwitz. Her older sister Margarita and her son were also there. Margarita had the choice of not going with her son, but she decided to stay with him and they went to the gas chamber together. Tilda's parents and her younger brother, Shmil, also perished in the gas chamber. David and Hugo perished in forced labor and her brother Aron crossed the border of the USSR and perished in the Gulag 14. Tilda, her sister Serena, who was in the USSR during World War II, and her brother Philip were the only survivors in the family. Serena returned to Subcarpathia in 1945. Philip returned to Uzhgorod from England in 1946.

Tilda and her friend Frieda were sent to a work camp in the town of Reichenbach from Auschwitz. My sisters Olga and Toby were there, too. This camp was located near a military plant of radio equipment. The inmates of the camp assembled radio equipment. Tilda and my sisters were in this camp until they were liberated. My sisters told Tilda that my relatives had perished in Auschwitz. After they were liberated from the camp Tilda and her friend Frieda went to Mukachevo.

Post-war

My sisters didn't return home. Olga didn't have any information about her husband, who was recruited into the army three days after their wedding. Sometimes life offers incredible surprises: Olga met her husband on her way back to Mukachevo via Czechoslovakia. He was captured along with other guys from the work battalion near Oskol, a Ukrainian town. He was taken to a camp for prisoners of war and from there he was sent to the Gulag. At that time Subcarpathia still belonged to Czechoslovakia. When the Czechoslovak army was formed all Czech citizens kept in the Gulag were sent to the army. They were released from the Gulag to serve in the Czech army. Nuchim was recruited to the Czechoslovak army and went as far as Karlovy Vary [about 300 km from our house]. Then he demobilized. He had many awards of honor and received an apartment in gratitude for his service. He kept coming to the railway station every day to meet trains that brought people home from concentration camps hoping to meet someone that could tell him about Olga and our family. He met Olga at the railway station.

My sisters stayed in Czechoslovakia and some time later, in the 1950s, they moved to Israel. My younger sister Yona got married in Israel. Her husband's name was Stein. Olga worked as an accountant until she resigned. Her son Shuah was born in 1947. He deals in informatics and is professor of Tel Aviv University. Yona was a housewife after she got married. She has two daughters: Margalit, born in 1950, and Erit, born in 1953. Yona's daughters are married and have children. I don't remember their family names.

?ilda returned to Mukachevo. I corresponded with Voita. He told Tilda the address of my field mail. When I received a letter from Tilda I can't tell you how happy I was. I replied to her letter and we began to correspond. Tilda sent me her photograph in her next letter. She signed it on the backside, 'To my darling Ari'. I had this photograph with me and now I have it in our family album.

Tilda stayed in Uzhgorod with her sister Serena. She went to work. I demobilized in 1947 and came to Uzhgorod. Tilda worked at the town trade department. When we met I was wearing a faded soldier shirt and soldier boots. Tilda and Serena gave me their coupons to buy clothes since all goods were sold per coupons. I went to work as a mechanic in a small shop. We all lived in Serena's apartment. She shared her furniture and kitchen utensils with us. I didn't have a passport. I only had my military identity card. Tilda and I lived together without discussing the issue of marriage. Her sister was the only relative we had, so what kind of wedding could we be thinking of?

On 30th April 1948 Tilda and I decided to go for a walk. It was a lovely day. By that time I had obtained a passport. We went outside and then one of us said, 'Let's go to the registry office'. Things were simple at that time. There were no best friends or advance applications required. We went to the registry office, showed them our documents and the director of the registry office put down our names and issued us a marriage certificate. It was like any other ordinary day. I bought a bottle of champagne and chocolates and invited the director of the registry office to drink to our happiness. He gave us a few glasses and we opened the bottle of champagne. Then we were photographed in the photo shop in the same building as the registry office. We went outside and Tilda said she had to go to work since her colleagues were going to prepare for the celebrations on 1st May. My colleagues were also going to have a celebration and invited me to come. So we parted and each went to his work. This was our wedding day. Shortly afterwards my friend Voita and Tilda's friend Frieda also got married. They lived in Uzhgorod until the 1970s and we became lifetime friends.

I didn't face any anti-Semitism or prejudices towards me at work. On the contrary, my management began to promote me since I could speak Russian. I learned it in the army. Only few people could understand Russian in Subcarpathia at that time. Later children studied in Russian schools and learned Russian, but at that time I was one of the few that could speak Russian. My friend and I opened a small equipment repair shop. There were many Jewish employees in this shop. Its chairman was Mr. Tamper, a Jew. I earned good money since I was already a skilled mechanic. Once Tamper offered me to go to Kiev where I was to attend a course of training of quality assurance managers. I was the only employee who knew Russian. I talked with Tilda and we decided that it was good for me to go there. I stayed there for a month and finished this course with excellent results.

When I returned home it turned out that the chairman liquidated the shop where I was working. He had the intention of appointing me to the position of manager of the metal-ware shop. The manager's salary was much lower than what I had received previously, but I had no choice since the shop where I had worked was closed. This shop was converted into the Bolshevik Plant where I was the manager of a shop. I did my work well and began to implement modifications. I liked new developments and I also received bonuses for them that compensated my loss of salary. The management appreciated my performance and began to talk to me about going to study in a college. To enter a college I had to finish secondary school. Neither Tilda nor I had a secondary education. She and I decided to go to an extramural secondary school.

Our son Pyotr was born in 1951. His Jewish name was Pinchas after my paternal grandfather. Our second son, Yuri, was born in 1955 and has the Jewish name of Eshye after my father.

We hired a babysitter for Pyotr to be able to attend school. My wife and I studied in a Sunday school. We had classes the whole day on Sunday and had homework to do on weekdays. We finished this school and obtained secondary education certificates. Now we could continue our studies. I finished the extramural department of the Machine Building Faculty of Odessa Machine Building College and defended my diploma thesis with honors. The plant kept expanding. When I started work there were about 30 employees in my shop, but when I finished college there were already 80 employees. I became technical manager of the plant. I was content with this position. I wasn't a career-oriented man and was content with what I had.

When I was appointed as technical manager the management convinced me to join the Communist Party telling me that it would help me to make a career. Only members of the Party could have key positions in the former USSR. I obtained recommendations and was to be approved by the bureau of the town party committee. Everybody knew that I had the reputation of a skilled engineer and there were no objections to my membership in the Party.

My wife also joined the Communist Party. We had no idea about communism. We really didn't know what was happening in the USSR before the Great Patriotic War 15. Besides, this country did nothing evil to us. We were grateful for a good life and an opportunity to study and work. To join the Party we had to fill in application forms where we wrote that we had been in a concentration camp. Those that had lived in the USSR since 1917 concealed the fact of their imprisonment in concentration camps. There was a suspicious attitude toward those that were there. They might have even been asked 'If you were in a concentration camp, how come you didn't perish?' Tilda and I were also concerned about indicating this fact, but then we decided: if we are joining the Party we want to tell the truth and we shall write the truth about ourselves. Actually, nothing came out of it.

When I joined the Party the position of the chief engineer was established at the plant. I was appointed to it and worked in this position for 20 years. By the end of my employment there were already 800 employees at the plant. According to Soviet standards it wasn't a big enterprise, but for Uzhgorod the Bolshevik Plant was an enormous enterprise. We often received bonuses and lived well. I was awarded the 'Order of Honor' and a number of other 'metalware'. I was also awarded the badge 'Best performer in the socialist competition'. Besides performing my direct duties I kept developing innovative ideas. I developed a very interesting polishing machine for the furniture industry. It made the polishing process mechanic. Before it was a manual process. I received a patent and money award for this development.

I've never faced any anti-Semitism. My colleagues knew I was a Jew. Tilda and I always wrote in all forms that we were Jews and that our mother tongue was Yiddish and I was never ashamed of saying this. I have a Jewish soul. My colleagues treated me well. There were only a few Jewish employees at the plant. I spoke Yiddish to them. There were gypsies since the plant was located in an area with many gypsy residents. There were Hungarians, Slovaks and Ukrainians at the plant. I got along well with all of them. It's simple: you treat every individual with respect and he will try to justify your expectations of him.

Only once in my life did I face anti-Semitism. It was probably a minor incident. Besides, I got to know about it much later. Our director was transferred to a new plant under construction. I remained chief engineer and became acting director. I didn't intend to become the director since I was content with my position. When the new director came to the plant I helped and supported him introducing the state of things to him and he was grateful to me for that. Many years later my Jewish acquaintance told me that when the subject of appointing a new director was discussed at the bureau of the town party committee somebody said, 'Why looking for new director when we have Galpert?' and the secretary of the regional party committee, my good acquaintance, said, 'But he is a Jew'. That's the only case I know of when my Jewish identity interfered with my career. When I meet my former colleagues in the street they feel happy to see me and we kiss.

Tilda was doing well. She finished a nine-month party course. She was good at languages and picked up Russian promptly. She worked at the trade department of the town executive committee [Ispolkom] 16. She must have been doing well and was promoted to the position of assistant deputy chairman of the regional executive committee where she worked for many years. Tilda never concealed the fact that she was a Jew. Tilda also picked up Ukrainian since all documents were in Ukrainian. She became the manager of the protocol department, which is a rather high position. My name is mentioned in the Book of Subcarpathia as an individual that made a big contribution in the technical development of the town. So, we had no problems with the Soviet power, but we were concerned about what was happening around.

My wife and I didn't live under the Soviet rule for a long time - the area where we resided was annexed to the USSR in 1945 - and we didn't have a clear understanding of what was truly happening around us. We believed everything the Communist Party said. We belonged to the proletariat when we were young working for the owner of a factory. He exploited us. We truly believed that we were building a bright future and a nice international society where all people would be equal. This was a wonderful idea! We read books by Marx, Lenin and Stalin. We also read works by utopian socialists. It sounded beautiful what they wrote in those books. It was interesting and we lived believing it. When Stalin died in 1953 we were in grief. Of course, we saw that the reality was different from its description in books, but we thought it was due to the transition period and that the higher authorities weren't aware of the real status of things, but we had a feeling that something was wrong and that words were different from what they were doing. We lived through the campaign against cosmopolitans 17 in 1948. It didn't have any impact on us and we couldn't understand the situation. It seemed to be a falsification. Same with the Doctors' Plot 18 in January 1953, it was all lousy and was a preparation to strengthen anti-Semitism. We tried not go too deep into it. When Khrushchev 19 spoke about Stalin and about the Soviet system disclosing Stalin's crimes on Twentieth Party Congress 20, we understood what it was all about. We realized that we had to give up the idea of communism and socialism.

Since I was a party member and a manager I had to propagate to engineers at the plant. I was responsible for regular political classes with them. I can say one thing frankly: I never spoke my mind. I only said, 'Here is what Khrushchev says...', or 'This is what Brezhnev said ...'. I always referred to them since after the Twentieth Party Congress Tilda and I understood that the idea of communism was false. However, we remained party members until the last day in 1991, the breakup of the Soviet Union 21. Some time in the late 1980s I stopped conducting the political training of my colleagues and at that period my party membership was a mere formality.

Our sons were healthy and nice children. They are different: Pyotr is quiet, he never hurries and likes staying home, while Yuri is cheerful and sociable. He has many friends. Our sons went to the same kindergarten and school. They both had the same elementary school teacher. They studied in a Russian secondary school. Pyotr finished the school with honors. We didn't want him to continue his education in Ukraine fearing that he would face anti-Semitism. Ukraine was a part of the USSR. Anti-Semitism in Russia wasn't as strong as in Ukraine. He went to Leningrad where he passed successfully his entrance exams to the Optical Mechanical College. He studied there for five and a half years. He had his pre-diploma practical training at the military plant in Izhevsk and they sent wonderful references for his performance back to the college.

When it was time for the issuing of his mandatory job assignment 22 we had the chief engineer of the device manufacturing plant in Uzhgorod send a letter of request to the college in Leningrad, and Pyotr received a job assignment to this plant. He worked at this plant as a designer before perestroika 23. When perestroika began this plant was shut down like many other enterprises. Our son went to work for an Internet provider. He got married at the age of 38. He was a shy man. I believe I was the same when I was young. Now I'm different. He had friends, but he didn't meet with girls. He married his colleague. She was an electronic engineer, but later she studied accounting. She worked as a chief accountant. One of their friends moved to Germany and convinced our son to go there as well. Of course, we didn't want our children to live that far away from us, but we didn't try to talk them out of it. In Germany Pyotr finished a course in electronics. The Siemens company paid for his training and employed him after he finished his studies. His wife is an accountant. They are doing very well. They live in Frankfurt am Main. Unfortunately, they don't have children.

Our younger son went to take entrance exams to the same college in Leningrad where Pyotr studied after finishing school. Regretfully, he fell ill and couldn't take the exams. He was recruited to the army. He served in a military unit that dealt with radar units. Yuri was the assistant to an officer who worked with electronics. After demobilization he returned to Uzhgorod and went to work at a plant as a mechanic. He also entered the Electric Engineering Faculty of Lvov Polytechnic University and finished it. After finishing his studies Yuri became an engineer at the plant where he had worked as a mechanic before. He worked there until the plant was shut down during perestroika. Yuri and his friend opened a café. Yuri didn't quite like it, but he had to earn his living. He worked there for three years. When Hesed was organized in Uzhgorod its director invited Yuri to work. Yuri is regional director of the Hesed and is happy with this job. Yuri got married in 1974. Yuri lives with his family not far from here. We often visit them and they come to see us. Both of our sons have non-Jewish wives. They are happy with their family life and that is what matters to us.

Our only grandson Philip, Yuri's son, was born in 1975. When he finished school the Sochnut 24 offered him to study in Israel. He left in 1994. There were some problems at the beginning, though. Here they promised him that he would have free education, but it turned out to be a different story when he came there. He went to study cooking and after classes he worked as a cook in a restaurant at the Dead Sea. Then he was recruited into the army. After his service term was over Philip entered Wingeit College in Netanya. His specialty was sport medicine. Our grandson is a 5th- year student and is very happy with his life. We support and help him to finish his studies successfully. He likes his profession and we feel happy that he got the opportunity to study and travel. Last summer Philip came on a visit here. The Sochnut organizes summer camps in Subcarpathia and he has got an invitation for this summer. We hope to see our grandson this summer. He intends to settle in Israel.

I cannot say that my wife and I kept our religiosity after World War II. We didn't pray or go to the synagogue and it wasn't possible to follow the kashrut. I gave up religion after my family perished. I cannot believe in a God who allowed the mass extermination of Jews only because they were Jews. If this happened and God didn't prevent it this means that He either doesn't exist or isn't as powerful and just as I was told in my childhood. However, our children were aware that they were Jews. I told them the history of the Jewish people. On every holiday I told them about the history and traditions of this holiday. On Pesach I told them about how the Jews got to Egypt and how Moses saved them. I told them about all customs and traditions to be observed on Pesach and why Jews ate matzah on this holiday. We usually began our story with 'Today is Pesach. Here is how we observed it at home...' Tilda cooked traditional Jewish food. On Pesach Tilda had a barrel of beetroot kvass made. She made hamantashen on Purim and put honey and apples on the table on Rosh Hashanah.

I told my sons about my childhood and cheder, how my father and I went to the synagogue and about my bar mitzvah: everything that I've told you in this interview. I told them how I began to give up religion and how I became a worker. I also told them about how I hurt my mother and that I still feel guilty about it and that I can only ask her forgiveness in my thoughts since I never saw my mother again after the camp. Our sons got all their Jewish knowledge when they were children. I believed it was our duty to acquaint them with Jewish life and they would know how to use what they've received from us. I didn't tell my sons about the concentration camps when they were children. The memories were too hard for Tilda and me.

My wife and I had many friends. Most of them were Jews, but we also had non- Jewish friends. Tilda and I were happy to have gatherings with friends. We always celebrated birthdays in the family and Soviet holidays. I cannot say that we cared that much about the meaning of these holidays, but my wife and I appreciated any opportunity to invite friends and enjoy their company. There used to come so many guests that we had to keep the door between the rooms open and there was a table set across these two rooms. However little space there was we had lots of fun and enjoyed these gatherings. Most of our friends were older than us. We had older friends since only a few Jews of our age returned from the camps. So many of our friends are gone. There's nobody left. Just the two of us. Do you understand what that means? There were so many of us. We were great friends. When we go to the cemetery there's one buried here, another one there... It's scaring. I'm glad that the children of our friends who live in Uzhgorod keep in touch with us.

I spent all my free time with my family. On weekends we went for walks and hiking in the mountains. In summer we went hiking and in winter we went skiing in the mountains. We spent vacations at the seaside in the south. In the 1970s I received a plot of land and we began to build a dacha [cottage] and grow fruit trees and flowers. The dacha was our favorite pastime. My sons were helping me to build the house. My wife enjoyed gardening. Tilda and I often went to concerts and theaters. We also liked inviting friends to our home.

When there were mass departures of Jews to Israel in the 1970s my wife and I didn't consider emigration. We sympathized with our acquaintances and helped them with packing and other arrangements. Many of our friends and acquaintances left, our close friends Frieda and Voita also left. If we decided to move to Israel we would have had to start from zero. My Ivrit would have been sufficient for routinely communication, but not for work. We got used to our apartment and to our well set daily life. We have Jewish friends, but there are also non-Jewish friends. We are used to them and we would miss talking to them. We thought things over, talked with the children, 'Well, kids, shall we move there?' and if they had said, 'Let's go!' we would probably agree to move there, but our sons weren't that eager about moving and we stayed. Of course, we are getting older and our departure becomes less and less possible. I will be 80 soon and to start life anew is not for me.

We were enthusiastic about perestroika. We already saw that the Soviet system was no good. My sisters lived in Israel and I couldn't correspond [keep in touch with relatives abroad] 25 with them since my wife and I had key positions at our jobs and were members of the Party. In those years citizens weren't allowed to correspond with someone from a capitalist country. The wife of Philip, Tilda's brother, corresponded with her brother in Israel. We gave her letters for my sisters that she sent with her letters to her brother and he sent them to my sisters. My sisters sent their letters in the same manner. This procedure was very complicated and we only wrote letters to one another occasionally, but I was still concerned about this coming into the open. I might have lost my job, have been expelled from the Party and if worst came to worst I might have been taken to court, charged with espionage or whatever else and taken to prison. So, I knew about my sisters and they got information about me. This occasional correspondence was our only chance to exchange information.

During Soviet times if people moved to another country there was no hope of seeing them again, visiting them or inviting them to come on a visit. Perestroika gave us this opportunity. My wife and I traveled to Israel for the first time in 1988 when perestroika had just begun. We got together for a party and our first toasts during this party were to Gorbachev 26. It was like coming back to life! Tilda and I met with Voita, my friend who had been in the camps with me, and Frieda, my wife's friend, who had been in the concentration camp with her. Such friendship is more than blood relationship. We met them after such long time. We hugged and kissed. Of course, Israel made a great impression on me. The ancient and modern times intertwine wonderfully there. We've been to Israel several times since then. I like this wonderful country. I admire its people that created a paradise in the stone desert. I'm very happy that my grandson has become a part of this country. The rebirth of Jewish life in our country began during perestroika.

Three years ago Tilda and I visited Auschwitz with a group formed by Hesed in Khmelnitskiy. I was the 'rabbi' in this group and was to recite the Kaddish for the deceased in Auschwitz. I told this group about our life and what had happened to our families. We were the only participants of this group who were tied to the history of Auschwitz. The rest of the group had been in various ghettos in Ukraine. This was a very hard trip for us. During my recitation of the Kaddish Tilda was very concerned about me: my knees and hands were shaking and my voice was trembling. This was a horrific experience. Of course, I was trying to pull myself together. Our tour guide heard that I talked in Hungarian to Tilda. She decided that we were Hungarians and took us to the Hungarian room. There were names written in alphabetic order on the walls from ceiling to floors. I found the names of my father and Uncle Idl on the walls. I don't know how I lived through that moment. Their names were at the bottom and I bent when reading and fell. I couldn't get up. I fear to even recall this, but we must remember and tell the living to have this never happen again.

In 1983 I quit my position as chief engineer. It was hard for me to cope with so much work. My management asked me to stay, but I refused to continue as a chief engineer and they offered me to take over the position of a consultant because I had been at the plant since its construction. I knew everything about the plant. I worked there until 1991. In the same year a campaign of firing all pensioners began. The director of the plant suggested that we opened a small company on the basis of this plant and that I became its director. I invited all pensioner employees to this company. I worked at the company two more years, but I didn't like the job and resigned in 1994. My wife resigned at the age of 55. The management asked her to work longer claiming that they couldn't do without her. Tilda kept her position for five more years and then in 1983 she insisted that she wanted to quit. It was time for her to take a rest.

I have work to do now. Throughout all the years of the Soviet rule I was a Jew. I'm a Jew in my heart, I was raised a Jew and my Jewish relatives perished in the concentration camp. After I resigned the Jewish community in Uzhgorod invited me to become chairman of the board and responsible for the compliance with all Jewish laws - the Yiddishkeit. There are other Jews that have knowledge of these laws, but they are younger, and they don't remember as much as I do. Besides, I grew up in a Hasidic family. I used to teach adults and children. I told them what it was like in my home and how it should be in a Jewish home. It's easier now since there are Jewish schools where they teach such things and they read lectures for adults in the synagogues. There is Jewish mass media and books, but back in the 1990s the situation was different. I still give lectures. I get invitations, particularly on holidays to talk about traditions, prayers and some interpretations of Yiddishkeit since I studied it and can remember what it is about. Sometimes I read some additional information to strengthen my memories, but I mainly tell people what I lived through. I taught children and it pleases me to be of use to people. I'm a Jew and I believe that a Jew must be aware of why he is a Jew. It's up to a person to observe what they got to know, but if one believes in his Jewish identity one must have general knowledge of the Jewish history.

After I resigned my wife and I observed Jewish holidays at home. We have everything we need for this. We have a chanukkiyah and students of the Jewish school gave me a cloth for covering the matzah that they embroidered. When American rabbis visited our synagogue I was the only one who could speak Hebrew to them. They liked me so much that they gave me a tray with little holes used at the seder on Pesach and special glasses for the seder. They used to be made of silver when I was a child, but nowadays they make them of some stainless metal that looks very nice. I use them at the seder. When time comes I will give them to somebody.

Tilda and I and my son's family observe Jewish holidays at Hesed. I went on stage during the last Purim. Hesed arranged for a celebration at the town theater and asked me to perform. I thought to myself, 'Am I going to tell them the story of Haman and Esther when this story is commonly known!? I will offer them a surprise!' I unbuttoned my shirt, put on rubber boots with one trouser leg in a boot and another one over another boot, put on a cap and ran onto the stage. I joked and sang songs. I had asked the master of ceremony to drag me from the stage when I began to pretend I was drunk. So he knew that I was pretending, but the others believed I was really drunk. He was trying to grab me and I continued pretending saying that if a Jew was to get drunk on Purim then why did he want to remove me from the stage?' I was praised for my artistic talent since they told me everybody truly believed I was drunk. However, this was the only time I joked that way. An old person is like a child. I let them convince me to make people laugh. I also lit the chanukkiyah at the celebration of Chanukkah in the town theater.

My wife and I shall turn 80 this year, but we are trying not to give up. We go for a walk every day whatever the weather. We don't care about rain, snow or frost, but when it's windy it's worse. We walk six kilometers every day. We have a favorite route: we walk to a park out of the town. Tilda and I go to the swimming pool three times a week. We've gone there for 15 years. We are trying to stay in good shape. I don't know for how long we'll manage. My favorite pastime now is my computer. When I got it I was thinking of communicating with my grandson in Israel since phone calls are expensive. So I bought a computer for the sake of e-mail, but later I got very fond of it. I attend computer classes at Hesed. I get so nervous when I do something wrong, but when I learn something new I'm so happy. I've found the Jewish alphabet in the computer and now I can type in Ivrit. I enjoy it so much. Computer is my only hobby that my wife doesn't share with me. We are together in everything else. Regardless of what has been I 'm grateful to life that we have met and managed to live our life together.

Glossary

Michal Friedman
Warsaw
Poland
Interviewer: Anka Grupinska
Date of interview: January - April 2004

My parents
My grandparents
Growing up
Religious life in Kovel
Jewish history in Kovel
My school years
University
During the war
The liberation of Warsaw
My wife Teresa
Working as a translator and teaching Jewish languages
Glossary

My parents

I come from the town of Kovel, while my father was a native of Brest. He went to a Russian vocational school and became a master metalworker; he built, among other things, one of the largest and most beautiful railway stations in the Eastern borderlands [Polish name for the prewar Eastern provinces lost by Poland in 1945 for the sake of the Soviet Union]. In Kovel he met my mother, who was a very pretty woman. The fruits of their marriage were two girls and myself, the only boy.

Mom was five years younger than Father; both of them were born in the 1880s. My mother's given names were Sosze Henia, in her identity documents she was called Gienia, maiden name Bokser. My father's name was Aron Samuel Friedman. Mother was a milliner. She made dresses, especially sophisticated and elegant dresses; her work was Warsaw [top] quality and fashionable. Wealthier ladies used to come to her, among them the wife of a flourmill owner, the wife of an oil mill owner, and so on. Occasionally, she employed up to three assistants, while two were kept on a regular basis. Her workshop was in our apartment - we had three Singer machines. Mother had a more regular income than Father. She was an incredibly good woman. After Father's death in the mid-1930s, she worked to support the entire household. Mother had four sisters, but I don't remember their names, and one brother, Jidl, in America. Now and then they would send us a few dollars.

Father was an educated man for that time, since he had graduated from the local vocational school. He had worked on the construction of the railway station, and after the station was opened he started a metalwork shop in partnership with another Jew. They employed two apprentices. But they were getting fewer orders, and at the end of the 1920s Father went to work for Red Star Line, an English company. There was also another firm called White Star Line. Both companies were in the business of arranging transportation for emigrants to America. After World War I ended, there was immense emigration from the East [Polish name for the prewar Eastern provinces lost by Poland in 1945 for the sake of the Soviet Union] to the United States. Mostly Jews took advantage of it, but not only.

Father came back from World War I with a medal for valor. He had fought against the Germans, on the Russian side. In his political views he was at first a supporter of the so-called Territorialist party; this was a Jewish party that adopted in part the ideology of the Bund 1, but believed that the only option for the Jews was a territory of their own, not necessarily Palestine. Afterwards, I think that party ceased to exist and my father became a supporter of the Bund. My parents subscribed to Folkszeitung 2 and Moment 3, because my mother had Zionist views. I started to read Moment when I was seven.

There were three children in our family: Regina, Rywka, and I. I was born in 1913. Regina was two years older than I, and Rywka was ten years younger. [Rywka was born in 1923, and the elder sister in 1911.] Rywka was a fantastically gifted girl and I had a friendlier relationship with her than with my elder sister, with whom I had frequent quarrels. Regina and Rywka were killed in August 1942 in the Kovel ghetto. Mom too. Father was lucky, as he died several years before the war.

My grandparents

I know not a thing about my grandpa, my mother's father. I only found his long pipe in a drawer. And I bear his name: Mojsze Pinchos Bokser. But I am Michal; after all, I couldn't be called Mojsze Pinchos in the Soviet army, could I? On the other hand, I knew my grandma, my mom's mom, well. Grandma Chana Bokser emigrated along with my mother's brother, Jidl, to the United States, in 1923, I think. Grandma was also a native of Kovel. She lived a long life and died when she was quite old. We kept in touch with them. And it even went as far that when we had moved to Warsaw after the war, there once was a phone call from the United States. Someone asked for me. We had a maid who knew that contacts with abroad weren't allowed [under communism any contacts with the western world were suspicious and checked by the secret police agents]; she said that there was nobody of that name there. And we lost touch. So "Jidl was without his fidl" [Reference to a Yiddish song.] and later his last name was no longer Bokser but Baxter.

Grandma Chana kept a traditional home. The kashrut and all the holidays were observed there. I want to add something here that I have just remembered - I haven't thought about it for years. I liked my melamed very much, though he was generally a bore. But on Friday mornings he told us midrashes. That took place in a shtibl [Yiddish, for a small prayer house] for some sort of craftsmen: Jews would sit there and study the Talmud and midrashes. I would just sit down to listen at first, but later I would explain holy texts to them myself. I remember that the name of one of those men was Szpak. He had a license to transport cargo by rail; he was allowed to load different packages onto railroad cars. The Jews who sat there would say 'What a boy, what a story-teller!' But Szpak would say: 'why be surprised? After all, the tzaddik from Chernobyl himself danced at the wedding of his grandma Chana.' And after the midrashes, the melamed would take us to the river to teach us to swim since parents are commanded to educate their children and to teach them to swim.

My grandpa on my father's side was from Brest. I didn't have any contact with my family in Brest. Grandma on my father's side was already dead; I don't even remember her name. I had a cousin who left for Palestine before the war. In Kovel he was a Betar 4 supporter and later played an important role in the revolt against the English [he was a member of the revisionist underground in Palestine of the 1920s.] He belonged to the group led by Begin 5 and Sztern 6, spent time in jail. He was from my father's side of the family. He had an unusual last name - Jundow. Janusz and his brother Matys were the sons of my father's sister, whose name I don't know either.

I had another cousin too, the daughter of my father's sister Irena Rajnberg, nee Friedman. She married a lawyer who was well known before the war; Rajnberg was his name. He was assaulted by ONR 7 members on several occasions. She survived as an Aryan. She got caught in a roundup, put in jail and then someone denounced her as a Jewess. She was even checked by an anthropologist, if she conformed to Aryan standards, and it turned out that she was 100 percent Aryan. After the war she went to Israel. Irena died in Israel.

Growing up

We lived in the center of Kovel in a rented apartment, in three rooms on Warszawska Street. Eppelbaum was the owner of a lot of apartment houses. And we rented from him a three-bedroom apartment in a wooden, one-story house. There was another family living in that house, and for a while, the municipal library was also located there.

We had a separate entrance to the raised first floor. Our apartment had a glassed-in verandah, which in summertime was very often used as a room where we had our meals and received guests. One room was used for my mother's workshop. There were beds in all the rooms. The bedroom was furnished in a traditional style: a double bed, a wardrobe, a glassed-in cupboard, and a bookshelf for my ever-growing book collection. All of us read a lot, my sisters included. My reading very often prevented others from sleeping, so my mom would stop me, because she was very fatigued.

There was this large hall, where a water barrel was kept, for only some, very few homes had running water at the time. And the toilet was in the courtyard. For the conditions of the time we were not that poor. Mother earned good money, and even when my father didn't work, we always had a maid in the house.

In the kitchen there was a stove plate, with a stove, in which on Thursdays bread was baked for Saturdays, challah and pancakes made from wheat flour, sprinkled with poppy-seed and bits of onion, and called 'cebulaki'. 'Kuchen' was sometimes prepared for holidays, a sort of large yeast cake studded with raisins. On Saturdays we had tsimes made from carrots, which was made in this large saucepan. We had cholent very frequently; we would take the pot to the bakery on Friday and pick it up on Saturday. It was taken to the bakery because nobody cooked on Fridays; the bakery wasn't open either, but the stove at the bakery retained its warmth. In cholent there was beef, kishke, potatoes roasted brown, and often also large [butter] beans. I remember a joke: What's cholent? - You put it in on Friday and take it out on Saturday.

Later, sometime in the 1930s, we moved to a place that belonged to another rich man, to the Bokser family. We were distantly related. We rented three rooms, also in the center, on Pilsudski Street, which was an extension of Warszawska Street. It was a sort of promenade with benches. The Boksers had a large construction materials business. One of their sons was a friend of mine and he and I went away together to university in France in 1930. He graduated in commerce and didn't go back to Kovel but went directly to Palestine.

Religious life in Kovel

Holidays were very important in our little town. Everyone celebrated them. For Passover, the house was cleaned from top to bottom, every nook and cranny; all the dishes were koshered in hot water in the courtyard. People delivered flour to the bakery where matzot were made. Those were little round loaves, not the rectangles of today. The Jewish community allocated flour and matzah to poor families. There were charitable institutions that distributed matzah, raised money for dowries for dowry-less girls so that they wouldn't get left until their braids turned gray, as the Yiddish saying went. Raisin wine was prepared for holidays. Back then we considered that wine heavenly.

The table was covered with a white tablecloth. On the table there were three matzot covered with a napkin. A piece of matzah would be broken off and hidden so that the children could look for it. That is called afikoman. During the reading of the Haggadah four goblets had to be raised. Plus one special goblet, carved for the prophet Elijah. The door was opened at a specified time for Elijah to come in. When I was a small kid, I believed that Elijah would come, of course. We celebrate the Passover to remember that we were once slaves in a foreign land. That's why we open the door to let in Elijah or anyone else who is hungry and thirsty. The youngest children then ask four traditional questions; once upon a time it used to be said about a fool: he is a philosopher of the four questions.

So the Passover holiday was celebrated very solemnly; it was related to the beginning of spring. Parents were under obligation to give their children new clothes or something else new. When boys and girls came together in the courtyard they would all seem so new. Greeting each other, the ones wearing new clothes would say 'titchadesh', which means: May you renew yourself. One of the traditional customs was the walnut game. That game resembled the tipcat: some walnuts were first tossed on the ground, and then you had to hit them with another walnut. And whoever managed to hit the larger heap took them all. Just like during Chanukkah you play with the dreidel, the spinner, the top.

Later, after father's death, those holidays didn't have the same character. I would come home for a few days; I had my own friends and we would go on walks or meet at a club that the Jewish intelligentsia used to go to. That club was an interesting place. We had various sections: for mandolin players, a sports section, a chess section; there was a ping-pong table, too. Danziger, the flourmill owner, financed the club. We talked mostly in Yiddish, while Polish had largely eradicated the Russian language.

I remember that for Sukkot the sukkot were made from broken doors, wooden railings, there was a sukkah next to each house. Shavuot was a very colorful holiday in our town. Not far from the town there was a lake where sweet flag grew. The path leading to the house would be sprinkled with white sand and the entire house decorated with sweet flag. Most houses looked as if they were growing in the jungle. That custom began to fade in the thirties. Young people, more and more secular, began to depart from the tradition. There were a lot of students in our town. The two gymnasia [general secondary schools] produced 45 graduates each year.

Chanukkah was a social holiday. My girlfriends and boyfriends - sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty people - would come to our house. Mom and my younger and elder sisters would make potato pancakes. And of course candles were lit and placed on the windowsills.

I remember that at Purim - at the time I was a first grader in the Tarbut 8 gymnasium we collected money for Keren Kayemet Leisrael 9. We would dress up as Achasuerus, Esther, etc., and in groups of five went from house to house. That could have been 1925. We acted out the entire story. There was Ahasuerus, Haman who comes with accusations against the Jews, then Mordecai who goes to the King and explains everything, and in the end Ahasuerus kills him with a saber. We put the money given to us into a collection-box for Palestine.

In our town tradition was kept up even by the few assimilated. On Yom Kippur there wasn't one case of anyone failing to come to the synagogue. On the other hand, in all the homes I knew, it was mostly the women that kept kosher. Because the communists, for instance, flaunted the fact that they didn't observe tradition. Kovel was a Jewish town whose outskirts, where the Ukrainians and Poles lived, formed a separate town. The river Turia flowed through the town. Kovel was divided into three quarters. On one side of the river there was the Old Town, called Zand [in Yiddish], or Sand, as it had been built on sandy ground. In the new part, on the other bank of the Turia, there was Kovel where the Poles lived, most of whom were employees of a railroad company, Depo; they repaired railroad cars and engines. That was a separate town. There were fewer Ukrainians than Poles there. Their farms began just behind the main street. Those three worlds lived side by side.

Kovel was the largest railway hub in the East and the direct rail connection Warsaw - Kovel was faster than today. The trip took less than five hours, and trains ran so precisely on time that you could set your watch by them. They were clean and there were three classes of cars, the first class being the most expensive. They even used to say: Why do Jews travel third class? Because there is no fourth class. Fares were not so expensive. The third class had wooden benches, while in the first and second they were upholstered. There were compartments in the cars, and there was a restaurant car on fast trains, but I used to travel by slow train when I lived in Warsaw. I would always come home from Warsaw for Passover, Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur.

Jewish history in Kovel

That small county town was something more than a shtetl. It was a bastion of the Jewish Hebrew-speaking intelligentsia. The older people still spoke Russian, but the new generation had already adopted the Polish language. The Jewish population in my town wasn't rich. There were a few rich men. One of them was called Armarnik. He had a flourmill. There was Danziger, and then there was Cuperfein, the owner of an oil mill. Sztern was a very stingy man. When a delegation from the community would come to him to ask for a contribution toward the dowry of a gifted but poor girl, he, that is Sztern, used to say: 'I like the idea; the girl ought to be helped.' Then he would turn to his wife: 'Genia, give me my coat, I'm going out with them to collect donations.'

There were two large synagogues in our town. In addition to the so-called shtiblech, or prayer houses, which belonged to specific trades. Porters, painters, and shoemakers - they all had their prayer houses on the streets where they lived. In Zand there was a large, beautiful synagogue, a bit in a fortified style. The best Jewish cantors used to perform there on holidays: Kusowicki, Rozenblatt etc. There was also a choir, which several of my classmates were members of. And there was one more synagogue in the town, a private synagogue, built by a local rich man, Eppelbaum. He lived in what is called a sinful union with a Ukrainian woman; I remember that the town always held it against him. The story was that he had built the synagogue in order to wipe out that sin in the next life. We used to go there to pray on the important holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot, during the three pilgrim holidays and on the Days of Awe [Yamim Noraim]. That synagogue has remained in my memory as a tragic place. I will talk about that later.

One Kovel family was descendants of the Maggid of Turzysk 10 and the Turzysk Hasidim 11. Turzysk, near Kovel, is on the Turia River, five kilometers from my town. Thus, a descendant of that family had a Hasidic court on a small island in the Turia River in Kovel. Hasidim came to see him on the important holidays. I remember that we, the boys who, as they say, had already strayed a bit from religion, used to paddle up there in our canoes and play silly pranks on the Hasidim celebrating around the tables. For example, we would set a cat or a dog loose on them, and they screamed terribly because they were afraid of an unclean animal. I remember such silly pranks.

There was a Jewish hospital in Kovel, supported by the Jewish community. The director of that hospital was a Ukrainian who knew Yiddish and even read the Moment newspaper, but during the occupation [see German occupation of Poland] 12 he proved to be a nationalist and collaborated with the Germans.

In a town with twenty-something thousand residents, there were two coeducational gymnasia, a newspaper, Kovler Sztymer, and two Jewish clubs: the Sholem Aleichem 13 club and the Peretz club 14. The Zionist organizations had their own clubs and libraries, too. And on the Jewish street a struggle pitting Yiddish against Hebrew raged. The town was relatively secular. Among its important institutions was a Tarbut Hebrew gymnasium and a local Poalei Zion 15 organization, which, just like the Bund, stood for cultural autonomy for the Jews.

Both the Bund and the Poalei Zion carried out well-organized cultural work in their clubs. For example, they held mock trials of books. What were they like? To begin with, the audience gathered in the hall listened to a short story or a novella. Next, a panel of judges was selected, and the prosecutor prepared his speech; there was also a defense counsel. And the debate among the young people would frequently continue until dawn. I took part in such mock trials, including one about Bontshe Shvayg [character and title of a short story by Isaac Leib Peretz]. Did he do the right thing? Should he be rewarded with the ultimate prize for his life? Very many such debates took place, and we grew up on them. Both clubs ran libraries. Their book collections weren't particularly big; but we could find practically all the books being published in Yiddish, not only those written by Jewish authors, but also those translated into Yiddish. Books in Hebrew were available in the libraries of Zionist organizations.

Not far from our house on Warszawska Street was a Landowners Association House, to which landowners from all over Volhynia came. And we, Poles and Jews alike, went to tea dances that were held there. We went there to pick up girls. We would order half a cutlet each, a non-kosher cutlet, though made not from pork but from veal, and dance the Argentine tango, for example.

After 1918, a Jewish theater existed in our town, something that would have been impossible under the Tsars. It was an amateur theater; its actors were workers, teachers and students. The entire repertoire of Jewish classics was performed in that theater. It existed until 1st September 1939. Theaters from the capital visited us frequently too. Even [Alexander] Granach, the great actor, came to Kovel. And of course the Jozef Kaminski Theater. I didn't see The Dybbuk 16, but I did see Sholem Aleichem's 'The Grand Prize' and 'Two Hundred Thousand Silver Coins'; it was the same play produced under different titles. And 'The God of Vengeance', a play by Sholem Asch.

Kovel was visited not only by eminent actors but also by fiery reportage writers, who quite often described a world they hadn't seen themselves. My father always took me to those lectures. I remember how enchanted I was by those invented tales. It was then that I began to look for books in the library.

Two outstanding poets were natives of Kovel. One of them had been admitted into the pantheon of Jewish literature already before the war: Kalman Lis. Lis appeared in all CiSzO 17 school handbooks. And Eliasz Rajzman, who lived in Szczecin after the war and has been translated by some Polish poetess. Rajzman died more than a decade ago. He was an outstanding poet. Both were also actors in our Jewish theater. I got to know Rajzman thanks to his memoirs, featured in Folksztyme 18. One day - it was in the middle of the sixties - I noticed that they were publishing a novel about Kovel in installments. 'On the Roads of My Yesterday,' was the title, or 'Oyf di vegn fun mayn nechtn'. And then I remembered that there had been this actor Rajzman, who we once pelted with rotten tomatoes because his acting was poor. He was an excellent poet, though. Before the war Kalman Lis had been a counselor in the Jewish Children's Home in Otwock. And then he died - just like that - was killed by the Germans. There were also three brothers, poets from Turzysk: Lejb, Matys, and a third one whose name I don't recall. After the war Lejb was still in Poland, he left only in 1957. He did excellent translations of Pushkin 19 and Tuwim 20. Once he presented me with a book in which I found his inscription for my younger sister, Rywka, with whom he had been very much in love. Matys Olicki now lives in the U.S. and publishes in Forwerts 21.

Kovler Sztime was a newspaper for everyone; it was a general Jewish newspaper. It had one editor, one owner, and one proofreader - and it was the same man. His name was Jakub Burak. I met his brother in Holon many years after the war. Burak Jakub was killed. From time to time I published a sports column in Kovler Sztime, in Yiddish of course, and sometimes also reviews of theater shows.

When in 1918 we were suddenly transferred from the Russian Empire to the Polish rule, the Polish language was basically foreign to the entire Jewish intelligentsia. The year 1918 was filled with events [see Civil War] 22. Bulak Balachowicz's brigade or division from the Russian White Army was operating in Northern Volhynia. At the time they were cooperating with our Polish army against the Bolsheviks, but along their way they murdered local residents for practice. I remember that my mother's brother was in the so- called Citizens' Militia that was getting ready to defend us in case of an assault by Bulak Balachowicz. A majority of that militia were Jews; it also included some Ukrainians and Poles. My mother's brother even got a rifle from the provisional municipal authorities. They had sawn-offs, rifles with half of their barrels sawn off that were often used by poachers. Because the war had such an alternating pattern - once these forces were in town, then the other side would come back - arms were abundant as hell; soldiers would often abandon their arms and run away.

At first, our attitude towards Poland was primarily one of high hope since the tsarist regime hadn't registered particularly well in the history of the Jews, especially in these areas. I know that a lot of store was placed on Pilsudski 23, who besides was a legend. His luster faded somewhat after he teamed up with Petliura 24 and the Petliurites started to organize pogroms also in Volhynia.

There were no pogroms in Kovel. Even though in 1918 when Haller's troops 25 rushed into the town and pushed the Bolsheviks out, some public cutting off of Jewish beards by saber took place; those were spontaneous actions. I remember one scene, which later recurred in my dreams for decades. The year was 1920 and I was seven. We lived near the railroad station, and one night soldiers started to bang on our door. Father took an ax. The door was bolted with a bar; I was standing next to my father and holding on to his legs while he was ready to defend us to the end. Then one of the soldiers shouted something and they left - there were whorehouses in a side street - and everything went quiet again.

During the twenties, Jews and Poles coexisted well. In Kovel there was one monsignor Feliks Sznarbachowski, who built a beautiful church. He was a friend of the Jews and extinguished bad feelings from the height of his pulpit. When he died, nearly all the Jews accompanied him on his way to the cemetery. I attended that funeral, too. A nephew of the prelate had been a staunch hit-squad member before the war; after the war he worked for Radio Free Europe 26 and repented of his anti-Semitic sins. When Hitler came to power, there began to appear in Poland ONR supporters among university students, who spread the poison of hatred. The slogan 'Buy from your own, not from Jews' was heard frequently.

At the beginning of the 1930s, a rally was held inside one of the cinemas - it was either 'Odeon' or 'Ekspres', since there were two movie houses in Kovel - at which Jabotinsky 27 spoke. I was there. Jabotinsky was an excellent speaker. I remember that he was a man endowed with great oratorical talent. I aspired to become an orator and envied him. Jabotinsky encouraged his audience to go to Palestine; the rally took place probably after 1933, after Hitler's rise to power, and Jabotinsky talked about the danger that might befall the Jews. The Polish government was very accommodating to the Jabotinskites - which was not the case with the hahalutz 28 movement - and even allowed them to conduct paramilitary training of their people. That right-wing organization was forgotten after the war because it was unfairly identified with the Fascist movement. Before 1918 in Kovel there had been a Russian gymnasium, which was attended by few Jews. When Poland burst into existence in 1918 [see Polish Independence] 29, a Polish public gymnasium named after Slowacki was established on the site of that Russian gymnasium, where Jews were not admitted as a rule. If my memory doesn't fail me, I have counted seven Jewish students of both sexes who attended that gymnasium. In Kovel there were three gymnasiums and a school of commerce. All of the gymnasiums were coeducational. A private Polish-Jewish gymnasium, run by Klara Erlich, was established, with Polish as the language of instruction. Klara Erlich was a graduate of Kiev University and a very good mathematician. After the war I spoke with her again by telephone when I came to Moscow. Both of these gymnasiums were accredited to confer high-school diplomas.

My school years

There was also a third gymnasium, a Jewish one with Hebrew as the language of instruction; it was a Tarbut gymnasium, which didn't award the Polish high-school diploma. The Tarbut gymnasium had been established by Asher Frankfurt. There was no Yiddish at all, and instruction was in Hebrew. The school had two introductory grades: first and second, sort of pre-gymnasium grades, substituting for elementary school classes - that was the case in the early period, in my own time, but later children had to go to elementary school.

Initially, I attended the cheder. I mean I studied in the cheder from the age of four to seven. There I learned the Bible almost by heart. I also remember that I translated the Bible into Polish. I went to the cheder for less than a year, and then the melamed started coming to our home. He had decided that I was head and shoulders above the others in terms of knowledge, but he was probably also after more money.

I prepared for the gymnasium at home because what I had been able to gain from that melamed of mine wasn't enough. I passed the entrance exam for the introductory second grade and began to learn all the subjects in Hebrew. At first, Latin was translated into Polish but later we translated that already dead Latin into Hebrew. Instruction there was at a very high level. It was a large school; later on it had eight grades, with 40 pupils on average in each class. After 1918 the headmaster tried to polonize our Hebrew gymnasium in some sense.

There were several eminent teachers in the faculty. For a time, Dr. Feldszu, a good Hebrew feature writer, taught Latin. He wasn't particularly nice as a person. Feldszu was a member of Betar and wanted to create a Betar organization in our school. I remember that I was a Betar member for about a week, and then I switched to Hashomer Hatzair 30, which had branched out from the scouting organization. I remember that they wore Baden Powell hats and carried sticks. And I badly wanted to join them. I might have been five or six then. They were Jewish scouts, Cofim. But I remained in Hashomer Hatzair for a short while only, since by then I had completely different interests, completely down-to-earth - quite literally: I became a soccer player in the Maccabi 31 club.

While I attended the Hebrew gymnasium, my sister Regina went to the Jewish- Polish gymnasium and became fluent in Russian. She graduated with a high- school diploma but didn't go on to university because in those years we couldn't afford the costs that would have entailed. When she had finished elementary school, just before the war, my other sister, Rywka, went to the Jewish-Polish gymnasium.

I was a very good soccer player; I was often carried off the field on the shoulders of my teammates and fans. I played on the Hasmonei 32 team. That team was initially called Maccabi, but later it split. It was the principal Jewish sports team. There was also the Sztern team, and Gwiazda, affiliated with the Bund. There were several Polish teams: Sokol, which was later converted into PKS, the Police Sports Club; and WKS, or the Military Sports Club. In my soccer team, the Hasmonei, the goalkeeper was a Pole, Kola Chmielarski, who spoke Yiddish as well as I or the rest of us did.

Once I met a Polish girl, a goy, and as they say, I dated her for a while. Not for a very long time but long enough to fall into sin. She lived in the other Kovel; to get there you had to go through a tunnel. One day, I was walking her home at a late hour, and when we were near the tunnel, we saw points of light - someone was smoking cigarettes. She says to me that I shouldn't go on, because they'll give me a beating. Well, I remember that I felt I couldn't show that I was afraid, stupid as I was; so I told her: 'No, I will walk you to your very house.' We're walking on boldly, they challenge me at first, but after a moment they say: 'oh, it's you! The soccer player!' They slapped me on the back; we talked a bit, I was offered a cigarette, and took it, even though I didn't smoke.

A yeshivah graduate headed one such group in Kovel's underworld; Zajdel was his name. He was a very romantic figure; he had great success with women. I remember him as a smart, well-educated man. Whenever there was a major robbery, the victims would turn to him rather than to the police, and after he was paid a considerable fee, the lost property would materialize. He must have been 40 when the war broke out. Naturally, he was killed during it. And there was another one, Sieroszewski. And for a time I was a hero among those petty criminals when we played in the district soccer league and kept beating Polish clubs, such as the WKS (Military Sports Club) or Sokol. On one occasion I scored three goals against the hated military club, Halerczyk; that is called a hat trick in soccer jargon. Those guys from the underworld always attended our matches. So after that hat trick they came to me right away: brought some beer, of course; tossed me in the air and yelled: Molodets! Attaboy!

Turzysk, a small town 25 kilometers from Kovel, was a Yiddish 'festung' - a bastion of the Yiddish language. A lot of people went to Vilnius to a gymnasium, and later to a seminarium, where instruction was in Yiddish. At home, in the family, we spoke by and large in Yiddish. I remember that Regina's boyfriends and girlfriends met in our apartment and they spoke Russian. I was familiar with the sound of Russian but couldn't speak it. Later Regina had contacts with Poles, and we learned Polish very quickly. I might have been one of the first who completely discarded the Russian language and absorbed Polish. How did I do it? At that time, there were these pulp detective stories, printed on newspaper, which were very cheap; you could get one for a few dozen groszy. I recall whole series of them: Henryk Lerman's 'The Invincible Detective', 'Sittingbull' - that one was about the redskins [sic]; I would read them for days on end. I was an impassioned reader and my Polish reached a sky-high level then. I translated those pamphlets for my friends. If Yiddish was my first language, Hebrew was the second but it has always competed with Polish.

Hebrew was the everyday language for my friends and me. In Hebrew, I could write quite well, in a fine literary style. It was mostly girls who insisted that we spoke Hebrew. When at a certain age we started to go out with them, court them, they would set one condition. We will speak only in Hebrew. I remember one such pretty girl, Szewa Werba. I had to court her in Hebrew. After all, we have the greatest erotic poem in the world - the 'Song of Songs'. And I knew the 'Song of Songs' almost by heart.

My teacher of Hebrew, whom I admire to this day, frequently used to give us very difficult class tests. Rotman was his name, Jakub Nataneli Rotman. At that time we didn't have any real handbooks yet, only these things put together on an ad hoc basis. Rotman used an ink duplicator to copy texts for us. I remember when the discovery at Tel el Amarna 33 had been made, he duplicated source materials and distributed them to each student, and then we discussed them during his seminar. I was very poor in math, but very good at the humanities. When I was in the eight grade of the gymnasium, we published a periodical. It had this silly title "Our Cadres Heading Toward High School Diploma." I was its editor, and we paid for the publication of each month's issue out of our own pockets. I recall that the printing shop was run by a man by the name of Brandys.

There was a Polish literature club in our Tarbut gymnasium. When its first chairman got his high school diploma, he passed his office to me. I remember my first paper "Byron and Byronism in Polish Literature." I also translated several sonnets by Shaul Tchernichovsky 34, who wrote Crimean sonnets just like Mickiewicz 35. Tchernichovsky later immigrated to Israel, just like Bialik 36. When I was probably in the eighth grade, an excellent Hebrew poet, a native Russian, Eliszeva, came to our school. She hadn't been born a Jewess, but had married a Jew and converted to Judaism.

The Tarbut gymnasium focused on preparing young people to move to Palestine. I remember a moving scene. One day, the director assembled all the classes. The year was probably 1925. He announced to us that at the very moment that we were speaking there, the opening of the Hebrew University was taking place in Jerusalem. That was a very stirring experience for us. 'For out of Zion shall come the Torah and God's Word,' said the director. All of us present there resolved at that moment that, after acquiring a profession, we would go to Palestine. Some went to university in France and when the war broke out, they made their way to Palestine. As teachers of Hebrew, they were worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately, I waited too long. I can't say that I regret it. But at times I am visited by a tormenting thought that things might have been different.

I graduated from the gymnasium at the age of 17; it was 1930. I remember the subject of my written thesis: 'For there is something of Piast in the peasant, the peasant is mighty, say we!' Afterwards I became a private tutor in Kovel. I taught Polish, History, and Hebrew. At that time, Hebrew was a gold mine since in order to get into Palestine, some sum of money stipulated by the English had to be paid and the prospective emigre needed to demonstrate his command of Hebrew. Hebrew examinations took place in Brest, where students from throughout Poland came. I had a friend; Josele Szpak was his name. I already told you about his father. But Szpak didn't know Hebrew. So I went to Brest pretending to be Szpak and naturally wrote a composition there, on the basis of which he got his certificate, his departure paper. In the 1980s I called on him in Israel. Perhaps he is still alive? Szpak was the owner of a bakery then. I had dinner at his place. Introducing me to his wife, he said: 'This is the man who saved my life.'

Each year, the two Jewish gymnasiums in Kovel produced several dozen graduates who couldn't get accepted to the university departments of their choice. In Kovel there was only a surveyors' school and a road-construction school. Many Jews couldn't get into a university in Poland; to gain admittance to a medical school or a technical university was the most difficult as there was the numerus clauses [see Anti-Jewish Legislation in Poland] 37. If you wanted to study medicine, you had to go to Lwow, to Warsaw, Prague or Vilnius. Dozens of medicine graduates returned after their graduation to Kovel, where they were unable to have their diploma recognized since the attitude of the chambers of physicians was such that Jews found it very difficult to get through the recognition process. So what is the Jewish intelligentsia supposed to do?

University

My parents pondered over what field of study I should choose. I wanted to study French literature, but my father said: 'that's not a trade; you can't make a living out of that. You will go to a technical university!' But I was very poor in maths. Well, I didn't want to oppose my father too much. I thought of going to Palestine subsequently, to the university in Jerusalem. I had studied for three months with one Mrs. Chodorow, whose son was later to become a famous sea-dog in Israel. And I went to Grenoble; in Grenoble I didn't need a high-school diploma. That was in November 1930.

It was my first encounter with the West. We arrived at the Northern Station in Paris, and then I had to go over to the Lyon Station and from that station to Grenoble. Traveling with us was a friend from Poland; her name as written in her documents was Chaja Leja Minc. I remember that when we completed a questionnaire to obtain our 'cartes d'identite', they called her 'Hazha Lezha Menk'. We arrived in Grenoble just as a carnival, somewhat in the style of Brazilian carnival, was in full swing. And I, a boy from deep in the provinces, was suddenly caught up in a circle of dancing women who weren't fully clad. That was quite a shock... But I got used to it and even came to like it.

In Grenoble I roomed with a friend; right across the corridor was the room rented by Stefan Grinbaum, son of Icchak Grinbaum 38, a deputy to the Polish Parliament. Probably early in 1931, Icchak Grinbaum arrived in France on some Zionist congress business, and called on his son. On that occasion, the entire Jewish academic community from Poland assembled in one of the halls of the university to hear Grinbaum speak; Grinbaum was an excellent speaker. And I remember that he spoke like a true Zionist, telling the students about their future in Palestine, while communist students made 'tsvishenrufn' [Yiddish, lots of noise], interrupting him. One of them was Grinbaum's own son. Grinbaum said that we shouldn't wait for the coming of Messiah, that the Zionist ideal was the Messiah, and that we would return to the land from which we had been driven out 2,000 years ago. His son raised his voice on behalf of the proletariat. And his father answered him: 'The Jewish nation is the most deprived and oppressed proletariat.' That met with a storm of applause. By the way, during the occupation Grinbaum's son behaved very badly; he was in the Jewish police force in the Warsaw ghetto 39 and showed great cruelty. He survived and went to Israel, where he was shot dead by a Zionist hit-squad.

For the summer vacation, all of us would return home; there we published a sort of occasional periodical, which was quite thick, contained 40 pages, and was in Polish. I remember that one of the editors was Rusia Daszewska. Why I remember specifically her? Because her father had been involved in an attempt to assassinate Lenin, and was later executed. Unfortunately, not a single copy of our periodical has survived; perhaps there are some in the National Library?

I spent about a year in Grenoble. Chemistry and physics classes, lab sessions. I believe I took just one exam there. The whole thing wasn't so much beyond my abilities as against my inclinations. To raise money for the return trip, I worked for a while packing chocolate and on the construction of a road. It was 1931 when I returned to Kovel.

In Kovel I made my living again as a private tutor. I taught mostly Polish literature and Latin, sometimes also German. I was preparing Jewish gymnasium graduates for the high-school diploma exam at a school in Luck. I was swamped with classes. I also enrolled in a Jewish-Polish gymnasium, once again in the eighth grade, in order to obtain a Polish high-school diploma.

My first visit to Warsaw was in the 1920s. Father took me there when he started work for Red Star Line [Red Star Line, an English company. There was also another firm called White Star Line. Both companies were in the business of arranging transportation for emigrants to America.]; their head office was in Warsaw. I was in time to see the Orthodox church on Pilsudski Square. For my university studies, I came to Warsaw in 1933. I enrolled in the Polish Department. During my first year I lived on 2 Nowolipie Street, and afterwards on Dluga Street. On Nowolipie Street there was a bankrupt store and some Jew got an idea how to make money out of it. He stood in front of the closed door of the store and shouted out to passers-by to have a look inside -a wonder of nature, a freak of nature, a bearded woman, everyone can check it out for only 20 groszy. And inside, in that dark, empty store, there was indeed a hairy woman standing. I remember that I couldn't study on Dluga Street because the landlady had rented me an alcove without a window or light. She used to turn the lights off at 10 already. So what did I do then? I went over to the other side of the street, to 13 Tlomackie 40! And there I came across individuals who became part of history. I met Izrael Sztern 41, an excellent poet, who generally didn't get the recognition he deserved, and many other wonderful people.

Izrael Sztern was a devout man, and for that reason very skinny: he would fast, pray and fast again; he recited the psalms very frequently. He died of hunger during the occupation, for he wasn't made for this life. He had this God-given gift of poetry, in which he had few equals. Many years after the war, I translated Izrael Sztern's extended poem 'Ostroleka', at the request of some young people from Ostroleka, passionate fans of his poetry. Thus, Izrael Sztern got a place in the Polish language; he has been rescued for some future reader.

At 13 Tlomackie I wasn't as bold as to strike up a conversation with everybody. When by chance I sat down next to Sztern and he encouraged me to talk, then - yes. At Tlomackie I used to see also Itzik Manger 42. I soaked up everything that happened there and relished the presence of great Jewish poets and writers. Something interesting was always going on there. There I saw Sholem Asch 43, who came rarely but come he did. I saw a great many writers, like Perle 44. They mostly sat by the bar. Every week, there was a meeting with some author or actor, and interesting discussions would go on forever. My knowledge of Yiddish comes actually from there since earlier I had been a militant Hebraist.

Manger once caused a huge scandal. Namely, some literature night was underway when he arrived intoxicated as usual. He had no place to sleep, as he spent the money he earned on liquor. He ordered people sitting at the head table to leave because he wanted to sleep on it. Well, they naturally took him out of there with him yelling very rudely. 'Ir zolt vi a foyer brenen' - may you burn like a fire, 'Ir zolt nisht kanen trinken' - may you be unable to drink, 'Ir zolt nisht kanen trenen' - may you be unable to copulate. So yelled Manger at 13 Tlomackie. I must have seen Izaak Singer 45 several times, but talk with him - that I didn't.

Perhaps in 1935 I moved to the Jewish Student Dormitory in Praga [district in Warsaw]. The residents included many communists, a few Betarists, and quite a few freeloaders. At first I installed myself in a four-person room, but when I began to make money from private teaching I moved to a two- person room. As it happened, my neighbors were two eminent Jewish painters, the Seidenbeutel 46 brothers. It was from them that I learned how to play bridge. They lived in that dormitory because they were poor and it didn't cost them much. They painted in tandem: one did one part of the picture, and the other the second part. On the whole they painted in the open air. In summer they would go to Kazimierz [Kazimierz Dolny - Jewish resort upon Vistula close to Lublin].

The following anecdote was told about the Seidenbeutel brothers: There was a barber's shop in the vicinity. Once Efraim comes in and right away warns the barber: Please give me a good shave; otherwise my beard will grow back in an hour. The barber says: Rest assured, sir, when I give you a shave there won't be any sign of a beard for a month. He shaved Seidenbeutl, who thanked the barber and left. An hour later his brother comes in and says: Well, you can see what my stubble looks like. I warned you that I have to be shaved closely! The barber naturally had a fit. Such a story was told about them. Twins, identical twins. By the way, Begin lived in that house, too.

It was the only Jewish student dormitory in Warsaw, for men. It was built at the end of the 1920s. In terms of architectural design - a splendid building. There were four-, three-, and two-person rooms. There was a canteen downstairs, where lunch coupons were available from the self-help organization. On each floor, there were kitchenettes where coffee, tea or even food could be prepared. There was also a cheap little store where basic necessities could be purchased. The director and manager of the 'Auxilium Academicum Judaicum' [Latin, Support for Jewish Academia] - the building is still standing there today - was first, the infamous member of the 13 47 that collaborated with the Gestapo in the [Warsaw] ghetto.

The ZASS, or Jewish Academic Sports Association, had its headquarters in that dormitory. I used to play soccer and volleyball, and went to the swimming pool there. Now and then, there were 'five o'clock', or tea dances, in the dormitory. And the entire female population of Praga came there looking for romance.

At that time I was also attending the Institute of Judaic Studies 48. I went to Balaban's 49 class on the history of the Jews, to the Aramaic language class taught by Schorr 50. Students at the Institute of Judaic Studies mainly came from Jewish-Polish and Hebrew gymnasiums. Most subjects were taught in Hebrew. The course of studies took four years and led to a master's degree. Institute graduates could become teachers of the religion and history of the Jews in secondary schools. But they had to graduate from Warsaw University as well, for the institute didn't provide a state- recognized certificate.

All that time I supported myself by teaching, by giving private classes. I taught Polish, Latin, and sometimes also German. The more softheaded I taught almost all subjects, bar maths. I gave private classes to girls from the Jehudyja gymnasium on Dluga Street, to the son of Artur Gold 51, the well-known composer; he gave me all the volumes of Schiller 52 in German in gratitude for his son's good grades. The manufacturer of Polonia shaving razors, whose name was, by the way, Friedman, paid me 5 zloty an hour. At 7 Lwowska Street I charged 2.50 zloty.

I gave up my Polish literature course because it was boring. I began to attend the Higher School of Journalism. It was located in the Rey gymnasium on Rozbrat Street, where the SLD 53 headquarters is now. I learnt reportage writing from Wankowicz 54 himself. I started to study journalism in 1934, and finished it in 1938, as I took some breaks in the course. The program consisted of three summer semesters, but it didn't give a master's degree. I got my master's just after the war, at the Journalism Department of Warsaw University.

Each year after the beginning of the academic year, some anti-Semitic row took place. I remember that in the Higher School of Journalism somebody once wrote on a huge board: Professor of Polish Studies Bolewski - Baumfeld, Professor of Political Economy Zelazowski - Eisenbaum, Professor Wasowski - Waserzug. That's when the shoving of Jews to the left side [of the lecture hall] started. The Jews wouldn't take seats on the left side; instead they listened to the lectures standing in protest. Brawls broke out frequently. It happened year after year, and with each year it got worse. In the student dormitory in Praga meetings with lecturers were held: Professor Michalowski 55 from the Democratic Club came after anti-Semitic brawls broke out on the university campus, Dubois 56 of the PPS 57 came to show his solidarity with Jewish students.

On 1st September 1939 I was still in the student dormitory. Afterwards I moved to Nalewki Street, I think. I left Warsaw before the year's end. Then I went back to Kovel. My older sister Regina was working for the Jewish community as typist. My younger sister was attending a Russian-language ten- year school. Mom was working as usual. I went back to giving private lessons. For a short time, I was a teacher of Polish and History; next I became a coach and one of the bosses in the Lokomotif sports club. I earned quite good money for that time.

With a regular population of more than twenty thousand, in the initial period of the Soviet rule Kovel must have had over sixty thousand inhabitants, if not more. A majority of them were 'byezhentsy' or fugitives [from the German-occupied part of Poland]: from Warsaw, from Krakow, from Lodz. When Russians started to deport the 'byezhentsy' to Siberia, that triggered off a scramble to go back to Central Poland, since the Germans had not yet embarked on mass killings; that was in 1940. A commission was established, and people stood in lines overnight in order to register to return under German occupation.

I didn't serve in the Polish Army because they had stopped admitting Jews to officer training schools in perhaps 1934 in order not to train Jews as officers. Poles with high-school diplomas did a year of military service in officer training schools, but not the Jews.

During the war

I was in the Red Army from 1941. I was called up for three months' training right after the outbreak of the war [the so-called Great Patriotic War] 58. On the Monday I was to be given the rank of sergeant and go home, but the war started on the Sunday, 22nd June. And I was doing my military service 12 kilometers from Kovel. It was five in the morning when German planes appeared in the sky and began to mow everything down.

They destroyed the planes of the air-force division in which we were serving, fired on our wooden barracks, and killed dozens of men in the process. A horrible mess ensued; we went into retreat. We had several automobiles; while we drove on, we were constantly under fire from German planes. We were heading eastwards through forests, being attacked by Ukrainians. About 100 of us managed to reach Kiev.

Stalin issued an order that all 'kresowiacy' [Poles living in Soviet- occupied Eastern Poland, today the Western part of the Ukraine and Belarus, as well as some parts of Lithuania] were to be transferred to labor battalions. They were to be stripped of their arms since they were unreliable. The Commissar of my battalion, a construction battalion, was an old Bolshevik, Izaac Yakovlevitch Limanov. He claimed to be a Ukrainian, but whenever he uttered a word, I knew that it had come from the depths of the Talmud. He was an intelligent, well-educated man.

What did we build, then? Well, anti-tank ditches, 'maskirovki', or embankments designed to camouflage airplanes. We didn't have any arms. We were given 800 grams of bread per day, when other battalions, labor battalions, got 400 grams of bread. From Kiev we began to retreat in order to carry out projects in the hinterland. The road got muddy before Kharkov; our automobiles couldn't get through. We got bogged down in one place called Bogodukhov. The Germans had already come as far as Kharkov and we could have fallen into their hands any day. A miracle happened overnight: the temperature fell below freezing and the ground froze; we were able to drive on.

Civilian fugitives started coming through Bogodukhov. Among the refugees I met an acquaintance from my native town. Zelcer is his name. To this day he lives in Jerusalem. In fact, it is thanks to me that he is alive. Along with the rest, he was escaping eastwards; when he saw me, he leapt towards me and said: 'Do something, I can't walk any more.' So I approached Limanov, the commander, and told him: 'This is a friend of mine; he is a dentist.' It just so happened that the battalion commander was suffering from toothache just then, and his mug was swollen. And Zelcer was a dental technician. Limanov gave the order to immediately provide Zelcer with a uniform, and he stayed with us in the capacity of doctor.

With the Germans already hot on our heels, we started off northwards, toward Voronezh, where the Don begins. Moving downstream along the Don, we would march to Cossack 59 'stanitzas'; that's what Cossack villages are called. The Cossacks still had their uniforms and their arms from the tsarist times at home. Their houses were nicer and better built; had brick fundaments. Through snow, across the frozen river, we arrived in one 'stanitza', Nizhnichirskaya. There I assigned my people to quarters; I found a house for myself with a clean cowshed where I saw two cows. I figured that I would get some food there.

And indeed, they received me with great hospitality. There were hardly any men around, just one crippled man, a veteran of the Japanese war; the rest of the men were at the front, and only women remained in the village. I was covered in lice. When they had made my bed and given me very nice, clean sheets, I undressed and hung my shirt outdoors so that the cold would kill the lice. Not once did I get sick there. In the evening the neighbors gathered, and then I hear the question: 'Kto to takoy?' [Who is he?]; so I told them where I was from and that I was a Jew. They say: That can't be! They hadn't seen a Jew in their life but their attitude was, of course, negative. For Russian standards, they lived quite comfortably and were very well provided for winter. They had excellent milk, very fat, and fried 'bliny' - potato pancakes topped with cream. I obviously had a field kitchen, on which we cooked millet groats. In the evenings the neighbors would gather to listen to the news from Poland. 'How many suits, costumes did you have?' they asked. 'Did you throw away your shoes twice a year, or perhaps three times a year?'

The rest of the battalion was staying in various homes. In the mornings there would be a roll call and then we would leave for work. In that freezing cold we would begin to hack the ground with crowbars in order to build a railroad embankment. The temperature got as low as -30 degrees Celsius. When the morning groats were issued, the groats were frozen before you could reach for your wooden spoon. The spoon was important: whoever didn't have one could die of hunger. We carved them from wood and kept them inside our shoes. Frequently, we would leave for work at night because during the day the planes took off and the snow had to be scraped off the tarmac with plows. After that, we were building a railroad track between Stalingrad and Saratov when the Germans were about to approach. That was in 1942.

Later on, we were stationed in Kamishin, not far from Peza in Martwota Bezsenna county I stayed in the house of a teacher; she had a three-year- old boy who constantly sucked at her breast from hunger. But: in that house there were books I could read. While living in Kamishin, I used to go by sleigh to get provisions and on the way we would be often chased by packs of wolves. Then you would set fire to some hay and throw it at the wolves; that would frighten them away.

It must have been in 1943 that our battalion was moved southwards, to the coast of the Caspian Sea. The river Ural flows into the Caspian Sea and it has an arm - the Emba; there were some petroleum deposits there. Since the German forces were approaching the Caucasus and had got close to Baku where the main oil fields were located, the Russians were forced to begin extracting oil from the Emba. In the past it hadn't been cost-effective, for the petroleum deposits were located at a great depth and were limited. But then the Russians had embarked on the construction of an oil refinery. Transports began to arrive with American equipment; in American crates with cargo lists. So they called me to the commanding post and ordered me to translate the lists. I said: 'I don't know English.' 'Hm hm, you don't know English? Now, what is the Polish alphabet like?' I said: 'Latin.' 'And the English alphabet?' 'Latin,' I say. 'Well, then you know English! If you don't know a word, we will help you.' And that is how I became the battalion's English language expert.

In 1943 we encountered a transport of Poles who were going to join the First Division of the Polish Army [1st Kosciuszko Infantry Division] 60. There were also other people from my town in my battalion; one of them was Mojsze Szajewicz Szojb, a very good tailor. And one day he says to me: 'you know what? I'm fed up with all this. I'm going to volunteer for the Polish Army.' He and another man, Baumgart, went to the 'wojenkomat' [wartime recruiting board], saying that they wanted to join the armed forces of the Union of Polish Patriots, which was being organized. Well, they sent them right away to the commanders for punishment. But Szojb got lucky, and he wrote me a letter after some time. 'Imagine - they have ordered a suit for Stalin from me.' And he made clothes for Stalin, that Mojsze Szajewicz Szojb from Kovel.

Later on, when we were stationed in Goriev [a Kazakh town situated at the point where the Ural river enters the Caspian Sea], I became a sort of business sergeant. Several dozen battalions worked there. My battalion included about one hundred people, a majority of whom were Ukrainians, with some Poles and Jews. Later on, they conscripted people whose families were subjected to repression, and 'nacmen' [people of different than Russian nationality], as they called them, or ethnic minorities: Kazakhs, Uzbeks or Chechens, and other such 'unreliables'. I remember one engineer named Usov, a very intelligent man who hadn't been accepted into the regular army because a relative of his had been jailed for political propaganda.

I told them in Goriev that I wanted to be sent to the Polish army. It was early in 1944; I got the referral order and set off for the liberated part of Ukraine, to the town of Sumy. The trains didn't run regularly. In accordance with military needs, engines were stopped and requisitioned to be attached to another train. Railroad stations were crammed with people. Just having a ticket wasn't enough; each ticket had to be approved, which meant it that required a special stamp. Then the person in charge of the train, a woman in most cases, would let you into a car. At this point a terrible tumult and yelling always began, as there wasn't enough room for everybody - at that time all Russia was on the move. My travel companion was a Ukrainian; Zacharchuk was his name, who clung to me with terrible persistence. We had to stay at railroad stations for days on end and slept there at night. Zacharchuk and I took turns sleeping because of the dreadful stealing that went on there. I had shoes and some food in my small sack. I kept waking up anxiously and asking him: 'Listen, are you holding that sack?' 'I am.' And in fact, he had been holding it. Except that someone had cut open the bottom and taken the shoes and the cans.

At Sumy station, a Polish officer met us; I hadn't seen a Polish military uniform for many years then. It was February 1944. People were arriving from various directions, also from Poland; among them officers from the headquarters of the army that was being organized. Selection was being made for different military formations. Someone who was a carpenter or a joiner would be sent to the sappers. Those who had a smattering of education would go on a sort of short officer training course, which lasted a few months. People with, let's say, a business background would be assigned to the quartermaster's staff. It was a kind of market for soldiers. General Swierczewski, the chief commander, came; his deputy at that time was Major Grosz. Grosz, later on a well-known essayist, had translated Lejzorek Rojtszwanc before the war. I was offered the position of instructor with the First Regiment. I gave lectures on the political situation, history, Polish literature, etc. At the time people were being brought from all over to join the Polish army, including Jews who had volunteered for Anders' army 61 and had been rejected. My own commanding officer was a Soviet Pole, or a Pole born in the Soviet Union and Russified. Since I had university-level education, I was sent as instructor to the political officers' school in Sumy.

When I was returning from Russia on a troop train that passed through Kovel, I asked my commanding officer for leave of absence and went down to the town to look for the remains of our home. It was 1944. I hadn't had any contact with home during that entire time. I had sent letters to my family from several localities, but I don't know if they arrived. And now I was on my way to Lublin. I walked through a ruined town; the house in which I used to live no longer existed.

I found one acquaintance, a Jewish woman who had gone out of her mind. She was walking round talking nonsense. She had had a little child who had started crying terribly when they were hiding in some bunker; several dozen other people were hiding there as well, and they suffocated the child. Nine people survived from the entire town; out of 18,000 Jews. I came across a girlfriend of my sister's, a Pole; she gave me several photographs. She told me in detail how it had been done. I learnt about the torments the Jews had gone through, how they had been put behind barbed wire. During all that time, Marysia, that Polish girl, had been meeting with my sister in secret.

My elder sister, Regina, married a 'byezhenets', a laryngologist from Warsaw, his name was Fryde. She was pregnant, about to give birth. My younger sister was in hiding outside the ghetto; she was at a very good place, somewhere with a Polish family in Kovel. But when she heard that the Germans had surrounded the ghetto and taken away everyone to be shot, she left her hiding place and went to join her mother and sister. Mom and both my sisters were killed.

Some seven kilometers outside the town there is a huge grave, a very long ditch - I didn't want to go there. The place is called Koszary. As they had been surrounded prior to the execution, my history teacher, Josef Abruch, made a speech. He said that the Jewish nation lived, lives, and shall live. They were forced to undress from the waist up, and then shot dead. I only went to the synagogue, as people said that there were inscriptions on the walls there made by those condemned to death.

It was the Eppelbaum synagogue. And there were inscriptions on the walls. Someone had written this: It is a beautiful summer day - it was August, I think - and I am to die tomorrow, yet I want so much to live. And the name: Wydra. Wydra was a girl I used to know and we had been very close friends. She was one of the few [Jewish] graduates of the Slowacki gymnasium. Her father was a physician and I had been a frequent visitor at their place. There must have been several dozen such inscriptions. How did they come to be there? The Germans took all the Jews out of the town, to Koszary, made them dig a grave, and then shot them all, one after another. That took several days. Some managed to escape from the Germans, who couldn't catch them. And then all of them, those caught who hadn't been killed in Koszary were assembled in one place so that they could be executed en masse. Before their death, they wrote on that wall in the synagogue. One woman, Gips was her name, a stunning, beautiful girl, had two children, and her husband was in Russia; she wrote him a letter on that wall: May you avenge the innocent death of your wife and your children.

The liberation of Warsaw

I reached Lublin after 22nd July 1944 and remained there until the liberation of Warsaw. I taught at the Political and Educational Officers' School. The day after Warsaw was liberated, I went there to see if I could find anyone. I saw ruins and a great emptiness; there was no way to figure out which street you were on. The Jewish district had been wiped out; other streets, too. I came back very quickly. Afterwards, the officers' school was transferred to Lodz. It was there that all the important institutions were based. At the time, much publicity was being given to a proposal to make Lodz the capital of Poland, instead of Warsaw. I remained in Lodz until 1946. In 1946 they sent me to the Infantry Officers School in Inowroclaw as deputy commander. I became a major. From there they sent me to Krakow, to the Infantry Officers' School. From 1947 on I was in Wroclaw. I organized an evening high school for cadets, since they didn't have high school diplomas. There was a slogan then: Not a high school diploma, but honest intentions will make an officer out of you. I hired there a whole galaxy of teachers, and everyone got his diploma in three years.

In Lublin a Jewish club was established for all the survivors who registered there. It was named after Peretz and located on Lubartowska Street. The Sukkot holiday came around. I was on duty and I thought to myself: 'Let's go and see. Perhaps I'll run into someone.' Dinner was served; I was sitting there in my uniform - I don't recall now whether I was a lieutenant or second lieutenant then - and right across the table from me a man was sitting, and it seemed to me that I knew his face. All of a sudden, he speaks to me: 'Friedman?' And I say: 'Feldszu!' It was my last teacher from Kovel! We embraced each other over the table; he delivered a toast, then I did. He had obviously realized that it wouldn't be smart for him to remain in Poland since they would get at him for being a Zionist and a right-winger. And he left for Israel.

In Lublin and in Lodz I kept in touch with Jews. In Lublin I used to drop by the Peretz house. When in 1946 in Lodz I came across an acquaintance of my cousin, he said: 'Do you know that Regina is alive?' That was Regina Zonenszajn, her mother was my father's elder sister, who was Rybicka by marriage; her husband was a lawyer in Warsaw. She survived even though she had spent time at the Pawiak [the central prison of Warsaw under the German occupation]. It was her head that was measured by a German anthropologist, who concluded that she was an Aryan. Regina had been hiding her husband, a well-known lawyer whose name was Rainberger. Once she stepped outside to fetch water from the well, and at that very moment a bomb hit the house and killed her husband.

Jozef Kermisz, a doctor of history, joined our school while we were still in Zytomierz. And later, in 1947 in Lodz, a Jewish historical committee was established to document the history of the Holocaust. Its members included a Bund activist, Szuldenfrei, Adolf Berman, Rachela Auerbach, and Kermisz. I kept in contact with them. I trusted them and they trusted me; besides, for me the committee was a source of all kinds of information. In Wroclaw I attended all the theater productions of the Jewish Theater in civilian clothes. Now and then I would read Jewish newspapers. At the time, several newspapers, including some in Polish language, were published.

I remember that once in Wroclaw, it was in May, perhaps on the 15th, in 1948, I met an officer, a Jew, who started to congratulate me. I said to him: 'What are you congratulating me on?' 'We've got Palestine. Israel has been established.' I was flabbergasted. I hadn't thought of leaving. Well, there was a measure of opportunism, some vanity behind it. I held an important post, the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was unswervingly loyal. I believed that some time in the future there would come a day when I would go.

My wife Teresa

I met a female medical student. That was in Wroclaw in 1949. I was walking her home when she started an interrogation: 'Do you have family here? Are you married?' I said: 'No, I am not married, but I am going to get married soon.' 'To whom, if I may ask?' 'To you.' Teresa is from Przemysl; her maiden name was Lichota. She comes from quite a wealthy Jewish family. She had spent the war years in Hungary. Her father was a physician, and had been mobilized for the war. And his entire regiment crossed the border and got interned. The Hungarians were unbelievably well disposed toward Poles. My wife's family had remained there the entire time as a Polish family. Teresa returned to Poland in 1945. So we got married, and finally settled in Warsaw. Andrzej was born in Lodz in 1951. At present Andrzej, our only child, is a professor of neurology in Warsaw.

I was soon transferred to Warsaw as head of the defense ministry's publishing house, which was related to a trend to polonize the military - there were too many Jewish soldiers in the army at that time, they thought. It was January 1952. Adolf Bromberg, head of that publishing house, had been promoted to deputy minister and someone had to take over his job. For me, it was a demotion in some ways.

I became director of the Board of publishing houses. That was my job for ten or eleven years, until 60. Next, I was suddenly sent on a so-called academic course at the Academy of General Staff, where during one year I went through basically the entire curriculum of the Academy of General Staff. I completed the course, but they didn't have a job for me. I would pick up my salary at the personnel department and go home. Later I got an assignment as deputy director of the Military Institute for Aviation Medicine. I spent four years there. The year 1967 came [the year of the anti-Semitic purges] and all the Jews, myself included, were discharged from the military with great brouhaha. Not that there had been many of us, perhaps 200. I was expelled from the Party and sent home. At first, I nursed a sense of personal grievance, next I felt that an injustice was being done to the entire nation that had survived, but in the end I realized that I had made a wrong-headed choice. And then I found myself, as they say, on the street and in a void; it was only in that void that I found proper meaning for myself. As translator and teacher of Jewish languages!

Working as a translator and teaching Jewish languages

How did it really begin, what made me decide to take up translation? It came out of the fury that would overcome me when reading 'Literatura na Swiecie' [a quarterly], an excellent periodical that published literature of even the tiniest of nations, but failed to notice the great Jewish literature, which was quite literally at hand. Thus, driven actually by rage, especially that this was happening after the expulsion of the last remaining Jews [reference to 1968 and the final wave of emigration of Polish Jews], after I found myself on the street [Michal Friedman had been forced to take early retirement], I proposed to the editor-in-chief of 'Literatura na Swiecie', that I would prepare an issue devoted to Jewish literature. I presented to him fragments of the most famous books by eminent Jewish writers: Sholem Aleichem, Peretz, Mendel Moicher Sforim 62, Itzik Manger and Kacyzyna 63. And he accepted.

Previously, I had translated Jewish short stories for Folksztyme and some plays for the Jewish Theater. I interpreted from Yiddish into Polish for audiences who listened to the lines on headphones. I enjoyed the thought that through 'Literatura na Swiecie' I would reach the intelligent reader who had no idea what kind of literature the Jews had created in such a short span of time. For indeed, literary Yiddish had just emerged and begun to attain the height of its potential when it was killed. That issue of 'Literatura na Swiecie' [an entire issue in 1984 was devoted to Yiddish literature] was a great success, and right away I was commissioned by the PIW [State Publishing Institute] to translate 'The Book of Paradise': a very witty story, which became a bestseller.

Later Wojdowski 64 who had been familiar with my translations published in 'Literatura na Swiecie' contacted me and asked for more translations. I translated for him several short stories by Sutzkever 65 from his volume 'Green Aquarium'. They were published in 'Massada', a periodical edited by Wojdowski.

At the beginning of the 1980s, I had a visit from representatives of Wydawnictwo Dolnoslaskie [Lower Silesia Publishing House] who wanted to know if I could prepare them a plan for the publication of a serial edition of Jewish classics. That suited me very well. I made up such a plan, comprising more than 20 titles, and these translations of mine began to appear in large editions. There isn't a single Jewish classic writer who hasn't been translated by me. The series has been published since 1983, and so far 15 volumes have come out, 13 of which were translated by me. Nowhere else in the world is an entire series of Jewish literature published the way it is done by Wydawnictwo Dolnoslaskie in Poland!

I visited Sutzkever in Tel Aviv in the middle of the 1990s. He spoke excellent Polish. Sutzkever's house in Tel Aviv is really an art gallery. Chagall 66 and he were friends, and Chagall gave him a number of beautiful items. So we talked about my translations of his short stories. I have preserved a letter Sutzkever wrote to me, about how delighted he was with the transposition of the meaning that is hidden behind the words of Yiddish into Polish. Those short stories sold out very quickly and received very good reviews.

Though he has written pretty good short stories, Sutzkever is above all a poet. In my opinion: one of the greatest poets in the world. A man who made Yiddish into something of an instrument for verbalizing the most tender and most subtle shades of meaning that can come from the heart and mind. He is the inventor of the most brilliant neologisms. It is very hard to translate him, to find adequate terms in Polish. I believe that he is the most outstanding Jewish poet in the world, who had bad luck. He has been put forward for the Nobel Prize several times; recently, it was Isaac Bashevis Singer - whom Sutzkever couldn't stand - who snatched the Nobel from him.

In my opinion, Singer is a very good writer and worthy recipient of the [Nobel] prize. Many critics believe that he was no match for his brother, Joshua Singer 67. There is one reason why I claim that he grew to equal standards and, at certain moments, even surpassed his brother. Because Joshua is eminently shut in the Jewish world while Bashevis Singer has introduced themes, elements that can be easily transposed into world literature. Bellow [Saul Bellow, b. 1915, Canadian-born American novelist] translated him into English and those translations caught on splendidly. My own translations of Singer's short stories have been published in various periodicals. When Singer was given the Nobel in 1978, I translated his short story 'Mendel the Gravedigger' for 'Przekroj' [an illustrated weekly]. Muza [a Polish publisher of Singer] was always in a hurry with Singer and published him in translations from English, and very often they are lousy.

Singer has led his reader to exotic Jewish literature, shown him fragments of the Hasidic world, saturated with mysticism and with some new eroticism not previously seen in literature. Singer is an eminent writer who found his moment of time. Peretz, the greatest Jewish writer, didn't find his way into world literature, at all, you see, whereas Sholem Asch did. It is largely a matter of luck, chance.

Asch had the luck of marrying a very pretty, very progressive, and very energetic woman, who introduced him into the world of the intelligentsia, the world of Polish writers. Her father was an excellent expert on Polish language and a teacher of Hebrew. His contemporary, Icie Meir Weisenberg, a writer endowed with huge talent, made his debut with a short story bearing the same title as Asch's own story - 'A Shtetl'; he proved to have a great talent but married a virago, an infernal woman who didn't let him work, bullied him, and as a result he never left the confines of the Jewish world. Asch was the only writer who made his living by writing. I have translated three of his works: 'The Man from Nazareth,' 'The Witch of Castile' which are eight short stories, a beautiful book, and 'Kiddush Ha- Shem.'

Asch was bewitched by the subject of those traces of Christianity that developed from Jewish roots. They didn't want to print him in 'Forwerts'; they stopped the printing of 'Man from Nazareth,' didn't they? Censorship of sorts. The editor, I don't recall his name, could have been Rozenberg, organized a boycott of him as a traitor and a renegade. In Palestine, where Asch lived at that time, they held a demonstration against him. It must have been 1940. The Committee for the Defense of Asch was formed, headed by Mordechai Canim, an immigrant from Poland and an excellent journalist, and they published Asch in Hebrew. Asch's widow had his entire output. She lived in London. I asked her to make it available for me. But she didn't want to hand it over as she bore a huge grudge against the Jews. No more than seven people came to Asch's funeral in London; the Jews boycotted him. And he was a brilliant writer.

I also consider Peretz an eminent writer, who, as I say, wasn't lucky. His is a different type of literature; it comes from a different world. Peretz's background wasn't that of Jewish Orthodoxy, shut in within the Talmud, since he'd had a secular education. He corresponded with his fiancée in Polish. Wrote his first poems in Polish. There is a beautiful Yiddish short story of his called 'What is the Soul?,' which he translated into Polish himself. Later, I translated it into Polish, too, and published it in the collection 'Hasidic and Folk Stories.' On that issue I even had a dispute with Szmeruk [a yiddishist and a historian], who wanted to do the series together with me. Szemruk proposed that we publish the original translation. But it was so poor in Polish that I wouldn't agree. I have translated a number of short stories by Peretz.

Once I translated 'Everyday Jews' by Perle. It was one part of the trilogy he had been working on in the [Warsaw] ghetto. The second and third volumes he always kept in a suitcase that he lugged along wherever he went. One day there was a roundup in the street and he got caught in it, and the suitcase got left behind somewhere. Rachela Auerbach 68, who had been looking after him, ran to get the suitcase but it was already gone. Perle was killed in the ghetto.

Nowadays I plan my workweeks in advance, but I work every day and this keeps me in shape. I used to be incredibly productive. I used to translate, as I might say, off the top of my head, but now I have to think very hard. Awaiting publication in the Wydawnictwo Dolnoslaskie are my Bashevis - ten short stories translated from the original - and my crowning achievement, 'Talmudic Haggadah.' They have already published my 'Midrashes', and now it should be the turn of the Haggadah, which is some 600 or 700 pages.

I have just finished translating Kacyzne. The title is 'The Strong and the Famous'. It is about the period covering the beginning of World War I, the birth of Poland, and the Soviet revolution, a time of increasing stratification in the Jewish community, the crisis of various ideologies, and the birth of new ideologies, and includes a great deal of historical facts. It is a very interesting work but sometimes the writing is so terribly third-rate that it sets your teeth on edge. There are also numerous repetitions, such simple editing errors. So in order to circumvent some things I have cut out fragments of text at times. Unfortunately, I lost two large chapters, for my translation had been typed up for me by a secretary from the Jewish commune, a Polish woman, who had been doing this for me for 20 years. She could read my handwriting better than I can, and she suddenly died on the job. She had stashed these texts away somewhere in such a way that they couldn't be found. But somehow I have managed to finish this translation after almost two years of work.

I translated from Hebrew eight short stories by Agnon 69; they have also been published by the Wydawnictwo Dolnoslaskie. I find it harder to translate from Hebrew than from Yiddish. The translation of Agnon went pretty well, since he was a native of Buczacz, and his Hebrew, like mine, is the Hebrew of the Diaspora. In contrast, Amos Oz's 70 prose, for example, includes a number of words or expressions that are unfamiliar to me. My experience with translations has led me to the conclusion that the Polish language is idiomatically closer to Yiddish than to Hebrew, despite the fact that Yiddish contains a huge number of Hebrew words, about 20 percent. In my opinion, Yiddish literature has left a richer legacy of first-rate works than the literature produced in Hebrew. It is a more world- class, universal, and less hermetic literature. As a matter of fact, I am an unfulfilled writer; intentionally unfulfilled, as I have decided that whatever I could write myself would be unworthy of the writing I translate.

I taught Hebrew at the University for several years, in parallel with taking the Yiddish language class. I have taught Hebrew and Yiddish at TSKZ 71 for many years - about 700 students of both languages have passed through my classes. I still teach Yiddish in the Jewish Theater, twice a week.

Most of my students are Poles, not Jews. But I must be hardened, because I don't care about it in the least while I'm teaching them. These young Jews of today are from a different world. And these Poles are also a bit not from this world. They meet somewhere. There is a group that learnt Yiddish with me for years, all of them Poles. We studied Yiddish literature and discussed it in Yiddish. Now they have decided to meet in a private apartment to talk in Yiddish. And they are doing it. A sort of club of Polish Yiddishists, Poles-Yiddishists in fact.

Which was my first language: Yiddish or Hebrew? This is a dilemma that Jews have had since the birth of their national consciousness. Jews have always used several languages. It was either Hebrew and Aramaic, or Hebrew and Greek for the elite; during the Babylonian rule Aramaic had the upper hand relative to Hebrew. Afterwards, in the Persian times, the elite wrote in Persian and in Aramaic. Next came Arabic; after all, Maimonides wrote in Arabic; later he translated Arabic into Hebrew. After that, there was Spanish and the Jewish language Ladino, then German and Alt Yiddish. While speaking in all those other languages, in their writing the Jews have always used the Hebrew script. When the Crusades began, Jews were locked up in ghettos and their German started to deteriorate, turning into a jargon, since it had been cut off from its German root. Contemporary Yiddish evolved out of Alt Yiddish at the beginning of the 20th century. In the Talmud it is written that Greek is the best language to sing in, Latin to command an army in, Hebrew to tell a story in, and Aramaic to talk in. And I am going to add to this by saying that the best in all these languages can be found in Yiddish.

In my own life, there was a period when Hebrew gained the upper hand over Yiddish. It was an ideology, Zionism. I have never mastered Hebrew completely, however. I absorbed Yiddish in a natural way. For me, Yiddish is more emotional. You curse in it, you bless in it, and your first feelings are expressed in it. Myself, I count in Yiddish, not in Polish, to this very day. I have developed a close relationship with Polish. There was a time when I knew 'Bieniowski', Kochanowski, Asnyk [famous pieces of Polish literature] by heart. And today? I speak occasionally in Yiddish with those who come to visit this country. Here in Warsaw there is in fact nobody I could speak Yiddish with. Only with Kac [Daniel Kac, one of the last living Yiddishists, a writer], who calls me very often to ask the question: 'What is it in Polish?' and with whom I then speak not in Polish but in Yiddish.

There are many whom I have taught Yiddish. Some of them translate, others teach Yiddish at universities. There was one boy who studied with me for several years. He came by an overnight train from Poznan and I taught him for free because I realized that he was a very gifted boy. He translated Rabon's 'Street'. He did it rather well. So there will be someone to continue this work. For me, it is important that this series of translations is continued. Before 1968, I used to go regularly to the Jewish Theater, naturally in civilian clothes. In Wroclaw, where I taught at the Infantry School, I also went to all the plays. The theater in Warsaw used to be located in a barrack on Krolewska Street, in the place where the Victoria hotel stands today. It had been the building of the Polish Army Theater, later handed over to the Jewish Theater. After the war there were two Jewish theaters in Poland: Ida Kaminska's 72 theater in Lodz - that theater used to be housed in the building of the current Teatr Nowy - and the one in Wroclaw. Then in the 1950s the two theaters were merged into a single, state-owned theater with its home in Warsaw; it was a traveling theater. I remember a production of 'Meir Ezofovich', in which Ida Kaminska had a beautiful silent role and Juliusz Berger made his mark as the young Ezofovich.

My personal relationship with the Jewish Theater in postwar Poland really began in 1969. I had already been pensioned-off; it happened after the 'de- jewification' of the Polish army. One day someone from the post-Kaminska Jewish Theater came to see me. Ida Kaminska had emigrated in 1968, and the theater was taken over by Juliusz Berger, I think, who was its first director, before Szurmiej. Szurmiej [Szymon, the current director of the Jewish Theater] is a native of Luck and was aware that I knew Yiddish and Hebrew. And my visitor wanted to know if I would agree to teach Yiddish to a new generation of actors. After Ida Kaminska's departure there were only seven actors left. Well, you couldn't stage a play with seven actors. I readily agreed because I suddenly discovered here a purpose, a task I could accomplish. There was a recruitment drive among young Jews who hadn't left in 1968 or 1969, and I began to teach them Yiddish. After the first two years, more groups, young people from mixed marriages, came, and then still more groups - those included hardly any Jews. And all this time I have served the theater as consultant, and translated the lines into the headphones [simultaneous interpretation into Polish].

I also acted in two plays. Szurmiej came up with this idea in order to save money. In Israel I had to appear in a play, which I had translated, from Russian into Yiddish. It was Babel's 73 'Dusk'. I remember that after the performance in Israel some Jews came backstage to express their indignation that we had staged that play; the action takes place on Moldawianka, inside the Jewish underworld, where Antek is a thief and Manka is a whore - and how can a Jewish theater show such things? I translated 'The Dybbuk' into Polish and I played the shammash in the production. That was in the 1980s, already after our guest tour in Israel.

I met Ida Kaminska for the first time when she came to Poland on some important anniversary of the death of her mother, Estera Rachela Kaminska [one of the greatest actresses of the Jewish Theatre acting in Europe before WW II], who is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw. In the West, Ida hadn't had a spectacular career; she felt deeply embittered. She was staying at the Bristol hotel and expressed a wish to meet with the actors of the Jewish theater. We all went to dinner. I remember an unending line of Polish actors and actresses who came to the theater to bow down before Ida Kaminska and express their regret over her emigration. In America she wrote a book of memoirs, had several appearances on television, and that was it. She went to Israel to create Yiddish theater there, but the atmosphere was unfavorable, and she returned embittered to America.

The difference in quality between the theater under Ida Kaminska and the theater in the subsequent period is enormous. During her times, each production was a major artistic event; all that came to an end with her departure. Not a word is said about contemporary theater because there is nothing to talk about. The gap is enormous. The reason is that there are neither good directors nor good actors. However, all is perhaps not irretrievably lost, as a new and quite active generation is growing, so who knows?

The creation of the state of Israel represented the fulfillment of a dream that had grown more intensive with the course of history. The state of Israel is one of the main guarantors of the continuing existence of the Jewish nation. In the past, religion provided the link that united all the dispersed Jews. I think that all the centers of the Diaspora should be guarantors of the existence of the state of Israel. The Diaspora has enormous significance for Israel. I am not sure that Israel realizes this.

I went to Israel for the first time in 1980. I hadn't had any contact with my cousin's family. One day I went to Yad Vashem 74 on the business of the Ringelblum Archive 75 - they wanted us to give them the archive, but we opposed that idea, since without the archive our entire Institute [the Jewish Historical Institute] 76 serves no purpose. However, given that the most valuable documents in the Ringelblum Archive were typed or handwritten with carbon copies, as many as five in some cases, and the first copy is almost as legible as the original, I could discuss with them the handing over of the copies. And a deal was reached. On that occasion I met a man there who invited me to dinner. So we are sitting in his home and it turns out that he is a Chelm native, and I used to tutor girls from Chelm, for in Chelm there was a Jewish gymnasium without accreditation, so its students did the eighth grade in town, in Kovel. I taught one young girl whose last name was Duniec. She was from the richest family in Chelm.

My host begins to brag about his close relations with Begin, keeps dropping names of generals, and so on. So I say to him: 'Listen, did you know Jundow?' 'But of course I did. And how come you know him?' 'He is,' I say, 'my closest cousin.' He responds: 'OK, but Jundow is dead.' 'I know that,' I say, 'but his wife is still alive and I don't have her address; she isn't listed in any telephone book, I haven't been able to find her.' 'Wait a minute,' he says, 'she works for the General Staff.' He calls the secretariat on the spot and a moment later he gives me her phone number and address. When I called, Janusz's widow answered the phone. Naturally, he drove me there immediately. When we arrived at her place, everybody was already there, the entire family. I was very moved.

When we came with the Jewish Theater in the 80s, it was a huge event for Israel, for the gates of captivity had suddenly been flung open. We couldn't go directly to Israel since there were no diplomatic relations, so we traveled first to Belgrade - where our actors took part in an American series called 'The Winds of War' - and from there we went to Israel. At the airport we were met by a swarm of journalists. They didn't speak Yiddish. And the director of the theater says at a certain point: 'You are having such a hard time, but we have Friedman here; he speaks Hebrew.' So they descended on me like the proverbial bees. And the dialogue began. I hadn't used the language for sixty years but during that conversation I felt as if I had just left my classroom. My schoolmates, who had left in the 1930s, saw our arrival on television and began to call the hotel. That reception at the airport cost me a sleepless night because everybody called. My most recent visit to Israel was for a meeting of the World Council for Yiddish, some eight years ago.

In Poland we have a small Jewish community split into a number of organizations and associations. We have two Jewish periodicals. In principle, we have all the attributes of a great community, except that we don't have the people. When I am asked: 'What do Polish Jews need?' I say: 'Jews.' There are always two points of view: one pessimistic and one optimistic. Some see hope in the young people who are attracted to Jewish causes, even though they have frequently Catholic backgrounds. A sort of new type of Jewish community may develop here, but it would be very different from the historic Polish Jewry.

In 1991, Miles Lerman, the first director of the Holocaust Museum, came to Warsaw. They didn't have too much material for the museum, though they had been collecting it around the world. And he says: 'I will help you with the archives, but lend us one of Ringelblum's two milk cans.' We did it, lending, as they say, for eternity, being aware that they would never return it. Nevertheless, we insisted that it be a loan. [The milk can was lent for an exhibition to the Holocaust Museum in 1991. The deposit agreement is renewed every five years.]

That was probably in 1991, during one of the Pope's [John Paul II] visits to Warsaw. The Pope expressed his wish to meet with the Jewish community. At the time, a so-called Coordination Committee uniting several Jewish organizations was in existence. I was then the acting chairman of the Jewish Historical Institute Association and was chairing, under a rotation system, the Committee, which also included the JSCS and the Jewish religious community. I was tremendously impressed by his kindness of heart and direct manner. We felt that we were dealing with an individual of outstanding importance in the history of the papacy. He greeted us as if we had known each other. He even invited me to take a seat next to him. The main substance of my speech, besides words of recognition for the Pope, who had taken a positive stance toward the Jews, included a request to undertake an effort for the diplomatic recognition of Israel.

The Pope is a just man, like a tzaddik. And in the view of the sages of the Talmud and the cabalists, a just man stands higher than angels in the hierarchy of saintliness and importance. Angels only sing songs of praise and carry out directives, while a tzaddik, Hasid, or a just man, at times gets even a chance to change God's judgment, for his pleas, made in direct dialogue, may be granted. An angel gets the order to come down to earth to protect that man, whereas the tzaddik does it by his own will and his own inclination, and for this reason he stands higher than the angel in the hierarchy of importance.

Since the Pope's visit, this Judeo-Christian dialogue has become more visible in Poland, and there is an extraordinary need for it. The accumulation of stereotypes has been far greater in Poland than elsewhere. For example, the issue of the involvement of Poles in saving Jews has surfaced recently. And in fact, there used to be a stereotype that during the wartime the Poles were blackmailers and anti-Semites, and no mention was made of just Poles. Even the just among the Poles did not flaunt what they had done.

Is Poland an anti-Semitic country? No. Poland is a country where there also are anti-Semites. There is a lot of this ludic brand of anti-Semitism, which is a bit ridiculous. But Poland is also a country in which there is an enormous number of centers that oppose anti-Semitism. I must say that, with the exception of the policy carried out in the military, I haven't experienced anti-Semitism. I have had the fortune of finding myself always in very progressive company.

Glossary

Aristide Streja
Bucureşti
România
Reporter: Anca Ciuciu
Data interviului: Aprilie 2004

Aristide Streja este un pensionar activ, care la 82 de ani încă lucrează pentru comunitatea evreiască ca ghid  şi custode al muzeului Memorialul Martirilor Evrei ”Moses Rosen”. De profesie architect, fost şef de atelier la Institutul de Proiectare pentru Construcţii Tipizate, a proiectat şi construit numeroase clădiri publice şi industriale. A scris împreună cu Lucian Schwartz lucrarea “Sinagogi din România”(1996), o carte mărturie a stării în care se găsesc astăzi multe din sinagogile comunităţilor evreieşti din ţară. Lucrează în Sinagoga Mare, o clădire declarată monument istoric de Academia Română, construită în 1846 şi în care, în anul 1980 a fost inclusă expoziţia Memorialul Martirilor Evrei „Moses Rosen”, o amintire a Holocaustului evreilor din România şi a vechiului cartier evreiesc care exista odată aici. În urmă cu şaptezeci de ani Aristide Streja se juca cu alţi copii evrei în curtea interioară în timp ce părinţii ascultau slujba religiosă, a făcut aici bar mitzvah, iar astăzi din  biroul existent în anexele sinagogii, se preocupă de lucrările destinate menţinerii şi restaurării acesteia.

Familia mea
Copilăria mea
Viața religioasă
Al Doilea Război Mondial
Viața de după Război
Glosar

Familia mea

Bunicii paterni au murit înainte de a mă naşte eu şi înainte de a veni tatăl meu în Bucureşti. Au trăit şi au murit amândoi în Nămoloasa [comună în sudul Moldovei, în judeţul Galaţi] înainte cu mult de primul război mondial, lăsând o familie de câteva persoane. Pe bunicul îl chema Haim Maier Wechsler. Pe bunica o chema Feighe. Tatăl meu, care era cel mai mare, a trebuit să întreţină încă două surori. Nu ştiu în ce condiţii au murit, nu m-am interesat când eram copil şi când am  ajuns destul de mare erau nişte lucruri care nu s-au vehiculat.

Blimette Benjamin [născută Wechsler], sora tatălui meu s-a căsătorit cu Aron Benjamin. Blimette a avut trei copii: Mauriciu, Carol şi o fată, Bori. A emigrat în Israel, devreme, prin 1955. Blimette cu Carol au locuit în chibuţul Nir Itzhac, pe strada Doar HaNeghev.. Blimette a murit prin anii 1970, nu mai ştiu cum s-a întâmplat cu restul familiei. Noi am avut legătură cu Blimette, ne-a spus [în scrisori]cum trăia în chibuţ.

Despre Betti Lupu [născută Wechsler], sora tatălui, foarte multe lucruri nu ştiu să spun. Avea o educaţie de gospodină, nu avea o meserie anume, decât că era croitoreasă, învăţase să facă croitorie şi se ocupa de confecţii, reparaţii de lingerie, şi croitorie de damă. Soţul ei, Lupu, era bolnăvicios şi lucra împreună cu ea, avea un atelier de croitorie, casnic, nu o afacere. Principala susţinătoare a familiei era ea, care muncea foarte mult ca gospodină şi ca lingereasa. Au trăit în Bucureşti, nu ştiu să spun pe ce stradă. Erau nişte persoane religioase. Betti a avut trei copii, Adolf Lupu, doctor internist care în timp ce îndeplinea stagiul militar ca  medic ofiţer a fost ucis, împuşcat, de un ofiţer legionar 1 [în timpul celui de-al doilea război mondial] şi două fete, Fanchette Recu [născută Lupu], căsătorită cu Mişu Recu cu care a avut 2 fiice, şi Evelina [născută Lupu], căsătorită fără copii, care a emigrat în Israel. Betti a fost afectată [de moartea fiului]. A murit soţul întâi şi ea după aceea. N-a fost foarte multă vreme, pentru că după al doilea război mondial familia aceasta dispăruse.

Haim Maier Wechsler, tatăl meu, s-a născut în 1883 la Nămoloasa, şi-a schimbat numele înainte de 1910, în Iulius Wechsler. Tatăl meu s-a însurat la Ploieşti în anul 1912. Fratele şi sora mea, s-au născut înainte de război [Notă: 1916 este anul intrării României în primul război mondial]. Tatăl meu a venit în Bucureşti în jurul anului 1900. Părinţii lui fiind decedaţi, el s-a ocupat cu mici afaceri comerciale şi a putut  să  contribuie la întreţinerea  surorilor sale.

Pe bunicii din partea mamei, familia Letzler, îi cunosc mai bine. Pe bunica o chema Eva Letzler şi pe bunicul îl chema Maier Letzler. S-au născut pe la mijlocul secolului XIX. Bunica mea a murit relativ tânără. Bunicul meu s-a recăsătorit – nu oficial, dar la evrei dacă stai mai mult timp cu o femeie eşti ca şi căsătorit –, a trăit cu o altă femeie pe care o chema tot Eva. Apoi s-a căsătorit şi oficial la starea civilă. El fiind rabin şi şoihăt, cunoscut în lumea evreiască din Ploieşti, nu avea voie să se căsătorească chiar imediat cu altcineva. Am cunoscut-o foarte puţin pe bunica mea [prima soţie a bunicului]. Era subţire, era o femeie foarte draguţă şi crescută moral, foarte liniştită. Era femeie casnică, crescută foarte strict în religia iudaică. Sora mea, care era mai mare ca mine, şi fratele meu, învăţau la şcoala şi nu aveau teme de discuţii cu ea decât de îngrijirea copiilor [atunci când venea în vizită]. A fost bolnavă, a murit, nu ştiu exact când, aproximativ la sfârşitul anilor 1920. Nu ştiu nici de rudele bunicii.

Bunicul era foarte religios, avea un şil pe care îl păstorea la Ploieşti. Bunicul meu aveau o educaţie evreiască sută în sută şi bunica bineînţeles că avea tot o astfel de educaţie. Nu cred că ei aveau şcoala organizată de stat sau într-un fel oarecare, ei au învăţat la ieşiva, se învăţa şi ivrit, dar se învăţa şi româneşte. În casă foloseau limba română şi idiş. Nu cred că cunoşteau alte limbi. Bunicul, era îmbrăcat ca un rabin, cum să spun, în negru, cu caftan lung, cu baston, mergea cu baston. Eu l-am cunoscut, a venit pe la noi de sărbători şi sigur că mama mea a avut şi o educaţie religioasă. Copiii mamei, cum sunt eu şi fratele şi sora mea, nu erau foarte religioşi, când venea bunicul meu la noi îi făcea observaţii mamei că de ce îi lasă pe copiii ei să nu fie respectuoşi. Sora mea era mai liberală în cugetare, aproape comunistă, nu foarte religioasă, nu prea mergea la sinagogă şi când venea bunicul meu la noi îi spunea mamei mele: “Cum o laşi să nu meargă la sinagogă sâmbăta? Cum iţi creşti tu fiica cu asemenea gânduri?“. Bunicul Maier Lezler a murit înainte de al doilea război mondial, aproximativ în anii 1930. Rudele lui, dacă le-a avut, nu ştiu unde erau răspândite.

Am fost o dată la Ploieşti cu mama mea ca să văd casa bunicilor, era o casă parter, destul de derăpănată, dar probabil ca pe acea vreme nu era, şi avea alături o sală mai mare unde era şil. Şilul este numai un loc transformat dintr-o locuinţă sau o încăpere mică în care se aduna un minian de bărbaţi. Sinagogă se  numeşte un lăcaş care este construit special în care se poate face o adunare minian de bărbaţi şi o adunare de femei.

Bunicii materni au avut patru copii. Cel mai mic a murit, fiind bolnav. Numele nu-mi aduc aminte decât la cei trei care au trăit. Se numeau: Simon Letzler, băiatul cel mare, Pene Letzler, băiatul mai mic-copilul intermediar şi Estera Letzler, mama.

Simon Lezler, fratele mamei, s-a născut cam în 1885, la Ploieşti. A făcut studii juridice în Bucureşti, el fiind din Ploieşti, a fost angajat la o societate petroliferă americană şi a plecat în America chiar în anul precedent izbucnirii [primului] războiului mondial în România, adică în 1915. La început a fost vânzător de ziare şi pe urmă s-a angajat funcţionar tot la o societate petroliferă, având experienţă. S-a căsătorit cu o evreică de acolo şi au trăit relativ bine. Are patru copii, o fată, Ana Lezler, care a fost măritată, dar a divorţat şi care nu are copii, şi trei băieţi, Edy, Alfred şi Hary Letzler. Eu i-am cunoscut pe copiii lui. Unul din copiii lui, Ana Letzler a venit în România de câteva ori. Fraţii ei au copii şi nepoţi şi fiecare a avut o meserie intelectuală acolo, unul din ei a fost avocat. Aşa se continuă familia în America, în zona New York.

Pene Letzler, fratele mamei, s-a născut prin 1890, la Ploieşti. A mers la facultate în Bucureşti şi s-a făcut avocat. A fost un avocat de renume în Ploieşti şi făcut şi politică românească, fiind ajutor de prefect de Prahova. A fost locotenent în primul război mondial. Ca să fii avocat evreu în perioada 1930, când au început curentele antisemite în România, era foarte greu. A locuit în Ploieşti, a fost căsătorit cu o doamnă pe care o chema Mili Letzler, nici foarte bogată nici foarte cultivată dar au fost în dragoste. Era evreică. Era foarte greu ca un fiu de rabin să se căsătorescă  cu o femeie care nu este evreică, mai ales într-un oraş din provincie din România. Au avut o singură fată, Dora Letzler, care a studiat şi ea avocatura. Familia Lezler avea o situaţie financiară foarte bună, erau destul de bogaţi, locuiau în casă proprietate personală, ceea ce, era foarte mult atunci, iar casa era pe o stradă principală din Ploieşti. Era o casă de tip boieresc [Notă: Boierii sunt nobilimea românească, proprietari de moşii de regulă, cu case construite în general în stil autohton], cu parter si etaj, cu gard metalic, cu încă un pavilion special pentru femei de serviciu şi loc pentru maşină, cu maşină şi cu un loc pentru creşterea porumbeilor. În timpul războiului al doilea mondial, a fost dat afară din barou, nu a mai putut să practice şi bineînţeles politică nu a mai făcut, avea dosar prost, mizerabil, fiindcă era burghez sută în sută şi situaţia lui devenise foarte proastă din punct de vedere social. Era destul de bogat şi putea să trăiască. Fata lui s-a măritat cu un director de minister şi a venit în Bucureşti, a fost magistrată. A ieşit din magistratură în timpul periodei comuniste, pentru că a avut origine proastă [burgheză], şi pe urmă a fost casnică. L-a adus şi pe tatăl ei în Bucureşti, au vândut proprietatea lor de acolo [din Ploieşti] şi au luat mulţi bani, cu care au putut să trăiască şi să cumpere o altă proprietate în Bucureşti, în bulevardul Lacul Tei. El a murit de o boală de cancer de piele prin anii 1970 şi pe urmă a murit şi fata lui, prin anii 1980, tot având o boală, care atuncea nu s-a putut trata, degenerativă, de colagen. Simon şi Pene erau nişte evrei destul de moderni, nu erau religioşi, ţineau sărbătorile mai mult acasă şi cred că foarte rar mergeau la sinagogă. Nu erau religioşi în sens mistic, ţineau sărbătorile, ştiau că sunt evrei.

Estera Wechsler [născută Letzler], mama mea, s-a născut în 1888, la Ploieşti. A învăţat la pension şi cunoştea germana şi franceza şi idiş, bineînţeles, de acasă. Nu  mi-a povestit din copilărie decât faptul că ea a învăţat, că profesoarele au apreciat-o foarte mult, în special pentru talentul ei la pictură şi desen. Din păcate, sau poate din fericire, nu se poate şti, mama mea s-a căsătorit cu un negustor din Bucureşti şi a venit după bărbatul ei. A întrerupt studiile, ar fi vrut să meargă la Belle Arte [în Bucureşti], profesorii i-au spus să meargă mai departe la facultate. Bunicii mei aveau o educaţie religioasă, habotnică, şi ideile foarte religioase sunt ca fetele să se mărite, dacă e posibil cu un rabin, care ar fi sumum [maxim] ce ar putea să râvnească o fată. Asta a fost destinul mamei mele.

Mama a făcut multe picturi, am şi eu acasă acuma picturi făcute de mama mea. Mama mea a făcut foarte multe lucruri, atunci când noi eram copii, legate acest talent decorativ, ţesea covoare persane, după modele. Fratele meu, care era mai mare îi făcea, îi transpunea nişte modele decorative, pe care le găsea prin reviste, pe un canevas mare cu pătraţele şi mama mea se uita pe modelul care era mic şi pe canevasul pe care era desenat modelul şi ţesea covoare. Ţesea feţe de pernă decorative, una din ele am dat-o la un nepot de al meu şi una din pernele astea o mai am şi acuma la mine. Mama mea avea o cultură destul de importantă, ştia limbi străine, citea literatură şi în limbi străine şi în limba română. Şi tatăl meu a avut intenţia ca să ne dea  la şcoală, dar mama mea a ţinut cu dinţii chiar în sărăcia în care eram, ca noi să învăţam şcoala, şi liceu şi facultate.

Părinţii s-au cunoscut printr-un intermediar, adică probabil că cineva din Ploieşti, văzând că bunicul meu are o fată de măritat, s-a gândit cum să o mărite mai bine. Şi prin intermediar l-a cunoscut pe tatăl meu şi s-au purtat discuţii dacă este cazul să se căsătorească sau nu, dacă îi convine situaţia. Tatăl meu fiind, având o situaţie de negustor, pentru că majoritatea evreilor erau meseriaşi, croitori, cizmari şi aşa mai departe, situaţia de negustor era o situaţie bună pentru un evreu. Şi atuncea mama mea, care era mai educată, pentru era absolventă de pension şi pentru că cunoştea limbi străine şi pentru că s-a ocupat cu pictura şi aşa mai departe, adică mai instruită, a acceptat ca să îl ia de bărbat pe un om  care are o situaţie socială. Fiind o femeie foarte frumoasă a avut copii frumoşi, afară de mine. A acceptat această partidă cu tatăl meu în condiţiile în care amândoi au fost, au considerat că fac o căsătorie fericită, bună şi chiar aşa a şi fost.

Copilăria mea

Stăteam la curte, mai era încă o casă alături cu altcineva. Tatăl meu era comerciant fără salariaţi, el muncea şi, slavă Domnului, era în stare să întreţină aceasta gospodărie. Pe vremea aceea gospodăria era foarte laborioasă. Mama mea, afară că avea grijă de copii, spăla, nu erau maşini de spălat. O zi obişnuită pentru mama era foarte dificilă. Spălatul atuncea era în lighean, pe fiecare copil trebuia să-l spele în lighean, că nu erau băi să poţi să-i speli. Destul că exista alimentare cu apă şi canalizare de la reţele publice.. Asta era un progres  foarte mare. Era apă curgătoare [curentă] în bucătărie şi se spăla în bucătărie. Iarna era foarte dificil. În bucătărie se făcea cald cu lemne în sobă metalică. Aveam lemne în curte. Pe urmă mama trebuia să pregătească o activitate gospodărească foarte laborioasă. Pentru iarnă se pregăteau butoaie mari de murături, cu patlăgele verzi, cu gogoşari, cu varză, toate trebuind a fi aprovizionate şi preparate.. Mai ajuta şi tatăl meu. Era ca o gospodărie de la ţară acuma, dar asta era la oraş. Munca de femeie era foarte grea. Sigur că şi pentru bărbaţi era foarte greu, pentru că ei aveau sarcina să câştige bani şi să mai facă încă unele treburi acasă. Problema banilor într-o epocă capitalistă de început era foarte dificilă. Nu se muncea opt ore, se muncea 12-14 ore pe zi, adică era o viaţă foarte grea, mai ales pentru comercianţii mărunţi.

Tatăl meu vara era foarte ocupat fiindcă mergea la bâlciuri, unde am participat şi eu. Se făceau nişte târguri, nişte bâlciuri în diferite oraşe din Muntenia. Se organizau aceste târguri cu ocazii speciale, dar la intervale proprii acelor orăşele. Erau târguri comerciale, nu era ca azi să fie cinematograf sau orchestre. [Notă: Există şi astăzi astfel de târguri tradiţionale legate de anumite sărbători, unde diferiţi negustori şi meşteşugari îşi vând produsele.] Se vindeau mâncăruri, mititei. Fiecare oraş organiza într-o perioadă, putea să fie şi concomitent în două oraşe. Se făceau nişte barăci construite din lemn, acoperite cu pânza multe dintre ele, cu pământ pe jos şi unde se şi trăia, adică era o cortină şi în spatele ei era un pat, laviţe de culcat. Şi bineînţeles că closetele erau undeva departe, uscate şi publice, apa era de la fântână, adică viaţa era la marginea oraşelelor, pe un câmp organizat, aceste barăci una lânga alta şi cu teşghele din lemn şi se vindeau mărfuri. Tatăl meu vindea mărfuri de lingerie. De multe ori mergeam cu tatăl meu la bâlciuri, ca să-l ajut la vânzare, când aveam vacanţă, vara.

Părinţii mei au avut trei copii: Ştefania, Sebastian şi Aristide Wechsler. Ştefania Rubinger [născută Wechsler], sora mea s-a născut în 1914, la Bucureşti. E foarte greu de povestit epopeea surorii mele. În timpul celui de al doilea război mondial era căsătorită. S-a căsătorit cu un pictor, Rubinger, un bărbat de o frumuseţe extraordinară, înalt, spătos, un om de o cultură vastă şi talentat. Sora mea a învăţat la pension, dar bărbatul ei avea cultură artistică. Are lucrări în Israel, în Germania, în România. El a fost pictor scenograf în Bucureşti, la toate marile teatre din Bucureşti, la Opera de stat, la Teatrul Tineretului, la Teatrul Naţional şi a lucrat foarte mult timp şi la Teatrul Evreiesc de stat 2. S-au cunoscut întâmplător. El nu era bogat, nici ea nu era, erau doi relativ săraci, dar care s-au căsătorit din dragoste. Au locuit în Bucureşti şi prin 1970, au emigrat în Germania. Atunci Germania accepta să emigreze cei de limbă germană, de origine germană. El era născut la Cernăuţi, era de limbă germană, iar sora mea ştia germana. Ea a avut pensie în Germania, bărbatul ei a avut pensie mare, pentru că a lucrat foarte mult şi i s-a recunoscut activitatea. Au emigrat în oraşul Düsseldorf, au locuit acolo şi în continuare locuieşte sora mea, pentru că cumnatul meu a murit acum doi ani de zile [în 2002]. A murit călcat de un automobil pe trecerea de pietoni la vârsta de 92 de ani. Sora mea are şi ea acuma circa 90 de ani. Au doi copii extraordinari: Irina Rubinger şi Adrian Rubinger. Irina este mai mare şi s-a născut în timpul celui de al doilea război mondial. Adrian s-a născut mai târziu, el are vreo 52-53 de ani acuma, în Bucureşti. Au crescut amândoi în Bucureşti. Acum locuiesc la Paris. Când au emigrat spre Germania, au trecut prin Franţa şi au rămas acolo.

Irina Rubinger, era studentă la Biologie, a terminat biologia la Paris, a intrat în cercetare, a intrat în învăţamântul superior, a ajuns până mai demult conferenţiar la  o Universitate de Medicină din Paris. S-a căsătorit cu un actor român, Iulian Negulescu şi au avut o fată, Ilinca. Pe urmă a divorţat. Ilinca a urmat la Sorbona Literatura franceză, şi a încercat să studieze şi să activeze în arta dramatică teatrală. Acum lucrează în cinematografie. S-a căsătorit la Paris cu Julien Cohen. De curând a născut  o fetiţă care are acum câteva luni.

Adrian Rubinger, când a ajuns la Paris era student la arhitectură, adică dădea examen la arhitectură, la École des Beaux Arts. Acolo străinii aveau “numerus clausus”, adică dacă erai străin era un număr redus de locuri, era concurs, unul dintre cele mai grele concursuri de intrare la o înaltă şcoală, şi el a reuşit să intre la acest concurs la Paris în anul 1968. El a terminat Facultatea de Arhitectură la Paris şi pe urmă a plecat în Israel, a dat şi acolo nişte examene şi are o diplomă de arhitect şi din Israel. Nu ştiu exact perioadele când a fost el student şi când a absolvit ambele facultăţi. În Israel a cunoscut-o pe nevasta lui, Ester, o israeliancă, fiică de evrei români. Au venit la Paris, unde ea a terminat facultatea de psihologie, dar a predat mai mult ivrit la comunitatea evreilor de acolo şi la francezi care voiau să înveţe ivrit. Au două fete, Miriam şi Sara [Rubinger]. Miriam are douăzeci şi doi de ani, este două facultăţi,  studii iudaice şi psihologie. Sara, care este la liceu, împlineşte 16 ani. Ei sunt foarte religioşi. Ţin vinerea seară, sâmbată nu lucrează nimic, nu răspund la telefon, vineri şi sâmbătă, sunt acasă, fac rugăciuni, se duc la templu. Cu mine au păstrat nişte legături, suntem în dragoste. Cu toţi copiii ei şi cu ea şi cu nepoata, am fost la ei şi acum doi ani. De câte ori voiajăm la copiii noştri treceam prin Paris şi prin Düsseldorf, ca să ne vedem rudele noastre bune, frate şi soră, nepot şi nepoate. Cu toţi aceştia suntem în legătură afectivă şi ne iubim foarte mult. Şi Adrian este un  nepot care se comportă ca şi când ar fi fiul nostru.

Sebastian Sebastian, fratele meu, s-a născut în 1915, la Bucureşti. [A schimbat numele din Wechsler după al doilea război mondial.] A studiat întâi la Facultatea de Drept şi Filozofie, apoi a fost student la Facultatea de Arhitectură, pe care a absolvit-o în 1945. A absolvit studiile de Drept şi Filozofie şi a trecut la la Facultatea de Arhitectură, pentru că în 1940 de fapt evreii au fost excluşi din barou şi s-a văzut că nu poate fi o carieră bună.. Pe urmă a fost dat afară din Facultatea de Arhitectură [din cauza Statutului Evreiesc], dar după război şi-a continuat studiile tot la Arhitectură şi a devenit arhitect înaintea mea. Logodnica lui, Lola Gotfried, venea dintr-o familie înstărită, bunicul lor avea un magazin de încălţăminte pe Calea Victoriei. Înainte, magazinele de lux de pe Calea Victoriei, vindeau pantofi pe care era imprimat numele magazinului. Şi era un magazin cunoscut în Bucureşti, era un magazin de lux şi bunicul era foarte bogat. Bunicul a construit un bloc pe C.A.Rosetti, nr.36. Există astăzi acest bloc şi atunci când s-a făcut era foarte modern, avea încălzire, cu sobe de teracotă. Avea trei copii şi când el a  murit le-a lăsat în proprietate aceste apartamente. Cumnata mea are şi acum proprietate aceste apartamente, i s-a recunoscut, dar degeaba este proprietară, fiindcă locuieşte cineva acolo şi nu se poate face nimic. Fratele meu şi cumnata mea au emigrat în Franţa prin 1960 şi s-au stabilit la Paris. Fratele meu a lucrat ca arhitect angajat la Paris, n-a avut atelier propriu. Mai târziu datorită soţiei lui care era foarte întreprinzătoare au avut un magazin de gablonţuri şi ceasuri pe o stradă centrală în Paris. Mulţi ani a trăit din acest comerţ, mai mult decât din arhitectură.

Eu, Aristide Streja [Notă: numele schimbat din Wechsler după al doilea război mondial], m-am născut în Bucureşti în 19 decembrie 1922, într-o casă de pe Cheiul Dâmboviţei, Splaiul Unirii [Notă: era o zonă destul de aproape de centru, cu o populaţie evreiască destul de numeroasă].Părinţii m-au îngrijit şi educat. Am avut frate şi soră mai mari decât mine, cu şapte şi şase ani, decât mine. În primul meu an de viaţă, ei erau în clasele primare. Ei se jucau, şi ei erau copii când eu eram foarte mic, mama mea avea grija de toţi trei. Eu mă jucam atunci cu cercul, era una din distracţiile favorite, nu eram încă la şcoală. Când am avut 4-5 ani am avut scarlatină şi atunci mama trebuia să aibă grijă de mine în mod special, să mă izoleze, să nu se îmbolnăvească ceilalţi copii, era problemă foarte grea. Nu am fost la grădiniţă, că pe vremea  aceea, nu mergeau oamenii la grădiniţă. Am fost la şcoală pe Splaiul Independenţei, vis-à-vis era o fabrică de tăbăcărie, Fabrica Mociorniţa. Era şcoală de stat şi am făcut patru ani acolo. Nu mai am prieteni, sau nu am avut prieteni de la această şcoală, nu ştiu, eram prea mic. Am învăţat relativ bine. La şcoala primară nu-mi plăcea  nimic special, poate matematica. În rest mă jucam pe străzile alaturate, pe strada Aurora, şi aveam nişte prieteni care erau vecini. Fraţii mei aveau o oarecare grijă de mine, dar nu mă jucam cu ei, mai mult aveau grijă de mine ca să învăţ. Îi obligau părinţii să aibă grijă de mine şi nu prea le plăcea pentru că pierdeau timpul cu mine, dar mă iubeau, n-am avut conflicte cu ei.

Pe urmă am mers la liceu, la liceul Matei Basarab, pentru că fratele meu mersese la liceul acesta. [Notă: Liceul Matei Basarab este unul dintre cele mai vechi şi prestigioase licee din Bucureşti, situat în vecinătatea Sinagogii mari şi a cartierului evreiesc. Mulţi evrei din familiile de seamă au urmat acest liceu.] Şi la liceul Matei Basarab, am învăţat dintr-a întaia până într-a şasea, când m-a dat afară de la liceu în 1939-1940, din cauză că eram evreu. Am avut profesori foarte buni în liceu. Era directorul liceului, Stoenescu, care era profesor de matematică, am avut un profesor la istorie, Ion Tatoiu, care era autor de manuale şcolare. Un profesor excelent, venea în clasă, se aşeza pe bancă, şi povestea o istorie, ca un roman, ca o poveste. Când eram, mai mari, am avut un profesor la limba română Perpessicius, care era critic literar. [Notă: (1891-1971): critic, istoric literar şi poet; conduce revista “Universul literar” între 1925 şi 1927 şi deţine între 1934 şi 1938 cronica literară la “Radio Bucureşti”. Din 1929 până în 1951, fără întrerupere, este profesor de limba română la liceul Matei Basarab din Bucureşti.] La latină l-am avut profesor, pe Chiriac, avea şi el manuale de latină. Eu eram un elev destul de bun la latină şi luam note mari, mi-aduc aminte o dată m-a prins că n-am învăţat şi am luat nota 1, dar în general luam note mari. Nu am luat lecţii particulare. Am învăţat în liceu franceză şi italiană. La italiană am avut o profesoară tânără, Constanţa, şi învăţam de plăcere.

Liceul Matei Basarab, era recunoscut ca un liceu foarte bun. Liceul era de stat, dar la liceele de stat se plătea taxa. La şcolile primare nu se plătea taxa, era obligatoriu [să frecventezi] şi fără taxa, aşa era atunci, dar la liceu se plătea taxa. La liceele paticulare se plătea taxa şi mai mare. Era, de exemplu, un liceu particular [evreiesc], Libros se numea, unde se plătea taxa şi mai mare. Liceele evreieşti erau Cultura 3. Cred că şi la liceele evreieşti se plătea taxă, până când nu s-a mai plătit taxa, în timpul celui de-al doilea razboi mondial, când au fost daţi afară.

Când eram eu în liceu şi se înfiinţase străjeria, Marele Străjer era Carol II. Străjeria a fost înfiinţată de Carol al II lea . Noi eram adunaţi în curte în careu, era un fel de paramilitărie. Din anii 1930 au început manifestările antisemite în România şi s-a simţit chestiunea asta şi în liceu, că noi eram acolo consideraţi mai paria. În cadrul organizării străjeriei, toţi elevii erau străjeri şi evreii încadraţi ca străjeri, dar cum să spun, din punct de vedere moral puţin ostracizaţi şi în cadrul şcolii şi chiar de către unii elevi mai mari sau mai mici sau chiar colegi de-ai mei. Profesorii nu au avut atitudini antisemite. Deşi profesorii de latină (Chiriac) şi istorie (Ion Totoiu) aveau concepţii naţionaliste, exprimate în manualele ai căror manuale erau, elevii evrei silitori, printre care mă număram şi eu, aveau note mari la aceste discipline.

Noi nu aveam bani să plătim, o duceam de pe azi pe mâine şi mama trebuia să mă amâne, mă dădea afară de la cursuri dacă nu plăteam. Şi mama se ducea tot mereu la secretariat.“Vă rog foarte mult, uite, băiatul meu învaţă destul de bine, vă rog să mă amânaţi că nu pot să plătesc“. Ca să obţină o amânare, era destul de greu, condiţia noastră era destul de joasă. Purtam hainele de şcoală 2-3 ani până mi se făceau mici. Nu am lipsit, nu am fost dat afară din cauza taxelor, am plătit întotdeauna taxele, mai târziu decât trebuia, pentru că m-a amânat. Nu am rămas dator, dar am fost dat afară numai din cauza că au fost daţi afară toţi evreii din licee. Am terminat ultimii ani de liceu, la şcoala evreiască [Cultura B], unde am avut nişte profesori nemaipomenit de buni. L-am avut pe [Mihail] Sebastian [Notă : (1907-1945) romancier, critic literar, dramaturg, eseist. Are studii de doctorat în ştiinţe economice şi drept public la Paris. Este redactor la Revista Fundaţiilor Regale între 1936 şi până 1940 când este dat afară din cauză că era evreu. Din 1941 este profesor la liceul evreiesc Cultura B.], la limba şi literatura română, l-am avut pe Sanielevici.

Viața religioasă

În copilărie, acasă, mama mea, ca fiică de rabin sigur că ţinea toate sărbătorile. Mergea de multe ori la sinagogă şi tatăl meu era de asemenea foarte religios. În fiecare sărbătoare se ţineau tradiţiile evreieşti. De Paşte se mânca pască, se postea de Yom Kippur. Venea în vizită tatăl mamei mele din Ploieşti, care ţinea casher. Pe cât posibil ţineam casher pentru că mama mea se ducea [la haham] şi tăia păsările pe strada Mămulari. Ea cumpăra păsări vii şi se ducea cu păsările la tăiat. Nu-mi dau seama cât de strict se ţinea, dar se ţinea. Numai acuma nu mai există, se taie la abator şi rabinul se duce şi vede cum se taie.

Tatăl meu a fost un om religios, se ducea la sinagogă şi vineri, sâmbata şi în alte zile. Mergea la templu, la Sinagoga Mare, avea un loc, plătea pentru treaba asta. Pe mine mă ducea la templu, mergeam la sinagogă cu tatăl meu. Dar eu mergeam numai la sărbători. Stăteam foarte mult acolo, pentru că mai jucam şi cu alţi copii în curte, o curte destul de mare. Veneau la templu, întotdeauna a fost şi a rămas, zic eu, şi asta le spun şi altor copii care vin aicea, un centru comunitar. De exemplu, de Paşte sau de Yom Kippur, rugăciunile durează 3-4 ore dimineaţă şi se continuă şi după amiază încă trei ore şi durează foarte mult. Atunci dura mai mult şi se făceau pauze şi lumea ieşea în curte, şi în curte se discutau fel de fel de lucruri, printre care şi se aranjau căsătorii. Îi făcea cunoştinţă cu fata lui cutare, cu băiatul lui cutare, se discutau tot felul de lucruri. Se discutau şi în sinagogă, nu de Yom Kippur sau de Paşte, dar în alte zile, se discutau şi lucruri care nu erau neapărat religioase. Ca şi astăzi, se discutau tot felul de probleme interesând comunitatea evreiască din vremea respectivă, probleme sociale, filantropice, sioniste, donaţii pentru Keren Kayemet 4. Comunităţile evreieşti erau organizate în jurul sinagogilor, care aveau proprii comitete, preşedinţi, rabini,etc.

Hamişa Asar era sărbătoarea preferată, pentru că se mâncau fructe exotice, care erau în Palestina. Se mâncau curmale dulci, mană şi o serie întreagă de fructe afară de portocale şi lucruri din astea, nişte caise presate, pistel se numea pe vremea aceea. Erau scumpe şi se găseau, pentru că atunci, pe vremea aceea, societatea era capitalistă. Tradiţia ne dădea câte puţin şi ţineam această tradiţie.

La Sinagoga Mare am spus Bar Mitzvah. Eu nu am învăţat ebraică decât atunci când m-am pregătit pentru Bar Mitzvah şi de atunci până acum eu n-am mai învăţat ebraica. Dar ştiu ceva litere ebraice şi trei–patru cuvinte, dar nu ştiu astăzi să urmăresc, mai ales că se citeşte foarte repede. Mă duc astăzi la sinagogă vineri seară şi nu pot să urmăresc foarte bine, decât unele pasaje, ma interesează comentariile la pericopa saptămânii.

Ca prieteni pot să spun aşa, din ce ţin minte, pe Schwartzman, care era băiatul dirijorului corului de la Templul din Bucuresti. Era un muzician cunoscut în Bucureşti şi băiatul lui învăţa cu mine la liceu. Grimberg Bercu, el a fost suprabotezat Boris, cu care am mers pe urmă la facultate. L-aveam prieten din liceu, am făcut şi muncă obligatorie cu el. Am avut şi prieteni români, unul Vasilescu, dar când ne-am despărţit, adică când am plecat din şcoală, el a rămas în continuare să înveţe încă doi ani. După aia, noi nu ne-am mai întâlnit. Pe urmă am avut încă un prieten care era cu un an mai mic decât mine, tot la Matei Basarab învăţa, Aurel Zlota. Cred că din clasa  întâia de liceu, chiar mai devreme, din şcoala primară eram prieten cu el şi am fost prieten cu el până acum doi-trei ani, când el a murit. A fost cel mai bun prieten al meu de 60-70 de ani. Am mers împreună şi cu soţia mea când îi făceam curte, i-am făcut cunoştinţă  cu soţia lui. N-am fost un intermediar propriu-zis, dar l-am sfătuit să se căsătorească. Am fost ca fraţii, în timpul liceului, ne-au mutat în strada Udricani şi el stătea vis-à-vis de noi. Am avut prieteni pe doi fraţi de pe strada Udricani, unde am stat. Era un restaurant, o cârciumă, prin 1939-1940, şi ei locuiau la etaj, restaurantul era la parter, aşa cum se făcea atunci, adică parterul era comerţ şi sus locuiau ei. Jucam table cu ei câteodată. Dar cu Aurel Zlota, mergeam să dansăm cu fetele, era cu totul altceva.

Mergeam la cinema, ne plăcea foarte mult. Duminica mergeam la cinema. Erau două filme. În liceu am avut o aventură. Elevii de liceu atuncea nu aveau voie să meargă la spectacol, nici la cinema, n-aveam voie să mergem la spectacole care nu erau agreate de şcoală. Trebuia să mergem în uniformă, aveam numere, putea să ne reclame. La cinema era întuneric, nu se vedea. Un prieten avea o cunoştinţă, actor la Teatrul Tănăse şi ne-a băgat înăuntru prin intrarea actorilor. Noi n-aveam voie să mergem pentru că era un teatru de revistă cu femei, nu goale, dar nici îmbrăcate. De la intrarea actorilor, se mergea pe scenă, se dădea cortina la o parte şi erau trepte şi ne-a băgat acolo, pe urmă ne-a aşezat în primul rând. Când am intrat pe scenă era o actriţă dezbrăcată, adică numai în chiloţi, am rămas cu gura căscată şi nu numai căscată, ne-a cuprins şi frica că dacă ne descoperă cineva, ne dă afară din şcoală. M-am uitat înapoi şi am văzut în spatele meu  că toată sala şi balconul ne vedea, m-am ridicat repede şi m-am dus în ultimul rând sub balcon, cel puţin să nu mă vadă. Şi aşa am văzut spectacolul cu frica în sân.

Singurul lucru care puteam să merg atuncea era că mergeam cu bicicleta. Am învăţat să înot, mergeam la ştranduri, când eram mai mare. La Hipodromul din Bucureşti deobicei mergeam cu cumnata mea. Venea lume bună în general la cursele de cai, oameni care erau foarte bine situaţi, pentru că erau proprietari de cai, dar veneau şi oameni care făceau pariuri din pături sociale mai medii. Era un preţ de intrare acolo şi jocul la cursele de cai era destul de complicat, pentru că trebuia să studiezi posibilităţile de succes ale unui cal oarecare, erau programe pe care trebuia să le cumperi, erau o serie intreagă de condiţii în care oamenii trebuiau să studieze puţin ce se întâmplă la cursele de cai. Nu era ca un loz de loterie pe care îl cumperi, înseamnă că nu putea să vină orice neştiutor.

Al Doilea Război Mondial

Părinţii au avut de suferit foarte mult în perioada Holocaustului [din cauza legii anti-evreieşti].Tatăl meu avea un magazinaş, o afacere pe strada Şelari. S-a făcut românizarea, el a fost dat afară, s-a numit un administrator. N-a mai avut voie să facă comerţ şi n-a mai avut nici un mijloc de trai. Pot să spun că îi datorez mult, a fost nemaipomenit de inventiv, că nu avea nici o meserie. El a fost comerciant toată viaţa şi i s-a luat posibilitatea de a face comerţ. Cum am putut să trăim într-acea vreme nu pot să spun. Toată lumea era şomeră. În timpul rebeliunii , în 1941, am avut un prieten care a fost arestat. Unde locuiam, era o curte şi de jur împrejur erau apartamente. Noi am avut relaţii foarte bune cu vecinii. Când a fost rebeliunea legionară vecinii nu s-au dus să reclame că suntem evrei. Nu ştiu câţi din vecini au rămas, am avut alţi vecini. Noi am fost daţi afară [de militari] din casa de pe strada Legislator şi am plătit chirie într-un pod din strada Labirint. Am avut o casă într-un pod, aveam două camere, o bucătărie mai jos. Erau persecutaţi evreii, medicii evrei au fost daţi afară din instituţii, de peste tot. N-aveau voie să consulte decât evrei şi aşa mai departe.

[Notă: Tatăl era prea în vârstă ca să mai fie recrutat, iar fratele nu a făcut în acelaşi loc muncă obligatorie] Am fost cu munca obligatorie în trei-patru locuri: la Poligonul Cotroceni, la Institutul Central de Statistică, la dezăpezirea liniilor din Gara de Nord şi pe Calea Griviţei. La Poligonul Cotroceni se făcea un poligon de tragere pentru armată, se săpau nişte şanţuri şi se aduna tot pământul pe un deal. Adică noi săpam şanţurile, transportam cu roaba până la deal sus şi umpleam acest deal, bătătoream acest deal, pentru ca să oprească gloanţele. Se trăgea în sanţuri lungi de vreo doua sute de metri şi gloanţele trebuiau să se oprească în acest deal. Toată ziua, de dimineaţa până seara săpam acolo, căram cu roaba. Îmi aduc aminte şi că ploua, eram în noroi şi asta făceam luni de zile. Cred că un an de zile am stat la şanţurile astea. Şi toată ziua eram între şanţuri în pământ şi în  noroaie. Când veneam acasă, seara, era o plăcere să mergi în oraş, nu în noroi, să nu mai stai între şanţuri, să vezi nişte case.

În detaşamentele astea de muncă obligatorie aveam un locotenent de treabă, stătea sus şi supraveghea toate şirurile astea care mergeau sus. Supraveghea toate şanţurile astea în care se săpa ca lumea să lucreze, să nu stea degeaba, el era ca un supraveghetor general al întregului şantier. Fiecare şanţ avea un plutonier, care făcea apelul dimineaţa, trebuia să fii la o anumită oră, şapte dimineaţa, până la şapte seara, se lucrau doisprezece ore, seara se făcea apelul de terminare şi plecai acasă. Locotenentul stătea sus şi se uita peste tot, cum merg roabele, cum se săpa. Supraveghea toate şanţurile astea în care se săpau ca lumea să lucreze, să nu stea degeaba.  Eram obligaţi să facem o anume normă şi la un moment dat colonelul, care era pe tot detaşamentul ne-a adunat, ne-a pus să stăm jos şi ne-a spus că cei care nu-şi fac norma respectivă vor fi împuşcaţi. Aşa că să avem grijă să facem această normă. Eram la roabă şi la săpat.

Am fost şi cu prieteni, cu Grimberg Boris, care a murit şi cu care am fost la facultate. El era în tineretul comunist, atunci eu nu eram şi îmi aduc aminte că el îmi dădea ştiri, asculta la radio, deşi n-aveam voie să ascultăm la radio, Moscova sau Londra. Aflam de la el care era situaţia frontului, asta ne interesa foarte mult, pentru că dacă învingea Germania, noi eram nenorociţi, vai de capul nostru. Când a fost victoria ruşilor pe frontul de est, la Stalingrad, eram fericiţi.

La Institutul Central de Statistică, la secţia de desen-dactilografie, am făcut acolo munca obligatorie, neplătită. M-a întreţinut tatăl meu, nu ştiu din ce şi de acolo am fost repartizat  în iarna lui 1943-1944 la Gara de Nord, ca să lucrez la dezăpezirea liniilor din Gara de Nord. Toată iarna am lucrat acolo, înfofolit nemaipomenit.Trebuia să stau toata ziua să curăţ zăpada în aer liber, în geruri cumplite, în zăpada, în umezeală. După aceea în 1944, când a fost bombardat Bucureştiul, în special, pe liniile din Gara de Nord, pe Calea Griviţei în sus, noi am fost trimişi ca să dăm la o parte cărămizile. Au fost bombardate nişte case şi am fost trimişi acolo sa dezgropăm averile celor care au fost dărâmaţi. Fiecare voia să-şi salveze o mobilă, o plapumă, era o nenorocire. Noi dezgropam, încărcam cărămizile şi molozul în camioane, ca să eliberam străzile. Erau atacurile cu avioane, bombardamente şi când suna alarma, fugeam din Griviţei, în centrul capitalei, ca să ne băgam într-un subsol şi să ne apăram şi pe urmă mergeam înapoi după ce trecea alarma. Asta am făcut până când au intrat trupele sovietice.

Înainte de 23 august [1944], în 22 august, n-am ştiut ce se întâmplă şi ne-am prezentat. Era adunarea pentru ăştia care mergeau pe Griviţei, cu un locotenent. Locotenentul aduna o grupă întreagă. Noi am venit să ne repartizeze dar locotenentul asta n-a venit. Am plecat acasă, în 23 s-a anunţat la radio. După 23 august că au intrat trupele sovietice în Bucureşti. Am fost foarte bucuros, că am scăpat de nenorocirea asta. Pentru noi, trupele sovietice ne-au eliberat, eram entuziasmaţi şi entuziasmaţi de comunism. Din cauza asta am şi făcut cerere de intrare în partid. Dar în partid, n-am intrat în 1944, am intrat în 1947, sau 1948. În acelaşi timp eu am terminat liceul, la şcoala evreiască. Am luat bacalaureatul, am intrat la facultate, tot la facultate evreiască, Colegiul pentru studenţi evrei, la Arhitectură. [Notă: Colegiul pentru studenţi evrei a funcţionat între 1941 şi 1943, cu aprobări oficiale. Aici au putut continua studiile atât studenţii cât şi profesorii evrei daţi afară din facultăţi.] Profesorul nostru de proiect de arhitectură era  Hary Stern, arhitectul Stern, căruia îi datorez foarte mult, că m-a învăţat foarte multe lucruri.

Viața de după Război

După război ne-am întors înapoi în strada Legislator. Nu a locuit altcineva în casă, era comandamentul militar. N-am găsit modificări, dar a trebuit să zugrăvim, să ne acomodam. Am început toată familia să ne revigoram. Tatăl meu, datorită talentului lui a început să facă ceva afaceri acolo, tot în Şelari. În 1945, fratele meu mai mare a ieşit arhitect, eu eram student la Facultatea de arhitectură şi el împreună cu tatăl meu, a reuşit să facă o casă în centrul capitalei, pe strada Gabroveni, în Bucureşti. Era un teren pe care el îl avea în proprietate din 1937, dar în timpul legionarilor această proprietate nu era recunoscută, nu putea să facă nimic cu ea. A revendicat aceasta proprietate în 1945 şi a înscris terenul în cartea funciară. Era un teren foarte mic, s-a gândit să facă o casă. După război oamenii au început să facă afaceri acolo în străzile Lipscani şi Gabroveni erau tot felul de afaceri la negru, ei aveau nevoie de un birou mic, pentru că mărfurile nu erau acolo. Ce voiau să vândă sau să cumpere, ei făceau o tranzacţie şi aduceau marfa. Şi el a făcut birouri de 2/3, nişte birouri de 5-6 metri pătraţi, nişte cuşti. A pus o firmă:“Vindem birouri în această clădire“ . Nu s-a construit nimic, era numai firma şi şantierul care era deschis şi s-a adus o căruţă de pietriş acolo. În 1945 i s-a dat autorizaţie de construcţie, cu această autorizaţie de construcţie şi cu planul care i-a făcut fratele meu, i s-a cumpărat trei birouri, atâta i s-a cumpărat. Cu banii a cumpărat fier şi cărămida şi a început să construiască. Fratele meu supraveghea, am fost chemat şi eu acolo să supraveghez. Când a văzut lumea că începe să se construiască, au venit şi alţii şi i-au dat bani. A dat drumul mai departe la construcţie şi uite aşa, aşa s-a construit această casă. A venit un decret de naţionalizare a acestei case [în 1948] şi el a rămas pierdut, n-a mai avut nimic, nici un fel de venit. Eu şi fratele meu  am început să-l întreţinem pe tatăl meu, pe părinţii mei.

Aveam un prieten, soţia mea era verişoară cu el, şi acel prieten, a zis: " Noi nu aveam foarte multe fete în cercul nostru. Hai să facem cunoştinţă cu nişte fete! ".Verişoara lui avea şi ea nişte prietene şi toate stăteau în [zona] Dudeşti pe o alee. Şi ne-am dus să facem cunoştinţă şi eu am vrut să ne mai întâlnim cu verişoara lui şi cu el şi cu încă nişte fete. Aşa am făcut eu cunoştinţă cu soţia mea, în 1944, în timpul războiului. După război, am mers cu ea şi cu alte fete şi cu alţi băieţi, prieteni de ai mei, în excursii pe munte, în [Munţii] Bucegi. Eu între timp, am întreţinut relaţiile cu ea, am devenit arhitect şi în 1947 am fost angajat. S-a întâmplat, că tatăl ei a vrut să plece în Israel, a avut paşaport, şi din cauza unei rude, care a fost falsificator de timbre, el a fost arestat două-trei zile. Paşaportul tatălui l-a rupt, pentru că i-a fost frică. Şi din cauza asta, părinţii, n-au mai apucat să plece şi n-au vrut s-o lase să plece singură. A întârziat şi între timp ne-am îndrăgostit, iar în 1949 ne-am căsătorit. Când m-am căsătorit cu soţia mea, ne-am mutat pe strada Nicolae Golescu 20.

Chely Streja, [născută Weisbuch], soţia mea, s-a născut în anul 1927, la Brăila într-o familie evreiască, dar era mică de tot când a venit în Bucureşti, nu ştiu dacă avea doi-trei ani. Mama ei a fost născută la Tizmeniţa [Tysmenitsa], în Polonia, actualmente în Ucraina. Tatăl a fost născut, cred, la Roman. Amândoi erau religioşi, se duceau la templu, ţineau sărbătorile. În casă vorbeau româneşte, dar mama ştia şi poloneză şi cunoşteau idiş, soţia mea a învăţat ceva idiş, din faptul că se vorbea în casă.  A învăţat întâi la o şcoală românească, a fost dată afară de la şcoala românească şi a făcut liceul la o şcoală evreiască, cea mai mare parte, a făcut pe urmă, şcoala comercială. Era calificată în contabilitate. Am vrut ca să urmeze Academia Comercială, dar ea n-a mai apucat şi a intrat în producţie. Adică după război, ea a fost angajată, avea liceul terminat, şi ea a intrat în CSP (Comisia de Stat a Planificării).

A avut o serie de sarcini foarte interesante, la un moment dat nu ştiu cine şi-a dat demisia, sau a ieşit la pensie de la grădiniţă. Şi ea a fost directoare de grădiniţă şi a fost foarte iubită de copii. Pe urmă, ea a lucrat acolo la contabilitate, vreo 15 ani, dar a dat-o afară că avea rude în străinătate şi pentru că nu era membră de partid. Se pusese problema în Marea Adunare Naţională să nu fie un procent de unguri, de nu ştiu ce, mai mare decât de români, în raport cu populaţia. Şi ea, nefiind membru de partid şi nefiind româncă şi având şi rude în străinătate, şi în America şi în Israel au dat-o afară. [Nota: Cei care aveau rude în străinătate puteau avea probleme la serviciu în orice moment]. Ea s-a angajat, a avut mai multe oferte. S-a angajat la Centrala de Industrie Textilă,era o centrală cu mai multe fabrici, la contabilitate. Pe urmă s-a desfiinţat Centrala şi fabricile depindeau direct de minister şi a fost repartizată la o fabrică de pe Dudeşti. Noi stăteam în centru şi fabrica asta era destul de departe, mergea foarte mult cu tramvaiul pe vremea aia. Acolo a lucrat în continuare la contabilitate, asta este cariera soţiei mele.

Fiul meu s-a născut în Bucureşti. Noi nu i-am dat o educaţie specială religiosă. La noi în familie nu erau nişte manifestări religioase deosebite, de altfel în perioada zisă comunistă, când se făcea o propagandă nemaipomenită împotriva credinţelor religioase, el a învăţat la şcoală de stat unde, bine înţeles educaţia era anti-religioasă. Profesorii erau foarte buni şi a fost o generaţie de elevi nemaipomenit de bună. Unii dintre ei au emigrat şi au făcut cariere profesionale excepţionale. Fiul meu a avut o educaţie foarte bună familială, şcolară, universitară, sportivă. A făcut înot de performanţă cu un antrenor german, care l-a şi educat într-un spirit sportiv. A fost în echipa României de juniori la concursuri internaţionale din Cehoslovacia.

După ce a terminat facultatea, s-a căsătorit în 1977. S-a căsătorit religios la o sinagogă mică, Credinţa, din Bucureşti. A făcut stagiul militar la Ploieşti. După cinci ani de zile după ce au făcut cerere, autorităţile comuniste s-au îndurat de ei şi le au aprobat emigrarea. Au emigrat legal şi în străinătate au muncit nemaipomenit de mult, pentru că erau proaspăt emigranţi, nu au avut avere, nu au fost sprijiniţi cu bani în străinătate. Reuşesc să traiască acceptabil de 22 ani în străinătate şi au două fiice cărora le dau o educaţie generală şi evreiască foarte bună.

Vreau să spun că interesul pentru religie nu l-a avut în toată perioada de cincizeci de ani, cât a fost perioada comunistă, prin structura mea, din cauză că am fost educat în această perioadă deşi am avut aşa influenţe religioase mistice din partea părinţilor. Eu nu i-am dat băiatului meu o educaţie religioasă, mistică, deşi soţia mea este mai credincioasă. Eu nu sunt credincios, eu sunt numai religios. Noi am ţinut sărbătorile evreieşti în casă şi Paşte şi Yom Kippur şi post, toate sărbătorile importante evreieşti le-am ţinut. Soţia mea ştia mai multe, a ştiut întotdeauna mai multe. Aceşti cincizeci de ani  de comunism noi am ţinut sărbătorile, sărbătorile mari dar nu mai ţineam casher, nu mai mergeam la templu.

Despre religie am ţinut şi conferinţe la comunitate [Notă: la sala comunităţii evreieşti din Bucureşti, din strada Popa Soare, se organizează periodic conferinţe, comunicări], am scris. Astăzi  sunt foarte multe controverse. Noţiunea de evreu este foarte mult controversată. Unii consideră ca să fii evreu înseamnă să fii de religie mozaică, de religie iudaică, alţii consideră că evreu trebuie să fii din mama evreică cum este legea israeliană şi alţii, cum sunt unii rabini din Statele Unite, consideră că a fi evreu înseamnă de fapt altceva, înseamnă să aderi la tradiţia iudaică, la istoria comună iudaică şi la situaţia de a fi evreu. Că oamenii nu se nasc evrei ci devin evrei. Devin evrei prin asumarea situaţiei de evreu, adică a tradiţiei. Există o tradiţie iudaică, o apartenenţă istorică, o cultură iudaică. A-ţi însuşi, a adera la aceste valori iudaice înseamnă a fi evreu, a fi recunoscut ca evreu. Asta este mult mai important. De exemplu [Nicolae] Cajal 5 a spus despre Hanuka, că această sărbătoare reprezintă şi eroismul acestor evrei, care au rezistat asaltului trupelor siriene de atunci, deci e o sărbătoare naţională, o sărbătoare a eliberării. Desigur că este o sărbătoare în care s-a arătat minunea lui Dumnezeu, că a ars o candelă timp de o săptămâna. E o sărbătoare religioasă dar şi naţională şi eroică, are o serie întreagă de semnificaţii care sunt în afara sărbătorii mistice pur religioase. Aşa se întâmplă cu toate sărbătorile iudaice, care nu au numai o semnificaţie mistică, ci şi laică.

Se discuta [cu prietenii] puţin despre politica actuală a comunismului şi ce se întâmplă în străinătate în ţările zise capitaliste unde noi aveam rude.

În 1947 am ieşit arhitect, m-am angajat la început la UFDR, Uniunea Femeilor Democrate din România şi am făcut întâi un cămin de copii. Nu-mi mai aduc aminte pe ce stradă. Era într-o casă veche. Pe urmă m-am angajat la IPC, Institutul de Proiect pentru Construcţii, primul institut de proiectare din ţară de stat. În 1948,1949, m-am angajat acolo. Fratele meu era şi el angajat acolo. Din IPC s-a făcut IPCM, s-a făcut IPCT, s-a făcut ISCAS, ISPROM şi ne-a mutat dintr-o parte dar eu eram tot acolo. Timp de patruzeci de ani am lucrat la acelaşi institut de proiectări care s-a numit tot mereu altfel.

Am făcut proiectul meu pe la început de tot, la fabrica de ciment de la Turda, asta a fost o lucrărică. Pe urmă am făcut fabrici de ciment la Medgidia, în Bucureşti. Pe urmă, când s-a numit IPCT, am făcut împreună cu nişte foşti profesori la Arhitectură planurile, schiţe şi sistematizare pentru Mediaş. Pe urmă am făcut în provincie sute magazine pentru CENTROCOOP. Am făcut nişte proiecte tip şi s-au executat sute de magazine săteşti. Am făcut primul restaurant cu autoservire la Săvineşti şi aparatajele le-a executat Ministerul Chimiei [Combinatul de Fire şi Fibre Sintetice Săvineşti aparţinea de Ministerul Chimiei]. Am făcut o serie de proiecte pentru cămine muncitoreşti, internate şcolare. Am făcut în Bucureşti clădirea de pe strada Ion Câmpineanu, blocul 10 din Piaţa Palatului. Clădirea asta avea locuinţe la etaj şi la parter este o poştă şi un CEC. Am amintiri foarte frumoase. CEC-ul era cu o subpantă şi acest bloc are o trecere pe dedesubt. Era o stradă care dădea în Ion Câmpineanu şi nu puteam să o blochez şi am făcut o trecere pe sub casă. Am avut şi nişte ingineri foarte buni, unul dintre ei era evreu, care a făcut acolo minuni de vitejie ca inginer, pentru că casa asta a fost pusă peste o stradă şi din stradă venea o coloană foarte mare de canalizare şi un stâlp cădea pe aceasta. El a făcut un triunghi, adică stâlpul avea o despărţitură triunghiulară şi jos i-a făcut un tirant. Şi canalizarea trecea prin acest triunghi. Asta era cea mai importantă care s-a realizat. Am făcut şi proiecte experimental pentru magazine, cu acoperite cu nişte grinzi metalice şi cu o izolare termică deasupra şi cu nişte azbociment ondulat. La vremea respectivă, intre 1960-1965, era o inovaţie. Am fost angrenat într-un studiu împreună cu INCERC, Institut de cercetări, unde am proiectat o casă cu încălzire solară la Câmpina, pentru că acolo zilele solare neînorate erau mai multe în România şi iarna şi vara. Am făcut parter cu încălzire solară a casei printr-o seră care se face separat. În acoperiş erau puse nişte panouri solare şi apa caldă făcută în aceste panouri solare era trimisă prin pompe în calorifer ca să încălzească casa şi erau trimise şi pentru consum la robinet.

Prin 1975 le-am făcut o serie de alte proiecte care mi-au făcut plăcere foarte mare dar care nu au fost din păcate executate pentru că costau destul de scump. Acestea erau făcute ca proiecte tip şi pentru anumite oraşe trebuia să aibă o expresie locală. Se făcea un proiect pentru un anumit oraş, secretarul de partid al oraşului sau al judeţului avea un cuvânt greu de spus şi prefera să dea să facă acest proiect organizaţiei de proiectare din acel oraş sau din acel judeţ. Cam asta a fost, mi-a făcut plăcere pentru că  nu erau clădiri mari, clădiri importante dar mi-au plăcut. Am intrat ca simplu proiectant în acest institut şi până la sfârşit am ajuns şef de proiect la proiecte importante. Nu pot să spun ce aventuri am avut ca şef de proiect, că eu întotdeauna am avut fel de fel de aventuri.

Am făcut o deplasare [în anii 1950] cu o doamnă la Piteşti şi când m-am întors de la Piteşti în Bucureşti, am găsit un copil în tren. Într-una din staţii se urca o ţărancă, îmbrăcată foarte frumos cu un copil în braţe şi cu un bagajel. Şi se urcă unde erau trei locuri. M-am dat mai într-o parte, ca să-i fac loc şi a pus copilul pe locul care era liber şi a ieşit acolo. Am aşteptat să vie cu bagajele şi văd că pleacă trenul şi ea nu vine şi eu zic Probabil e pe platformă cu bagajele şi vine îndată. Colega mea zicea : “Să ştii că ne-a lăsat copilul aici şi a plecat.- Cum o să-l lase tu? Gândeşti că o mamă o să-şi lase copilul şi o să plece. Te pomeneşti că asta îşi rupe părul din cap că  a scăpat trenul. Să tragem semnalul de alarmă, să oprim trenu“l. În sfârşit după multe investigaţii am alarmat pe toată lumea era alarmată şi a venit conductorul. Zice: “Nu pot să opresc trenul pentru chestia asta. La prima staţie o să mă dau jos din tren, telefonam pe linia gării şi dacă găsim pe mamă acolo atuncea o să coborâm copilul. Trenul o să plece mai departe, îl lăsăm la gară şi să vină mama să ia copilul“. La prima gară se opreşte trenul, se duce conductorul la gară şi noi aşteptam, aşteptam, aşteptam. Nu se mişca nimeni. Vine conductorul înapoi. Zice: “Domnule, nu e, nu s-a găsit mama şi noi trebuie să plecăm. Dumneavoastră sunteţi anunţaţi în Gara de Nord că trebuie să veniţi cu copilul, dumneavoastră trebuie să aveţi grijă de copil, o să-l predaţi la jandarmeria din Gara de Nord“. Colega mea zice: “Eu plec şi lasă-mă în pace !“. Între timp merge trenul, noi mai legănam puţin copilul. Era cuminte săracul de el şi era un băieţel foarte drăguţ. A aflat lumea din tren că exista un copil şi au venit, au început să curgă ofertele. Dă-mi-l mie, eu am nevoie de un copil, cutare, cutare. Uite, eu sunt cutare. “Cum să ţi-l dau? Pe mine mă aşteaptă în Gara de Nord jandarmeria, eu trebuie să-l predau acolo, nu pot să ţi-l dau, ce e copilul meu? Păi, mergem noi. Veniţi în Gara de nord şi spune-ţi ce vreţi, înţelegi? “ Colega mea era foarte alertată. Când ajung în Gara de Nord, mă aşteptau la vagonul meu, la coborâre trei jandarmi înarmaţi. Şi pe mine şi pe colega mea ne băga la mijloc întâi, unul la spate, doi în faţă, aşa coloana toată, ne duce la jandarmeria din Gara de Nord. La biroul jandarmeriei se prezintă o doică de la «Mama şi copilul» [Organizaţie de protecţie a mamei şi copilului] şi se face un proces verbal: Declarăm, ca în staţia cutare s-a urcat cutare, cutare. Să confirmăm amândoi că este aşa. Eu mă duc şi dau un telefon la nevastă mea şi o întreb: „Putem să luăm încă un copil? Dacă eu mă duc acum să optez, aştia îmi dau copilul, eşti de acord?„ N-a fost de acord, dacă era de acord aveam azi un băiat mai mic.

Am avut multe aventuri la birou. Eu eram membru de partid şi mi s-a dat să fiu cu Gazeta de perete, unde era criticată secretara de partid, al cărei frate era în Comitetul Central. Eu eram şeful Gazetei de perete [Notă: Un avizier unde erau expuse diferite materiale propagandistice, fruntaşii în munca socialistă, critica exemplelor negative, etc.] şi mă trăgea la răspundere: “Cetăţene pentru ce te-a trimis Partidul acolo?“ Altădată îl criticam pe director. Directorul nostru mergea mai mult prin străinătate, nu prea venea în atelier să dirijeze proiectanţii, şi a apărut un articol cu o caricatură a lui în care scria N’y vue n’y connue [N-am văzut, nici nu cunosc]. Şi eu eram responsabil pentru treaba asta. Nu ştiu câte aventuri am avut, mă mir că nu m-a dat afară din partid. Tot felul de boacăne făceam.

În 1968 am fost la Paris şi în 1968 au intrat trupele sovietice în Cehoslovacia [Notă: Domul Streja se refera la Primăvara de la Praga], şi fratele meu a spus: “O să fie război“. Ceauşescu , imediat a ţinut o cuvântare în care a arătat că e împotriva intrării trupelor sovietice în România. Şi fratele meu a zis să rămân la Paris, să nu mă mai întorc şi el îmi aranjează să am o situaţie legală la Paris, refugiat din România comunistă. Puteam să fac asta. “Să las pe nevastă-mea cu copilul în România? Domnule, eu nu pot să-mi părăsesc familia, trebuie să mă întorc“. M-am întors, aveam viză pentru o anumită perioadă. În tren am mers cu vagonul de dormit şi nu era nimeni în tot vagonul de dormit, eram singur…şi tot trenul era cam gol, nu se întorcea nimeni în România de frica războiului. Am venit înapoi, nu mi-a părut rau. Ni se controlau bagajele de sus până jos, eram controlaţi extraordinar la plecare [din România] şi am avut foarte multe neplăceri. Desfăceau toate bagajele de sus până jos, să nu iau tablouri, opere de artă, bijuterii, bani. N-aveam voie să plec cu bani, îmi dădea voie să plec cu zece dolari, cu şase lei dolarul, ce puteam eu să trăiesc cu zece dolari?

Când a fost cutremurul din 1977, Europa Liberă  a transmis o emisiune în care spune că doamna Letzler din Statele Unite vrea să ştie de rudele ei din România, ce se întâmplă. Eu lucram la o întreprindere de stat comunistă, eram membru de partid şi americanii erau imperialişti, duşmanii poporului. Mă întâlnesc cu colegii mei şi spuneau: Europa Liberă, te caută Europa Liberă. Atunci această căutare de către Europa Liberă era un pericol, pe mine, membru de partid, lucrând într-o întreprindere de stat, şef de atelier. Organizaţia de partid m-a întrebat "Ce-i asta dom’le, te caută pe dumneata Europa Liberă? "Nu m-a tras la răspundere, dar a doua zi am primit un telefon de la Europa Liberă " Aici Redacţia Europa Liberă, cunoaşte-ţi anunţul care s-a făcut, aţi auzit? ", cu nevastă-mea a vorbit. Nevastă-mea: "Nu, nu cunosc. -Vi-l punem noi, acuma, că l-am înregistrat". Nevastă-mea zice: " Nu, nu-i nevoie". Şi după aceea, Europa Liberă probabil i-a transmis ei asta, şi ea se adresează din nou la Europa Liberă şi spune "vă rugăm foarte mult să nu-i mai transmite-ţi că poate să-i dăuneze". Europa Liberă transmite din nou "Doamna Letzler ne-a rugat ca să nu mai transmitem ca poate să-i dăuneze", iar vin aştia. Ascultam Europa Liberă în secret şi discutam ce se întâmplă în Europa Liberă, dar discutam şi despre cărţi şi despre toate problemele intelectuale care erau atuncea. Eram abonaţi la reviste de cultură care apăreau în România  şi cumpăram cărţi.

În comunism, viaţa intelectuală românească nu era proastă, erau scriitori valoroşi, erau piese de teatru, erau actori valoroşi şi noi aveam acces la toate manifestările culturale. Afară de activitatea profesională, în care la început mi se băgase pe gât arhitectura sovietică, eram abonat la nişte reviste, Arhitectura CCCP, în limba rusă în care eu nu înţelegeam nimic. Aveam în bibliotecă cărţi de arhitectură, pe vremea aia aveam istoria arhiecturii scrisă de sovietici şi tradusă în română, dar pe care acuma am vândut-o fiindcă nu mai face două parale. În casa noastră era literatură românească, literatura străină: franceză, engleză – soţia mea a învăţat şi germană, engleză şi franceză din liceu. Eu am învăţat engleza foarte târziu când eram de şaizeci de ani. Aveam literatură în special franceză, pentru că în timpul comunismului se făceau multe traduceri din literatură străină, editura era rusească dar traducerea era română. Eram în legatură cu fratele meu şi cu sora mea care ne trimiteau cărţi.

Unde am stat noi, pe strada Legislator, astăzi nu mai există. E zona în care s-a făcut Bulevardul [Victoria] Socialismului. [Notă: Actualmente Bulevardul Unirii. La ordinul lui Ceauşescu s-a distrus o porţiune de 4,5 kilometri din centrul istoric al capitalei, ca perspectiva de la Casa Poporului, a doua clădire ca mărime din lume după Pentagon,  să fie monumentală. Ironic pe acest bulevard se află astăzi majoritatea băncilor şi marilor concerne capitaliste.] Acolo era punctul de intersecţie al Căii Dudeşti cu Calea Văcăreşti, nu mai există nimic, s-a ras complet şi s-a făcut altceva. Demolarea [sistematică] 6 s-a făcut după ce a murit tatăl meu – tata a murit în anii 1970 –, foarte târziu în 1985-1986. Mama mea a locuit acolo până la cutremurul din 1977 şi pe urmă  a locuit la mine. Unde am stat noi [Str. Nicolae Golescu 20] a fost dărâmat parţial de cutremur, Ceauşescu a făcut aşa cu mâna, nu s-a ştiut ce înseamnă asta şi s-a demolat numai trei etaje de deasupra şi noi care eram la etajul întai am rămas acolo, fără acoperiş, fără etajele superioare. A plouat acolo, noi a trebuit să stăm într-un cămin studenţesc. Din căminul studenţesc ni s-a dat o casă în Drumul Taberei, că de acolo vedeam câmpul şi oile cum pasc. Şi pe urmă s-a pus acoperiş la casa unde am stat, în Nicolae Golescu şi am avut dreptul să ne mutăm înapoi dacă vrem. Şi ne-am mutat înapoi şi de acolo, am reuşit să ne mutăm în casa în care stăm astăzi, central, făcând un schimb de locuinţă în vremea comunismului.

La naşterea statului Israel [1948] bineînţeles am fost nemaipomenit de entuziasmat, şi o socotesc şi acum şi atunci că a fost o minune. O adevărată minune şi sunt în admiraţie pentru poporul evreu. Pentru că atunci când s-a făcut împărţirea Palestinei între evrei şi palestinieni, evreii deşi era o situaţie, împărţire foarte dezavantajoasă, statul evreu era despărţit foarte prost. Era făcut în aşa fel încât viitoare conflicte erau de prevăzut, dar evreii au acceptat orice fel de împărţire fiindcă era o renaştere a statului evreu, un punct politic. M-am gândit să emigrez în Israel, dar eu aveam părinţii aici, bătrâni, pe care mă simţeam obligat să-i întreţin, nu puteam să plec cu părinţii într-un stat nou format. Nu puteam să ne lăsăm şi părinţii sora ei era la Editura Politică, o dădea afară cât ai zice peşte. La războaiele din 1967 şi 1973 din Israel, eram cu sufletul la gură, dar rezultatul a fost destul de bun. Noi avem rude în Israel. Soţia mea are rude apropiate, toate verişoarele sunt în Israel. Am ţinut legătura, pe vremea aia nu prea puteam să telefonăm dar primeam şi trimiteam scrisori în continuu şi ne interesam de toate evenimentele, ascultam la Europa Liberă. Am fost împreună cu soţia prin 1980 în Ierusalim, în Tel Aviv, în Haifa, unde avem prieteni şi rude. Am fost de fapt să ne vedem rudele, dar am vizitat mare parte din Israel.

Mama a murit în 1982. Părinţii mei sunt înmormântaţi la cimitirul [evreiesc] Giurgiului. La înmormântare a participat un cantor obişnuit, nu un rabin. Eu spun Kadiş pentru comemorare, îmi amintesc de părinţii mei care au avut grijă de mine, mergem la cimitir.

În jurul anilor 1980 am fost în Moscova, în Leningrad [Sankt Petersburg]. În Moscova am fost de mai multe ori, am fost şi cu Uniunea Arhitecţilor, organizat de arhitecţi şi am fost şi cu Trenul prieteniei. „Trenul prieteniei” era organizat de  asociaţia de prietenie România-Uniunea Sovietică, o excursie. Am stat şi la Moscova şi la Chişinău, am trecut prin Transnistria, Transnistria atuncea era înarmată, era în război cu Moldova, era un război pur şi simplu. Am avut emoţii că trenul ăsta să nu aibă ceva de suferit. Am trecut prin Ungaria şi prin Cehoslovacia. Pe urmă am fost de mai multe ori la Paris, la Düsseldorf, în Germania, am fost pe urmă în Italia. Soţia mea a vizitat mai mult, a vizitat mai mult din Italia, eu am vizitat mai puţin, la Venezia, la Milano şi la Florenţa. Am fost pe Coasta de Azur, de la Paris am plecat în excursie, am vizitat cu un prieten de al meu Belgia, pentru că el era belgian. Pe urmă am fost în America, în Statele Unite, nu prea des, nu am fost în multe oraşe, la Washington, pe coasta de est. În Statele Unite am fost de mai multe ori, soţia mea a stat nouă luni de zile ca să îngrijească de prima fată şi pe urmă am stat trei luni de a doua fetiţă, am fost împreună trei luni de zile, dar ea a stat nouă luni şi mie nu mi-a dat voie, „Să se întoarcă întâi soţia şi pe urmă pleci”. Am fost şi în Canada de câteva ori. Adică am circulat destul de mult împreună cu soţia.

Eu nu mi-am închipuit că în România o să dispară Ceauşescu, când se făceau nişte manifestări nemaipomenite [manifestaţii cu ocazia zilei de 1 mai, de 23 august, cu ocazia vizitelor oficiale ale unor demnitari din străinătate etc.]. Ajunseseră aceste manifestări să fie formale şi oamenii participau obligaţi şi nu numai obligaţi, trebuia să semnezi. Eu eram şef de atelier atuncea şi trebuia să trimit pe oameni, trebuia să fac listă cine a fost, cine este prezent acolo. Şi pe urmă când se făceau manifestaţii nu aveai voie să fii cu o geantă sau cu o sacoşă, îi era frică lui Ceauşescu că se aruncă cu o bombă sau ceva. Din punct de vedere economic, era o criză nemaipomenită în industrie, nu se putea face planul pentru că nu existau resurse şi oamenii nu primeau salariile că nu s-a făcut planul. Era o situaţie nenorocită din toate punctele de vedere, dar nu mi-am închipuit cum o să se petreacă chestia asta. Şi a fost o surpriză nemaipomenită. Eram în Bucureşti şi când Ceauşescu a ţinut discursul în Piaţa Palatului [astăzi Piaţa Revoluţiei], m-am dus şi eu să ascult şi m-am dus chiar aproape, să aud ce spune. La un moment dat când a fost îmbulzeala asta mare am plecat şi eu m-am dus pe străzi şi pe străzi. Au fost împuşcături şi lumea a plecat, a fugit. Pe urmă eu am ieşit tot timpul şi se trăgea, chiar în blocul nostru s-a tras [domnul Streja locuieşte foarte aproape de zona Pieţii Palatului]. Am văzut tot ce s-a întâmplat, afară era armată, se păzea chiar la uşa noastră şi ceream voie să trec. “Dă-i, domne, drumul că trebuie să cumpere o pâine!”. [La revoluţia din 1989] au venit să-mi ofere arme ca să păzesc, dar nu mi-a dat voie nevastă-mea, cică „ăsta e nebun, umblă pe stradă şi se trage”. Eu umblam, ieşeam afară tot timpul. Nu-mi era frică, nevastă-mea era foarte fricoasă [din cauza mea], că mie nu-mi era frică. Când au fost minerii 7, au venit la noi pe terasă, adică eu am trăit toate lucrurile astea în centrul manifestaţiilor.

Am văzut magazinul Unic a început să dea alimente la oameni cu nişte preţuri mici, ca să fie alimentaţi cu pâine cu ce avea în magazin. Magazinul era pe bulevardul Bălcescu, unde e şi acuma, dar era un magazin mare. Pe urmă a apărut Informaţia, primul ziar al revoluţiei. L-am cumpărat şi l-am păstrat. Pe urmă a apărut România liberă, Liberalul, s-a manifestat partidul liberal, cu care eu nu prea am fost de acord, fiindcă publica o poezie a lui Nichifor Crainic. Nichifor Crainic a fost un poet care era extremist de dreapta ce să mai vorbim, a fost colaborator la nişte reviste legionare. Un partid cu tradiţie liberală nu poţi să publici în primul tău număr o poezie de Nichifor Crainic. [Notă: Nichifor Crainic (1889-1972), eseist şi poet. A absolvit studii de specialitate în filozofie şi teologie la Viena. Este principalul doctrinar al ortodoxismului gândirist, antisemit şi xenofob.]

M-am bucurat de libertatea nemaipomenită care dintr-o dată s-a dat voie să plece toată lumea din ţară, rudele din străinătate ne-au căutat şi am început să vorbim la telefon. După 1989 eu eram pensionar şi în această situaţie s-a schimbat foarte mult din punct de vedere al libertăţii. Acuma când am avut orizont intelectual şi moral deschis mi s-a părut o mare binefacere, deci asta am apreciat eu foarte mult la acestă revoluţie, nu avantajele materiale. Pot să plec în străinătate, pot să ascult radio, să văd televiziune. Că această libertate are şi părţi negative, asta este implicit, atunci când eşti dirijat nu mai ai nici un fel de responsabilitate, dar când eşti liber începi să capeţi şi nişte responsabilităţi.

Din cauza pensionării, am avut timp liber şi am devenit mai evreu decât am fost vreodată acuma la bătrâneţe, mai evreu decât unii care se duc la sinagogă ziua şi noaptea. Acuma am legături foarte strânse cu comunitatea pentru că mă interesează foarte mult situaţia comunităţii din toate punctele de vedere. Pe mine mă afectează direct toate evenimentele pozitive pe care le promovează comunitatea, asistenţă socială, continuarea activităţii religioase în temple, sinagogi, cultura evreiască care este reflectată şi în muzeu. Comunitatea asta întreţine şi restaurant caşer şi asistenţă medicală şi asistenţă pentru internări în spital şi o serie de lucruri şi operaţiile astea la ochi care le face şi pentru oameni care nu sunt evrei şi pentru că faptul că ţine legături cu statul în departamentul minorităţilor, în parlament, adică are o serie întreagă de activităţi, legături cu străinătatea, cu organizaţiile mondiale. Face nişte lucruri incredibil pentru o comunitate care grupează maxim 8.000 de evrei, 8.000 sunt foarte generos pentru că statistica arată 5-6.000. Deci, sunt înmărmurit de toate faptele pozitive,  cum este muzeul: Memorialul Martirilor [Evrei “Moses Rosen”].

Sunt afectat şi de toate lucrurile negative. Un lucru negativ care mă afectează, acum de curând este că ne-a părăsit [a plecat] rabinul Glanz. Că ne-a părăsit nu-i nimic dar am rămas chiar fără rabin. Şi pentru mine, eu frecventez cu interes vinerea seară la Templul Coral, nu înţeleg  ivrit, citesc traducerea rugăciunilor, pentru mine erau comentariile de la pericopa săptămânii. Îl apreciam extraordinar pe rabinul Hacohen, care are un dar al povestirii foarte pregnant literar, un dar al povestirii ca şi cum el a fost acolo, pentru că povesteşte ce au simţit evreii, cum au vorbit evreii cu Aaron şi să-l întrebe ce facem acuma dacă n-a venit Moise în patruzeci de zile, cum au fost îngrijoraţi. Acuma fiind părăsiţi de aceşti oameni şi pe mine mă afectează. Am fost la două trei sărbătoriri ale sâmbetei de vineri seară şi au fost nişte comentarii care nu m-au satisfăcut deloc. O dată a fost un ţadic, care se ocupă cu Tora, care studiază iudaismul. Nu ştiu în ce stadiu a ajuns, dacă învaţă de un an, de doi, de şapte, dar era îmbrăcat în caftan şi cu o pălărie neagră şi a spus câteva cuvinte despre pericopa săptămânii, care nu m-au satisfăcut deloc.

Sunt implicat şi aicea [la Sinagoga Mare, ca ghid al muzeului Memorialul Martirilor Evrei ”Moses Rosen”] şi înţeleg pe fiecare evreu care chiar dacă a scăpat [din Holocaust], este marcat toată viaţa de aceste lucruri. Eu am suferit nimica toată în comparaţie cu ei, am fost la muncă obligatorie, nu am fost deportat, dar sufăr pentru fiecare evreu care a fost deportat, care a murit în această perioadă. Consider că Holocaustul nu este o ardere  de viu, sau o ardere completă, este o perioadă istorică care se întinde de la 1930 la 1945, nu 1940-1944, asta este părerea mea. În Holocaust e adevărat că au murit 6 milioane de evrei dar au murit şi alţi oameni care nu erau evrei şi pentru care evreii trebuie să ţină minte şi să se roage pentru milioane de ţigani şi nu se ştie nici azi câte milioane de polonezi sau alte „naţiuni inferioare”.

Glosar:

Meyer Goldstein
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskya

Growing up
Our religious life
My school years
Continuing my studies
During the war
Post-war

Growing up

I was born on December 5, 1916, in the town of Korsoun-Shevchenkovsky, formerly in the Kiev province and currently in the Cherkassy region. Back in 1916 this town was called simply Korsoun.
The name of my mother’s father was Ariy Voskov; my grandmother’s name was Feiga. My grandparents came from Taganchi, a small Jewish town not far from Korsoun. At the end of the 19th century, after a pogrom, those who could flee, fled. My grandparents fled, too. Their first daughter had just been born, but on their way she caught cold and died. After that, in 1895, my mother, Sonya Voskova, was born in Korsoun.
In 1898, her sister Ita was born, then Vekha in 1902, Esther in 1907, Golda in 1909, and brother Munya in 1912.
Munya was a very gifted musician. All the girls received only junior education. Under Soviet rule, my mother, Vekha, and Golda worked in an artel of handicraftsmen as confectioners.  Later, Vekha married a printing plant worker and went to live with him in Cherkassy. Before the war Golda left for Kiev and worked in a newspaper. Ita lived in Korsoun. 
I grew up practically without a father, because soon after my birth, my father got ill, and then died when I was three months old. He got gangrene; his leg was amputated.
My father, Isaac Goldstein, was a confectioner. He worked under somebody else. He did not have his own business. He had no education. My mother told me that he was a religious man who went to synagogue, kept holidays and traditions, and prayed.
My father had brothers. His oldest brother Leib was a tailor. His second brother Menakhem was also a confectioner. My father was the third brother, while the fourth brother, whose name I don’t know, moved to America in approximately 1916. He died there in 1941, leaving a fortune in inheritance. In America he was a lawyer.
I never knew my father’s father. He was already dead when I was born. My father’s mother Rukhlya was alive and lived with her middle son Menakhem in Korsoun. They had no house of their own, but rented a tiny flat. The flat had only two little rooms. The first was occupied by my grandmother, while Menakhem and his wife Lea slept in the second one, which was bigger. I don’t remember that flat very well because I was there only several times when I was very young.
My grandfather Ariy Voskov became a father to me. My mother and I lived in his family, and I, just like other children, called him “father.” He made hats. He had a lot of orders, but we were poor, very poor, because not many people paid for his work. We never had a house of our own, we always rented. We often moved from house to house trying to find something cheaper. Usually we rented poorly furnished, cheerless flats with iron beds. All our family usually lived in two rooms. My grandfather would work in one of these rooms. I remember big wooden models, on which he pulled hats and great irons in our house. Grandmother did all the work around the house, cooked, cleaned, and raised children. She worked from early morning to late at night. She had to feed everyone, bring water from the yard, heat the oven, clean the rooms. Salaries were low and we did our best to survive. I remember when I was in the third grade stores began to sell very cheap toy pistols. Three days I spent crying before my mother. I will always remember it. I cried and begged her to buy one for me. But she… it’s not that she did not love me, but we were so poor… that thing cost 20 or 50 kopecks, but she could not tear this money away from the family. Those were Soviet times already, and my mother was working at the “Red Confectioner” artel. Her sister Esther also worked there.
When I was three or four years old there was a pogrom in Steblev, not far from Korsoun. Gangs would burst into Jewish houses, kill men and rape women. I did not understand what a pogrom was then, but later I understood it, when I saw how one woman was raped. Later she lived not far from us. She never got married and she had mental problems afterwards. During the pogrom my mother took me and fled from the town, together with one of her sisters.
My grandfather, Ariy Voskov, was a very religious man. Every day, morning and evening, he went to the synagogue. He put on his taleth and tefillin. No matter whether it was a work day or a day off, every morning and evening he spent in the synagogue.

Our religious life

We celebrated all religious holidays at home. I remember Passover. We brought all crockery down from the attic, and we always had very nice kosher crockery. All the family would sit around the table, and we cooked everything that had to be cooked according to the Hagaddah: eggs, one potato each, fish, chicken, horseradish, and matzos. Grandfather would lead the seder. This holiday I remember, but I don’t remember any other holidays.
As far as I remember, around 90 percent of families in Korsoun were Jewish. Two streets crossed downtown: Shevchenko and Lenin Streets. On one side there was the Ros River; over the river was a machine building plant, and dye-works. Then there were the smithies. The blacksmiths were all Jewish.
Most Jews in the town were craftsmen and traders. Craftsmen included tailors, hatters, shoemakers, roofers, and balaguls, those who had horses and carts, and took people to and from the train station, which was about five kilometers away from Korsoun. During Soviet times, all handicraftsmen united into an association called Shveinik, meaning “sewing industry worker.” All of Shveinik’s members were Jewish. This artel included my mother’s sisters Vekha and Golda as well as many other people whom I knew. Moshka Ocheretik was a craftsman. He led the self-defense unit of the Jews who defended the population from gangs during the Civil War.  Jews were all on friendly terms. They helped each other and defended themselves. And the Jews of Korsoun had good relations with Ukrainians. Many Ukrainians even spoke Yiddish as well as their native language.
The central streets of Korsoun had stone paving. In the very center of the town there was a market place and a big square with four synagogues. The largest synagogue was beautiful, made of stone, with nice big entrance over the steps. I remember it very well because my grandfather would go there and take me with him. On the first floor, where all the men stayed, there was a big hall with wooden benches. At that time I did not understand what those people and my grandfather were reading, and I was not interested in it. My mother and her sisters would go up to the second floor, but they went to synagogue only on holidays. There were three more synagogues in the town, but we never went there, so I don’t remember what they looked like.
Another picturesque area was Pomestiye, located on two islands on the Ros. There was a beautiful castle there, and waterfalls. There was also a very nice church. I still remember the sound of its bells and can sing it to you. For instance, when the service began, the small bell started – bong-bong-bong. Then, Bong! went the big bell. The church was very close to our house and I remember exactly what the bells sounded like. I can tell you for sure that I liked this church more than the synagogue then.
But in 1932 this church was ruined by order of the communists, because the country began to persecute religions.
And synagogues were closed down. Only one was left. Our synagogue, the most beautiful one, became a youth club, where youth and Komsomol members got together for their meetings. A Jew named Boguslavsky was its director. The second synagogue became a sewing workshop, and the third one simply stood empty. The smallest synagogue remained functioning. I don’t remember any manifestations of anti-Semitism in those years; it was the general state policy to close down all religious buildings. I remember it very well because I was 16 years old at that time. 

My school years

I was attending a seven-year Jewish school. All the subjects in it were taught in Yiddish. Most of all I liked mathematics and physics – I liked both subjects and their teachers. We also learned the Ukrainian language and literature, and the German language. Teachers of the Ukrainian language and literature were Ukrainians, while the rest of teachers were Jewish. It was a secular school for Jewish children, for whom Yiddish was the native language. We had no special Jewish subjects at all; Yiddish was simply the language of instruction.
I remember the major Soviet holidays: May 1, October Revolution, Paris Commune Day. On those days we went out to demonstrations together with adults, carried red flags, and enjoyed it very much. My grandfather Ariy never welcomed the revolution. He never celebrated any holidays except the Jewish ones. My mother and her sisters, like most Jews of their generation, were quickly assimilated and joyfully received the new order, believing in the Communist ideas. During the war my mother joined the Communist Party.
When I was in the fourth grade I joined the young pioneers. But my grandfather wanted me to attend the rabbi’s classes! So, I attended the rabbi’s classes at his house. Well, you know, we would sit at the rabbi’s, he would read to us and we would repeat after him. Later the rabbi complained to my grandfather about me, because I once met him in the street and saluted him! I saluted a rabbi like a communist pioneer! The rabbi got very upset and told my grandfather, who became indignant with me. But still, I remembered some of what the rabbi taught us. So, I knew Yiddish but never learned Hebrew very well.
At school I got very interested in electricity. All the lamps, chandeliers, and sconces that you see here in this room were made by me. I had always wanted to become an electrical engineer

Continuing my studies

I never thought I would become a teacher, but my fate went such a way that I found myself in the teacher’s institute. It happened so that after graduation from the seventh grade we all went to Nikolayev to continue our studies. There were eight of us, all Jews, five boys and three girls. In Nikolayev there was a Factory Plant College at the Andre Martie Plant, which today is a shipbuilding plant. We lived in a dormitory. There were five people in our room. There was one toilet and one kitchen for the whole dormitory, where lived a total of approximately 60 people. We lived well, trying to help one another and our families. It was a military plant and we received good portions of food there. On top of our meals in the canteen, we also received bread cards to buy one and a half or two kilos of bread a day. So five of us put these cards together and sent our bread to one family a week, in turns. This way I helped my mother to survive, because by then it was 1933, the year a famine was artificially created by the government.
Life was very hard, especially in villages. Young Ukrainians would go to the cities every morning to look for jobs to somehow feed their families and survive. Everyone’s life was hard.
Among my friends in Nikolayev was a girl, Anya Yakobson. We came from Korsoun together. I always cared for her, all my life. We were friends, then we dated…. One of her relatives from Nikolayev said that the Odessa Pedagogical Institute lacked students and we could try and enter it. So the whole group of us left Nikolayev for Odessa. We had nothing when we left. We did not even take our documents from the College.
In Odessa we were told that we could not be accepted without documents, so we were sent to the Worker’s Department (an institution of learning created by the Soviet authorities for youth without full school education). There we had exams. Only one other boy, Izya Kotlyar, and I passed those exams and were accepted to the third year, while the rest had to go home. In 1934 he and I studied at the Workers’ Department and then transferred to the Odessa Pedagogical Institute. I chose physics and mathematics because I liked them and also because at our school we had studied in Yiddish, so we did not know other languages well enough. We lived in a dormitory and were paid scholarship, but it was not enough. It was thirty rubles plus some kopecks. That is why, even though I was a Komsomol member then, I did no public work. I was never an active Komsomol member, I simply had no time for that. I worked at a bread store: at night I would bake bread, and during the day I would study at the Institute.
In our dormitory there were young people of various nationalities from different places – Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, et cetera. I was on good terms with all of them. We never divided people by nationalities. Life was hard for everyone.
At that time arrests and what became known as the Stalinist arrests and show trials began. My mother’s brother Munya served in the army leading an orchestra, for he was a very gifted musician. But he lacked self-control. Once he did not like the food they were given and said so.  He was arrested. That’s all. He disappeared. We could not inquire about his fate. No one would answer such questions.
In the beginning of 1939 I graduated from the Institute. I was sent to the town of Pikov, a Jewish town in the Vinnitsa region. Then in the fall of that year, the Germans captured Poland, and our troops entered the Baltic countries and western Ukraine. The country was on the verge of war, but few realized it.

During the war

I was summoned to the military registration and enlistment office. They sent me home, to Korsoun, and ordered to wait for a call-up. So at the end of November we were taken to the Leningrad military district. The Finnish War began.
We found ourselves in barracks in Gatchin. It was extremely cold, about 50 degrees Centigrade below zero. All we had were summer uniforms. We had three-story plank beds. There were so many people that at night we could turn only on order. In the morning all of us were taken outside for physical exercises. Many of us were from the South and were not used to cold. So the second day many got sick, including me.
Relations in the army were friendly. Nobody offended me as a Jew. On our way there in the train some people laughed and made Jewish jokes, teasing me, but in my military unit nobody did that. I was respected.
I was put in a signalers’ platoon. One day we were walking, choosing observation posts. A lance corporal was walking in front of me. We had to follow a narrow path because everything around us was mined. He was must have been distracted by something because he stepped to one side. Immediately there was a terrible explosion. I ran to him and saw that he lost his leg completely. That was the end of his fighting. He was rushed into hospital and I heard nothing else about him. There were many victims in the Finnish War.
After the end of the Finnish War our division was sent to Tbilisi. The year was 1940.
I worked at the headquarters because I dealt with communications. It was May 1941. Since I had higher education, they offered to let me prepare and become an officer. They planned to make me a junior lieutenant and transfer me to the reserve. So on Saturday, June 21, 1941, I passed my exams for lieutenancy. And on Sunday, June 22, when we were at the training range, the Second World War began. We were put on platforms and taken to Makhachkala. There we were stationed for all of 1941 and almost all of 1942. I was lucky there, I got in touch with my mother. She was in Yangiyul in evacuation, and she got married there. She had known her second husband, Shlyoma Sklyar, even before the war, because they had worked together as confectioners. On their way to evacuation his wife died on the train, and my mother became his close friend.
Many people could not survive evacuation to the east. My mother’s sister Ita was in evacuation together with her in Yangiyul, and there she died from cold and starvation. Her sister Vekha got married before the war and lived outside Cherkassy. She had a daughter. During evacuation they ended up somewhere else far away, and the girl was run over by a car in front of her mother. Vekha’s husband could not live through that and committed suicide, so Vekha was left alone.
Esther was in Magnitogorsk, working at the canteen of a military plant.
For women, evacuation was extremely hard to bear. They worked for themselves, for their brothers, for their husbands, and devoted everything to the soldiers. They did not eat enough or sleep enough. Coming from the south of Ukraine, they froze in Siberia, but they did everything in their power to advance our victory.
Golda, my mother’s youngest sister, had the best education. Before the war she was an active Komsomol member. She worked in a Komsomol newspaper in Kiev. In evacuation she ended up in Sverdlovsk, caught cold and died there.
Almost all of my relatives were evacuated to the east. Only my father’s brother Menakhem and his wife did not want to be evacuated for some reason. Later, when the Germans were very close, he, his wife Lea and my grandmother Rukhlya went to Krasnodar. My grandmother died on the train and was buried right there by the railway. Menakhem and Lea lived for about six months in Krasnodar before the Germans entered, gathered all the local Jews and those who had fled there, thinking they had gone far enough, and shot them.
I don’t know about the rest. Izya Kotlyar also fought and survived. I don’t know where he is now. And I lost my Anya Yakobson during the war, I lost all trace of her, ah.…
My mother’s parents had died before the war.
My mother came to me in Makhachkala. I found a flat for her. When she came, Regiment Commander Damayev, who came from a famous Russian family of actors and who treated me very well, helped get food for her. Later, when the Germans began to bomb Makhachkala, I sent my mother away. I took her to the port and sent her away because we already knew by that time that the fascists killed Jews. However, the Germans never occupied Makhachkala.
We began to fight from Gudermes, the second largest city in Chechnya. The Germans had already occupied the Northern Caucasus, Krasnodar and Rostov, and reached Terek. And we began to take part in military actions in Gudermes. When we arrived there, the city was empty, there were no locals at all. Some locals, those who showed hostility towards the Russians, had been moved out by the authorities. But most of them went into the mountains.
From Gudermes I began to move westward with my regiment. We liberated Taman, then the south of Ukraine, Berislav (our division was called “Berislav”), Kakhovka, and many other cities and towns. We already knew about ghettos in the cities, about Jews being shot, about death camps. And right before the Soviet troops came into Nikolayev, which was close to my heart because I studied there, the Germans gathered all the young people so that they would not go to the Soviet Army. They told them they would be sent to Germany, and they shot them all at the train station. When we entered the city, they were lying there, all dead.
In general, there were no divisions between Jews and non-Jews or other nationalities during the war. In my regiment, the Battery Commander was Berdichevsky. The chief of the medical unit was Gleiman, and his assistant was a Jewish woman from Leningrad. She now lives in Israel. But in the headquarters I was the only Jew.
All were equal at war. All were in trenches, all were equally cold, lacked food, slept where they could and when they could, only in breaks between fights. We all wrote letters home and we were all killed equally, no matter what nationalities we belonged to.
Then we liberated all the capitals – Belgrade, Budapest, Vienna, and Prague. We ended the war in Prague and celebrated victory there. From there we were put on trains and sent to the Far East to fight against the Japanese.
The war ended, but they did not let me leave the army. My regiment commissar summoned me and said, “You will not be transferred to the reserves until you join the Communist Party.” So they forced me to do it. I was not ready to. In April 1946 I joined the Party, and in June I was demobilized.
I came to Kiev. I was called up in Korsoun, but I wanted to go to Kiev. Since I worked in the headquarters, they forged a document for me, to make it look as if I had been called up from Kiev. My mother was in Korsoun at the time.
Every year I went to Korsoun. All the Jews there were shot during the war. The last class of the Korsoun school, children who graduated in 1941, including my great-nephew – none of them returned from war. All of them were Jewish. Some of them were killed at the front, some were shot in Korsoun, and others were reported missing.
Many Jews were shot in Korsoun. Today, their remains have been reburied in the Jewish cemetery of Korsoun. A common grave and a tomb were created with an inscription that the Jews of Korsoun were shot there. But the Germans! What they did in Korsoun! They dismantled the house Menakhem had just built to get building materials. They put their headquarters in our Jewish school, and they paved the road to it with gravestones from the Jewish cemetery. They put these stones so that the inscriptions in Hebrew could be read. There I found stones from the graves of my father and grandmother. The Germans enjoyed stepping on Jewish names.

Post-war

After the war I came to Kiev and worked as a mathematics teacher in various schools.
In 1951 I married Klara Matveyevna Zhitnitskaya, born in 1926. My wife comes from Korsoun. Our parents knew each other. Her mother, Makhlya Zhitnitskaya, was a tailor and worked in the tailors’ artel. Her family worked in Korsoun, and like all other Jewish families was assimilated, but they kept some holidays and traditions. Klara graduated from a pedagogical institute and worked as a teacher in one of the Korsoun schools.
We met during one of my visits to Korsoun. I think it was in spring. When we married it was a hard time. We did not have a Jewish wedding. Anti-Semitism was rising in our country. It had absolutely no influence on me at work. But in the streets, in lines, on public transportation, people would stare or tease. And there were articles in newspapers and pamphlets featuring typically Jewish names like “Abram Abramovich.” When you read, you immediately knew who you were reading about: if it was a Russian, his name was Ivanov, if a Ukrainian, Shevchenko; if Jewish, Abrashka, Surka or something like that. I guess the anti-Semites liked that.
By the way, my mother, who was a Party member, was summoned to the district Party committee and asked, “Why are you called Sonya? Your real name should be Sarah or Surah. You should bear your real name.” She could hardly get rid of them. Sneers continued for a long time. Not only the Jews as a nation, but also Jewish names were despised.
It was hard to find a job for the same anti-Semitic reasons. But the director of the school where I worked was very nice to me. He hired my wife as well, provided nobody would know that she was my wife. In those years, Soviet bodies of power forbade relatives to work in the same organization, especially if they were Jews. For several years we managed to conceal that we were spouses. For that reason my wife did not change her last name.
In the street people would ask me, “Where did you fight? In Tashkent?” Nobody wanted to believe then that Jews fought at the front and were killed just like the others who defended their motherland. When Stalin died, anti-Semites got quieter. But in general, anti-Semitism was always present in our country.
That is why we had no Jewish wedding. We continued to keep some Jewish traditions, but very quietly, in secret. On Passover we always had matzo at home. We bought it from the only synagogue that remained in Kiev, where people baked and sold matzo under threat of persecution. We also celebrated Hanukkah. I was born on Hanukkah, so it was a double holiday for us.
In 1952 our daughter Faina was born. We gave her a Jewish name. She was a cheerful and kind girl. She had friends of different nationalities, but she always kept her Jewish identity in mind. Immediately after graduating from school she married a Jewish boy named Ilya Kobernik. That is why she did not continue her education. She stayed at home, bringing up children and working around the house.
My wife and I continued to work at school until retirement. We have taught more than one generation of children. In 1996 my Klara died. I feel very lonely.
Despite the fact that life was hard we never thought of emigrating. My granddaughter Sveta now lives in Germany. My daughter with her husband and younger granddaughter are planning to move to her, so they are selling everything. They are leaving soon. I told them I’m not going with them. I am old and I want my remains to be buried here, in my motherland.
Times have changed now. Anti-Semitism is certainly hard to uproot. But Jewish life in Kiev and in Ukraine is very energetic now. Synagogues are working, as are Jewish cultural societies, including the Kinor Jewish community center, where I like to go.
I receive invitations from them and go to their meetings. But I don’t go to the synagogue, I’m not religious.
I receive aid from the Jewish community, from the Khesed charity center. I get food parcels, hot meals and Jewish newspapers. I like talking to old people. Basically, I’m not going to leave this land. This is all. Thank you.

Renate Jeschaunig 
Wien 
Österreich 
Datum des Interviews:. Februar 2003 
Interviewerin Tanja: Eckstein 

Renate Jeschaunig ist am Telefon auf meine Bitte, mir ihre Lebensgeschichte zu erzählen, sofort bereit dazu. Einige Tage später sitze ich in ihrer Wohnung im 1. Bezirk.

Sie bereitet Kaffee, dann beginnt sie zu erzählen: über ihre Familie, ihre sorgenfreie, behütete Kindheit bis um Einmarsch der Deutschen im März 1938, als das alles zerstört wurde.

Mehr als ein Jahr nach dem Einmarsch der Deutschen lebt sie mit ihrer Familie in Wien und erlebt täglich die lebensbedrohliche Situation und die Demütigungen, denen die jüdische Bevölkerung ausgeliefert ist.

Sie ist 13 Jahre alt, ihr Bruder acht Jahre, als die Familie auseinandergerissen wird, um den Holocaust zu überleben. Sie überleben, aber die Wunden verheilen nie.

• Meine Familiengeschichte
• Meine Kindheit
• Meine Schulzeit
• Während des Krieges
• Nach dem Krieg
• Glossar

• Meine Familiengeschichte

Die Eltern meines Großvaters väterlicherseits hießen Jakob Juda Rosner und Rosa Rosner, geborene Weißenberg. Die Eltern meiner Großmutter hießen Ferdinand und Henriette Korn. Sie besaßen in Bielitz [Bielsko, heute: Polen] ein Lebensmittelgeschäft.

Meine Großmutter Cecilie und mein Großvater Salomon Rosner heirateten am 14. März 1886 in Bielitz. Cecilies Muttersprache war Deutsch, sie kam aus einem liberal religiösen Haushalt. Ich habe sie nicht gekannt, denn sie ist 1920 in Bielitz gestorben, noch bevor meine Eltern geheiratet haben. Sie soll eine sehr vornehme Dame gewesen sein.

Mein Großvater Salomon wurde 1851 in einem Schtetl geboren. Er war Lehrling in einer jüdischen Zucker - und Schokoladefabrik und wurde kaufmännischer Angestellter und Reisender.

Er sparte die Diäten, damit seine zwei Kinder das Gymnasium besuchen konnten. Er schlief in einem ungeheizten Zimmer mit einer Tuchent [Anm.: Bettdecke] unter ihm und einer Tuchent über ihm.

Er rauchte Virginia Zigarren und fuhr immer in die einzige Apotheke in ganz Wien, die Pullmann Tee hatte gegen seinen Husten. Hätte er nicht die Virginia Zigarren geraucht, hätte er keinen Pullmann Tee gebraucht.

Die Suppe musste kochend auf den Tisch kommen, und kein Mensch außer ihm hat die essen können. Er aber war schon beim Nachtisch, wenn wir mit dieser heißen Suppe begannen.

Der Großvater war hoch intelligent und wie er selber sagte, hatte er sich an den Leitartikeln der 'Neuen Freien Wiener Presse' gebildet. Heute könnte sich kein Mensch an irgendeinem Leitartikel bilden.

Ich habe von meinem Großvater Rosner nie ein Zuckerl oder Geld bekommen, aber er hat der Mama immer gesagt: 'Lilli, die Renate liest so gern. Da hast du Geld, jedes Buch, das das Renaterl will, kann sie haben.'

Ich besitze folgenden Artikel aus einer Bielitzer Zeitung zu seinem 70. Geburtstag: 'Der in unseren Schwesterstädten und weit über die Grenzen derselben bekannte und geschätzte Herr Rosner feiert in diesen Tagen im Kreise seiner Kinder und Enkel seinen 70. Geburtstag.

Herr Rosner, unter seinen Geschäftsfreunden und sonstigen Bekannten unter dem Namen 'der süße Rosner' hoch geachtet und geliebt, war ohne seine zweite Heimat Bielitz zu verlassen, nahezu 40 Jahre Reisender und Disponent der Kanditenfabrik Gellner & Austerlitz in Brünn.

Er zeichnete sich stets durch strenge Rechtlichkeit und Fleiß aus. Seit einem Jahre genießt er hier seinen wohlverdienten Ruhestand.

Herr Rosner, dem es vergönnt ist, den zurückgelegten Siebziger in besonders körperlicher und geistiger Frische zu erleben, ist Schwiegervater des hiesigen Rechtsanwalt und Gemeinderates Dr. Glücksmann, sowie Vater des auch bei uns bekannten in Wien wohnenden angesehenen Arztes Dr. Rudolf Rosner.

Möge es dem Geburtstagskind gegönnt sein noch lange in Gesundheit und Rüstigkeit zu leben.'

Meine Tante Hilda, die 1889 geboren wurde, durfte als Frau nicht in der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie eine Universität besuchen. Da haben meine Großeltern sie nach London geschickt, wo sie erfolgreich graduiert hat.

Tante Hilda wurde die erste weibliche Universitätsprofessorin der Universität in Warschau für Anglistik. Sie war mit Sigmund Glücksmann verheiratet, der Rechtsanwalt und Sozialdemokrat war, und der im Holocaust ermordet wurde.

Sie hatten zwei Kinder: meine Cousine Ruth, genannt Uta und meinen Cousin Konrad. Tante Hilda wurde mit ihren beiden Kindern zuerst vom Hitler verfolgt, dann wurde sie von den Russen in den Ural geschickt, und nach dem Krieg ist sie nach Schweden gegangen. Sie ist in Schweden gestorben. Konrad lebt in Deutschland und arbeitet für eine deutsche Fernsehgesellschaft.

Ich war bei seiner Bar Mitzwa 1, aber da war ich erst drei Jahre alt. Meine Cousine Ruth ist Zahnärztin, hat zwei Töchter und lebt in Schweden. Ihr Mann ist gestorben.

Mein Vater Primar Dr. Rudolf [Rubin] Rosner wurde am 4. Januar 1887 in Sucha [Sucha Beskidzka] bei Bielitz geboren. Er besuchte in Bielitz die Volksschule und das Gymnasium. 1906 begann er mit dem Medizinstudium an der Wiener Universität und wurde zum Doktor der Medizin promoviert.

Er arbeitete sehr viel wissenschaftlich und war Mitglied des Jüdischen - Akademischen Vereins 'Emunah'. Während des 1. Weltkrieges [1914 - 1918] in der k. u. k. Armee wurde er mit dem Verdienstkreuz in Gold und in Silber und der Tapferkeitsmedaille ausgezeichnet.

Mein Großvater lebte ein halbes Jahr bei uns in Wien und ein halbes Jahr bei Tante Hilda in Bielitz. Zu Pessach 2 kam er aber immer nach Wien, weil er sagte: So einen Seder wie Lilli, also meine Mutter, macht sonst niemand. Der Seder 3 war das schönste Fest, das es bei uns gab.

Mein Bruder wurde immer sehr verwöhnt, aber in unserer Familie ging es sehr fair zu. Robert war der jüngste in der Familie, und so musste er am Sederabend das: 'Ma nischtana haleila haze mikol haleilot' [hebr.: 'Was unterscheidet diese Nacht von allen anderen Nächten'] sagen, denn das ist die Aufgabe der Jüngsten.

Aber es war so, dass er eine Strophe sagte und eine Strophe sagte ich. Jeder bekam die Mazzot [(Mhz.) Mazze: ungesäuertes Brot] versteckt, und jeder bekam ein Geschenk.

Die Deutschen haben dann meinen Großvater eingesperrt, aber nicht in ein KZ. Er ist in Bielitz gestorben und beerdigt. Vergangenes Jahr bin ich mit einer Reisegruppe bis an die polnische Grenze gefahren, hab mir ein Taxi nach Bielitz genommen und das Grab meiner Großeltern Cecilie und Salomon Rosner aufgesucht. Ich war auch bei dem Haus, das mein Großvater gebaut hatte. In dem Haus sind jetzt Geschäfte.

Ich besitze einen wunderbaren Kidduschbecher 4, den ich zu meiner Geburt vom allerbesten Freund meines Vaters, dem Onkel Mannheim, bekommen habe. Onkel Mannheim war ein Gold - und Silberschmied, der seine Werkstatt im 6. Bezirk, in der Webgasse, hatte.

Der silberne Kiddusch Becher mit kleinen Hasen darauf hat eine Widmung eingraviert: Für Renate von Onkel Mannheim. Als Onkel Mannheim geheiratet hat, war ich in der zweiten Volksschulklasse und durfte auf der Hochzeit die Blumen streuen. Es gab einen großen Empfang im Hotel Metropol.

Das Metropol wurde später das Gestapohauptquartier. Ich hatte Korkenzieherlocken und trug ein schönes rosa Kleid mit Rüschen. Ich durfte bis in die Nacht aufbleiben und tanzte Hora [Volkstanz].

Onkel Mannheim sagte, dass ich ein Geschenk bekommen muss und wollte wissen, was ich mir wünsche. Ich wünschte mir einen Mogen Dovid [Davidstern], und er schenkte mir einen goldenen Mogen Dovid. Ich besitze silberne Lampen, die ich aus den Schabbat - Leuchtern 5 meiner Eltern hab anfertigen lassen.

Der Onkel Mannheim nahm die Schabbat - Leuchter meiner Eltern zuerst in die Emigration nach Jugoslawien mit, dann nach Amerika. 1949 kam er mit den Schabbat - Leuchtern wieder zurück.

Inzwischen hatten meine Eltern andere, und ich hatte meine eigenen Schabbat - Leuchter. Und so ließ ich mir aus den Schabbat - Leuchtern meiner Eltern Lampen machen. Diese Lampen werden einmal meine Tochter und später ihre Tochter erben.

Meine Mutter Sieglinde, genannt Lilly, wurde nicht als Jüdin geboren. Sie trat aber zehn oder zwölf Jahre, bevor meine Eltern heirateten, zum Judentum über. Ich kannte meinen Großvater mütterlicherseits nicht.

Er hieß Friedrich Stiassny und starb bereits 1901. Meine Großmutter Johanna, genannt Jeanette, geborene Janitzky, zog fünf Kinder allein auf. Meine Mutter war zwölf Jahre alt, als der Großvater starb, und sie war die älteste der Geschwister. Sie wurde am 14. Juni 1889 geboren und hatte drei Schwestern und einen Bruder:

Frieda Stiassny, geboren 1890, war mit dem jüdischen Bankier Erwin Mautner verheiratet. Sie starb vor dem 2. Weltkrieg. Der Onkel Erwin Mautner wurde verhaftet und ermordet. Sie hatten keine Kinder.

Hedwig Stiassny heiratete Franz Jakobi, der evangelisch war. Sie hatten eine Tochter Helga, die durch die finanzielle Hilfe meines Vaters maturieren und bis 1938 Pharmazie studieren konnte.

Maria Stiassny heiratete Ferdinand Esslauer. Sie hatten keine Kinder. Maria war meinen Eltern innigst verbunden, und als sie während des Holocaust schwer krank wurde, erklärte sie, sie würde sich von niemand anderem behandeln lassen als von meinem Vater.

Otto Stiassny wurde von meiner Großmutter, weil sie ja kein Geld hatte, in ein Militärgymnasium geschickt. Danach ging er in Wiener Neustadt auf die Militärakademie und wurde einer der ersten österreichischen Fliegeroffiziere. Er heiratete in Ungarn eine Adelige, hat einen Sohn Marius, der heute in Cleevland [USA] lebt.

Meine Großmutter Jeanette Stiassny war ein Goldschatz. Sie war eine kleine Frau, hatte einen Riesenkropf und war eine echte Großmutter. Sie hat Strümpfe gestickt, scheußliche braune Strümpfe, in die ich ein Loch gemacht hab, damit ich sie nicht anziehen musste.

Sie ging mit meinem Bruder, der die Feuerwehr liebte, jeden Tag zur Feuerwehr Am Hof. Mein Bruder wollte damals Feuerwehrhauptmann werden. Mich hat sie sehr, sehr gern gehabt, weil ich immer nur mit meinen Puppen Lehrerin gespielt habe und immer gewusst habe, dass ich Lehrerin werden will, was ich auch wurde.

Sie schrieb mir in mein Stammbuch, als ich in der zweiten Volksschulklasse war: Es gibt viele Leute, aber wenig Menschen. Renaterle, versuch immer ein Mensch zu sein.

Sie und meine Mutter sagten auch oft, dass arbeiten keine Schande ist, aber sich aushalten lassen. Ob du heiratest ist deine Angelegenheit. Du musst einen Beruf erlernen, damit du nie von einem Mann abhängig bist.

Meine Eltern haben jahrelang in 'Sünde' gelebt, weil jemand der habilitieren wollte, nicht heiraten durfte. Mein Vater hat erklärt, er liebt meine Mutter und wenn diese Trotteln an der Universität das nicht akzeptieren, werden sie trotzdem zusammen leben.

Für ihn ist sie seine Frau. Sie haben unverheiratet zusammen gelebt, bis mein Vater mit seiner Facharzt - Ausbildung zum Dermatologen fertig war und der Oberrabbiner Mannheimer sie 1924 getraut hat.

• Meine Kindheit

Ich wurde in Wien am 2. Juni 1926 als Renate Cecilie, jüdisch Chana, Rosner geboren. Mein Bruder Robert Hans Rosner wurde am 22. September 1930 geboren.

Meine Mutter hatte die Matura und war eine ausgebildete Steuerfachfrau. Sie hatte lange für eine große jüdische Firma in der Buchhaltung gearbeitet und war für die Steuerangelegenheiten zuständig.

Mein Vater arbeitete mit dem berühmten Universitätsprofessor Doktor Wagner-Jauregg an der Behandlung der Syphilis mit Malaria. Wir besitzen noch die wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten, und mein Vater sollte habilitieren und Dozent werden.

Aber sein Professor starb, und der Professor Finger, der nach ihm das Amt übernahm, erklärte, er lasse einen Juden nicht habilitieren. Und das war lang, bevor der Hitler kam. Das war Anfang der 1920er-Jahre.

Die ersten Jahre nach meiner Geburt wohnten meine Eltern im 6. Bezirk in der Gumpendorfer Straße in dem Eckhaus vis-a-vis der Amerlingstraße. Dort war auch die Ordination meines Vaters.

Meine Mutter arbeitete nach der Hochzeit für meinen Vater als Ordinationshilfe und kümmerte sich um die Verrechnungen mit der Krankenkasse. Die Wohnung war aber sehr klein und nach ein paar Jahren übersiedelten wir in eine andere Wohnung im 5. Bezirk, und der Papa behielt die Wohnung in der Gumpendorfer Straße als Praxis.

1929 gelang es meinen Eltern ein Stockwerk des Bankhauses Liebig in der Wipplingerstraße 4 zu kaufen. In dem Stock ließ mein Vater eine Ordination und ein Wohnung für uns bauen.

Die Ordination bestand aus einem Damen Wartezimmer japanisch eingerichtet, einem Herren Wartezimmer eingerichtet a la Tonet, aber bestimmt waren die Tonetmöbel nicht echt, einem normalen Ordinationszimmer und einem Elektroordinationszimmer mit Höhensonne und Diatermie Apparat [Anm.: Unterwassermassage Apparat] und vielem anderen mehr, darunter auch einem sehr wertvollen Mikroskop.

Das Mikroskop ist das einzige, was die Mama retten konnte, als wir aus der Wohnung hinaus geschmissen wurden. Sie nahm einen weißen Polsterüberzug und steckte das Mikroskop hinein.

Dann wickelte sie es in ein Leintuch, zerriss einen Tuchent Überzug und wickelte es noch einmal ein.

Als einer dieser Nazischergen zu ihr sagte: 'Was ham sen da?' Hat sie gesagt: 'Zerrissenes Bettzeug, das ich flicken muss.' So wurde das wertvolle Mikroskop gerettet.

Kultur wurde groß geschrieben. Als ich fünf Jahre alt war, ging ich in mein erstes Mozartkonzert im kleinen Saal im Konzerthaus. An einem Weihnachtsfeiertag ging ich einmal ins Burgtheater mit meinen Eltern.

Wir saßen in einer Loge und sahen Vicky Baums Theaterstück 'Das dumme Engelein'. Die Alma Seidler spielte das dumme Engelein. Ich kann mich erinnern, dass das dumme Engelein eine Wurst hatte, die immer länger und länger und länger wurde.

Ich war ein Kind, das keine Schokolade wollte, und ich hab zur Mama gesagt: 'Bitte, warum können wir nicht so eine Wurst haben, die immer länger wird?' Ich habe mir immer zu meinem Geburtstag gewünscht, einmal auf der Straße eine Wurst essen zu dürfen.

Die Mama hat dann gesagt, das gehe nicht, weil alle meinen Papa kennen. Wenn wir in Piesting oder Weißenbach oder Perchtoldsdorf sind, darf ich auf der Straße eine Wurst essen.

Meine Eltern führten ein sehr gastliches Haus. Mein Bruder und ich durften jeweils an unserem Geburtstag die ganze Klasse einladen. In meiner Klasse waren 30 Kinder, davon 28 jüdische.

Ich habe alle jüdischen Kinder eingeladen. Und dann ein oder zwei Stunden nach Beginn der Kinderjause, hat meine Mama alle Mütter zu Tee oder Kaffee empfangen.

Mein Vater hat auch mit jungen Ärzten aus Afrika und Asien gearbeitet, die zu uns nach Hause gekommen sind, und so wurden wir in dem Sinne erzogen, Menschen anderer Hautfarben als selbstverständlich zu tolerieren.

Mein Bruder war im Kindergarten und in der Volksschule bei den Schotten. Da war er das einzige jüdische Kind in der Klasse.

Einmal wurde zu Weihnachten ein Krippenspiel aufgeführt, und mein Bruder kam nach Haus und sagte: 'Ich soll die heilige Maria sein.' Wir haben alle Tränen gelacht!

Er hat dann ein blaues Nachthemd meiner Mutter getragen und mein Vater hat gesagt: 'Ausgerechnet mein Sohn muss die heilige Maria spielen.' Da hat meine Mutter gesagt: 'Na die heilige Maria war auch a Jidin!'

Mein Vater liebte die Musik und ging manchmal am Sonntag mit uns in den Stephansdom. Er sagte, dort hätte er die schönste Musik umsonst und das Schema Jisrael 6 können wir auch im Stephansdom beten.

• Meine Schulzeit

Ich wurde in das Institut Stern, eine private Volksschule, in der Werdertorgasse, in die zum Großteil Kinder aus wohlhabenden jüdischen Häusern gingen, eingeschult. Ich war das schlechtest angezogene Kind, aber ich hatte die meisten Bücher, und ich war die Beste im Deutschunterricht.

Im Institut Stern war die Frau Friedmann Direktorin und ihre Schwester Gymnasialprofessorin für Deutsch. Sie lehrte zweimal die Woche in der dritten und vierten Klasse der Volksschule deutsche Grammatik, Ich liebe die Grammatik! Sie konnte das so gut erklären, dass ich die Grammatik liebte.

Frau Direktor Friedmann und ihrer Schwester Professor Friedmann sind beide nach Theresienstadt deportiert worden. Die Frau Professor Friedmann ist dort umgekommen, die Frau Direktor Friedmann hat überlebt.

Aufs Gymnasium ist der Bob, mein Bruder, ja nicht mehr gekommen, weil er viel jünger war als ich. Es waren zwei berühmte Gymnasien, in die jüdische Mäderln gegangen sind. Das war das Oberlyzeum Luithlen auf der Tuchlauben 14 und die Schwarzwaldschule.

Ich bin in das Oberlyzeum Luithlen gegangen, weil es in der Tuchlauben war und weil die Direktorin, die Doktor Fabian, aus Bielitz stammte. Ich bin sehr gern in die Schule gegangen. Mein Bruder und ich hatten zusätzlich zur Schule noch jüdischen Religionsunterricht. Interessanterweise von einer Frau, nicht von einem Mann.

Meine beste Freundin war die Hedy Schlesinger. Hedys Vater war der Rechtsanwalt Doktor Schlesinger, sie wohnten im 5. Bezirk und seine Kanzlei hatte er in der Wipplingerstraße, wo meine Eltern ihre Wohnung und Ordination besaßen.

Wir verbrachten alle Urlaube miteinander. Hedy Schlesinger war die jüngste von drei Kindern, sie war so alt wie ich. Ihre Schwester Eva war zwei Jahre älter, ihr Bruder Wolfgang, genannt Wolfi, sechs Jahre älter.

Bei Wolfis Bar Mitzwa habe ich zum ersten Mal in meinem Leben ein kleines Stamperl Eierlikör getrunken, selbstgemacht von der Frau Schlesinger.

Wir verbrachten auch unsere Sommer zusammen. Damals war es noch nicht üblich, dass Anwälte oder Ärzte Autos hatten. Und so waren unsere Familien immer irgendwo, wo unsere Väter mit der Bahn oder sonst einem öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel abends nach Hause konnten.

Familie Schlesinger mietete immer ein ganzes Haus, weil sie drei Kinder hatten, wir mieteten immer eine Wohnung.

1935, bevor wir in den Urlaub fuhren, hatte ich eine Kinderkrankheit. Unser Kinderarzt war der berühmte Professor Kuntratitz, und als er mich untersuchte, machte er meine Mutter aufmerksam, sie müsse mich aufklären.

Nachdem er gegangen war, hat sie das versucht, aber ich habe ihr erklärt, dass das nicht notwendig sei, da der Wolfi Schlesinger mich schon aufgeklärt habe, worauf meine Mutter einen Schock bekam.

Dann habe ich ihr das erklärt: Die Schlesingers hatten ihr Haus neben dem Bauernhof, der den Gemeindestier besaß. Und der Wolfi hatte seine Schwestern und mich zum Gemeindestier und der Kuh geführt und gesagt: 'Das machen Erwachsene, wenn sie ein Kind kriegen.' Daraufhin war meine Mutter beruhigt.

Wir haben wunderbare Urlaube in Piesting verbracht. Unter meiner Organisation haben wir 'Das weiße Rössl' von Benatzky aufgeführt. Wir verlangten von unseren Eltern und Freunden 50 Groschen Eintritt.

Das muss sehr viel gewesen sein, denn wenn meine Eltern, mein Bruder und ich sonntags in Piesting essen gegangen sind, haben wir um 5 Schilling alle vier sehr gut gegessen.

Wir haben die 50 Groschen aber nicht für uns verwendet, wir haben es den armen Kindern gegeben. Wir waren gut erzogen, weder die Schlesingers noch meine Eltern haben vor dem Hitler am Hungertuch genagt.

Die Eltern Schlesinger wurden in Riga vergast. Hedy, Eva und Wolfi gingen zuerst nach England, von dort ins damalige Palästina. Wolfi rückte in die britische Armee ein, wurde verschifft, das Schiff wurde torpediert und alle starben.

Hedy heiratete in Palästina, dem heutigen Israel, einen deutschen Flüchtling. Sie hatten einen Sohn und eine Tochter und der Sohn starb in einem der Kriege. Gott sei Dank hat sie noch eine Tochter und hat von ihrer Tochter zwei Enkelkinder.

Sie war, noch bevor mein Mann starb, mit ihrem Mann in Wien, und wir haben uns sehr gut verstanden. Nach dem Tod meines Mannes litt ich an einer Depression. Ich bin nach Israel gefahren und habe die Hedy, ihren Mann und Eva Bursing, mit der ich aufs Gymnasium gegangen bin, besucht. Das hat mich geheilt.

Unser Hausmädchen Anna hatte ein eigenes Zimmer in unserer Wohnung und wurde nicht als Hausgehilfin behandelt, sondern wie das dritte Kind im Haus. Sie war eine Ungarin und ich vermute, dass sie eine ungarische Jüdin war.

Sie saß beim Essen mit uns am Tisch, und die Mama hat ihr immer Geld gegeben und gesagt: 'Geh mit der Renaterle und mit dem Robert in den Prater, ins Museum oder nach Schönbrunn.'

Wir waren bewusst jüdisch, aber wir haben nicht koscher gegessen, wir haben aber auch kein Schweinernes gegessen. Die jüdischen Feiertage haben wir gefeiert. Tradition war bei uns vorhanden, aber keine Orthodoxie, denn mein Vater hatte sich entscheiden müssen, ein guter Jude oder ein erstklassiger Arzt zu sein. Und er hatte sich für den erstklassigen Arzt entschieden.

• Während des Krieges

Nach dem Einmarsch der Deutschen 1938 gab es große Veränderungen in der Schule. Mein Klassenvorstand, Frau Prof. Dr. Teller kam nicht mehr in die Schule, andere jüdische Professoren kamen auch nicht mehr, und Professoren, die keine Juden waren, trugen ein Hakenkreuz am Revers.

Ein Erlebnis hat mich sehr tief erschüttert. Die Familie eines berühmten Professors für Chirurgie wohnte uns gegenüber. Sie hatten mehrere Kinder und eine Tochter war in meinem Alter.

Wir standen uns manchmal an den Fenstern unserer Wohnungen gegenüber und hatten eine Zeichensprache erfunden, durch die wir uns verständigten. Manchmal trafen wir uns auch im Park und spielten miteinander.

Nach Hitlers Einmarsch begegneten meine Mutter und ich diesem Mädchen mit ihrer Mutter. Ich ging höflich hin, machte meinen Knicks und sagte: 'Küss die Hand, Frau Professor!' Die Frau Professor nahm ihre Tochter fest an der Hand und sagte zu ihr: 'Komm weiter, dieses Judenkind grüßt du mir nicht wieder.'

Mein Vater hatte einen guten Bekannten, das war ein Monsignore im Erzbischöflichen Palais. Und als Hitler kam, machte er sich erbötig, meinen Bruder und mich zu taufen und den Taufschein zu fälschen. Mein Vater lehnte das ab mit den Worten: 'Sie sind als Juden geboren, und sie werden als Juden sterben.'

Wir mussten in eine sogenannte 'jüdische Kommune', wo wir zu viert in einem Zimmer waren und Papa in einem Kabinett für Nichtarier ordinierte.

Während mein Bruder und ich schon längst in England waren, wurde meine Tante Maria, die jüngste Schwester meiner Mutter, krank und erklärte, sie würde sich von niemand anderem als von Papa behandeln lassen, worauf der Papa und die Mama sie zu sich nahmen.

Sie wurde so krank, dass mein Papa erklärte, es müssten alle Verwandten kommen, denn sie könnte sterben. Wenn die Verwandten kommen, werde er außer Haus gehen, damit sie keinen Kontakt zu einem Juden haben müssen.

Meine Cousine Helga kam mit ihrem jung angetrauten Mann, einem gewissen Dr. med. Herbert Arnfelser, der seinerzeit der Chef der nationalsozialistischen Studenten war. Als alle anderen schon weg waren, kam mein Vater zurück.

Aber Helga und Herbert Arnfelser waren noch dort. Herbert setzte ostentativ den Hut auf und erklärte, einen Juden grüße er nicht.

Unserem Hausmädchen Anna verdanken mein Bruder und ich, dass wir nach England gekommen sind. Anna ist 1937 zu einer englischen Familie übersiedelt. Anfang 1939 bekamen meine Eltern Briefe von verschiedenen Schulen und Familien aus England, und wir wussten nicht wieso? Und dann hat sich herausgestellt, die Anna war bei einer sehr wohlhabenden jüdischen Familie in einem Nobelteil von London, und ein Vertreter des 'Jewish Cronicle' der vorbeikam, erkannte sie, und sie erkannte in ihm einen Patienten meines Vaters.

Er hat sofort gefragt, was mit dem Doktor Rosner ist, ob sie irgendetwas gehört habe. Sie sagte, mein Vater könne nicht aus Österreich emigrieren, weil er sein ganzes Geld in die Ordination gesteckt hätte und kein Geld für die Reichsfluchtsteuer 7 hat, aber er will seine Kinder retten. Da hat der ehemalige Patient meines Vaters gesagt, er sei selber nur Flüchtling, aber er werde mit seinem Chef sprechen. Dieser Chef hat dann eine Gratis Annonce im 'Jewish Chronicle' aufgegeben, und so sind mein Bruder und ich nach England gekommen.

Mein Bruder war acht Jahre alt und ich dreizehn. Wir fuhren mit einem Kindertransport der israelitischen Kultusgemeinde nach England. Der Abschied von meinen Eltern am Westbahnhof war schrecklich. Sogar mein Vater weinte.

Meine Mama hat mich beauftragt, auf meinen kleinen Bruder aufzupassen. Sie hatte mir einen goldenen Ring mit einem Rubin für Notzeiten in ein Taschentuch gewickelt. Da ich nicht lügen konnte und große Angst hatte, dass man den Ring bei mir finden könne, warf ich ihn vor der Abfahrt auf die Gleise.

Ich durfte mir meine Pflegeeltern aussuchen, und sie haben dann Pflegeeltern für meinen Bruder gefunden. Wir waren in Hull, in der Nähe der Nordküste am River Humber, damals hieß es East - Yorkshire, untergekommen. Meine Pflegeeltern waren streng koscher, die Pflegemutter war eine einfache, anständige Frau.

Ihr Mann hat von zwölf Geschäften elf verspielt und hat mit jedem weiblichen Wesen, das dazu bereit war ein Verhältnis gehabt. Nicht einmal beim Pferderennen, sondern beim Hunderennen. Für mich war das fürchterlich, weil ich aus einer so gut funktionierenden Familie kam. Mein Bruder dagegen hatte phantastische Pflegeeltern.

Knapp vor meinem 18. Geburtstag ging ich freiwillig zur Womens Land Army. Ich habe bis August 1945 nichts über meine Eltern gewusst. Dann bekam ich einen Brief mit der Schrift meiner Pflegemutter.

Ich machte ihn auf, da lag kein Schreiben von ihr drin, sondern ein Feldpostbrief. Damals gab es keine offizielle Post zwischen Deutschland, Österreich und England. Der Brief war von einem Offizier, dessen Name ich nicht kannte.

Ich machte den Brief auf, da war die Schrift meines Vaters. Ich weinte eine halbe Stunde, bevor ich den Brief lesen konnte. Und dann erfuhr ich folgendes: Der Papa ging über den Graben und sah einen britischen Offizier, von dem er annehmen konnte, dass er Jude wäre.

Er sprach ihn auf jiddisch an und bat ihn darum, seinen Kindern in England mitzuteilen, dass er lebe. Der Papa nahm ihn auch mit nach Hause, und die Mama bewirtete ihn. Im August 1945 habe ich dadurch erfahren, dass meine Eltern leben.

Meine Eltern waren von einem ehemaligen Patienten meines Vaters, der ein Kommunist war, in Klosterneuburg in einem Weinkeller versteckt worden. Im Februar 1947 kam ich nach Wien.

Mein Bruder Bob blieb in England, machte seine englische Matura und studierte Architektur. Er lebt in Hassel bei Hull, arbeitet als Architekt, Stadtplaner und Landschaftsdesigner und besitzt eine eigene Firma.

• Nach dem Krieg

Mein Vater wurde nach dem Krieg Vorstand der Dermatologischen Abteilung im Sophienspital und 1951 Primarius der Dermatologischen Abteilung des Spitals der israelitischen Kultusgemeinde.

In dieser Zeit war er außerdem Vertrauensarzt und Facharzt der Wiener Gebietskrankenkasse und leitete ein Ambulatorium dieses Instituts am Börseplatz.

Mein Vater gehörte zu den besten Dermatologen Wiens, war ein sehr bescheidener Mensch und ein stets hilfsbereiter Arzt, den seine Patienten sehr verehrten. Er war ein sehr aufrechter, ein eher zurückgezogener Mensch. Er starb am 6. April 1955 in Wien.

Ich ging in die Lehrerbildungsanstalt in die Hegelgasse, machte meine Matura nach, weil ich nur die englische Matura hatte, und legte erfolgreich nach zwei Jahren meine Prüfungen ab. Zusätzlich zur Matura schaffte ich eine Kindergärtnerinnen Ausbildung.

Mein erster Mann Dr. Walter Koling ist der Vater meiner Kinder Michael und Petra. Mein Sohn wurde am 4. Februar 1952 geboren, meine Tochter am 17. August 1957. Meine Tochter ist bereits verwitwet.

Meine Großmutter Jeanette Stiassny ist einen Tag vor der Geburt meines Sohnes gestorben. Sie war 92 Jahre alt, und ich habe immer gesagt, ihre Seele ging hinauf und die meines Michaels kam herunter. Mit meinem ersten Ehemann hatte ich keine gute Ehe.

Meinen zweiten Ehemann Ernst Jeschaunig habe ich am 18. Dezember 1957 geheiratet. Er hat auf dem akademischen Gymnasium maturiert, Jura und Staatswissenschaften studiert und arbeitete als Beamter des Landesarbeitsamtes. Sein Vater war jüdisch.

Er fragte mich nicht, ob ich ihn heiraten wolle, er fragte mich, ob er der Vater meiner Kinder sein dürfe. Bis zu seinem Tod am 13. Dezember 1998 führten wir eine wunderbare Ehe. Meine Mutter sagte einmal, sie würde sich für meinen Vater überfahren lassen, und ich fühlte dasselbe für meinen Mann.

Im Mai 1960, meine Tochter war noch nicht einmal drei Jahre alt war, lud uns meine Cousine Helga Arnfelser, mit der ich immer sehr befreundet war, aber deren Mann meinen Vater als Juden während des Holocaust nicht gegrüßt hatte, an einem Sonntag zum Mittagessen in ihr Reihenhaus in Hirschstetten zum Mittag ein.

Dort befand sich noch eine Sandkiste ihrer Tochter, die um zehn Jahre älter ist als meine Tochter. Ich weiß nicht, was ein Kind in einer Sandkiste ohne Wasser tun kann, aber auf einmal kam ein Herr, der auch dort eingeladen war, der brüllte mein 2 ¾ jähriges Kind an.

Woraufhin mein Mann und ich, wir hatten kein Auto und sehr wenig Geld, aufstanden, das Kind nahmen, ein Taxi bestellten und sagten: Und wenn wir die ganze Woche Wasser trinken und trockenes Brot essen, wir bleiben keine Minute länger.

Der Mann, der mein Kind angebrüllt hatte, erfuhr ich später, war der Dr. Gross 8! Das war das letzte Mal, dass ich mit der Familie verkehrt habe, bis der Herbert Arnfelser gestorben ist.

Von September 1950 bis Juni 1965 arbeitete ich in der Jugend - und Kinderbibliothek im U.S. Information Service Vienna. Von Juli 1965 bis 1984 hatte ich die Leitung der Bibliothek der American International School in Wien.

Ich arbeitete in dieser Zeit auch als Lehrerin und Kostümbildnerin für alle Theater - und Musicalaufführungen der Oberstufe dieser Schule. Seit 1. Juli 1984 bin ich Pensionistin.

Im Jahre 1973 starb meine Mutter in Wien.

Ich wurde 2002 an der Niere operiert. Als ich wieder etwas am Gang auf und abgehen konnte, ging ich an einem Zimmer vorbei, in dem ein Mann saß, der zu einem anderen Mann sagte: 'Ich war sieben Jahre alt, als der Hitler kam und der fehlt uns heute.

Es muss wieder ein Hitler kommen! Damals gab es kein Verbrechen, kein Mord, keinen Totschlag, keinen Diebstahl.' Die Oberschwester erschien und sagte: 'Frau Jeschaunig, ist ihnen schlecht, sie sind weißer als ein Leintuch. Kommen Sie in mein Zimmer.'

Ich erzählte ihr, was ich gehört hatte und sie sagte: 'Nehmen Sie das nicht ernst.' Worauf ich ihr mitteilte: 'Als Jüdin, die am 20. Juni 1939 dreizehn Jahre und achtzehn Tage alt war und mit einem 8 3/4 Jahre alten Bruder ohne Eltern flüchten musste, deren Familie Anfang Oktober 1939 aus der wunderbaren Ordination und Wohnung von SA Leuten, Studenten der Wiener Universität, herausgeworfen wurde, die zu viert in ein Zimmer und ein Kabinett für die Ordination des Vaters in eine 'jüdische Gemeinschaftswohnung' gezwungen wurde, nimmt man so etwas ernst.

Ich konnte den restlichen Tag nicht einmal ein Wasser trinken, musste Beruhigungsspritzen bekommen und habe mich seit Hitlers Erscheinen nicht so aufgeregt, wie an dem Tag.

Ich gebe heute noch Nachhilfestunden und alle meine Schüler, denen ich in Deutsch oder Englisch Nachhilfe gebe, sagen: 'Frau Professor, wieso können sie Grammatik so gut erklären? Bei ihnen mögen wir Grammatik.'

Das verdanke ich der in Theresienstadt umgekommenen Frau Professor Friedmann, die uns mit Liebe Grammatik beigebracht hat. Derzeit hab ich eine tunesische Maturantin, und das worauf ich am meisten stolz bin, mehr als auf die Matura meiner Tochter, ist, dass ich eine Türkin, die erste in ihrer Familie, die mehr als vier Klassen Volksschule gemacht hat, bis zur Matura durchgebracht habe.

Ihr Vater wollte sie nach der vierten Klasse in der Türkei verheiraten. Ich hab die Mutter angerufen, er dürfe das nicht tun, weil das Mädchen so intelligent sei. Die Mutter antwortete, dass ich das dem Vater sagen muss.

Das habe ich getan. Er beschimpfte mich zwar, aber das Mädchen maturierte mit gutem Erfolg. Bei der Maturafeier waren die Mutter und ich, weder der Vater noch der Bruder waren gekommen. Sie hat die pädagogische Akademie absolviert und unterrichtet heute.

Mein Freundeskreis besteht hauptsächlich aus Sozialdemokraten. Es sind auch Juden darunter.

Ich bin Österreicherin, und ich bin eine überzeugte Jüdin. Ich trage einen großen Mogen Dovid, den darf jeder sehen.

Was mir immer im Gedächtnis ist, ist der Satz, den mein Vater gesagt hat: 'Sie sind als Juden geboren und sie werden als Juden sterben.' Ich kenne das Testament, ich esse nicht koscher, aber ich bete jeden Morgen und Abend das Sch`ma und darum, dass die Seele meines verstorbenen Mannes Ernst Jeschaunig an der Rechten des Allmächtigen ruht.

Mein Sohn Michael ist Mitglied der Kultusgemeinde. Meine Tochter Petra flog 1996 mit ihren Kindern Miriam und Manuel in die USA. Dort mietete sie sich ein Auto und fuhr einen Monat durchs Land. Sie ist eine bewusste Jüdin.

Meine Enkelkinder gehören nicht der jüdischen Gemeinde an. Beide tragen einen Mogen Dovid und sind stolz darauf. Ich wollte Manuel eine längere Kette für seinen Mogen Dovid kaufen, damit ihn nicht jeder sofort sieht, und er gab mir zur Antwort: 'Entweder die Leute mögen mich wie ich bin, oder sie lassen es bleiben.

Da ich nicht so ausschaue, wie der 'Stürmer' 9 sich die Juden vorgestellt hat, höre ich immer wieder antisemitische Bemerkungen. Und ich muss ehrlich sagen, bevor ich die höre, servier ich lieber mein Judentum auf einem silbernen Tablett. Ja, ich bin religiös, nicht orthodox, aber religiös und ich gehe jeden Freitagabend in die Synagoge.

• Glossar

1 Bar Mitzwa: [od. Bar Mizwa; aramäisch: Sohn des Gebots], ist die Bezeichnung einerseits für den religionsmündigen jüdischen Jugendlichen, andererseits für den Tag, an dem er diese Religionsmündigkeit erwirbt, und die oft damit verbundene Feier. Bei diesem Ritus wird der Junge in die Gemeinde aufgenommen.

2 Pessach : Jüdisches Fest, erinnert an den Auszug des jüdischen Volkes aus Ägypten, welcher die 200 Jahre währende Knechtschaft beendete. Jegliche gesäuerte Speise [Chamez] ist verboten, und so wird ungesäuertes Brot (Mazza) verzehrt.

3 Seder [hebr.: Ordnung]: wird als Kurzbezeichnung für den Sederabend verwendet. Der Sederabend ist der Auftakt des Pessach-Festes. An ihm wird im Kreis der Familie (oder der Gemeinde) des Auszugs aus Ägypten gedacht.

4 Kiddusch: von hebr. 'kadosch', heilig. Der Begriff findet in verschiedenen Zusammenhängen Verwendung. Als Kiddusch wird u.a. der Segensspruch über einen Becher Wein bezeichnet, der am Schabbat und anderen Festtagen gesagt wird.

5 Schabbat [hebr.: Ruhepause]: der siebente Wochentag, der von Gott geheiligt ist, erinnert an das Ruhen Gottes am siebenten Tag der Schöpfungswoche.

Am Schabbat ist jegliche Arbeit verboten. Er soll dem Gottesfürchtigen dazu dienen, Zeit mit Gott zu verbringen. Der Schabbat beginnt am Freitagabend und endet am Samstagabend.

6 Schema Jisrael: Das Schema Jisrael ist eines der wichtigsten Gebete des jüdischen Glaubens. Es ist Teil des Morgen- und Abendgebetes sowie der Liturgie an Schabbat und Festtagen.

7 Reichsfluchtsteuer: eine 1931 von der Weimarer Republik erlassene Steuer mit dem Zweck, die Kapitalflucht einzudämmen. Ab 1933 wurde die Reichsfluchtsteuer zur 'Menschenfluchtsteuer', die sich in erster Linie gegen Juden richtete und ein Teil der Ausplünderungs- und Vernichtungspolitik der Nationalsozialisten war.

8 Gross, Dr. Heinrich [1915 - 2005] war einer der Ärzte, die im Jahr 1944 als Stationsarzt an der berüchtigten Wiener Euthanasieklinik 'Am Spiegelgrund' an der Tötung von behinderten Kindern mitgewirkt hat.

Trotz seiner Beteiligung an der Ermordung der Kinder machte er nach dem Krieg eine beachtliche Karriere als Psychiater, Gerichtsgutachter und Neuropathologe. Er wurde jedoch nie rechtskräftig verurteilt.

9 Der Stürmer: Antisemitische Wochenzeitung; Der Antisemitismus sollte im deutschen Volk vor allem durch Warnungen vor einer 'jüdisch- bolschewistischen Weltverschwörung' und durch Skandalreportagen über jüdische Kriminalität geschürt werden. Diese wurden von großformatigen Überschriften und zumeist antijudaistischen Karikaturen umrahmt.